A QUICK COURSE IN FENG SHUI

Dec 15, 2022

The First Steps in developing the Geomantic Chart

References from A Master Course in Feng Shui by Eva Wong

Feng Shui has always fascinated me. When I first started learning about it I thought it was superstitious and mystical, but the more I read, the more I discovered it was a science just as intricate as Acupuncture. You could read books your entire life on the subject and still not know everything there is to know about Feng Shui.

Sometimes Feng Shui gets a bad rep for not having much credibility. But we have to remember that Feng Shui isn’t the only star-based modality used in designing buildings throughout history. Vastu Shastra is the traditional Indian system of architecture that uses similar charts to determine the energetics of a building. Although Feng Shui and Vastu differ greatly, they were both highly evolved mathematical systems aimed to design a building in the most auspicious way.

So if your curious about the subject and want to know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. The most fundamental piece of Feng Shui is the Geomantic Chart which once calculated, gets laid over the floor plan of a building to determine placement of activity centers.

FACING DIRECTION

Determine facing direction that intuitively feels the most sensible. The land should hold your building, so tap in to your senses and see which direction FEELS the best. In traditional Feng Shui, the North-South Axis is auspicious. Also, In many cases facing south is more energy efficient, and brings light and warmth into the building (in the northern hemisphere).
If your still confused, picture your house as you sitting in a chair. Does your chair have a back rest, what about arm rests? These features on the land could be other buildings, mountains, slopes, and vegetation.

If your house is already built, can you determine which way its facing? If you confused you can schedule a consult with me directly or you can grab a copy of “A Master Course in Feng Shui” by Eva Wong to see different scenarios of facing directions. If you think you’ve got it figured out, lets get started on the geometric chart.

9 PALACES

In Feng Shui the Geomatric Chart is the energetic map we overlay the building. It has 9 sections, or as they call it 9 Palaces. It looks like this:

Its not as scary as you think, don’t worry.

We only need 3 numbers to start. The Earth Base (the Era), The Facing and The Mountain Star. And the last 2 are easy because they are just opposite of one another. Once you get one, you have the other automatically. Also this is the order of importance of these numbers moving forward: Earth, Facing, & Mountain

To get a broader sense of the this buildings incarnation, we will need to know the year the building was constructed, or is planning on being build. Yup, just like astrology! This is cosmic work we are doing here!

Dont worry, its not quite like astrology, this is a building remember. First have to back up to the Era it was build. There are 3 of them, Upper, Middle and Lower, each with 60 years in between. Broken down into smaller increments there, are 9 different cycles each 20 years long.

So most buildings being built now are in the 8th cycle, coming up on the

9th cycle in 2024. The 9th cycle ends in 2044. Interesting we are coming to the end of a 3 eras. Finishing up the Lower Era and heading to the Upper Era again. Full circle!

Quick note, we have to make sure we consider the Chinese New Year, if your house was built in January or February in the Western Calendar, it may be considered a different year in Feng Shui, so be sure to look that up.

EARTH BASE

So we already have the Earth base, since its just the number of the Cycle the house was built. For our example we will keep it at 9, for Era 9 in this year (2022). Done. So we put that right smack dab in the middle of our tick-tack-toe chart here. And follow this pattern that only the gods can explain (see image).

Earth base is always Yang, or ascending numerically. You’ll see why this matters in a little bit.

This is where it gets a little more complicated…

FACING STAR

Next up is our Facing Star. We have to use the Geomantic c

ompass to find this. The Geomantic compass is the same as a regular compass except its broken up into 24 directions, each 15deg each. You can use a regular compass for our purposes. Heres an image you can overlay over a regular compass to determine which direction your house is facing.

Lets say we determined its facing direction is “wu” lets take that to the Era diagrams to determine 2 things:

The number associated with the facing direction
If this number is inherently yin or yang, thus determining if the number sequence is ascending or descending

Ok so we’ve determined we are in the 8th Era, so we go

to the 8th Era Diagram and find ‘wu’ on the inner circle (it should say nine-purple), now we are going to take that to the outer circle for our hidden key. Here we see three-ja

de. So our number is 3. A bit further out, and in line with wu, is mao. Mao has a black circle outside of it.

Black circles are always Yin and are descending

White circles are always Yang and are ascending

Think of the sun and the moon, the sun in yang making things grow, and yang is the moon reminding us to retreat in the night.

So lets take 3, plop it in the the Facing direction zone of the center of the chart and do our little algorithm. Since our circle was black, that means its yin and descending. So we are going to work backward from 3.

We now do the same thing for the Mountain Star. Ready?

So here’s are chart! Theres just 2 more things to do before we lay this over our house!

REORIENT CHART

Lastly, we have to orient the chart to identify the facing palace.

Find facing direction on the Era chart in the inner ring
Locate number associated with that segment on outer ring of the circle
Using that number, find the same number in the Earth base position.
That section of the chart is going to now be the facing direction. Usually it needs to be rotated.

ANAYLYSIS

Lets determine which of these 4 your chart is:

M ascending, F descending (Forward Mountain / Backward facing)

Auspicious when water in front

M descending, F ascending (Backward Mountain / Forward facing)

Auspicious when Mountain in back

M & F ascending (Forward Mountain / Forward facing)

Auspicious if both water in front and the mountain is at the back.

M & F descending (Backward mountain / Backward facing)

Auspicious regardless of location of water and mountain

So there you have it. Now its time to determine the meaning of these numbers, but thats a whole other lesson. If your looking for a chart reading in the meantime, feel free to visit my website cransbury.com and sign up for the free consultation.

If your building a new building you’ll have more flexibility in this, you will want to achieve one of two auspicious chart compilations:

1. Combination of 10 chart: Sum of Earth, Facing & Mountain add up to 10.

- There are only 20 of these occurrences in the 9 Cycles.

- In the 8th cycle this only happens when chou or wei is either the Facing or Mountain directions

2. Three Combinations chart:

- There are only 16 of these occurrences in the 9 Cycles.

- 1 /4 /7, 2 /5/8, 3/6/9 in any combination

- In the 8th Cycle, thats when Facing Direction is Kun, Shen, Ken, or Yin

This is if your lucky! I hope you are!

I'll be sure to add any additional documents you’ll need for this little challenge if requested!