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| Resting Place Catherine Al-Meten Meyers |
Feng Shui is the art of working with your surroundings to influence the flow of Chi/Energy. According to ancient Chinese principles, luck or good fortune play a key role in the movement of life. Our inner lives are just as important as our outer lives and surroundings. The principles of the use of energy is the same.
Tien is the luck from Heaven. A divine gift or grace that you receive whether you are looking for it or not. We humans have no power to influence this kind of luck, other than to remain open to receiving its benefits. If we don't see the good fortune right in front of us, or if we turn away from the answer to our prayers when it arrives, we are being unreceptive to Tien, Heavenly luck.
Ti is the Earth luck, the good fortune that flows in and out of our lives. We can have an influence on Ti, Earth luck by how we use the energy in our surroundings. We can block bad energy and we can attract auspicious energy to us through the way we use our energy and arrange our lives.
Ren is the kind of luck we make for ourselves when we go beyond the boundaries we or others have set for us. Stepping out of our comfort zone, so to speak.
Together the three types of luck or good fortune influence and affect our lives. As I write this column today, The Sun and Jupiter meet in their annual meeting. This meeting, called a conjunction, heightens the energy of both the Sun/our star and Jupiter, the planet of benevolence and good fortune. Today is considered the luckiest day of the year. Since both Jupiter's orbit is distant from the Sun, it moves very slowly. That means that the influence that reaches its peak today continues to have an influence and continues to light up whatever area of our lives it has an impact on. Whatever we focus in on today, will continue to bring us gifts well into the future.
Whatever new path you have recently headed out on is highlighted by this influence. So how do we make the most of such energy? How do we use both Ti and Ren fortune to give ourselves a boost in the areas we hope will be shined upon by good fortune?
When change is imminent, it usually is signaled by a confluence of chaotic, upsetting, and crisis-ridden events. One person I spoke to said every meeting she attended was rife with cranky people and conflict. So much so that she knew it wasn't just what she was feeling. And often we only need to look around us to see how our energy is blocked and tying things up for us.
How do your surroundings reflect your current energy?
Without getting up from where you are, think of all the places in your home or office or studio where there are piles, messes, or clutter. Are there still dishes in the sink, or clothes hanging on door knobs? When was the last time you cleaned out your purse, briefcase, or desktop? Outer reflects inner. Whatever you observe around you, is affected by and affects your inner balance.
What is most important to you at this time?
Whether you are just beginning a project or new path, are in the middle of a journey, or nearing the end of one, there are always new considerations that require balance of your time, energy, and resources. Rather that feeling like you have to act on every impulse, thought, or opportunity, it is crucial to take some time to determine what matters most. To do this, I'd make a short list of the top 4-5 immediate projects I'm working on or issues I'm dealing with. You might start with a longer list, and that's telling, because given the same 24 hours we each have in a day, most of us can only do a few things at a time, well. If we are over-programmed or over-scheduled (or both) this needs to be addressed. It's as important as having your desk facing the door (a Feng Shui suggestion), to have a clear view of what matters most.
Once you've narrowed down your list to 4-5 manageable projects or issues, prioritize that list. This helps give you a clear picture of how much time and energy each project is taking or should be taking. We often spend too much time on some things and not enough on others. We may discover that what once was important, is no longer. What needs to go, what needs to stay?
Assess how you're using your energy and time. Time, like money and creativity, is energy. When we're working with our creativity (art, writing, music, drama, film, and other creative careers), we need to figure in time, money, energy, and space in order to see how we're using our energy.
For a while now, months if not years, I've been feeling the need to get assistance with my businesses. Running a one-woman show especially when it's more than one show, is not ideal. Besides being exhausting, it's not even efficient or effective. Once I made that need clear to myself and the Universe, the Divine, answers to my prayers began appearing. First were people who helped me with books I was working on. Then as my work increased, the opportunity to hand off a major chunk of my administrative, e-marketing, and organization work appeared. Rather than greeting this with open arms and a positive 'can do' feeling, I began finding reasons not to accept the help. As with many of us, most of those concerns revolved around the financial piece.
When I began examining why I was resisting taking this next big and necessary step, it boiled down to fear. Fear I wouldn't be able to afford it. Wrong! Fear is the block that must be removed, as the flow cannot happen when fear blocks the way. We can make all the excuses we need to explain it away, but fear is as bad as situating our homes on a cliff teetering over the ocean. When a big enough wave hits, the cliff is going to slide into the sea, and the house with it. When we get to these times in our lives when we allow fear to stop us in our tracks, the kind of Ti and Ren we need resides in first of all identifying what is holding us back. Second, it requires we take some risks and step out of the comfort zone in order to put ourselves on the path of good fortune.
If we never go in search of good fortune, we are guaranteed to occasionally run into luck anyway. Often though, we will turn our backs and walk away or see it as a stroke of good luck. What we may fail to see is how it is a door into a new way of traveling the path we're on. Any creative art is in some sense, an act of faith. We do what we love because we feel compelled to, and if we are courageous, that art and our life as an artist becomes more and more important.
On any path, be it the writer or artist's path or any other kind of calling or career, we find ourselves at stopping and turning point. We have new opportunities that appear or a path we're on disappears. We are offered a job or our job is eliminated. Both are opportunities, if we see them as such. When we meet with opportunity or challenges, we are arriving at a point where we again meet those two little ends of the spectrum. Like the proverbial angel and devil sitting on our shoulders, the two ends of the spectrum may be win-lose, rise-fall, open-shut, or Yes, yes-hell no. There is much in between the two ends though.
When we reach the stopping or turning points, we get to reassess and decide what we both want and need to do and what is stopping us from doing that. This inner Feng Shui (organizing your inner energy) is crucial as a means to grow, develop, and move more authentically in the direction you want to go. Once we take time to better understand what stops us, we can rearrange our thinking to address the blocks, challenges, and opportunities that lay before us.
On the luckiest day of the year, or any day, focusing our time, energy, attention, intentions, and resources on what is uplifting, the next best step, and energy-producing seems the likely move. Think back to any major choice you've made, and the amount of resistance you put into that before you made the choice. In most cases, when I do this, I realize the amount of resistance was so much greater than any kind of obstacle I met once I chose the path.
On this day, and every day, get out of your own way, and move towards what is enlivening to yourself and others. Do the work you have a passion for and have been trained and gifted with. Move out of your fears, frustration, or anger, and get on over that fence that seems to stand in your way. For on the other side of resistance, is life. Choose life. Always choose life.
