Trapped in a Golden State, away from Boston’s snow
By Alex Beam
istockphoto/globe staff illustration
OJAI, Calif.
I woke up here a few days ago and shared a salubrious “golden milk” concoction (turmeric, ginger, and almond milk) with my Tibetan Buddhist pals. There’s a reason that spiritual wanderers flock to the Ojai Valley, about 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles: It’s beautiful, cool, and serene.
The sun was shining and the air was clean. We were late for our appointment with the Korean foot masseur. I’m happy, but I’m not happy, I told my friends. My wife, my neighbors, and my colleagues in Boston are really suffering right now. I can’t say I want to be there, but I’m feeling anxious about them.
“Ah,” a friend said. “You are experiencing survivor’s guilt.”
Really? The term, which has flitted in and out of psychiatry’s wiggy Diagnostic & Statistical Manual over the years, is usually associated with more traumatic events, such as genocides or airplane crashes. But natural disasters indeed qualify, and Boston has been experiencing this month-long natural disaster without me.
I’ve missed three of the four weeks of Boston’s horrible February. I traveled to Florida at the beginning of the month, and then headed to Southern California, as I always do around this time of year. I almost certainly suffer from seasonal affective disorder, but I treat my symptoms with airplane tickets and Airbnb stays, not with pills.
So — forgive me — the past few weeks have been absolutely glorious. Last week, I realized one of my dreams, an evening picnic at Dockweiler Beach, directly underneath the outbound runways at Los Angeles International Airport.
When the Emirates double-decker Airbus 380s lumber out for the antipodes, you can almost feel the landing gear caressing your hair. Yes, I’ve stood on Bayswater Street under Logan’s 22L and 22R approaches, but this was like Disneyland compared to the Topsfield Fair.
The day before the picnic, a friend took me sailing in the bay off of Marina Del Rey. Off to port, we spotted architect Frank Gehry at the helm of his 44-foot yacht, the Foggy, puttering out of the same channel. Yes, there were dolphins aplenty, a contested whale sighting, and even a few hardy souls swimming at Santa Monica Beach.
That was the day your gutter fell into your backyard, weighted down by hundreds of pounds of ice dams. I’m sorry. Believe me, my house is a complete wreck. It’s just that I’m not living in it right now.
Earlier this week, I checked the daily Los Angeles Times e-mail digest that lands in my inbox. “Record Heat in California,” the headline read. Then: “The West Coast continues to enjoy its warmest winter on record, while the East Coast remains buried in snow with record-low temperatures.”
That was the day my wife called to say there was a power outage on our block.
That very morning I had sent her a picture of the South Pasadena canyon, where I was spending a few nights. Eucalyptus and palm trees ran downhill as far as the eye could see. I think that qualified as a random act of cruelty.
Back in Ojai, we blew off church last Sunday to learn our future from the I Ching, also known as The Book of Changes. The Buddhists had gathered to throw the divinational coins at the start of the Tibetan New Year. “It is time to open the gates and leave the courtyard,” was the message from the venerable book. “This will lead to great joy.”
But the courtyard is walled in by 10 feet of snow! I objected. Joy postponed, as usual.
Tien Sum posted in: Xing.com Feng Shui in der Praxis
Feng Shui Luopan 羅盤
Feng Shui Luopan 羅盤 , regardless of their different sizes, can be classified into 2 or 3 types:
1) sam he luopan 三合盤
2) sam yuen luopan 三元盤
3) sam yuen and sam he combined luopan 三元三合混合盤
Sam yuen luopan is commonly used nowadays, mainly by sam yuen flying star and trigram stream practitioners. Sam he luopan is rarely used nowadays except for few old masters still expertise in the sam he stream.
In fact, sam he stream and its luopan has a far longer history in fengshui than the sam yuen. Sam yuen stream and its luopan were made known in fengshui history only since late ming dynasty to early ching dynasty onwards in china.
How to differentiate sam he luopan from sam yuen luopan?
There are 2 simple ways so, doing with the design of 24 mountains
sam he luopan has 3 layers (heaven, earth, human) of 24 mountains, whereas a pure sam yuen luopan has only 1 layer (earth) of 24 mountains
sam he luopan has 24 mountains in red (yang) and black (yin) color but locates not evenly (not 3 red follows by 3 black constantly). A pure sam yuen luopan has 24 mountains with yang and yin color in sequence of 3 red and 3 black evenly.
This is due to sam he and sam yuen are having differnt theories and methods for classification of the 24 mountains into yin and yang.
Tien Sum posted in: Xing.com Four Pillars of Destiny in der Praxis
三合擇日法 - 納音五行 Sam He Auspicious Date Selection - nayin element
There are various methods for auspicious date selection had been passed on from china ancient time to nowadays. Some popular and commonly used ones by chinese feng shui and fortune telling practitioners are, such as bazi 4 pillars四柱, dong gong董公, zi bai flyingstar紫白, sam he nayin三合纳音, xuan kong dagua 玄空大卦methods, etc. Some may use just the chinese almanac book "tong sheng 通勝 (tong shu通書)" for simplication.
A very famous top ranked feng shui master Mr Chan Pui Sang （1924-2014）, the founder of his Miao lineage(妙派) of the Sam Yuan Xuan Kong DaGua （三元玄空大卦派）stream, passed away last year. Master Chan had also mastered the Sam He feng shui science since young .
The old master Chan ever said, in sam he science, where the auspicious date selection method is very concerns about the relationship on nayin elements between the client's (yin or yang mansion master) birth year pillar and the selected date day pillar. Only the selected day pillar nayin element produces生 (give birth) or make strong旺 the client's birth year pillar nayin, then would be considered as auspicious date for recommendation.
Those selected dates' day pillar nayin element:
produce the client's birth year pillar nayin element, is named "birth qi" day
control (kill) the client's birth year pillar naiyin element, is named "killing qi" day
being produced by the client's birth year pillar nayin element, is named "retreat qi (drawback, exhausive) day
being controlled (killed) by the client's birth year pillar nayin element, is named "wealth qi" day
is the same as the client's birth year pillar nayin element, is named "strong qi" (prosperty) day
Sam He feng shui methods using 12 life stages - a simple intro example 三合風水法與十二長生訣
Sam He methods have a very long history in feng shui science in ancient China. One of its famous represnetative methods is the "four big water application sets" 三合水法四大局(3 combination water, fire, metal, wood) used for water dragon.
As you can see in the diagram, 24 mountains can be defined into 12 life stages where each stage consists of 2 mountains. This is named "double mountain into 5 elements" method. 雙山五行
What shown in the diagram is the 3 combination fire set, where taking the prosperous stage at double mountain (bing, wu) for facing, the water comes in from the birth stage at mountain (yin, gen), and out at the tomb stage at mountain (xin, xu).
The above-mentioned 3 combination is the same as used in bazi, eg. Yin, wu and xu EBs then form into the 3 combination fire set. In addition to this, the 3 mountains gen, bing and xin are also being grouped under the 3 combination fire sets.
