Guest Author - Diane Kern

Let’s continue our talk about trigrams, family relationships, elements and the bagua. This is the second in a series of articles about the eight trigrams, their meanings and use in Feng Shui.

Black Sect Feng Shui uses the bagua by dividing the octagon into eight life aspirations such as wealth, helpful people, romance, etc. The bagua is laid over the floor plan of the house according to the placement of the door to determine which areas need attention.

In traditional Feng Shui the eight divisions represent members of the family, elements, direction and other characteristics. Each division equals 45 degrees on a compass. When looking at a building or landscape we relate our findings to that area of the bagua (or trigram) in question, to determine what effect it will have on the occupants.

In the Southwest we find the trigram Kun. Kun is the Mother Trigram to the Northwest’s Father Trigram. Have you heard the term Earth Mother? The nature of Kun is the element of earth. How fitting! Her colors are earth tones of brown, beige, tan and yellow. Her personality is receptive and yielding. Make sure there is nothing in this area to control or reduce her to the point of imbalance.

If this area of your house is weak or missing you can expect the women in the house to have difficulties. The mother may be missing from the family in some way or she will have little support in her life.

Wood controls earth and metal reduces earth. So if you have too much wood or metal energy in this area it can throw off the balance. Stay away from an abundance of greens and metallic colors. The shape of metal energy is round and the shape of wood energy is tall. Look around to see if these shapes are predominant in the Southwest.

Outside look for anything ugly, dirty, poison arrows, or any other shas. If you have questions about what constitutes a sha you might want to refer to the past series on sha.

A lot of clutter in the Southwest creates an overabundance of earth energy. Keep the area light and clean or you may find yourself gaining a lot of weight. This applies to both inside and outside the house and includes the basement and attic. Clutter can even be too much furniture, too many books, stuffed closets and the like. Clean out what you no longer care for, doesn’t fit, have already read, anything broken to lighten it up.

If you need to make the Southwest area stronger you can add earth items. You can also enhance with fire elements and red family colors. But be very careful here. Southwest is also represented by the number 2 which is known as the sickness star. Enhance carefully and only if you really need it or you could end up in more trouble than before.