The priestesses of the Goddess were the original astronomers and astrologers delving into the mysteries of the Celestial Universe. Read more
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We restore sacredness to space by unlocking the flow of energy to help the inhabitants live happy and prosperous lives. Read more
I had the most superb experience the other day. I attended a FIRE workshop and launch party given by GHOST FLOWER, a new company by an amazing group of women along supported by some wonderful men who believe in this concept. They have pooled their talents and come up with active wear designed and based on and incorporating the Five Elements from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with emphasis on the meridians and their corresponding body points for each element. Their designs representing WOOD, FIRE, EARTH, METAL and WATER use fabric and colours that are sublime. Since I work with Colour and the Wu Xing, the Five Elements in my practice with FENG SHUI, I was intrigued.
To start with their active wear assists us in becoming more aware of the meridian energy lines on our bodies and they have raised the bar by creating an integral practice with workshops around these Five Elements. My daughter attended the WATER workshop first and came out feeling that the process took her very deep and that is exactly what WATER does. She recommended that I try the FIRE workshop. I am mainly FIRE in my elemental makeup and since we were being doused under a sky full of WATER at that moment (7 objects in Pisces), I needed a reboot and off I went. Well I sweated ‘my booty off’ and that began in the first twenty minutes as we sat in a large circle and investigated our meridian points before we even started moving our bodies! This concept incorporates techniques I adore – yoga, fascia/resistance work, acupressure, TCM and QiGong. Full of ancient wisdom and it’s fun!
What really got me thinking was that in their designs they are incorporating FENG SHUI with cloth and colour that interacts with the body. I love this idea because we could use their clothing as an adjustment. Each of these elements represents one aspect of the universal life energy – chi – that also connotes movement and change.
In the relationships of the Five Elements we have a Constructive, Creative, Generating Cycle: Wood fuels and feeds Fire, Fire becomes ash which creates Earth, Earth contains or bears Metal, Metal through the process of condensation collects Water, Water nourishes and feeds Wood, thus growth and the cycle recommences.
Now lets say, just like today, my FIRE element was depleted and I really felt overwhelmed by my emotions or the wet weather. I could choose something of a fiery colour that would help bring that FIRE right back up and GHOST FLOWER has a gorgeous ruby red jacket that I was eyeing. I could also choose green, a WOOD element colour, which would feed my FIRE element and their ensemble is stunning like bright dappled sunlight through an emerald forest.
Then there is the Overcoming, Controlling, Destructive Cycle of the Elements: Wood parts or pierces Earth (think of tree roots that hold the soil and help stop erosion), Earth dams and absorbs Water, Water extinguishes Fire, Fire melts and destroys Metal, and Metal chops or cuts Wood.
So what if my FIRE is up and I’m in an angry, prissy, intense mood today, like a Martian warrior ready to pounce – think hot under the collar and by the way Mars is active right now. Well, I could choose to wear their beautiful WATER element ensemble to bring down my fiery nature for the day because WATER puts out FIRE. Or I could use all that FIRE and wear a METAL ensemble to pull and use up any of that excess energy.
On another day, I might be overly emotive, sensitive, overwhelmed and fearful and that corresponds to the WATER element. I could then use the EARTH coloured ensemble to balance and absorb some of that inundating WATER. This concept works wonderfully with the rest of your wardrobe by the way. Try it at home. You can really get very creative and have lots of fun with all of this.
I do love that this company, GHOST FLOWER, is using ancient wisdom with new technology and oh, that amazing Italian fabric they use. They have created an interactive active wear that can help us be more present in our bodies. Those lovely lines on the clothing are not just a design detail but a gentle reminder of the meridian you want to work on. Little ghost flower symbols relate to certain acupressure points of the body and are strategically placed on the clothing showing you what point to press to support yourself throughout the day. This wonderful use of jewel-tone colours to heal and balance does not just make our bums look good but that is a definite plus ladies! Remember this is the time of WOMEN my friends, and it is beginning to show up in wonderful and powerful ways like this fantastic group of women bringing beauty, health and healing to the world. Do look out for a GHOST FLOWER workshop and their clothing coming your way – you won’t regret it!
This week just a translation, the words, the writer and the translator speak a thousand words by themselves… Read more
“…Beauty, like love, has the power to change things. It can also help us make decisions and unite the disparate elements in our lives”. – James Hubbell
As someone with Libra rising in her chart, beauty and elegance have always held a central connection to my nature. Passing through many stages of refinement mydesigningeye has hopefully developed and become somewhat more sophisticated over time. Like fine wine with age.
True beauty is not relative to the eye of the beholder as we have been told, but is an innate sense of the holiness, the sacredness in a given image, object or view, be it the essence of nature, a tableau of art, a beautiful sculpture, the curvature of the human body, or a gorgeous woven textile. This is the beauty that can take your breath away when viewing a newborn infant or animal, a fresh snowfall in a country landscape or a zen meditation garden.
In Feng Shui one our main precepts is the yin/yang principal, which symbolizes the light and the dark, the strong and the weak, the feminine and the masculine, the centre of all things. From this centre we find the balance within space and create an environment that hopefully transcends our mundane daily existence. We compose a serene sanctuary that allows us to let the cares, the trials and tribulations of our day slip away once we pass the threshold.
“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere – in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.” – John O’Donohue
Beauty can seem elusive in this fast-paced Internet/social media, “look at me first” world and there is such a wealth of image that it can be overwhelming – we miss the essence as we quickly drive by and scan so quickly with our “I’ve got this” or we are so obsessed with the “look at me, only me” attitude of continuous selfies that we miss the actual exquisiteness of life passing us by. To really bathe oneself in beauty, to immerse oneself in nature, to just sit and take in one image in a museum can change our whole day, our whole week if not our whole year.
A summary of Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s book, ‘A Beautiful Question: Finding Natures Deep Design‘ asks what the author demands,
“Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry–harmony, balance, proportion–and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but this is the deep logic of the universe–and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. As he reveals here, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that “all things are number,” to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics.”
Periodically I will post and write about images, theories and ideas that have touched me in some manner and this will be my way of bringing a bit more beauty to the harshness and velocity of the everyday world. May you walk in Beauty every day.
“Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.” – Rabindranath Tagore