Sleeping On The Annual Numbers

I started studying traditional Feng Shui - the kind the Chinese study in college - back in 2000 when I realized there was something amiss in the HairBoutique.com warehouse. No, it wasn't haunted but pesky things started happening. A friend of a friend - you know how that can go - urged me to try having the building "feng shuied". OK, whatever.

The Feng Shui "expert" who told me she was practicing Black Hat Feng Shui did a complete study of the building and deemed that certain doors be painted red and mirrors installed. After following all the advice, absolutely nothing happened. The clouds didn't open up and rain masses of customers with unlimited black American Express cards. The energy stayed the same and the odd things kept happening in the warehouse.

Then another friend of a friend who know the previous friend of a friend - are you following? - suggested I try a Chinese Feng Shui Master who just happened to live in Taiwan but did consultations long distance. He practiced compass Feng Shui. I agreed, only to discover, the Master did not speak English. Lucky for me - or not - he had a translator in Dallas. He sent a long list of things I needed to do including getting arial maps of the building and floorplans. Off I went to the map company to get all the required papers.

After a one hour consultation phone call in the middle of the night (allowing for Taiwan time) where I listened and understood nothing the master said, I was told by the translator that I needed to put a hole in the East Wall of the building. Considering the East Wall was connected to another building tenant and the fact my landlord would not take kindly to me blowing a hole in the wall, I had to decline his suggestion. I was back at square one.

Then the wife of the mortage banker of my friend, so yes, a friend of a friend's wife, happened to hear about my two disastrous Feng Shui experiences and offered to help. This time she offered to do it at no charge and if nothing changed within 48 hours I didn't have to pay her. I was pretty skeptical at this point after painting doors red, adding mirrors and staying up until the wee hours to hear I need a hole in my wall.

The Feng Shui expert arrived and was lovely. She had a compass the size of a trash can lid and proceeded to walk around the outside of the building taking measurements. She also poured water down middle of the parking lot to see where the energy ran off. She took lots of notes and disappeared as quickly as she arrived.

A few weeks later she returned with a gorgeous book of charts and notes and "corrections". I followed all of her recommendations adding chines, salt tanks, lights and music throughout the building. Yes, the employees thought it was a little strange but they are pretty much used to my generally eccentric behaviors and just shrugged at my latest experiment.

Then something strange happened. Things started changing. The energy in the warehouse and throughout the entire building improved and there was a noticeable shift. The flow of business changed as well and even the disbelievers noticed it. I was amazed and wrote out the check and mailed it to the Feng Shui consultant who practiced Flying Star. I also signed up for her classes and became a dedicated student.

The good news? Over the past eight years I have taken many many classes and have learned a lot about Flying Stars, Feng Shui and how it works. The bad news? The more you study and learn, the more you understand just what you don't know.

At the beginning of 2007 I made the decision to get really serious about Feng Shui and really dig deeply into the Flying Star classes and start working on some of my own formulas.

Does Feng Shui really work? Yes and no. Yes, if you have a consultant who is knowledgeable or you take enough classes to know how the traditional or flying star FS systems work. No if you don't.

It also requires a commitment of time and the willingness to do the cures and follow the suggestions of the FS advisor. Or you can attend classes and start to do some of the work yourself, which I try to do in my "spare time" which of course is very limited.

Right now I am experimenting with the Flying Star "annual" numbers which bring new opportunities every year at the time of the Chinese New Year. I am having some very interesting results I will share as I blog on this topic. If there are Feng Shui experts and students out there who have thoughts on my reporting please email me at [email protected] and share your feedback.