November 2014 - the month of the wood pig

Doing a forecast for November based on the Ba Zi system. Ba Zi is a Chinese system of fortune-telling popularly known as 4 pillars of destiny. It's 4 pillars because there is a pillar for the year, month, day and time of birth. Each pillar is assigned two characters leading to 4x2 = 8 elements.

And just like a person, we can do a birth chart for a month as well to assess it's pre-disposition.

Firstly, pig is an animal assigned to the water element. So what you have is water supporting wood. This is good, we can interpret it as the earth supporting heaven. The energy is calm and long-lasting.

Unfortunately, the chart itself isn't very harmonious. There are clashes in the chart. Fire and water clashes which bodes gunfire. This also means accidents but I'm not too sure about this as the clash isn't very strong. The chue yik shows "oppression" moving towards "conflict". This makes it likely that conflicts will spring up during this month. People protesting against the Government. There is no power in the chart as well. If there was no 'power' in a person's chart, it's usually an indicator of someone who is untidy and also someone who shouldn't be having a career with the military or the Government. In addition, this person will have a hard time holding on to money. In the month's chart, the lack of power could mean 'against the Government' and the Government might have to give in and negotiate with their people.

I also think it's going to be a wet month. The water is very strong and characters combine to form "unstoppable' water. And there's no earth in the chart which means earth is weak. Taking both of this into account, maybe we'll see some landslides.

Wood related matters - nature, forestry, even income, wages, worker's rights, schools and health (NHS) will be in the forefront of issues.

Those looking to invest, wood (paper, forestry, textile) and fiery industries (entertainment and energy) will be good places to invest. Do not make any real estate investments this month. The earth is weak. Property prices might also take a dive this month.

The pig is the last animal of the Chinese Zodiac sign. It's a handover animal. It hands over a new cycle to the rat who signals the new start. A pig is always digging in the earth. It likes to know what it's holding, the content of materials before it hands over. Its a good time to take stock of 2014 - what you've achieved and what you are still hoping for. And start looking towards planning for 2015.

Your fortune for the year

It's November and I should be starting on the chart for next year but right now I'm completely occupied with updating the personal Ba Zi charts for next year.

What is a Ba Zi chart? You might also know it from it's more common name - 8 pillars of destiny. It's a Chinese system of 'fortune telling.' You basically study a person by assigning an element to the date, time, month and year you were born and you then study the inter-play of these elements.

The main aim is to balance out the chart because like most Eastern philosophies, it is believed that an unbalanced chart is the root of all problems. One way the chart can be balanced is through the environment that surrounds the person i.e. Feng Shui. [When I was younger, I went to a house in Kuala Lumpur with a huge swimming pool in the front. I later learnt that it was there for Feng Shui purposes. The person was weak wood so it needed water to feed and balance the person's chart.]

Right before Chinese New Year, most Chinese, be it in China, Hong Kong or Singapore, will go to their Feng Shui masters and ask for their 'fortune' for the coming year. What basically happens here is that we try and understand the elements the upcoming year brings and try to assess the impact of this on a person's personal chart. From this study, we can tell if next year will be a good one for a person in terms of career opportunities and money or even if it's a good year for romance.

It's not all good news though. It's also about the precautions one needs to take. One chart I came across for a male showed that he needed to be careful with his money this year as there might be a younger woman coming into his life and stealing his money. So the advice to him was to be careful of 'relationships' for the upcoming year.

For some people, if the next year is going to be especially bad for them, we tell them to lay low. Don't make any big decisions. Don't change jobs, don't take big risks, don't buy a property or invest large some of money. The year is against you.

Thank god for all the charts that I'm doing now, next year seems to be very good. Even for me. Yay!

JULY - A MONTH OF VIOLENCE & ACCIDENTS

It’s been a horrifying July. It’s been a month of accidents, violence, natural calamities and lots of death. I can't recall in recent times so many accidents and deaths all happening so close to one another. What is it about July 2014?

HOW ACCURATE WAS THE ENERGY FORECAST FOR 2013? - THE YEAR OF THE WATER SNAKE

This is just for my own purposes actually to learn from what I did right and what I did wrong. But for those interested in might be an interesting read as well.

On the whole, I think the reading was quite accurate. Some highlights below. You can read the full forecast here:

http://www.practicalfengshui.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/feng-shui-prediction-2013-part-i.html#more

WEATHER

Forecast: Rain with chance of flooding in April, November and December

And if we did have lots of something last year, it was rain.  November and December saw flooding in the UK with some needing to be evacuated from their homes on Christmas Day itself.

There were floods in Singapore in November as well. In these months, there was just too much of water in the chart. 

Forecast: Big natural disaster in April or October

The St Jude Storm was the biggest to hit England over a decade with gusts of up to 100 mph (close to that reached during the 1987 hurricane). This storm caused more havoc all over Western Europe. And pretty soon after that, the typhoon hit in Philippines with devastating consequences.   

Forecast: Proper summer this year

And true enough, we had a proper summer in England this year after a long time. It was the hottest summer since 2006

POLITICS

Forecast: There will be abdications among Heads of States (basically a loose term that denotes central figures for a country)

I actually thought it would be Queen Elizabeth but it turned out to be Queen Beatrix and Pope Benedict. They both announced their abdications late January / early February.

Natural disasters in 2012

Ok, this might be a case of confirmation bias (i.e. using only examples that confirm your theory) but I have been doing the Ba Zi charts (chinese horoscope) of the days of when some of the more recent natural disasters have occured and it's quite startling (for me, at least) how much the energy of the day resembles the occurences and even how it's being talked about by the media. 

2012 itself was meant to be a year of TOO MUCH WATER (read floodings, rain, tsunamis). And this year definitely reflected that. In November, there was another round of flooding in the UK. The chart for those days showed TOO MUCH WATER falling on SOGGY EARTH. If you read http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/27/rain-eases-northern-england?intcmp=239, the floods have been attributed to "saturated ground alrady waterlogged after one of the wettest summers in recent times ..." 

Besides massive rain and flooding, there have also been a lot of earthquakes in 2012. If you study the elements, when there is too much water in a Ba Zi chart, the earth energy is weak. Weak earth is not a good support. If you are weak, you give way easily which is why this year has been particularly prone to earthquakes. We have seen at least one 7.0 magnitude eathquake every month this year (with the exception of May and June). 


Are we going to have some respite in December? Nah. The chart for December is basically a raging ocean (Heaven water). It will wash everything away. Nothings going to stand in its way, It'll be hard to control. Tsunamis and earthquakes seem very likely. The hexagram is literally thunder below a lake (earthquakish energy) which then transforms to lake over lake (excess of water). So the energy for the month is an earthquake that has the potential to transform to a tsunami and if a tsunami does hit, it's going to be very hard to control.

The recent earthquake in Japan struck on 7 December 2012, exactly on the date of the start of December in the Chinese calendar. There was a small tsunami and there were fears of a repeat of 2011 tsunami but thankfully, the tsunami didn't materialize. If it did, there's a high chance there could have been lots of damage (human and otherwise).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/07/japan-earthquake-tsunami-fukushima-fears

Scarily, if you study the hexagram, the tremors show an origination from the Northeast and the earthquake in December shook the Northeast coast of Japan. YIKES

And what about Super Storm Sandy? That's another post altogether!

Why is it always raining?



Do you remember my 2012 forecast? I mentioned that it was going to be a very, very WET year with lots and lots of flooding. 
bit.ly/Nj3lqX

And boy or boy, has it been a wet year. In early 2012, Queensland experienced flash flooding with roads and airports needing to be closed. For the UK, 2012 was a record year for rainfall as well. I remember watching in disbelief as weeks of relentless rain turned into months of relentless rain. Washout summer took on a WHOLE NEW meaning. So why so much of rain and worse, flooding in 2012?

Don't buy a house this year

In Singapore, or even in Asia, its not uncommon for people to consult an astrologer about which year they should get married, when they should buy a house, start a new business or even name their baby. I grew up around this and I find nothing weird about this. It never occurred to me how strange this could sound to some people until I TRIED to advise my European friends on such things based on their Ba Zi chart.

And yes, the TRIED in CAPS as the resistance I faced was immense. Most don't get the concept but more importantly, most don't like the idea as well. Why should a key decision of life be dictated by someone else? It does come across as quite disempowering and I have to admit, sometimes in Asia, this can be taken to the extreme. I've seen people who will not and sometimes even cannot do anything without a consultation with their astrologer.

But the idea of disempowerment stems from a misunderstanding of this concept. Lets say you would like to ask the boss for a raise. Obviously, you can ask him any time you want to but wouldn't you mostly like wait until he or she is in a good and 'giving' mood? Preferably at a time when he or she thinks you have done a good job on a recent project. This not only makes asking for a raise easier but also increases the chance of you getting it!

We've all heard nightmare stories about closing a deal on a house. You think you have the house, then you can gazumped, the seller withdraws the offer, after exchanging the contracts you realize there is substantial damage to the property, etc. And yet we meet people who have negotiated and exchanged contracts smoothly with no drama at all. And I think that's the difference a good or bad period makes.

A Ba Zi reading enables a Feng Shui practitioner to study and tune in to the rhythm of your life and to gauge the favourable and unfavourable time periods to make certain decisions. You can buy a house anytime but if you do so in a period that's favourable for you, there will be less of a struggle and honestly, can't we all do with a little of that?