The Art of Good Timing. Was 2016 the best year for David Cameron's EU referendum?

Image courtesy of the the express.co.uk

If David Cameron was a politician in Asia, he would never have fixed a date for the referendum without first consulting a BaZi (Chinese personal astrology) consultant. BaZi tells you the energy present and the best course of action for a particular period. 

But lets just say that he did consult one, the conversation would have gone something like this:

Cameron: I need to hold a referendum in 2016 

BaZi Master: Nope, don't hold a referendum in 2016 

Cameron: It has to be 2016 

BaZi Master: If that's the case, any month but June

Ooops. So what exactly is wrong with 2016? 

1. The energy of the year does not support Cameron's chart

If you are making a big decision (to get married, to buy a house) or if you are taking a big gamble (holding a referendum, starting your own business), you want the energy of the year to support you or be beneficial for you. 

But the fire monkey energy of 2016 considerably weakens Cameron's power. Monkey to his chart also represents a strong competitor that will chip away at his power. Basically his opponents are strong this year. 

If he wanted to remain in power, 2016 should have been a year he laid low rather than took a huge political gamble. 

2. It is the year of the monkey

The Scottish referendum was held in the year of the horse. The horse are noble animals, steadfast and loyal. 

The monkey is a mischief maker. It comes in to a situation, stirs trouble, tries to make a quick gain and then will quickly exit a situation leaving someone else to clear up the mess. This is the pre-dominant energy of the year.

With something like a referendum which affects the lives of millions of people, you would want to hold it in a year when the energy is more responsible, more stable to reduce any destabilising impact, whatever the outcome. 

3. June 2016 is an extremely combative month

Even if Cameron had wanted to go ahead with a referendum in 2016, June was simply a bad month to hold one. We had the Orlando shooting this month, the murder of Jo Cox and the bombings in Istanbul and Baghdad. 

And that's because June 2016 was a turbulent month with combative, angry energy that made it difficult to create unity or consensus. It is no wonder that the referendum has been so fractious. 

NB Interestingly, Cameron's chart hints that he won't disappear off the political scene. He might have taken a beating this year but power still features quite strongly in his chart for the next ten years. I wonder what form this will take? 

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There will be another Feng Shui talk at The Yard on Wednesday, 14 September 2016. Hopefully see you then. 

THINK LIKE A FENG SHUI EXPERT

Every space you inhabit has energy. In fact, my Feng Shui Grandmaster always used to say, 

“Energy follows form, people follow energy.”

Basically, a space’s specific structure and layout, attracts a specific energy. And what usually ends up happening is that we tend to unconsciously be attracted to certain types of energy mirroring our current situation. 

For example, a client was having a particular bad time at work. Nothing was going well. She didn’t trust her colleagues at work and she was worried about getting the sack. A look at her personal astrological chart (ba zi) showed that what we call the ‘influence’ power was too strong in her chart and unfavourable to her. This usually results in ‘backstabbing’ energy. To counter this, she needed to create and occupy a power position. Unfortunately for her, at work she was sitting with her back to the main door and her colleagues. She was literally facing the wall. 

Now one of the first rules of Feng Shui is to protect your back. This means you should be able to view people coming at you. Otherwise, all the action is happening behind your back and you are forever being startled by people (which leaves you frightened and nervous) and things catch you by surprise which leaves you feeling vulnerable. 

But in this case, the client had basically occupied a space that mirrored what was happening in her chart and that ended up magnifying her problem. 

But if you know a few simple rules in Feng Shui, you can start avoiding these types of problems. You will know what constitutes a good space - if a space will nurture and balance you, if a space will protect you. You want to protect yourself from specific structures that could cause you illness or harm. 

Come to the Feng Shui talk at Graceland Yards, Wednesday 27 April at 7.30pm to learn some simple rules so that you can assess any space you walk into like a Feng Shui expert. 

To book or for further information, please contact Shoba on shoba_haridas@hotmail.com or call The Yard at 020 8960 7450. 

Hello 2015 - a forecast for the Year of the Wood Sheep

Lots of people have asked me when does the year's energy actually change? 

Most Chinese believe it's Chinese New Year. But actually there are different schools of thought. From what I've done of people's charts and yearly charts, it seems that the energy of the year starts changing around the winter solstice but December and January are tricky months. These months see an inter-mingling of both the previous year's energy and the new one. 

The new energy becomes a lot clearer and stronger after Chinese New Year, the second new moon after the new year. 

December 2014 was particularly tempestuous mostly due to the effect of the horse still wreaking havoc but slowly, aspects of the sheep energy is already beginning to show. 

And here's a summary of what the year of the sheep will hold for us. This is also available as a detailed 10 page PDF (drop me a note if you want this) and it was written in early December 2014. 

WEATHER
It'll be a cold winter with bad winter storms (thunder snows in much of UK and blizzards in North America already) but the this will transform into very hot and dry weather. 

Rain will be less of an issue (with the possible exception of August). Droughts and forest fires can be expected. There might have to be water rationing in some countries. Fire crews have already been battling multiple forest fires in Southern Australia and Victoria at the start of the year. This will continue around the world. 

Basically it'll be a year of dry heat as that's the energy of the sheep. Temperatures are likely to soar in June and/or October in the Northern Hemisphere.

ACCIDENTS & NATURAL DISASTERS
There were so many horrible air and sea accidents. Because there is a clash in this year's chart as well, there will still be lots of accidents but less related to air and sea. It'll be more road-related accidents. There already have been some notable ones. 

On the date of the winter solstice itself, the Glasgow bin lorry crash happened, killing 6 people. And on the same day, a man rammed his van into a Christmas market in Nantes. There was an accident in January when a Texan prison bus skidded off the embankment right onto the path of an oncoming train. And a trolley bus was hit by mortar fire in Donetsk.

The number of casualties aren't as huge as last year, thankfully. And that's because the clash this year is more gentle compared to the strident energy of the horse.  

In 2015, the earth is also weak. So we can expect notable earthquakes, sink holes and landslides. There seems to be a huge natural disaster that might happen around April or October this year as well as we've got some pretty bad clashes happening. 

THE ECONOMY
The general optimism of 2014 will continue but it will start becoming clear in the first part of the year that it's a hollow growth. The economic recovery is weak in most parts, austerity will still be very much part of people's lives. Part of the reason is that there is no 'money' present in the chart although it suddenly appears in April and September. So if you are angling for money, protesting against the Government for more funds, etc, these are the months that you will see the results. 

It also looks like this year, Governments or a Head of State or Organization will have to pump or release money in response to a particular situation. I said this in early December and already the ECB has pumped in approximately one trillion euros into the sagging euro zone economy. I think we can expect more of these types of actions. 

Property investors watch out. There is something wrong with the property market this year. I think prices will definitely fall but additionally, like Westbrook (the company that hoped to make millions out of it's purchase of the New Era estate), lots of property investors will find that their deals have turned sour. Maybe lots of people will default on their mortgages or there might be problems with the mortgage market. 

GENERAL MOOD
Citizens are restless. They have been unhappy for years at low wages, unaffordable property and austerity cuts but no action has been taken by the Governments. This year, they will gather and strike, protest and lobby and demand that action be taken. People will agitate for wages, homes, employee rights and civil liberties. There will be protests against corruption as well. 

The chart also points to the fact that the Government might capitulate on certain things. I predicted that minimum wage will be increased as that's what happened in the last sheep yearl. In the US, as the New Year was rung in, President Obama has already signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for Federal contract workers. I won't be surprised if the UK Government followed suit. 

I wonder if Angela Merkel will capitulate to Greek's anti-austerity demand as well.

Besides the citizens, it looks like local councils and organisations will agitate for more funds or for the retention of their jobs. And they will see results too, especially in March, July and November. 

POLITICS
Power is in trouble this year. There's a lot of opposition to it and more importantly in the I-Ching, there's a sudden change indication at the Head of State line. This will translate to lots of snap elections being called as well sudden changes in Government.

Presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka two years ahead of schedule in January this year and to everyone's surprise, the incumbent lost. The Yemeni Government quit en masse in protest to at a Houthi rebellion and now the rebels have taken power. The recent Greek elections also saw the usual two mainstream parties marginalised and being won by an outsider.

Honestly, if a Government leader was a client and he was thinking of having elections this year, most Feng Shui masters would probably advise him to hold off till next year as everything is against the incumbent in 2015. The luck is going to be with the outsiders. 

On a more positive note, there will be lots more cooperation and treaties and pacts signed between various Governments and I say this because the sheep is a cooperative animal as opposed to the horse. Parties will be more in the mood to collaborate. 

VIOLENCE / TERRORISM
The poor sheep. It's quite a gentle, peaceful animal. Unfortunately, the central star for the year is quite violent. That's why there will be lots of accidents and that's why there'll be lots of terrorism and violence. 

This might be most likely confined to the Gulf countries where we will continue to see violent wars and conflicts being fought. Europe will also have to grapple with this as there's a lot of clash in the Northwest which usually signifies Europe. 

Hopefully this gives you a gist of what you can expect this year. 

Prelude to 2015 forecast - how accurate was the 2014 forecast?

I would say not bad. I made some mistakes (on investments) but on the whole, the main predictions were more or less on the spot. Below are the highlights. 

"... lots of air and water disasters (travel incidents related to air and sea, explosions, etc). This might involve lots of casualties ..."

When I wrote this in December 2013, I thought it was going to be bad but reality turned out to be far worse than what I imagined. The South Korean ferry disaster and all the airplane disasters. So many lives lost. So many families affected. It's been heart-wrenching watching it. 

"... consumer confidence will return, consumer optimism will return ..."
I think lots of us have forgotten just how dismal and bleak it's been the past couple of years but in 2014 we saw a marked improvement in people's perception of the economy.  

"... the stock market could reach a high ... "
And it did. The London FTSE reached a 14 year high in September. The NASDAQ hit it's best level since March 2000 in August 2014. The Dow Jones also reached it's 7th fastest 1,000 point gain in it's history. 

What I didn't account for though was the inherent instability and turbulence of the horse's energy which also meant huge dips in these indices as well. Something to note for the future. 

"The job market could start flourishing again, especially after July so jobless graduates or those made redundant, hold on for a little while longer. The market will start moving again. ..."
The US market released a rosy report on the job market with over 280,000 jobs added to the market in June 2014 and there was a strong market rebound in the UK as well with unemployment rate falling to a 5 year low. 

"... Agriculture will be good this year. The harvest will be plentiful... ideal weather for crops ..."
This is an excerpt from Morning Star on the best performing stocks for the year ... "Thanks to near-perfect farming conditions and a lack of natural disasters this harvest is set to be a bumper one for both the US and Europe ..."

That's all.

"... It will get warmer and flooding will stop proving to be a problem ... "
Well, that was an understatement. 2014 turned out to be earth's warmest year on record. I do believe 2015 might surpass this though. We'll see. 

" ... lots of romantic dalliances and sex scandals in the news this year"
The year started off with Francois Hollande's affair and ended with the allegations against Bill Cosby. And peppered in between there were Gary Glitter, Rolf Harris, Max Clifford, etc. 

" ... Property prices will see a recovery (as fire and earth are strong in the chart) ..."
This was definitely the case for the UK. 

You can read the full 2014 report here. I promise the 2015 forecast will follow soon.

Ba Zi (Chinese fortune-telling) - a personal story

Last year, I quit my job.

Now, I'm usually a very practical person and very responsible but last year, I couldn't bring myself to stay on at my well-paying job. It just felt impossible. So I quit and my last day was September and for months, it's been absolute bliss. It was what I needed. I tried to be responsible and apply for new jobs immediately upon quitting but honestly, my heart wasn't in it. I couldn't muster enthusiasm for some of the jobs and for others, even when the interview went really well and good money was on the table, I couldn't bring myself to accept it. All I wanted to do was rest and relax after 7 years in a highly-stressed environment.

This again seemed very unlike me.

I remember showing my Grandmaster my chart and he immediately showed me why it was that I quit this year. I was so surprised. Sometimes you can spot things in other people's charts but you miss out so much of your own. And he mentioned that it's going to be hard for me to get my act together in 2014. That instead there was a high chance I'd get a good job in 2015 instead. I should have asked him when of course. Missed my chance. So now all I can do is hope something turns up.

With regards to the forecast for 2015, I have done it. There's a 10 page PDF circulating with my clients and friends. If you would like a copy, just send me a message and I'll email it to you. I'll try and post a summary on the blog as well.

Happy 2015