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

RECAP OF NOVEMBER - DID THE FORECAST MATCH

By the way, the wood pig month of November began on 7 November and ended 6 December. I've done a quick recap of events that happened in November to see if it matched up to the energy forecast. Not bad, it's getting easier to read the 'what is going to happen' but I wonder if I can crack the 'where'. Anyways, to read the full November forecast, click here  
http://practicalfengshui.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/november-2014-month-of-wood-pig.html

1. HOUSE PRICES WILL DIP
It did. After hearing reports on the bullish property market for most of the year, the coverage changed in November, at least in the UK. Reports started coming in about a dip in property prices and mortgage approvals being at a 7 month low

2. CONFLICTS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT
There were lots of protests against the Government. Basically there was a clash in the chart which always indicates conflict and there was no power in the chart, which means power/authority is weak and under attack. 

But I failed to include the police under 'power / authority' because November was a month where the police force was under attack. First the Ferguson riots and then the protests all over US and even the UK over the Eric Garner case - both over the refusal to indict the police officer. 

In Mexico, there were demonstrations against the Government's response to the possible massacre of the student teachers.

3. WET MONTH WITH 'UNSTOPPABLE WATER' & LANDSLIDES
After months of mild weather, there were instances of sudden, heavy rainfall. And this is the precise characteristic of 'unstoppable water.' It's sudden and it's ferocious. 

In the UK, we saw heavy rainfall and over 20 flood alerts issued over a couple of days around 14 November. Brisbane experienced a sudden and heavy storm. And typhoon Hagupit hit the Philippines (4 December). 

Eleven people died in Italy in just one month over freak weather conditions (storms, flooding, landslides, mudslides) as well. In fact, the earth was so weak and the water so strong that around 70 coffins were swept away from a cemetery in Genoa due to heavy floods - 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2837670/Seventy-coffins-swept-away-rain-waters-floods-hit-cemetery-Genoa-leaving-human-skulls-bones-strewn-town.html

I'm not doing a December forecast as I'm focusing my time on doing one for 2015. The energy will start changing in any case from mid-December (the winter solstice) so I'm going to concentrate on this for now. I'll post this reading before the solstice. Till then happy December.

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?

WHY HAVE THERE BEEN SO MANY TRAVEL RELATED ACCIDENTS IN 2014

In 2014, we've already seen the disappearance of MH370 and the South Korean ferry disaster. I'm not sure if this will be the last of the accidents. If you read my forecast for the year of the wooden horse, I did say there would be lots of air and water related disasters this year and accidents involving explosions. Why? 

FENG SHUI TIPS 2014 - YEAR OF THE WOODEN HORSE

Each year brings about new energies. But how does this affect you? And what can you do?

The most important thing is to understand if you are vulnerable this year - if the energies for the year are supporting you or are they going to have a negative impact on you. Secondly, you need to know where the good energy of your property is for the year and where the energy is not beneficial. This gives you a guide on the places to tap or avoid in your home and your office. Or choose to spend more time in the area which has the energy supportive to your goal i.e. if you are trying to conceive or start your own business. Lastly, in every year certain elements are stronger than others.  And this can be used as a guide for investments.

Feng Shui Forecast 2014: The year of the WOODEN HORSE

This is my third year offering a forecast for the year based on the teachings of Grandmaster Chan. There are many formulas to try and read the energy pattern for the year. That’s what a Feng Shui forecast is – an energy reading, to try and gauge what the dominant energy of the year is. It’s very much like a weather forecast which is why I shy away from using the word “prediction”. As I mentioned, there are lots of different formulas for this - flying star and the birth chart (also known as a Ba Zi) are only some of the formulas. The easy part is doing the formulas, the hard part is interpreting them.

So what kind of energy will the year of the wooden horse bring?

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.

2013 WATER SNAKE FORECAST PART II

So how are the New Year preparations coming along? House cleaned? New clothes bought? Pineapple tarts, love letters all stocked up? We're having reunion dinner at my friend's place tonight. I can't wait to dig in to her Kong Bak Pau but that's for later. The question everyone's been asking is how's 2013 going to affect them? What's good for them? Where's good for them? And here my friends are the answers.

Feng Shui Prediction 2013 Part I

It's here everyone. The year of the water snake. After a dismal economic year, full of flooding and natural disasters, is good luck going to slither in this year (see what I did there?)

House on the motorway in China

Did you guys read about this house?

When it was first reported, they said the owners of the flat (an elderly couple) refused to sell their house and land so the government built the road around it. I remember thinking there's no way they would be able to hold on to this and true enough, they've capitulated and sold the house and land.

If you think of the house as a hill on a piece of land and the roads built around as a fast flowing river, what basically happens is that the river will slowly wear down the land, making it smaller and smaller and the hill would slowly erode as well. If this was a small, side road, the story would have been quite different but it is a motorway (a strong, ferocious water flow).

It's good that he sold the flat. To be situated right in the centre of things like that is precarious and makes the house very vulnerable. You want to live in a place with strong foundations, not something which makes you feel you are under siege. The inhabitants of the house would probably have fallen ill and finances would have taken a beating. Not something you would want if you were an elderly couple.   

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?

Properties around the Broadway Market Lock

I was walking around the lock near Broadway market the other day and someone remarked that the people living around here must be rich as they are all near water. 

Most important cities (actually, a lot of capital cities if you think about it) have a river running through them. To a city, a river represents life - it's from here that trade, merchants and wealth come from. Not surprisingly then, a body of water is associated with wealth in Feng Shui. Water has other important functions as well but most of the time if you are trying to boost wealth in a property, one of the best ways to achieve this is through water.

But not all bodies of water are the same. Some are 'good' water and some are 'bad' water. This is usually determined by the type of water feature and also where it is located. So what about those living near the Broadway Market lock? Will the lock bring wealth?

Example of House with good Feng Shui structure

Image courtesy of freshome.com

So what's a house with good Feng Shui? It's hard to come across houses these days that seem to conform to classical Feng Shui principles but hey, just saw this on a blog. It's in Bukit Timah, Singapore.

The house is very symetrical and nestled by it's surroundings giving it a very strong foundation. The tall trees lining the edge of the house is also protective and very auspicious for the partriach of the property. There is also a lot of space at the back of the house which helps to store energy. There's no point in grabbing good energy if you can't store it.

But what I really like about this is the pool. It is a good size, not too overwhelming for the property and the glass windows at the back make it easy for the house to grab this water energy. Hopefully, the water is located in the correct direction (avoid having water in the West, Northwest and Southwest sectors of the property).