A Feng Shui Charmed Life

Where did it all start, how did I become a Feng Shui Consultant? A woman who reads space, who’s body is a barometer for misaligned intentions that echo in the fingerprints of paint and drywall.

My Feng Shui journey began the minute I stepped onto this planet. I was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario; the land of the Sleeping Giant and the Pre-Cambrian Shield. Treasures were hidden in the depths of the bank of the Current River, Silver Islet and the top of Mount McKay. Amethyst isn’t only just the stone of my city, but the resonance of my birthstone. It sets the hum in my veins and the song in my heart.

I’m a gypsy in my spirit, free flowing, ever moving, and discovering new colours in my field of vision. Who I thought I was in my twenties, redefined itself in my thirties. In my forties I find the numerology of 4 to be right where I’m standing “stability and process.” In my twenties I was like silly putty, pliable, allowing myself to be shaped by “other’s” my folks, husband, ideas of what I should be. Quiet, meek, mild and “happily married” with children… I was lost in the translation of 2 = “double happiness,” attempting to cooperate and find balance in my snow globe world. Fragile and cloudy should anyone look too close.

I had it all, from the outside…in I was ???…me. I never questioned this; ever. My path was laid in front of me clear as the lines in the palms of my hands. I was following my karma with intentions to enhance my dharma by trying to be the perfect child, mother, and wife…and then at 30, something greater than I sent that snow globe flying. Everything I thought was true lay sprawled out on the living room floor. With every shattered piece, I bled tears. The pieces of my life were so small; I couldn’t put the puzzle back together. The voice in my head and my heart called “I’m here,” yet I couldn’t see clear. “I felt like Hortan Hears a Who.” But where was my “Cindy Lu Who?” I wasn’t happy living in black and white anymore. I needed to dance in colours of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple and crystalline white. I needed gold dust in my pores and a twinkle in my eyes. I needed to know that the death of my little sister at 18 was greater than I. That there was something bigger, something brighter, something more connected than the space and time that was before and the space that is time now.

I had dreams as a little girl of men marching; I was terrified of the faces I saw shadowed, silhouetted on the walls and the feeling of dying as it crept up on me in the early hours of dusk before my dawn. I was a child, how could I have this fear? Where did it come from? They say children learn from their experiences and hold in their subconscious things buried. Where was the root cause of mine, what was the seed that bred this raging wildfire of my innocent, meek and mild mind? In dying Becky erased my fears.

Less than 24 hours from her body being found in the snow beside a rural railroad track, she heard and answered my whisper, “Becky; please let me know you’re ok. Give me a sign you didn’t suffer, that it`s beautiful where you are.” Moments after this plea, my 16 month old daughter Whitney woke from a sound sleep. Bringing her to bed, nose to nose she fell asleep, snuggled, knowing she was safe, not knowing that I silently wept for the loss of my sister and the years we would never have. Becky was 8 years younger than I. She 18 me 26, we hadn`t found our common ground. Becky was a college student; I was a mother of two, building buildings, trying to build a home. My world was silent, hence my future thyroid condition, (Graves Disease.) It wasn’t going to take me there. Too afraid to speak my truth. Not knowing what my truth was at the time. In her sleep, Whitney’s tiny hands lay my tear stained cheek on her chest and brushed my 80’s hairdo from my eyes. In this moment, I am not afraid. In this moment, I KNOW I will never be the same.

We all have a story, none greater than the other, but equally unique. We all hold a treasure within us, all bright and beautiful should we have the courage to let it shine. I love the song, “This Little Light of Mine.” It’s a good place to start. But I think we’re bigger and brighter than we can possibly imaging and with that comes a strength and a vitality that is infectious and can change our perception of reality. I know my sister was a catalyst for change. I`ve felt her many times over the last 21 years slip between her world and mine. She comes often; as I follow my passion, giving me signs that if I’m not careful; I overlook. As does my grandfather; my best friend growing up, who moved to the other side when I was 19.

In his will my Grandfather left me a coin collection, out of all the pieces I kept only one. I was young! The one piece I kept floated around in my jewellery box for 27 years until my arrival home from my second Feng Shui Training in California when I pulled it out and studied it more closely. At 19 I knew there was something special about this copy coin with the strange Chinese symbol on one side and the Scarab Beetle on the other. It wasn’t until my Feng Shui Training that I recognized the significance of the symbol of the I Ching and why I kept the coin. This coin is the one you see around my neck in all my profile photos. It is the symbol representing the sacred geometry, the 9 fundamental principles for life. It is The Feng Shui Symbol. Another aha moment.

My Feng Shui life has many full circle moments that together with each aha….. carries me forward in a quest to discover more and more of how our inner and out worlds reflect each other. It is no surprise to me that the last building we built and lived in, in Ontario was built (before my Feng Shui awakening), on the edge of a ravine, with a towering granite wall at its back, emaciated cedar trees, attempting to thrive in the shallow, nutrient poor soil and a view of the Sleeping Giant in the horizon. I was literally between a rock and a hard place, and the wind enticing me to fly.

Ninety-eight pounds soaking wet meditating, levitating with conscious intention to increase my vibration I was literally, and figuratively shaking in my then green cowgirl boots. I was sick and didn’t know it. All test results showed nothing, yet my lemon water would slosh over the rim of my glass, my kneecaps bounced up and down beneath the skin. I had no muscle; I was a skeleton of a woman at 36 years old. The amethyst necklace I wore vibrated at my heart due to a resting pulse of 120. My environment showed the dis-ease, the medical reports showed nothing. I had always had big green eyes, but these green eyes got even bigger. People were always commenting. In meditation I was asking to see the bigger picture, “show me my life path, my career.” With absolute earnest I desired to know. I listened, journaled, the way I was taught in NLP. Way before the Secret was no longer a Secret. I was moving, and shaking….I was asking and I was receiving…..things I never expected. My building was built on solid rock, yet my foundation was crumbling and like the dying cedars out the back door I was thirsty for something more. Chi flows like water as much as I tried to set my course up stream I felt shattered among the rocks of the Current River.

In receiving my Reiki Master Attunement I became a tuning fork, like the one my grandpa had hanging in his art studio when I was little girl. Mirroring the vaulted ceiling in the building on the hill that had no defined front door, no mouth of chi, I had lofty dreams and difficulty keeping my green booted feet on the ground. I dreamt dreams, repeated dreams, dreams that were taking on a life right out of the pages of my first, 1100 page, none published novel copyrighted February 14, 1996. Fiction, a little none, a little fear, a lot of prayer. Writing was a stretch for a girl who in school was diagnosed in grade 12 with dyslexia and who’s creative mind desired to express itself. Writing was a means to healing. It was my voice when I couldn’t speak, it didn’t matter, I had nothing to say, and no one was listening. Or so I thought….

I listened, I watched, I tried to categorize things that I couldn’t name. Put them in a tight box for later inspection. Yet, the lid would never fit and things kept spilling out and the more I tried to control everything around me the more I became sick leaving me in a dark night of the soul, living in disharmony. So I lay spent in July 2000 after a morning of burning every word I’d ever written down at Mission Island, 5 am as the sun was coming up. I was on a mission; I didn’t know what I was doing or were I was going. I just knew that I need to purge myself of everything that had been, in order to make room for whatever would be. Fire is transformational, it is the first of the 5 element, it is illuminating and enlightening. If I knew then what I know now. “Proceed with caution. Be clear in what you ask for.” I believed with a passion what was meant to be would return to me one day. So I lay down, empty pleading out loud, just the walls to hear me, “take me now”. Between my sobs I chanted “Love lives here now”.

In November of the same year as I’m packing to leave the building on the hill for the very last time, I reach on the top shelf in the closet my hand grabbing something familiar yet forgotten to my conscious mind. But my subconscious mind held tight to the words on the pages, the tears between the lines and the desires of a young woman yearning to discover her own truth while learning to “live here now”. A package post marked February 14, 1996, titled “On the Wings of Forever”. As I’m writing this I’m having one of those aha moments, I love when I see patterns in numbers, I was 32 when I sent that package to myself, the numerology of the post mark is 32, my birthday numerology is 32. 32 = 5 5 = Freedom and Discipline. Another full circle moment. Coincidence? Synchronicity? I say this is my Feng Shui Life and ask, “What is your space saying to our subconscious mind”?

This article was originally published in Discovering She (no longer in print)