Tag Archives: double happiness

Chinese New Year Rituals. Attune To Prosperity.

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“Rituals are the formulas by which harmony is restored.”
– Terry Tempest Williams

You know the feelings when you’ve spruced up the house. You feel refreshed, revitalized, rejuvenated and your home beams with cleanliness. Well it’s that time again when the Chinese New Year offers the opportunity to clear last year’s dust and opens the doors to radiance and good fortune. With that spirit of inviting positive Ch’i and abundance into our homes before the year gets underway, here is your comprehensive guide to 18 Chinese New Year rituals you can easily perform on Chinese New Year eve and day (February 1) to attune to prosperity and joy in 2022.

Sweep away the old. The Chinese have long held the belief that a fresh start is essential to a successful year. The 20th day of the 12th lunar month is set aside for the annual housecleaning. January 22, 2022 brooms will come out of the closet, every corner is thoroughly cleaned and misfortune is sent flying. As you sweep imagine illness, obstacles, bad luck, negative attitudes and emotions are swept away. The meditative rhythm of sweeping draws in possibilities of a auspicious new year.

Place something at your entry that is red. Red in Feng Shui symbolism means: happiness, courtesy, respect, power and strength. Two of the front door’s attributes are your career and reputation. With that in mind visualize the red object activating Fame Ch’i.

Display a bowl of oranges in your home and money will come easily. The word for orange (Chengzi) sounds like gold (Jin) in the Chinese language.

Place a platter of tangerines on your dining room table for the saying, “Da ju da li” translates as “May you enjoy an abundance of fortune and profits.” In Asian countries it’s auspicious to place two tangerine trees at the entrance of a home or business but adding the tangerines to your dining room table stimulates your income for the table is the secondary source of your income.

Surround yourself with colorful fruit so that you will have a fruitful year is one of the well known Chinese New Year rituals. Pomelos are large pear-shaped grapefruits which mean “to have”. Pineapple sounds like wealth but its real strength is fame, promotion and excellent fortune. You can display the fruit at the front entry, the dining room, even the kitchen.

Brighten your home and your luck with narcissus (daffodils). The Chinese affirm that daffodil and Narcissus bulbs when in bloom during the New Year, bring good fortune and luck to a home. They enliven our Ch’i through the sense of smell. This adjustment calms the nervous system. With a clear mind we gain clear access to our decision making center (intuition).

Prepare a reunion dinner on Chinese Lunar New Year’s eve. This is one of the most joyful (besides setting off firecrackers) Chinese New Year rituals. The image of the circle is used in food dishes like fish balls. The circle is associated with family. This creates unity, support and continuity. This sense of family unity is called Yuan and underlies all festivals. Yuan means roundness and it suggests the attainment of the Five Fold Happiness (good luck, prosperity, happiness, wealth and longevity). Veggies embody the freshness of “evergreen” and store good fortune in their roots. Support your vitality in the Year of the Water Tiger when you include them in your first meal of the new year. Make a feast and have left overs because left overs symbolize that you’ll have money rolling into the next year. Add a little laughter! Shrimp in the Chinese language sounds like Ha, Ha, Ha and translates as merriment and well being. Joyfulness brings a future of limitless possibility. Cook a whole fish and leave some. Serve longevity noodles and eat them in one long strand (try not to break one or it will shorten your life). Add lettuce for it translates as “growing wealth”. Dumplings, jiao zi look like golden ingots. They promise wealth and prosperity. Serve nian giao, a sticky rice pudding cake which is symbolic of helping people “advance toward higher positions and prosperity step by step”. Make the evening uplifting and happy; include music and play games with your children, tell jokes and laugh.

Serve an even number of dishes (eight) to bestow “double happiness” on the family.

“Avoid cutting the luck of the year” by putting your knives and scissors away February 1. Schedule a hair trim or mani/pedi before Chinese New Year’s Eve. This admonishment is one of the most often overlooked of the Chinese New Year rituals. 

Refrain from cursing on New Year’s Day because letting your tongue fly will affect your luck for the entire year. One day of restraint could mean you’ve mastered your impulses and that can bring more opportunities than you might realize. However if you do inadvertently curse say “Tong yen woo chi!” to reverse the affect.

Slumber not before midnight on Chinese Lunar New Year’s eve to ensure good luck will cross your threshold. The sound of sleepiness in Chinese is similar to trouble. Sleepless means no trouble in the coming year.

Keep the Goddess of Poverty away “Fu” means “good fortune” or “happiness” and is represented both as a Chinese ideograph and its homophone, a bat. Placing the image of a bat (Lan Su Garden in Portland, Oregon was constructed with five bats roof tiles) or the image of “Fu” at your front entry clearly sets the intention to invite good fortune into your life.

Bring one new item such as furniture, décor or art into your home and business to stimulate prosperity Ch’i and to compound your sheng Ch’i (beneficial energy). In addition give away one item or more. This leaves both physical and symbolic space for good fortune.

Throw away china, crockery or glassware that are broken, chipped or have hairline cracks, these augur bad luck.

Break a cup or plate (or anything) during New Year say “Fall to the floor and burst into bloom!”

Dress in “up-beat” clothing or new clothes. Wearing red underwear creates a favorable beginning.

Make amends with anyone with whom you’ve had a row or falling-out.

Carry the Water Tiger’s secret friend (talisman) the Pig. “When the Tiger and Pig come together, the joy of this encounter is enough to offset any evil that the moment may harbor.” (This is one of the most important of the Chinese New Year rituals.) –HH Grandmaster Lin Yun
The exception is if your Chinese animal protector is a Snake then carry Horse and Dog as a pair.

After you have played games and eaten foods that attract fame and fortune, perform BSTB ceremonies to invite bountiful blessings. How to receive these ceremonies of the “Three Lucky Feng Shui Secret Traditions Packet” is below.

After you have played games and eaten foods that attract fame and fortune, perform BSTB ceremonies to invite bountiful blessings. How to receive these ceremonies of the “Three Lucky Feng Shui Secret Traditions Packet” is below.

Enjoy A Year of Good Fortune!
The “Three Lucky Feng Shui Secret Traditions Packet” is back! $27 + nine red envelopes. Email me at bette@shenmenfengshui.com for payment options. Nine red envelopes must be received by mail on or before January 23, 2022 to ensure your mailing will arrive in time. Revel in “Welcoming the Wealth Gods” into your home. Delight in peeling away bad luck during “the Golden Cicada” ceremony and jump up for joy when you throw the orange peel as the clock strikes 12:00 during “Changing the Ch’i….

Allow me to help you arrange your home where you feel fully supported. I am available for a full consultation Service or for an hour telephone conversation. Details are at this link Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

My apologies, due to a proliferation of spam posts, comments cannot be made.

Spring Power. It’s Easy Being Green.

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Within each thing is contained all things. In the seed is the tree; in the tree is the forest…Each thing exists to nourish all others and in return to be nourished itself.
– Vasant Lad and David Frawley, The Yoga of Herbs

At the moment I am writing, Nature’s Spring Power has bloomed all over the northern hemisphere. As if awakened by Prince Charming’s kiss, the sun’s radiance arouses the landscape, dissolving winter’s sleep. Green, vernal shoots burst forth and aromatic scents perfume the atmosphere where hungry bees buzz mightily ensuring that our summer tables are fresh with fruit. Everywhere is an intelligent, pulsating world of creation, nourishment and support.

If you are like me you may want to harness this Spring Power for now and when winter’s twilight comes early and the leaves have fallen. It’s definitely the way of Feng Shui. You see, thousands of years ago in order to align with the seasons of creation and decay, the philosophy of the Tao, Yin-Yang theory and the Five Phases evolved. The Tao is the governing order of all things. However to explain the Tao’s movement through time, the Yin-Yang Theory of opposites emerged followed by the Five Phases/Seasons which further differentiated its dynamism as exemplified by the five powers, Water (winter), Wood (spring), Fire (summer), Earth (late summer) and Metal (fall).

You can imagine in the waining days of the year how a burst of Spring Power could keep your system running at its optimum. The Wood element is represented by Spring. It is a creative season. It’s symbolic of new beginnings. Its meaning is to be on purpose and be the change. It is benevolence and compassionate understanding, qualities we find useful in certain stages of our development, our relationships and our careers. Building the Chi in your home with Wood cures gives you the drive to remove stagnate energy and finish projects that have been languishing.

If your bedroom feels devoid of life force, your health is suffering from too much Yin Ch’i, or you want to enhance the energy in your home, here are five BSTB Feng Shui cures that invest your home with positive energy that will take you in a new direction.

Spring clean any time of year. Whenever there is an excessive build-up of stress and frustration, it’s time to pull out the oranges. When Ch’i becomes blocked, oranges have a warm, sunny, sweet aroma that convey joy and positivity, dispersing moodiness and irritability (Gabriel Mojay, Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit). To change the Ch’i and the fortune of you and your home, purchase nine oranges. During the hours of  11:00 p.m to 1:00 a.m. cut nine circles (zest only) out of each orange for 81 circles. Break these down onto a dinner plate and chant a mantra or say a prayer that invests the peels with the light of 10,000 Buddhas. Take a small handful of the peels and start in any direction. Every few steps, scatter the peels throughout the house until the plate is empty. Allow for them to stay for one night, three nights or nine nights. For a detailed version of the ceremony, send me an email (red envelopes requested).

Show your ‘face’ to the world. What story is your front entry telling? Does it represent who you are ? Does your door knob working properly and easy to grasp? This is how you grasped life. Do you have vital plants in and around your front door? Plants are life force. We are most aware of their rising yang energy in Spring but they are useful in balancing our Ch’i throughout the year. Your front door can be enhanced with healthy round leaf plants on either side. They lift your Ch’i and attract prospects. If sustainability is part of your philosophy, purchase native, evergreen plants that require little water as a green addition to the Feng Shui.

Transform worry into calm. Bamboo has a long and humble connection to the Chinese culture. If your children live away from home and you are concerned about them you can hang a bamboo drape in the Children/Tui gua of your home. If your child has a dangerous occupation, sport or hobby, hang a bamboo drape in the Children gua of your home because bamboo is symbolic of safety, it provides safety.

Work peacefully for money. The drooping bamboo leaves cross one another, as if they are composing the Chinese character “An” (tranquility). Being both hollow and soft inside, it symbolizes humility (the Chinese word for hollow means to be humble). Its hollowness allows it to bow in the wind. The sound a bamboo flute makes is peaceful and it can drive away negative influences so it protects. If you wish to have money and work peacefully for it, hang a bamboo drape in the Wealth/Hsun gua of your home.

Double your happiness. To nurture a partnership that you have already created add the Spring Power of nine lush plants in the bedroom. The demands of work can deplete your energy. The plants’ life force will support your own and expand your mental focus so you can dedicate time to your partner. A nuance to this cure is place fruiting or flowering plants as they symbolize that your efforts will bear fruit.

Have you decided this will be your year? “Boldness has genius”… start with one hour of Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

Tis’ The Season To Get Engaged!

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“Every once in a while in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale.
– Author unknown

Tis’ the season to get engaged! 40 percent of engagements occur between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day with Christmas Day the most popular so when my client, Loretta Rossini, Wedding Officiant, asked me to share good luck wedding customs.

Start with luck. A 1500 year old symbol must have some good juju, right? The Chinese created a symbol for marriage that is as potent today as when the first two lovers used it on their wedding day. The character for happiness is set side by side. The bottom part looks like the number “8”. In the Chinese language the number eight attracts prosperity. It’s been a long standing custom to give double happiness red envelopes with money inside to the wedding couple.

Pick your flowers. Whether a Bridal bouquet or one flower, selecting the heavenly, fragrant peony as your wedding flower is auspicious. The flower is believed to be of divine descent, no wonder it represents wealth, rank and honor. If you use vases with a neck for your centerpiece, it expresses the wish for prosperity and peace because the vase symbolizes peace.

Wear a touch of red. Red is like “a red sun rising from the East.” When it first emerges over the horizon, it is red hot. Wearing a touch of red on your wedding day (it can be hidden) is a good fortune adjustment and attracts auspiciousness. It’s the traditional color for Chinese brides.

Let the stars decide. When Heaven and Earth line up it leads to a successful marriage so start out on the right foot by selecting a lucky date for your wedding. I can help.

Choose happiness. Keep the luck coming. Whether it is a grand reception or intimate dinner for two, pick eight dishes (not including dessert) for the word eight not only sounds like prosperity but “good luck” too.

Keep your love fertile. Have plans to bring a little one into the world? A formal tea ceremony is served by the bride and groom during the wedding festivities. The reason being is the words, “lotus”, “year”, “seed”, “child”, “date” and “early” sound alike but have different meanings. Dropping lotus seeds and two dates into the tea will help the newlyweds to have a baby early and every year. The sweetness of the special tea is also a wish for sweet relations between the bride and her new family.

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After you’ve said your vows, kissed the bride or groom and shared sweet pleasure on your honeymoon, do something extra for your love. Create a radiant space for your hearts to grow together.

Have you decided this will be your year? “Boldness has genius”…start with one hour of Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.