2015 – Year of the Yin Wood Sheep
By Karen Abler-Carrasco
WSFS Instructor and Mentor
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Deck the Halls…
…and the walls, shelves, tables, and doors! This time of year, I get carried away by all the sparkling ornaments and glimmering remembrances. My collection of decorations, after sleeping in a box for a year, emerge with stories to tell. Tales I’ve almost forgotten and yearn to remember. As I gently pull them free from their quiet nests and arrange them around the house, their soft murmurs or loud bursts of memories fill me with waves of delight; poignancy; awe.
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Happy Valentine’s Time!
One of the everyday ways we can express the love we feel for our homes is to call them by their true names… Here, WSFS teacher Becky Iott shares her experience of naming her home sweet home…
I invite you to share the name of your home with me and those around you. It breathes new life into your abode every time you do. My new home was immediately forthcoming with her name: Earth Haven.
Living In Love,
Terah Kathryn Collins
2014 – The Year of the Yang Wood Horse
By Karen Abler-Carrasco
WSFS Consultant, Mentor and Teacher
PLEASE NOTE: Read about 2015 – the Year of the Yin Wood Sheep here.
There might not be a bigger shift of energies in the entire 60 year wheel of Chinese astrology than this one coming up–the shift from two Water years of deep introspection to the fast-paced spurt of extroverted forward propulsion that the Wood Horse brings. Hold on to your hats, folks, and realize that you won’t be able to, nor will you want to, slow your horses in the New Year ahead!
This will be a promethean year, the Beginning of all beginnings, arriving around January 31st to February 4th, 2014. Full of uplift, optimism and compelling inspiration, we will be guided into purposeful action of the most elegantly simple and powerfully fruitful kind. After two years of feeling every revelation of corruption in the dark as if it was scouring our subconscious insides and wringing us dry of watery emotion, we are READY for this change! Light, hope and clarity of vision gallop in. Emerge from your cocoons, everybody, here we goooooo!
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The Tao of the Holidays
by Terah Kathryn Collins
O, here they come! The parade of holidays is about to begin. While meant to be relaxing and enjoyable times, holidays can also be quite stressful. When we look through the eyes of the Tao (the Way to sustain or regain harmony) we can identify ways to diminish stress and increase our harmony-quotient throughout the season.
Take a few moments to define in detail your own version of an ideal holiday. Consider reinventing any traditions that cause you stress. Ask yourself “how would my holidays be if they were exactly the way I’d love them to be?” Contemplate the following questions, focusing solely upon your personal preferences.
The Year of the Water Snake – Coming In For a Landing
On February 10th, we officially say goodbye to the Year of the Water Dragon and hello to the Year of the Water Snake. Imagine the wings and scales of a dragon transforming into a lithe fluid snake body that can easily appear and disappear in a heartbeat…. It’s this quicksilver quality of ‘now we don’t see it, now we do’ that weaves itself into this year, presenting us with an interesting mix of energies.
Sudden changes in the fabric of our lives can be quite unsettling. Most people who have physically encountered a snake recall how surprising and often alarming it is. Such an abrupt shift in reality produces a wake-up call that is memorable. Suddenly, we see something significant that we didn’t see before and must act accordingly. Experiences like these compel us to sharpen our observation skills, heighten our present-state awareness, and pay attention to who and what surrounds us.
Whatever amount of heaven the Dragon opened within you last year is now ready to be solidly grounded into your life on earth. It is time to blend your five senses with your intuition and maintain a deep communion with your visible and invisible streams of guidance. Eyes open and feelers out, you literally align yourself with synchronicity and chart your course accordingly. As a conscious conduit of heaven and earth, your capacity to sense and feel subtle energies can key you into the ideal timing to be out in the world.
A snake is fluidity in motion. She has the capacity to move like lightning or remain motionless until just the right moment. She teaches us how to be mindful and align our thoughts, words, and actions with the flow of each moment. Impulsiveness is a direct pathway to unwelcome surprises. Like the snake, practicing patience and presence can assure safe passage through life.
These directives inevitably lead us into the depths of self-inquiry, especially with 2013’s Water element plunging us into our own deepest mysteries. To buoy our explorations, Feng Shui suggests that we create (or recreate) two places – an outer and an inner sanctuary. An outer sanctuary, housed in our abodes, may be any size that’s appropriate, from a tiny altar to a whole room or section of the house. As you craft your sacred space, include meaningful items that symbolize the 5 Elements and fashion a personally pleasing and serene atmosphere where the alchemy of incarnation is solidly anchored in place.
To deepen your practice, liberate your creative imagination and breathe life into an inner sanctuary. Make it an extraordinary reflection of yourself, flesh out every detail, and savor the process. You are the ‘soul’ creator of your inner sanctuary, free of all constraints. Here, you are truly limitless!
The more you develop and refine your sensory and intuitive acuity, the better. The study of any healing modality (including the environmental healing practice of Feng Shui), art, music, dance, yoga, martial arts, shamanism, animal communication, and the many veins of earth wisdom such as herbal medicine, organic gardening, foraging, and tracking, are just a few suggestions for learning during 2013. No more fooling around – it’s time to root yourself in your true interests and make them an active part of your daily life.
Our collective work is to transform any tendency to sleepwalk, space out, or disconnect from self or each other. We invest ourselves in being solidly grounded, wide-awake, and openheartedly connected to all that comprises our everyday down-to-earth life. This is a year of maturation, a coming of age, as we intimately embrace the sacred equality of earth and heaven. The Year of the Snake opens us up to the wonders of the embodied world. Let’s see it clearly, feel it fully, and maybe for the first time in our lives, come in for a landing.
With Love & Every Blessing,
Terah Kathryn Collins
Founder, Western School of Feng Shui™
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