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This is my final Five Minute Feng Shui podcast.  Remember always, YOU ARE YOUR BEST FENG SHUI!  When times are good, indifferent and/or bad, you can make things better with your own feng shui.  Never, ever forget this! It has been a pleasure recording these podcasts over the past 5 years and hearing from you, all my listeners!  And as Gene Autry sang, "Happy Trials to You, Until We Meet Again...Happy Trials to You, Keep Smiling Until Then!"

The Year of the Rabbit is coming and with a gentleness that only a bunny can bring. It will offer us a sweet exhale like you do when you sit down in your favorite chair after a long day. The rabbit is associated with the moon, as you may often see the outline of a rabbit when the moon is full. The tiger that precedes the rabbit is the sign of the month of February and the rabbit is the sign associated with the month of March and the Pisces zodiac sign. This podcast discussed the good fortune energies in 2023, Year of the Water Rabbit.

After the past few years that have been marked by upheaval and uncertainties, the energy coming to 2023 will be replaced by a new light, hopeful, and sweeter energy. The Year of the Tiger was the first to bring in springtime energy as it is the first of the 3 spring zodiac animals of tiger, rabbit, and dragon. The rabbit represents the fullness of spring when nature is flowering, and green growth appears. The energy of the rabbit will offer us a respite from the cold austere energies of the past few years that were aligned with the metal element and winter-time animals of the pig, rat, and ox.

The five elements are the five building blocks of feng shui. The elements are made up of water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. If your home or office feels “off” or uncomfortable, it might be out of balance. Just taking a quick look around your home or office will help you to diagnose if there is too much or too little of an element. In a perfect feng shui world, you’ll find all five elements present in a room. This helps to keep the room feeling comfortable, harmonious and balanced – and thus making you more productive, effective, and successful.

In feng shui, you can look at someone’s office and home and often see the level of success they enjoy. But can you take those same traits and apply it to something more personal, like your handwriting? Just like there’s a flow and movement that translate into qualities in your life, there’s flow of handwriting that can indicate – and even influence — personal qualities. The art of handwriting analysis, graphology, is much like feng shui. Graphology is undertaken seriously by those who practice it, and those who don’t, often treat it esoterically. But, look at some interesting facts about handwriting analysis, or graphology.  The CIA, FBI and many police departments in the US look at handwriting to understand the minds of those they’re investigating. How does graphology relate to feng shui? In feng shui, the mind and thinking are related to the hand, so by extension, the style of writing someone has provides some insight into that person’s personality and can influence their lives. In my own feng shui training, my teachers encouraged students to look at our signatures to make sure they looked successful and prosperous, with an emphasis of writing that had bold strokes that tilted up and to the right.

There’s one image that gives you support at work and represents wealth, resources, strength and support and that image is a mountain. Mountains, whether images, real, such as the Rocky Mountains or Himalayas, or symbolic, such as a screen, all give support in feng shui. This is a critical concept in feng shui because without support, there is struggle and a feeling of rolling a boulder up, well, a mountain. Support from behind The idea of being supported makes a lot of sense when you think about it. If you sat on a stool all day, your back would ache. But when you have a comfortable and high-backed office chair, you are supported and can work longer and more effectively at your job. The same is true in your home. Having a support at the rear of the house symbolizes the black tortoise, a celestial creature that provides support and adds vigor and longevity to your life and home, helping to protect you from unpleasant surprises and misfortune. The black tortoise is represented by a slight rise at the rear of your home, supporting your home, much like the tall back on an executive chair supports you as you work.

Windows are a natural part of the exterior of a home or office building. In a sense, they’re the eyes of the building. Their openings let in light, views and without them, life would dark, dull, and depressing. Yet, having not enough windows is just as bad as having too many. Because of their energy, windows can affect our home’s feng shui – and ultimately – our lives. Like all things in feng shui, balance is important. The same is true with windows. Too few and it’s dark and we feel hopeless, too many or too large, and we feel scattered, frenetic, and exhausted. The key is to balance enough light and views with privacy and exposure.

If you’ve ever wanted to make a change, a move, or leapfrog to another place in your life, this is the star that will help you do it. In feng shui, the White 1 star is a star that can bring you all those things, plus these benefits: Opportunities Victory over the competition A new way of being or living Sudden luck, like a star falling in your lap Increased income When you look at benefits like these, it’s no wonder that the one (1) star is so popular in feng shui. This star is part of a group of stars called the White Stars. These include 1, 4, 6, and 8 (and sometimes 9). The stars in this group are considered to be the most favorable. The 1 star is governed by the planet Jupiter, and whenever this planet appears, it is said to create good luck. Like western astrology that confers good luck with Jupiter for expanding good luck, so, too, is the 1 star. When it shows up, luck expands wherever it flies.

If there was ever a star that represents wine and roses, the 4 (four) star is it. In feng shui, the number four and the 4 star represent education and romance, but it also has other benefits that are like a motorcycle with a sidecar filled with roses. For entrepreneurs and the career-minded, any kind of publicity, marketing, writing, podcasting, sales or speaking falls under the purview of the 4 star, making it a great star for students, teachers and writers. This is the star whose home sector is the wealth sector and represents that tiny green shoot that signals vibrant new growth and life.

The 6 star is one of the most favored and highly regarded of all the stars in feng shui. This star has a bountiful energy star that bestows favor and brings achievements, power, influence, authority — and perhaps the best of all its attributes — windfalls, favors, and opportunities laid at your feet. The 6 star is like a big cosmic shower of meteors that rain down like diamonds from the sky and into your lap. Better still, the 6 star represents the energies of helpful people that bring assistance when you need them.

There are numbers in feng shui that are regarded as the most favorable for luck and wealth. That’s because when the numbers 1, 4, 6, or 8 (and sometimes 9)  — represented by the qualities of success, promotion, attainment, love, travel, and prosperity — show up in your home either as a natal, annual, or monthly energy, good fortune comes your way. Let’s start with the number that is the most favored of all, the number 8. The 8 star is related to the northeast corner of education, wisdom, and good decisions and is an earth star. Until February 2024, the number eight also relates to both water and earth, and because of this can bring much prosperity and success in two realms: relationships and wealth.

There are many ways to go about manifesting your desires. The first and most direct is to take action. Action is critical, but what about when you’re forming your idea? How do you manifest your heart’s desire faster and more easily – and most importantly – more exact to what you want? Chi, or energy, whether it is that of a room or your own personal chi, can all be changed. I always say that ‘chi flows where the eye goes.’ This is why when you enter a house that has a wide picture window or a door opposite the entryway, your eye (and the home’s energy) goes out that door or window. For the homeowner that views this daily, their energy goes out the door or window with their vision, and they often suffer from lowered finances, difficulty making progress in their lives or have health problems.

Rolling 7’s on a craps table in Las Vegas has always been considered lucky, but that’s where that luck ends. In feng shui, the number seven is considered very unlucky and full of misfortune. Worse yet, it can cause theft, violence, and injury.  From 1984 to 2003, the number seven was extremely lucky, but that changed in 2004, when we entered Period 8, a time that runs from 2004-2024. If you count seven as a lucky number, be sure to look at its implications in feng shui.

The White Tiger in feng shui represents the west or right hand side of our homes (as you look out the front door). The White Tiger is associated with courage, protection and dignity. The White Tiger brings good luck and fortune when it is represented by a small rise on the right side of the house and is most often associated with the compass direction of west. It is the yin to a dragon’s yang. The White Tiger protects a home from negative forces and is sometimes associated with wealth.

The square and rectangle are considered two of the most auspicious shapes in feng shui. Rectangles represent growth and are considered to be very auspicious shapes, with its upward  shape representing a tree. The square represents the grounding element of earth, and is considered the most beneficial shape for building houses. But few houses are a perfectly even-shaped design

If your relationships are tired and money flies through your hands your house might just be the wrong color. Maybe life is a constant struggle and you can’t put your finger on the one small thing blocking your success. The answer could be as simple as the color on your house. Feng shui dictates that the paint color on your house can affect your wealth and abundance.

From the earliest fairy tales of genies and fairy godmothers, we all have wishes that we would love to see magically happen. Luckily in feng shui there is a wonderful technique for activating the energies associated with all of the usual aspirations that everyone wants: love, wealth, health, happiness, good fortune. It involves using gems and crystals, and when used correctly, can almost magically bring about anything you desire.

It happens to everyone. Your brakes go out, the air conditioner dies and your dog has to have surgery. When bad luck happens, it happens in threes, as the saying goes. And when that much happens all at once, it can take a toll on your finances. Suddenly, that darling pair of shoes goes away, and maybe you get behind on your rent or car payment. That’s when you need money fast, and feng shui can help!

Creating a healthy, energetic home or office relies on diligence. It’s much easier to let your home or office become cluttered and messy than it is to keep on top of papers, throw out old magazines, or otherwise dispose of the things that you no longer need, want, or use. For that reason, many people don’t bother with this kind of routine maintenance, and that’s what decluttering is: just another part of regular home maintenance. It’s easy to close the closet door or shut a jumbled drawer, but you know it’s there and every time you go to open that drawer or door, that mess is there waiting for you. Simply knowing it’s there and not going away can be a source of stress. That’s why regular cleaning — and decluttering — is so important.

When Napoleon Hill wrote “Think and Grow Rich” he concluded that a very important aspect in the process of gaining wealth was tied to sex. He said that “The emotion of sex contains the secret of creative ability.” This “seat of power” and the ability to create is uniquely tied to feng shui, too. What’s especially interesting about sex and money in feng shui is that the wealth sector is also associated with the number four.