Now that we are beyond 2004, a new twenty year construction cycle (2004-2023), I have been receiving emails from people in a panic about their houses that were built in the last twenty year cycle (1984-2003) or a home that is even older. This panic is usually totally unwarranted, but has been generated by some famous feng shui practitioners who have a history of dispensing very bad advice. Not everyone reading this article will understand the technical points and it requires some familiarity with the Flying Star School of Feng Shui, but in concept, I hope everyone can appreciate why I am writing one of the most important articles I’ve ever written.
The major points I will cover in this article are: 1.It is not necessary to try to change a Period 7 House into a Period 8 House. 2.There are counter-measures and feng shui remedies that you can apply to your existing house in lieu of drastic remodeling. 3.Changing the cycle of your house to Period 8 could make it a bad house. (In other words, new isn’t always better.) 4.Only a radical remodel would change the cycle of the house anyway.
NOT NECESSARY If you have learned that the Flying Star -7- returned to being more of a negative influence after 2004, you are correct, but I can say with confidence that it did not turn negative at the stroke of midnight on February 4, 2004. As well, entire houses built during the Period 7 cycle (1984-2003) did not turn bad over night. The goodness of the actual 7 energy (wherever it is in your house, and it exists in every house no matter when the house was built) will fade over time. Five to ten years might be a more appropriate -shelf life.- This is true for the 7 flying star in all houses, not just the ones built in Period 7 (1984-2003). Also, keep in mind that no flying star functions on its own. It has to be coupled with another star and those combinations can have drastically different impacts.
REMEDIES If you are worried about the flying star 7 in your house contributing to betrayals, violence or theft, then you can weaken this flying star 7 with water. The 7-Tui trigram is inherently metal and metal is always weakened with water. This is the reductive cycle at work and it is the most gentle way to correct the problem. The same Feng Shui personality who is upsetting people out about the 7 star is also telling readers to -destroy it with fire.- The Reductive cycle is usually preferable to the Destructive cycle, so I would disagree with this advice as well, except in specific circumstances that require more studious training.
WHAT IF YOU WANT TO GO AHEAD AND CHANGE THE CYCLE? Changing the cycle of your house is a major undertaking that few people are willing or able to do. But if you did, what are you trading it in for? You could be creating a monster! Example: I used to live in a southwest facing Period 7 home, with an entrance in the NE and an office in the South. The flying stars at the door were 7-7 and in the office they were 6-8. These are major money numbers and I tripled my income in this house. Now, if I had the capability of turning that same Southwest-facing house into a Period 8 house, the office would become 6-9 (not nearly as good) and it would have replaced a 1-4 combination in the center for 2-5. (The 1-4 energy is still supportive of creative people, especially writers, while the 2-5 energy means there is potential for arguments and accidents.) For a variety of reasons, Flying Star practitioners should universally agree that this would be a less desirable house and not appropriate to try to change. There are loads of other examples, whereby changing your house into a newer cycle would make it worse.
HOW CAN YOU CHANGE THE CYCLE OF YOUR HOUSE ANYWAY? The same bad sources that advocate changing the cycle of your house from Period 7 to Period 8 are also misleading people to think that they can do this by changing the carpeting, installing a new door, or replacing the plaster ceiling. Another suggests moving out of your house for three months and then moving back in or removing -3 tiles- from the roof of your house. None of these symbolic gestures will work in my opinion.
If you really want to change the cycle of your house, you have to rip away a major part of your ceiling AND roof and expose the interiors and foundation of your house to the sky. You would have to do a major renovation where you practically gutted your house in order to have the original energy escape the house and have a new energy pattern enter. There are some people who think that you can change the -birth year- or cycle of your house by creating an extremely large skylight in the center of the house, but I have my reservations about that one also. So, you can see that changing the cycle of your house is a serious undertaking that would cost thousands of dollars and should only be done if you know for sure that you will be creating a better house because of it.
Kartar Diamond is a classically trained Feng Shui Master, based in Los Angeles. You can visit Kartar’s website for more information, books, e-books, a DVD and other learning tools. http://www.FengShuiSolutions.net