Tilting the Universe for a Mirror

I’ve read Karen Kingston’s Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. Ms. Kingston was once a Professional Organizer, and early to bring this Eastern art to Western attention. NAPO Seattle Area, my chapter of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals, hosted Deni Luna to introduce us to its concepts. NAPO has a designated subspecialty of Feng Shui-influenced Organizers. I’ll thumb through the occasional magazine article, stop at a garden with a sign touting its Feng Shui layout, I’m collecting some more books. It always seems simple: arrange your possessions in a manner which reflects your needs, your personality, your space according to the protocols to keep household physical, emotional and mental energies in balance. Make sure you’ve got some plants somewhere, have some fun with color and shape, good to go.

But Katherine Metz, another deeply-learned Feng Shui practitioner, is teaching me that you can tilt the universe for a mirror: my words, and I acknowledge the symbolism may be ridiculously askew. We met through a business networking website, had coffee. I’ve signed up for her blog posts, some of which offer a chance to purchase audio recordings of lessons she conducts with current students. Curious, I bought a set about family relationships. I’m ignorant of the multiple traditions/schools propagating these customs, and have barely started accessing her lessons. So I can’t discern whether much of what we see in popular (Western) representations is Feng Shui Lite, or if Katherine’s authorities are particularly boundless. But I listened to her tapes in impatient, leaping wonder – again and again, I’d hear an observation, think “Hey, what if..?” and get an answer as if I’d asked the questions.  Naturopathy is an element of her branch’s discipline; yoga is a valuable instrument; intuition is to be honored; mindfulness is a treasured aspect of practice. Chaos theory made human.

Definitely much more than I hoped for, and beckoning to a new adventure.