The Chinese have a concept called ling, which means divine state. The Chinese character for ling is composed of rain, drops falling from heaven, while two priestesses performing a ritual dance to effect changes in nature. The Taoist sages used rituals that raised their vibratory level to create changes in the world, which they called alchemy. The rituals and practices of The Way can similarly connect the spark of the Divine within you to the spirit of the Divine without, which will align you with the will of heaven and create the appropriate context through which change can occur.
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| How To Determine Fertility |
I call these practices or actions "feng shui-ing" your life. You may already be familiar with feng shui, the ancient Chinese practice for maximizing the eight vital areas, or baguas, of your living environment. The practices I've developed align with those principles, working to attract positive life energy and keep it flowing and unblocked, so that you can live comfortably and naturally.
Just as there are eight vital areas in your home, there are eight vital energy areas of your life that form a circular path and are as important as the vital energy areas of your environment. The love area of your home is as important as the love actions in your life and the money area of your home is as important as your inner sense of value and worth. And just as you use feng shui to align furniture and spaces in your home for maximum energy flow and effect, we will use it here to align your actions for the most positive outcome, based on your individual characteristics. How To Determine Fertility
When you place yourself in the empty center - your true self; nothing added, nothing taken away, looking out at the world around you - you will see its goodness and how its elements care for you. Note that when you are in the center, you face the direction where the sun shines most brightly (the south), with the energies of emergence (the sunrise) to your left and the energies of return (sunset) to your right. Your water or source energies are to the north, behind you, forming your base of support.
The numbers, going clockwise from Water to Heaven, represent the trigrams presented in the octagonal bagua life compass presented in the I Ching. When life isn't moving along easily, and we have relationship, work life, or personal difficulties, the path might look very different.
When you feel difficulty in any of these areas in your life, don't reach for a quick external solution; contemplate the higher energy for this same area. For example, when I have difficulty in a particular area, before I take any action, I go to the circular meditation garden in my backyard. I face the direction of the particular bagua so its answer can be revealed. For example, if I am feeling rigid and uptight about something, I sit and meditate facing southeast and focus on the winds of change, seeing what needs to be changed in me and my response. To use this technique, try to consider the root of whatever is bothering you.
Does it feel more about fear or impatience? Are you feeling like a victim? Or powerless? Are those feelings coming from an actual threat, or just worry over something not wanted? In other words, something that's not real?
When you have located the area of blocked energy in your life, you can learn the answer to the problem by using the Path of Answers below to shift your energetic response to the situation. Move along the path, reflect on the problem, and then find the inner wisdom that leads you to the answer to your predicament. As Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
The Path of Answers
This method could be considered the Tao of troubleshooting problem areas in your life circumstances. It is not a salve simply to make you feel better, or an outer directive derived from experience. The Path of Answers leads you inward toward your own wisdom, reminding you that you already have all the answers you are seeking. Find the area that most represents the problem you have in your life, and compare it with the solution. How To Determine Fertility
This takes you from the lower contracted state to a state where your energy is freed to find the solution within. This brings us to the Chinese concept of wu wei: doing without doing. There is nothing to force; only reflect, find the inner stillness, and let your own answers emerge.
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| How To Determine Fertility |
Fear
You may remember that fear and timidity are symptoms of blocked water energies. When you feel paralyzed by fear, you need to go deep within to where your water element resides and find those aspects of yourself that are scaring you. The depth is called the nadir, the lowest point, opposite the zenith on a celestial body. Instead of turning away from the fear or trying to hide it, as most people tend to do, the answer is to go within and, with gentleness, find your eternal source of strength.
That eternal source will provide you with what you need to know and enable you to live from your true nature. When my life goes through changes and I begin to experience fear of what my life will look like in the unknown, I meditate within, look at what I'm really afraid of (which is often simply fear of the unknown), and gently remind myself of my original nature - that I have all I need. No change need have power over me. To learn more, you can check out How To Determine Fertility.
