THE FOUR ANIMAL HELPERS IN THE FENG SHUI (Part IV)

Red Phoenix, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, and Green Dragon, what a team! They could be all be surrounding your home, and if it is all four, you could be very fortunate!

EVALUATING THE QUALITY OF

THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

Identifying The Four Celestial Beings In An Urban Environment

Where are they? How do they look like?

As I had mentioned previously, in urban areas where most of us happen to live nowadays, the Four Celestial Beings, which are originally depicted as mountains and hills according to the old texts on the subject are, in such an environment, represented by manmade structures like buildings and even other architectural related features which also include very well elaborated, beautifully designed landscape.

So how to identify or even generate your own version (and still comply with the rules) of the four guardians when the manmade features surrounding your home are not the best candidates?

If you still remember the characteristics of the Celestial Beings, when it comes to color, Tiger is white, Dragon is green, Tortoise is black and Phoenix is red.

So, if you live in a city and you notice one of the immediate buildings in the right side of your property that is painted in white or naturally white in color due to its building material or even, for example, a building that has a white wall, that one could be your Tiger.

For the Dragon, a green color building or a building with tinted green glasses, even a building covered with climbing eras such as ivy or other climbing plants alike, or on another example, a building surrounded by green bushes or trees such as of the evergreen family, those are a few examples for the Green Dragon.

The Black Tortoise is the nearest building that is behind your property that is also taller than yours, however, to be ideal it must not be too close to it. So, if there is a space in between the both, that building and yours, it is considered highly desirable, as discussed on page 81 In a nutshell, the good and the bad about the four guardians.

The Red Phoenix is the immediate structure in front of the facing side of your property. To be considered a good heavenly guardian, it must be lower in height relative to your home, which means that it must not obstruct the view ahead of it.

What if the surrounding environment does not seem to be effective in providing good protection of the four guardians?

Since that, according to the Feng Shui, the Four Celestial Animals are the immediate buildings and sometimes even certain features surrounding your property in an urban environment, they do not always match the ideal qualities that will qualify them for the role of reliable guardian beings. This must not be a reason for discouragement especially if, for example, you are planning to buy an existing home or to build one in a location with such a scenario. Firstly, as I had mentioned before, in case not all four guardians are present except for one which happens to be in the back side of a property (Black Tortoise), this is to be viewed as a positive sign since its role is to offer support, however, remember that it must be a good Black Tortoise (see page 81) in order to be helpful. You can also “create” the four guardians by building fences and walls and also by planting trees, hedges, and bushes, depending on the needs, but this is just a way to remedy such a situation and the same way as using buildings in a city environment, although very helpful, will never be as effective as natural environmental features. Anyway, why not do it as an alternative if necessary?

For example, if you can’t find a Black Tortoise in the back side of your property, one of the best suggestions is to have trees planted along the back side of the house to play the role of that guardian.

If the Green Dragon is missing in the left side of the property, a row of bushes or small trees along the edge of that side will help.

To play the role of a missing White Tiger, a wall built of white stone or other similar material with that color along the right side of the property will solve the matter.

Lastly but not least, if a low, preferably shoulder height fence painted in a red-toned color or even a red brick wall of the same height is built along the edge of the front side of the property, it will play the role of the Red Phoenix.

As a reminder, I personally do not think that colors are as important as the positioning and size of the various features “created” to play the role of the four guardians around the property. Some Feng Shui practitioners believe that it is, but my idea is that the correct height and location of those manmade features is what makes the difference.

Understanding what the Four Celestial Beings are in the teachings of Feng Shui, the importance of each in a living environment either in a rural or urban area and how to identify all the four of them, is a good start when evaluating the quality of Qi in the surroundings of a property. However, this is just the beginning.

In the next section of this book, I am going to cover other very important aspects in the Feng Shui when evaluating the quality of Qi in an external environment and also in a property, being the property the “receiver” of the Qi. As you may already know by now Qi is, in other words, pure energy. Qi is a product of nature. More specifically, Qi is a result of the interaction between water and mountains, while buildings are simply containers of the Qi that was already circulating in their surroundings. Whatever Qi that is inside a property, it made its way in from the outside, and not the other way around. A house does not generate Qi, no matter what is said or done, but it can act as a “receiver” or even sometimes as a “blocker” of the good Qi surrounding it. Although the quality of Qi circulating outside of a property comes first in an overall Feng Shui analysis, it is important to mention that a house (a place where one dwells or does business in) plays an essential role in the harnessing of that Qi. This is done by aligning the interior of that building with the external features surrounding it.

And this is it, what the Four Celestial Animals in Feng Shui are about. Now look around your property and see if you can find them!

NOTE: This post is an excerpt from the book The Power Of Your Home (The external environment) and you can find it here.