News

Traditional Chinese Lunar New Year Celebrations

Posted on February 01, 2024 by Derelle Ball

Chinese Lunar New Year is a celebration steeped in tradition, symbolism, and the joyous spirit of new beginnings! This year we enter the Lunar Year of the Jia Chen/Wood Dragon on 10 February, marked by a New Moon in Aquarius connecting with the energy of change and encouraging us to being open to new ways of seeing and doing things. 

As the lunar calendar turns its page, families around the globe gear up for a spectacular feast of festivities and rituals that span days of preparation and culminate in joyous celebrations.

Join us as we embark on a journey through the days preceding and during Chinese New Year festivities, where cherished customs, delectable dishes, and heartfelt traditions weave a tapestry of cultural richness.

From the lively buzz of cleaning homes and decking them in red hues to the sumptuous Reunion Dinner and the crackling excitement of fireworks, each moment holds significance. So, let's dive into the heart-warming preparations, symbol-laden practices, and the jubilant reunions that make Chinese New Year such an enchanting tapestry of culture and renewal.  (Note: the solar new year of Jia Chen, governing the annual Feng Shui energy influences, began on 4 February).  

🧧🐉🏮

Preceding Days Leading up to Chinese Lunar New Year

Prepare Traditional Porridge (Làbāzhōu):

    • On the eighth day of the lunar month, prepare làbāzhōu, a traditional porridge served in remembrance of the festival called Là.
    • Serve the first bowl to ancestors and household deities, then distribute the porridge to family and friends.

Thorough Cleaning of Homes:

    • Several days before the New Year celebration, clean your home thoroughly to sweep away bad luck from the previous year.
    • Follow the Cantonese saying "Wash away the dirt on ninyabaat" and ensure a clean and welcoming environment for good luck.

Decoration and Red Painting:

    • Decorate homes with red paper cutouts of Chinese auspicious phrases and couplets.
    • Some may paint doors and window-frames with red paint for good luck.
    • Purchase new clothing and shoes and get a fresh haircut to symbolize a new beginning.

Settle Debts and Express Gratitude:

    • Businesses should pay off outstanding debts and express gratitude to associates and extended family by sending gifts and rice.

Cleaning of Altars and Sending Gods:

    • Clean home altars and statues thoroughly, replacing decorations from the previous year.
    • Taoists may "send gods," such as burning a paper effigy of the Kitchen God.

Thanksgiving Prayer Offering:

    • Conduct a thanksgiving prayer offering to mark the safe passage of the previous year.
    • Confucianists take the opportunity to remember and revere ancestors.

Reunion Dinner Preparation:

    • Prepare for the Reunion Dinner, the most significant event on Chinese New Year's Eve.
    • Consider serving a dish featuring fish for prosperity.

Cultural Practices:

    • In northern China, make dumplings after dinner, symbolizing wealth.
    • In the South, prepare a glutinous new year cake (niangao) as gifts for relatives and friends.

Countdown and Prayer at Temples:

    • Attend local temples hours before the new year begins for prayers or hold household parties with countdowns.
    • Traditionally, firecrackers were used to scare away evil spirits.

 

*First Day of the Lunar New Year*

Welcoming Deities:

    • Welcome deities of the heavens and earth officially at midnight with fireworks and firecrackers.
    • Abstain from meat consumption for longevity.

Honouring Elders:

    • Honour elders by visiting parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
    • Avoid using brooms, and consider it bad luck to do so.

Symbolic Rituals:

    • Invite a lion dance troupe for symbolic rituals.
    • Married family members give red packets (lai see or angpow) to junior members for blessings.

Fireworks and Firecracker Alternatives:

    • In areas where fireworks are banned, enjoy large-scale fireworks displays organized by city governments.

Second Day of the Lunar New Year

Visiting Birth Parents:

    • Married daughters visit their birth parents, relatives, and close friends.
    • Householders reward messengers with "lucky money."

Business Prayers:

    • Business people, especially of the Cantonese dialect group, hold a 'Hoi Nin' prayer for good luck and prosperity.

Third Day of the Lunar New Year

Chìkǒu (赤口):

    • Also known as Chìgǒurì, avoid socializing and visiting relatives and friends.
    • Rural villagers continue the tradition of offering prayers beside burning rubbish dumps.

Temple Visits:

    • Consider visiting the temple of the God of Wealth and have one's future told.

Fourth Day of the Lunar New Year

Corporate Spring Dinners:

    • In communities celebrating for only two or three days, corporate "spring dinners" kick off, and business returns to normal.

Fifth Day of the Lunar New Year

God of Wealth's Birthday:

    • In northern Mainland China, eat dumplings on Pòwǔ (破五).
    • Businesses traditionally re-open on the sixth day with firecrackers.

Firecrackers for Guan Yu:

    • Shoot off firecrackers on the 5th day to get Guan Yu's attention for good fortune.

Seventh Day of the Lunar New Year

Rénrì (人日):

    • Celebrate the common man's birthday.
    • In Southeast Asia, eat yusheng for continued wealth and prosperity.
    • For Chinese Buddhists, it's a day to avoid meat.

Eighth Day of the Lunar New Year

Celebration for Jade Emperor's Eve:

    • Another family dinner is held to celebrate the eve of the Jade Emperor's birth.
    • Government agencies and businesses stop celebrating by the eighth day.

Ninth Day of the Lunar New Year

Prayers to Jade Emperor:

    • Offer prayers to the Jade Emperor of Heaven in the Daoist Pantheon.
    • Important for Hokkiens, with offerings such as sugarcane to express gratitude.

Tenth Day of the Lunar New Year

Continuation of Jade Emperor's Celebration:

    • Continue celebrations for the Jade Emperor's party.

Thirteenth Day of the Lunar New Year

Vegetarian Food Day:

    • Eat pure vegetarian food to cleanse the stomach after two weeks of festive eating.
    • Dedicated to General Guan Yu, the Chinese God of War.

Fifteenth Day of the Lunar New Year

Yuanxiao Festival/Lantern Festival:

    • Celebrate with tangyuan, sweet glutinous rice balls.
    • Light candles to guide spirits home.
    • In Malaysia and Singapore, individuals seek love partners in a tradition similar to Valentine's Day.
    • Marks the end of Chinese New Year festivities.

Fostering Positive Habits during the Jia Chen/Wood Dragon Solar Year

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Derelle Ball

“Both success and failure are largely the results of habit!”

- Napoleon Hill -

During the solar year of the Jia Chen/Wood Dragon (from 4 Feb 2024 until 3 Feb 2025) anyone with Chen/Dragon present in their personal 4 Pillars Birth Chart will experience the energy of self-penalty.  This is where the presence of 2 or more Dragons increases the probability of the individual impulsively choosing to say or do something that may be detrimental to their health and/or wellbeing, most likely in the form of a new habit.  Of course, you also have the option to use the Dragon energy productively by purposely choosing to initiate and commit to beneficial and positive habits throughout the year.

If you’d like to check whether or not you have Chen/Dragon present in your 4 Pillars Birth Chart, please visit this article:

https://centaineconsultants.com.au/blogs/news/what-is-my-4-pillars-birth-chart

Did you know that more than 40% of the actions you take every day are not actual decisions, but subconsciously driven habits? 

A habit is basically a series of choices you consciously make at some point in time and then stop thinking about as you continue to enact them subconsciously in your daily life.

Habits are made up of patterns of behaviour that become routine and relate to all sorts of things such as your relationship with food and exercise, your work ethic, your relationship with money, your personal and professional goals, how you relate to yourself and the people around you.

The basal ganglia is part of the brain that stores habits and helps convert a series of actions into an automatic routine response.  Remember the first driving lessen you ever had?  Over time, your brain takes note of repeated actions needed to get from point A to point B in your car, and many of the actions become habitual and take less conscious thought processes to achieve.  Your brain has effectively mapped an express pathway of neurological activity enabling you to subconsciously follow many of the routine procedures connected to driving.

Habits are the brain’s way of recognising repeated patterns of action and behaviour that become a routine leading to a known result.  Certain cues or triggers let the brain know which pattern of behaviour is most efficient along the pathway to the end result.

This is great if you have developed a positive habit that supports your health and wellbeing, however can create issues if you have developed a negative habit (pattern of behaviour) you now wish to break. 

Examples of negative habits to avoid:

  • Living beyond your means
  • Negative self talk
  • Holding onto a negative relationship
  • Making purchases via buy now pay later (BNPL) schemes
  • Impulsively speaking/reacting before checking your facts
  • Adopting an unhealthy food, drug, alcohol or non-exercise related habit

In order to create a new habit, you first need a fixed end result you are aiming to achieve.  It may be in relation to wanting to achieve a certain feeling or to achieve a noticeable change in your body or an educational goal, a financial goal, a relationship or communication goal and so on.  Whatever the goal or end result is, you first need to know exactly what it is.  The next step is to consciously consider the practical steps you need to take in order to achieve your goal.  It also helps to give the goal a time limit – whether it’s wanting to achieve a certain outcome within a week, a month, a year and so on.

During the process of forming a new habit, your brain will respond to repeated patterns of action/behaviour you commit to following in regard to your specific goal and it will look for cues to let it know its on the right track.  A handy trick is to first visualise how you will feel once you have achieved your goal, then commit to the process and stay focused on the end goal and the steps and time frame needed in order to transform your goal into a reality.  It helps to have visual and/or written cues and reminders around you to help maintain focus on the end goal.  This is where vision boards or keeping a diary can come in handy.  It can also help to seek other people and groups who have already achieved what you are aiming for and enhance your experience via the inspiration and motivation gained by hearing and seeing what they have achieved. 

These days, there is a Facebook Group and podcasts out there on just about every topic you could possibly imagine, and it takes very little effort to search for a group of like-minded individuals who can help support, inspire and motivate you towards your goals.

If at this point you are feeling keen to begin a new habit with a specific goal in mind, I recommend you familiarise yourself with the S.M.A.R.T goals system for fine tuning the steps that need to be taken.

In the world of marketing there is a Rule of 7 which says a prospective client needs to ‘hear’ and/or ‘see’ the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they will consider the product worthwhile purchasing.  Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have taken this concept to a whole new level by bombarding us regularly with information and images targeting your search history and purchase history profile. 

You can use this concept in regard to forming a positive new habit, by committing to following certain actions and routine patterns of behaviour over the next 2 months that you know are needed in order to achieve your goal. 

So, if you happen to have Chen/Dragon showing somewhere in your chart, embrace the Jia Chen/Wood Dragon solar year as an opportunity to break free from detrimental habits and cultivate positive ones. By understanding the science of habits, setting clear goals, visualizing success, and seeking community support, individuals with Chen/Dragon in their 4 Pillars Birth Chart can navigate this period with self-awareness and resilience, ultimately fostering personal growth and well-being.

Australian Feng Shui Master/Consultant, Derelle Ball can help you enhance the health, wealth and nurturing Feng Shui potential of your home with a detailed user-friendly Feng Shui Report.  For further information click: Off-Site Residential Feng Shui Consultation.  

Feng Shui Tips for Property Investors

Posted on November 14, 2023 by Derelle Ball

The world of property investing is vast and the emphasis these days, when it comes to property investing, is to have a 10+ year plan in place because (generally speaking) property has the potential to double in value every 7-15 years via capital growth, especially if you concentrate on investing in low supply, high demand areas with good rental return, demographics and new infrastructure and/or an area undergoing gentrification. 

Depending on your age and stage in life, you can leverage off your initial deposit and purchase costs via weekly tax back strategies to lower negative gearing costs, investing in brand new builds for full depreciation tax benefits, dual key occupancies or room-by-room rental options for higher rental return and manufactured growth through renovating, adding a granny flat, strata, subdividing and so on, which can help the investor to access enough rental income to cover a significant amount of the mortgage cost, management fee and other associated costs.

Nobody wants to buy a rogue property! This is the sort of property that appears fine on the outside, yet for some inexplicable reason, the tenants keep damaging the property and/or experiencing unexpected chronic health issues and/or financial hardship which forces them to prematurely end the lease and move out. This is exactly what the savvy property investor wants to avoid. An empty property costs them money, and the longer it is empty, the more strain they will feel on their finances.

So, having a regular rental income flowing in from happy, healthy and financially secure tenants is important for making a long term investment in property work successfully for the property investor and this is where the application of classical Xuan Kong Feng Shui can help (alongside having a great property manager ;-)

There are certain indicators from a Feng Shui perspective if a particular property is more likely to be a problem, simply from the compass orientation of the building itself. Within the 360 degrees of the compass there are certain orientations that increase the probability of issues due to blockage and confusion of qi.

Now if you’re wondering what ‘qi’ is, the closest definition to describe it (to someone totally unfamiliar with Feng Shui and metaphysics in general) is transformative energy. It is the energy that connects and has the potential to transform all living and organic things (whether it’s a person, a thought, an animal, mountain, river, mist, tree or rock) and it flows according to magnetic pathways within and above the earth as well as within meridian pathways inside your body.

The quality and character of qi as it affects a particular building can be analysed via the surrounding landform, the construction/renovation history of the building and the precise compass orientation of the building itself.

The application of Xuan Kong Fei Xing/Flying Star Feng Shui in conjunction with analysing the effect of the surrounding landform allows me to assess potential issues that may be more likely to crop up for the tenants.   For example there are some energy combinations that indicate a much higher probability of theft in a particular location of a property. I recently did the Feng Shui for a home where this energy was very high in the client’s garage. She had only moved in a year earlier and I asked her, “so what was stolen out of your garage?” She was gobsmacked and asked how on earth did I know about that? I explained it was the combination of location, surrounding landform and the Fei Xing that indicated a triptych effect of probability.

What I have found over the years is that when the probability of the Fei Xing is heightened by the annual energy also affecting the location plus the surrounding landform supports this effect – BINGO the event usually ends up occurring UNLESS you are aware of the probability and take the necessary steps to reduce its effect.

When looking at the investment potential of a commercial property, the application of Xuan Kong Feng Shui allows me to ascertain the type of clientele who would be more attracted to and better supported by the qi generated at the main entry to the business. In some cases, the energy may only suit a business specifically dealing in the health industry (ie pharmacy, medical practitioners and specialists etc) while for everyone else, the energy may continually and significantly drain the finances of the business.

This knowledge is particularly handy when targeting your market for advertising, constructing or renovating business premises.

Sometimes, the process of renovating a business can dramatically alter the effect of the qi and I can tell you before-hand, what this effect will be, how it will affect the main entry and how to make the most of it in regard to your targeted future rental clientele.

Now some of you may be familiar with generalised concepts such as a fixed bagua map or compass map that asserts the SE sector and/or far left corner of a building automatically corresponds to the ‘wealth’ sector and thus needs a water feature and/or a ‘money plant’ to activate the wealth qi. This is a form of new age feng shui that was invented in America in the late 1970’s and it unfortunately has very little to do with authentic Xuan Kong Feng Shui.

Since beginning my professional Feng Shui consulting business in 2000, I have lost count of the number of homes and business’ I have come across that have experienced significant financial and/or health loss due to the naïve application of this process – ie adding a large water feature to the SE sector and/or far left hand corner of their home or property. The truth is, if it was really so very easy, surely EVERYONE would be millionaires by now!

Anyway, another handy tool Xuan Kong Feng Shui can provide the savvy property investor is Date Selection. Now this in itself ranges in complexity from simple 12 Day Officer and Dong Gong processes to the more advanced 4 Pillars, Xuan Kong Da Gua and Qi Men Dun Jia applications. Yes, some dates are deemed much better than others for signing contracts, starting your construction and renovations, meeting with your bank manager and potential joint venture partners and so on.

Wouldn’t you like to have probability on your side when embarking on your property investment journey?

For those of you interested in property investing, here are some links to get you started:

Dymphna Boholt, Steve McNight High Yield Property Club Freedom Property InvestorsGeorge Markoski, Nathan Birch

And finally, here are some things I've personally learnt along the way:

Dellie’s Golden Rules for Financial Empowerment

The most important investment you can make is in yourself via education and mindset.  Self Development has never been more accessible via YouTube, podcasts, TED Talks, Facebook groups, kindle books, online articles, webinars and Generative AI to polish your professional persona and find exactly what you are searching for.  Learn from the real-life experience and perspectives of others.

Declutter mentally and externally.  Your external environment is an indicator of what is going on in your head.  If you are surrounded by piles of stuff in your bedroom, office, shed and/or living area, you are hoarding and procrastinating your life away.  Time to clear the clutter and make room for new opportunity.

There is no secret trick, symbolic object or repetitive mantra to getting rich quick.  Financial Empowerment begins with 'owning your shit'.  Acknowledging and taking responsibility for your current financial predicament and spending/savings habits are the first vital steps. 

That being said, from a Feng Shui perspective I can help you locate where energy connected with abundance opportunity enters your home, business and property and how to activate and potentially accumulate this energy, depending on the usage of the space and the effect of the surrounding landform.  However, it is still completely up to you whether or not you choose to take action on my Feng Shui recommendations and how you combine your education and self discipline in order to make productive use of this energy. 

Luck = Labour Under Correct Knowledge 

Be prepared to get out of your comfort zone.  In order to facilitate change you must be prepared to change.

Surround yourself with motivating individuals who have already achieved their own Financial Empowerment and are achieving goals that align with your own personal aspirations. 

Work smarter not harder using SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Aligning these parameters to your goals helps transform your dreams into reality via attainable objectives within a certain time frame.

Be disciplined with your monthly budget and ensure you allow for accumulated expenses (ie bills that are due fortnightly, monthly, bi-annually or yearly).

Learn about leveraging and compound interest. What would you prefer: $1 Million or 1 Cent that Doubles Each Day for 30 Days?  If your answer was $1 Million, you should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDkbMsakoEk

Educate yourself on the difference between good debt and bad debt.  A really simple way of looking at it is: Bad Debt costs you money while Good Debt makes you money, and remember, cashflow is king (ie if you invest in an asset that consistently makes you money, then this can be considered Good Debt). 

    Australian Feng Shui Master Consultant, Derelle Ball can help you enhance the health, wealth and nurturing Feng Shui potential of your home with a detailed user-friendly Feng Shui Report.  For further information visit: Off-Site Residential Feng Shui Consultation.  

    Posted in 2015 Feng Shui & Astrology Tips, Classical Feng Shui, Feng Shui for Property Investors, feng shui wealth

    Debunking Feng Shui Myths: Why the SE Corner Isn’t Necessarily Your 'Wealth' Location

    Posted on October 04, 2023 by Derelle Ball

    Have you ever been told to place a water feature in the Southeast corner of your home to attract wealth luck? This piece of advice is common for those starting their exploration into Feng Shui, however this advice is also misleading and can potentially attract financial misfortune instead.

    Continue Reading →

    Period of 9 from a Feng Shui and Pragmatic Perspective

    Posted on September 04, 2023 by Derelle Ball

    This article discusses the underlying trends for Period of 9, which homes potentially have the ruling water star 9 abundance qi locked in the centre and ways in which you can start preparing for this transition from Period of 8 to Period of 9.

    Continue Reading →

    1 2 3 6 Next »

    Recent Articles

    Tags