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As a Feng Shui consultant, most of the time I see clients and visit properties in a full 'consultant regalia' - long sleeve shirt, tie, leather shoes and sometimes a business jacket. Even when I'm visiting a construction site or a memorial park, I feel more comfortable in my normal consultants' attire. But there comes a time (or a few times) in every Feng Shui consultant's life, when roughing it out is required. And this was the case last week, when I was in India to follow up on a consultation engagement in a rural part of India.
The location of the consultation was the outskirts of Ranchi, which is about 4 hours by train from Calcutta. The actual site is a further 3 hours from Ranchi itself. Now, I am used to rural areas because I frequently have to visit such areas in China to do research for my China Excursions with my students. But these rural areas in India are a lot more rural than rural China. We are talking about trekking country - we are talking about places where the roads are mud passages - we are talking about places where there isn't a village in sight for miles!
A Land Rover was provided for us to traverse the audit site, which covers 12,000 acres of virgin land. We were supplied a map but as we soon discovered, the map was seriously outdated. Many of the cartographic markings were off, such as the location of the river. So, I was going to have to do this consultation, much like the traditional Feng Shui masters of the ancient times. Except thankfully, I wouldn't have to do it on horseback or on foot. A Rover and our driver, together with our client's representatives, would transport me and my assistants around.
Normally for such a large site, I request for expediency and speed, that the client arranges a helicopter sweep of the area as was the case during my last visit to a similar area on another consultation about 1 year ago. An aerial perspective usually makes things faster although the approach to sighting the Landforms (Luan Tou) is different and requires you to picture the Forms differently because you're viewing them from an above perspective. However, as it is the height of monsoon season now in India, a helicopter ride is not feasible (although for the 2 days I was surveying the site, it didn't rain a drop! I was thankful I selected a good date for this expedition).
Start at X
With 12,000 acres of land, we were to select a suitable location in which to build a power plant. To get an idea of how big this site is, the average American football NFL field is 1.322 acres. The site is big enough to house 9077 American football fields! It took us the better part of 4 days to survey the entire area. And then there is the question of how one actually begins to audit such a large plot of land. There is no "X marks the spot" on the map we were given.
The Snow Heart Classics (Xue Xin Fu) has a saying "Look for the Water Mouth When Entering the Mountains, Seek the Bright Hall when you have reached the Meridian Spot" (Ru Shan Xun Shui Kou, Deng Xue Kan Ming Tang).. So first, I would have to find the Water Mouth.
After hours of driving around, I noticed two distinct mountains that caught my attention. They looked like two lions, looking at something in the distance. In the Classics, there is a line about a land formation called 'Great Beasts Facing the Meridian Spot'(Shou Dun Xiang Xue). Aha - we were finally onto something.
So off we went to look for what the mountain lions were looking at, which were two hills in the distance. I was sure we would find the Water Mouth there; even though there was nothing marked on the map to indicate the presence of water. Sure enough, as we reached the hills (after ploughing through some serious secondary jungle and very rough terrain), we found a stream. It was unmarked on the map as it was not a major river. The two Beasts were in fact the "Guardians of the Water Mouth" (Shui Kou Sha), when viewed from the location of the stream.
Now, once we have found water, we have found the Qi mouth. The Meridian Spot or Long Xue had to be not too far away. Immediately I looked around, again using the line of sight of the Water Mouth Guardians, and there it was, the Dragon Vein coming from a Rewards Star (Lu Chun) mountain that could only be perceived from the Water Mouth location. So off we went to the Vein to check out the quality of the vein and see if it was suitable for the client's needs. This required actual trekking through muddy ground.
At the vein, it was a sight to behold indeed. It is hard to imagine that deep in the rural heartland of India, one can see such incredible Feng Shui. The incoming Dragon Vein was at Geng Direction, with good penetration(Chuan Shan Long) into the land. It was supported by two Mountains - an Earth Door (Di Sha) and Heavenly Bright (Tian Guang) Mountains as the greater embrace.
The land itself is a Bowl Formation, which is a gently dipping area, perfect for gathering Qi. There was a Huge Door Mountain (Ju Men Xing) indicating good wealth prospects and excellent expansion and growth opportunities. Opposite, there was a beautiful Ru Yi Table Mountain (Ru Yi An Shan), which is also called the "Lying Down Wood Table Mountain." This serves to lock in the Qi and enable it to be tapped. Coupled with the Guardians in the distance, to lock the Water Mouth, this site was looking really good.
The icing on the cake is that this site didn't just have good Feng Shui. The purpose of our expedition was to find a site suitable for building a power plant. This is a Fire element site. The Ru Yi is a Wood Element and the supporting rear mountain is an Earth element. Wood grows Fire, Fire produces Earth - this site could not be any more perfect for our client's needs. The natural formation must support the building and its function. This is the correct Feng Shui setup.
Of course, the project has a long way to go. As the client has control over every aspect of development on this land, including the location of the roads, entry points and building location, he will be able to plan the development to optimize the Feng Shui all the way. There will be date selections to be done for the ground breaking and also, the opening of the plant. It's a long way to go. But the toughest part, the most fun and challenging part, playing Hide and Seek with the Dragon, has been done.
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