Occasionally, I write a story about my experience on the beach, where the improvisational theater is fabulous…. Enjoy!

Alpha One

Grandfather gull surveys the beach from the air and lands to join ten of his brethren. They form a loose circle around a little boy sitting on a pile of cobbles eating pizza. Inching closer, they tighten their circle while the boy sits quietly and watches them. He chews each bite thoroughly, upholding the Golden Gull Rule. Don’t give them food and they will remain civil. Grandfather gull’s thinning head of feathers makes him easily identifiable amongst his clan. They step forward then backward in their two-step gull dance; mine, mine, mine. The boy finishes his meal and returns to his family picnicking some distance away, leaving the gulls to check for crumbs.

The camp of picnickers includes 8 young teenaged boys. They are a tribe, a gaggle, a clan with a distinct pecking order. Alpha One is beautiful like a girl with all the mannerisms of a boy. Androgynous, he tosses his long sun-streaked hair and rules with a cool tone and flashing smile. He focuses on one boy in the clan and ignores the others. Those he ignores vie for his attention by copying his every move – the way he shifts his towel on his shoulders, the cock of his head – they are visual echoes of their leader. The boy he attends to ignores the others too. They are a clan of 2 “haves” and 6 “have-nots” looking for something to do.

They wander over to the pile of cobbles where pizza boy sat with the gulls. Alpha Two surprises everyone by introducing a game. He is assertive and ready to rule. His game is to throw a cobble as hard as possible to make something interesting happen. He demonstrates by slamming a rock into the pile and shattering another. Pieces of stone shrapnel fly, exciting everyone but Alpha One. Rocks start to explode. Between throws, the boys slap and kick each other, holding their towels up so as not to get hit by flying shards of rock. Alpha One acts disinterested, and then joins in. Their game escalates as cobbles are slammed into the pile with increasing speed and enthusiasm. The sound is like heavy hail, attracting the attention of one of their mothers who, with a couple of threatening shouts, quickly brings the game to a halt.

The clan slinks back to camp, kicking sand. Alpha Two veers off and chases a flock of gulls with his towel. All the have-nots follow suit. The gulls whirl away as Alpha One considers the scene, his clan now under the rule of another.  He flips his hair out of his eyes and grabs a piece of pizza, throwing pieces of it into the air. The gulls return with gusto, screeching and circling around him. The rest of the boys grab pizza and rip it into bite-sized pieces, throwing them as high as they can into the air churning with birds. Rocks beating the earth become manna thrown to the heavens. The sun dives headlong into the ocean, Alpha One reclaims his clan, and grandfather gull grabs his piece of the pie.

Dear ones!

This is REALLY EXCITING  STUFF! And a very short video on Solar roadways! 

http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/2010/061810.htm

My Dear Kindreds,

It's been over a month since I began my walk-about by celebrating my beloved friend Jackee's birthday in Guerneville, Ca., which was To Live For. Since then, I've had a heaven-on-earth journey with a steady stream of extraordinary moments, including visits with friends in California, Oregon, and Washington. You'll find more details about my journey, below, if you are interested.

I return to San Diego in September and will stay in Point Loma with MaryLou through November to conduct a Feng Shui training and help her during her 2nd knee replacement recovery.  Then, I am open to Madame Mystery's direction… 

I'm writing another book and look forward to settling in somewhere for a year or so to complete it. Where is that somewhere? 

I'm open to caretaking a home that requires tender loving care while the owners are off on their own adventures. It's a bit startling to realize that I am not geographically restricted. Such a home could be just about anywhere!

In the spirit of synchronicity, you may know or learn of such a situation and think of me. I am open! You can connect with me by emailing information@wsfscom. 

I deeply appreciate our Circle of Belonging and send you my Lovelovelove,

Terah

My travels have been indelibly colored by extraordinary people and places. They include….

* Bharti and Kovida in their beautiful new home north of San Francisco, Ca. We hung out together, had many wonderful conversations, and feasted on the beyond-delicious biodynamic fruits and vegetables from a neighbor's 14 acre farm. The invitation to share in the bounty of the farm is a blessing their neighbor offers to all those who live around him and the feeling of such abundant generosity is astonishing!  They also lovingly focused their healing attention on my wounded left knee (I'd fallen off a rock about a month before, and feel eternally blessed that it was only my knee that was injured).  Thanks to Kovida's acupuncture and Bharti's massage treatments, my knee is strong again.  

* My Dragon soul-sister and Feng Shui colleague Karen in northern California's redwood country. After 14 years of working together, we finally had the time and space to relax into long, deep conversations that ranged from Feng Shui education to crop circles and Facebook. We spent 3 days in Jedediah Smith old growth redwood reserve, hiking and camping with Karen's lifelong friends from Switzerland. The forest majesty was of such a magnitude I was in tears much of the time… the kind of tears that leap from the heart in response to the sheer presence of so many ancient redwoods….  

* My beloved friend MaryLou in her hillside Oregon home. We frolicked with her son Tony, wife Tillie, 8 year old Franchesca, and year old Luciano, enjoying the sweet antics of naked children playing with a running hose. O, the simple pleasures! I also enjoyed one of my favorite gardens in the world, Ashland's Lithia Park, where a dancing creek laced with feel-good lithium flows. Ashland is blessed for many reasons, including the lithium spring water drinking fountain in the center of town that offers fizzy, dizzying water to everyone…. 

* My longtime friend, Dianne and her husband Randy in the Columbia Gorge, Wa. I met Dianne when we were each traveling alone in Columbia, S.A. in the early '70s. We became fast friends, had many wild adventures together, and eventually slipped out of each other's lives. After more than 20 years, I reconnected with her when I suddenly realized she was responsible for my entire adult life. She had introduced me to my first husband, and from that meeting my most significant relationships have unfolded. This time, instead of backpacking through a some distant land, we spent our time lounging around, wine-tasting, hiking through cedar forests, and co-creating beautiful meals in her home overlooking Mount Hood. Oh My!  

* Steve, MaryLou's Significant Other, who lives under the benevolent watch of snow-covered Mount Rainier in one of those log homes that the artist Kinkaid would love to paint. Both home and field-and-forest setting are archetypally beautiful. A herd of sixteen buffalo roam between Steve's property and a neighbor's, huge dark chocolate animals with their distinctive profile and curious love to run for no apparent reason. We watched deer stand on their back legs to reach the wild apples ripening along the edge of the forest.  Near the house, a fenced garden includes cherry and apple trees, golden black-eyed Susans, blueberries, and herbs. During my visit, Steve organized an intimate gathering of his friends to discuss Feng Shui and my new book The Three Sisters of the Tao, an evening of deeply nurturing conversation that filled us all with an ever-growing sense of community.  

Back in Oregon, I am now alone for the first time in a month, soaking up the space for introspection. It has felt so good to be with my beloveds and now it feels so good to be alone… Inhalation and exhalation, both necessary in a balanced life… I have treasured and am very grateful for every moment with these extraordinary people and I now treasure being able to reminisce and deeply assimilate such richnesss…. It's all good….

May we all ways enjoy the journey…

Terah

 

 

COLOR–What to do about all the little discrepancies of interpretation among Feng Shui teachings?   I've seen many a Feng Shui author call bright blue or yellow a Fire color, when my opinion classifies those as Wood and Earth, respectively.  Are those authors actually responding to the way that color makes them FEEL in an environment, and could it just be that ANY very BOLD color (read YANG) makes them sense it's "in your face" quality, which is so like the radiating outward movement of classical Fire element?  And then there are those traditional directional associations of color in compass school that seem so abstract and rigid.  In truth, I have never found any one book that gives me a satisfactory layout of color and its effects on people…I think the best way to gain that knowledge is to research several sources, and just continue to synthesize your own gut feelings about them. And distill your language about color to its essentials, to discover what impact a color is possibly having on a deeper level.
I HAVE found that a study of the 5 Elements has been my best teacher, as well as simply observing how different colors affect my moods and body awareness. For that reason, many of the color interpretations in books ALWAYS seem to have at least one or two color beliefs that contradict my own feelings about them…I think, therefore, that we EACH HAVE OUR OWN RESPONSES TO EVERY COLOR that are a direct result of our state of being in the moment…which chakras are needing clearing, which light wavelengths are most useful to us at the moment, etc.  I suspect that each of us even SEES a color differently from anyone else depending on the unique rods and cones in our eyes. We can find trends among colors, based on their emotional impact on the general public, but, you know, those trends will change significantly when you visit other cultures, which have other environmental influences causing them to need certain colors to balance them with their environment and society. And those balances are often not interpreted according to the language of Feng Shui's 5 element theory.
For example, in the desert Southwest of the USA, blue, especially bright turquoise blue, is often interpreted as a cooling water color, even among Feng Shui practitioners there.  When we look at the basic rules of 5 element theory, however, we see that it is a Wood element color.  So why the difference?  It's just language.  When you REALLY know the 5 elements workings, you easily see why a Wood color just FEELS like it is cooling water in a desert situation.  It is CONTROLLING the dominant Earth element of the vast golden baked earth landscape–therefore giving you a balancing RELIEF, that FEELS as refreshing as a cool dip in water does in that hot atmosphere.  Folks who are not using the 5 element language simply label the blue color there as water, because of how it makes them feel refreshed…..but we know that in 5 element theory the reFRESHing quality is quintessential Wood.
So, when seeking to find the essence of a color, I always fall back on applying the basic 5 element movements and psychological states:  WOOD=upward movement, new growth,fresh start.  FIRE=outward in every direction, social, talkative, attention-getting. EARTH=still, stable, grounded, symmetry.  METAL=inward moving, condensing, discriminating, essential, mental.  WATER=Downward moving, deep mystery, flowing, spirit, unconscious.  I also try to weed out the overlapping qualities of yin and yang, and cultural bias.  I've mentioned how a bold, saturated Yang color will sometimes be labelled Fire, not by its red spectrum quality but by its psychological impact.
So, step on into the pool of your own body sensations with color, then look to see what kind of internal and external environment you are experiencing them with, and see how those sensations fall into the deeper 5 element theory of Chinese medicine for your own Feng Shui of color!

We recently received this question from one of our alumni, and thought it was great information to share with the group:

"I would be so pleased to have your opinion upon this question; how does Feng Shui work for a homeless person?  How can Feng Shui be applied to someone without their own space? And what does it mean not having a home?

I really appreciate sharing your point of view on this."

When a person doesn't have a home, she can focus her attention on embodying the inner work of the Bagua, which is covered gua by gua in my Western Guide to Feng Shui, Room by Room book. In doing so, she will speed her way to creating a more abundant life, including having a physical roof over her head.

Terah's new book The Three Sisters of The Tao; Essential Conversations with Chinese Medicine, I Ching and Feng Shui has arrived and folks are raving!

“The Three Sisters of the Tao is a pleasure tonic and a life-giving elixir designed to help all of us remember how life is supposed to be felt and lived. I loved it.”     
    
     -Christiane Northrup, M.D., the author of The Secret Pleasures of Menopause and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

“Terah Kathryn Collins trusts the poetry of everyday life to reveal the boundless potential for a meaningful and pleasurable existence. She has achieved a point of view where she’s open to the magic of every moment, and her book invites you to join her.”
    
     -Thomas Moore, the author of Care of the Soul and Writing in the Sand

Visit the Three Sisters of the Tao website, and check out the excerpt below!

Your Heart is Where Your Home is 

When it comes to an experiential adventure, the Three Sisters of the Tao are forces to be reckoned with. They have taken to heart my desire to live in enduring harmony and led me down the class five rapids of transformation. As expert guides, they are calm, highly skilled way-showers who continue to teach me how to navigate through the changeable conditions of life using the inner compass of the heart.

Translated as the Way, the Tao chronicles the path to harmony. As Sisters, Chinese Medicine, I Ching, and Feng Shui, are born from the Tao, their legacies tracing back as far as the historical eye can see. There is a timeless quality about their message that is easy to recognize. We can feel it. The Tao, the Way, is permeated with love. I feel each Sister offers her own perspective. Chinese Medicine places tranquility at the very core of harmony. She is poetic in her observations, viewing the body as the temple of miracles where the tranquil heart is the bedchamber of heaven and earth and birthplace of the true self. She counsels us to embrace a lifestyle where work, play, and rest form a trinity from which our full potential can blossom. Many inner gateways open in her presence, invitations to embody the myriad facets of our selves as creative, sensual, luminous human beings.

     I Ching views kindness as the heart of the matter. She is fierce in her direction, lest we sink in the dark waters of heartlessness. She tutors us in weaving kindness into every thought, word and action, a practice that circles around to sew all manner of blessings into our lives. She is also a revealer, unveiling the nonphysical world of loving help devoted to our ever-unfolding transformation.

     Feng Shui gathers the wisdom of her Sisters and brings it home. She encourages us to personally craft environmental sanctuaries that can hold our tranquility in place. A great enthusiast of comfort, safety, and beauty, she is always looking for ways to give kindness shelter and make our hearts sing. Through her influence, our inner and outer worlds become harmonious reflections of each other, resonant chords in a living symphony of sacred space inside the greater matrix of community.

Watch for more excerpts in the coming days…

Recently I received this question from one of our students: If a client’s front door is in their Career gua, is a red door or a black door a better choice?

Front doors–usually seen as the mouth of Ch’i for the entire home, and therefore deserving of the most ch’i enhancement possible. But the traditional red door is a Fire element, which is not the element we think of using to enhance the Career gua, the home of Water. So here we have to choose between function (front door ch’i) versus gua (career—black tones) And then we need to factor in the client’s own preferences, and the existing or future color scheme of the house.

I usually give clients with an already developed decorating sense the encouragement to choose the door colors they really are craving, while always letting them know what the general effect will be on (a) their Bagua energies and (b) the five element balances and movements and (c) the Yin Yang effect. In general: Red=Fire, inviting Ch’i, outward movement, Fame, celebration, life blood, Yang. Black=Water, deep profound mystery, downward movement, internal identity, Yin.

Red front doors, in the more bold spectrum of red, are always attention getters, and this is sometimes exactly what a hum drum little family house needs to bring its occupants back into the circle of society, friends, influence, power and good fortune. But if it does not go well with their existing house colors, it is often just an uncomfortable accommodation to “the rules of Feng shui”. So, they have to be intrigued by the boldness, and have a sense of fun about it to make a bold red door truly do its magic for them. I don’t find that the darker reds, or brownish reds do the real “red door” magic.

Any understated (darker or earth toned) color tends to blend in a bit, and doesn’t “call in ” that “wild grace” ch’i quite as much. So, when folks have a fairly bland or understated front door color, I always encourage them to get creative. And, if they love that mellow color, then I make sure they have some OTHER Ch’i enhancements there (windchimes, bright flowers, wind sock, etc.) to call in sufficient Ch’i. Of course, any other colors in the more bold hues (turquoise, purple, lime green, bright yellow, hot pink, etc.) are also attention (ch’i) getters, with the happy benefits of delighting the client who loves that color, AND the specific 5 element energy that each color will bring to the space. Sometimes a bold Wood or Earth color can do as much as a bold Fire color, especially when the color choice goes well with the rest of the decor. But “fire engine red”, or “chinese red” will always be the queen of these choices.

Now for Black: I have seen black front doors that absolutely glowed with power because they were also a bold statement in the color scheme of the house. Especially when they are a true black in a glossy finish, with some bright elegant hardware. (The more matte/flat paint finishes have a more quiet effect.) When a black door IS a bold attention getting color choice, and it is in the Career gua, it does become a great Career enhancer. It’s effect is much more Yin however, so that’s going to be the main difference between red or black for a Career gua front door.

Lastly, the Yin vs Yang question—Do the folks want and need a more Yang boost to Career? If the client is searching for a job, seeking career advancement, looking for fame or new, bolder opportunities to express their individuality, then Yang colors are the answer. Or, do they need a more powerfully Yin boost? Deeper personal fulfillment in an established career, stability of existing good finances, receptivity, integration of career into family or leisure priorities are some of the results of a Yin choice. These can be the questions that you pose to your clients to better understand which color is going to bring them the result they are seeking! Have fun!

     I know we have all been deeply affected by the terrible oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  My friends and I speak each day of how to respond in any kind of powerful way. Typical ideas range from boycotting BP gasoline, to completely halting all usage of gasoline powered vehicles and all plastics. Writing letters to Congress, marching on Washington, going to the shores to aid in sea animal rescue….tried and true responses, but somehow I was not feeling drawn to any of these actions. Contemplating the magnitude of human error and the devastating consequences for the environment had frozen my ability to find my own true response.

     I have spent some days sinking ever deeper into my Self, seeking some profound wisdom that might apply.  Diving into the dark mystery held in the deep Lake of the True Self, I swam.  I found no pearl of wisdom, but then….I started noticing the very medium in which I floated….

Water:  It Dissolves / Solves things. It is a Solution!

     We are primarily composed of Water. All animate things are. There is a sacred mystery held within this fact.  Science has proven that water holds projected thought as a memory in its crystalline structure–the more loving the thought projected into it, the more pristine and elegant water's crystalline structure becomes.  Therefore, when we all strive to hold the most loving thoughts within our hearts and minds, the crystalline structure of the water in our bodies will shift to its most clear and highly vibrating state. 

     When we all hold loving crystalline Water in our bodies, as much as is possible in any given moment, we will be as One Loving Being.  Like a watery tuning fork, we will all vibrate with the same tone. What a sacred wavelength that will be!  How connected we will feel, and it will be a connection in Love.  Let's imagine what that will feel like…how we will be able to relax into complete trust and honesty with everyone we meet.  Each loving thought will be as a sacred pebble of truth offered to the one great lake of us all, and its ripples will encourage each swimmer to love, love, love.  Love and Breathe…draw it in, and send it out.

     And the Waters of the Earth will purify within this sacred wavelength pulsing from every body.  The toxic substances, vibrating at such a lower wavelength, will coalesce and be gathered up for cleansing processing to occur.

     I have found my most profound response–from deep within my own waters I will hold the crystal-clear vibration of Love for all things.  I will see crystal clear waters flowing across the Earth, and tears of grief turning into tears of joy and thanksgiving, flowing from every body to join in the great rivers flowing to the great seas.

     I know it may be challenging to believe in the possibility for real physical transformation held in this vision. As a planetary species, we aren't looking so well stocked up on love right now….but every single person I know in my smaller world has an immense capacity for forgiveness and love, right NOW! and you,…what is your own True Self's response to this?

     I invite you to tune in, deeply, to the vibration of your internal Water for a solution. View it as the carrier of Love energy, the transmitter of pure vibrational clarity. And join in the sacred flow….Love and Breathe…in and out.  Love and Breathe…in and out. Love and Breathe…In and Out…

—Kare Carrasco 
 

The Bumblebees…
Wow, this was a wonderful group of women who became best buds with each other so quickly!  They adopted the group name of the Bumblebees, and the huge black bumblebees outside responded, even visiting the conference room unexpectedly on the last morning!

On the last day, while having their photo taken at the Meditation Gardens here in Encinitas, two students engaged a stranger to take their photo, "Say bumblebee!" he said. When asked why he chose that phrase to inspire their smiles,  he replied, "I don't know why – it just popped into my head!"