Follow-Up

It's been over a week now since I've posted, and longer than that since there has been more follow-up on the events that transpired in "Vacating" (see lower post).... I begin.

With feng shui, there is a consciousness about the way that chi flows through space.  If there are sharp corners, like the edge of a square building, it can send chi spinning.  Whereas, if a square building has a rounded tree at the corner, it acts like a buffer and keeps the chi flowing tranquilly.  How the chi flows through our space is something that Daniel & I consider often and when it comes to this lot and this street, it can feel all the more pressing to consider, as the mode of the street feels very much instinctual- or rather the chi flows how ever it is put, and if things are left astray, things will go astray.  This is an "organic" street in that way, I like to think.

With this in mind, the pathway through the garden lot was particularly interesting.  Not only by letting and encouraging a pathway's happening (see "Which Path Are You On" post ), we also witnessed the true nature of how that pathway evolved (as in "Vacating").  In the nature of Wabi-Sabi... things are always in motion and either moving towards Nothingness or towards Somethingness (one way to interpret wabi-sabi anyway) - towards creation and destruction.  Of course, they are all a part of one greater whole that is both and always in motion.  The decay or hole in the fence was of degeneration, of Something moving towards Nothingness.   Or something created heading towards destruction.  By encouraging it, opening the gate more by removing the crippled fence, laying down wood chips, planting flowers in an old tire from the neighbor-on-the-other-side-of-the-lot's backyard - we were allowing for the chi to flow.

And a couple weeks ago, Daniel awoke early in the morning with the drive to move the energy in the other direction - towards creation.  With some swift action of a couple hours, Daniel schlepped the entire dump from behind the house and returned it respectively to the backyard of the house from where it came.  Then he proceeded to build a new fence, a closure to block the "windy" passageway.  (In terms of feng shui, this windiness of such a long passageway that blew through the garden from front to back was gathering sha chi, killing/attacking energy.  The lot already has si chi, low/decaying energy because of its history of tragedies - ie. foreclosed, bull-dozed home.  The lot next to the current garden is empty because the house burned down with many children in it.  This si chi is still in this space).

  the clothes dumped in the compost bin

 a house-full of stuff dumped in the back

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What was:

became:

The stuff of evicted people is returned to the house from which it came.  

All that is left in the back of the abandoned house is the scrap wood.

I dream of their being bees back here with maybe a goat or two one day....

For now, that is how the lot sits.  There is no longer the steady foot traffic passing by our house through the garden.  It is quieter.  Especially at night (there was often late night traffic walking through).  I have had numerous neighbors ask me about it, or mention to me "I saw you closed up the side."  Everyone seems to be in agreement that its a good thing.  Well, save one of the teenage girls who was perturbed by it, saying she "didn't feel like walking" (the longer distance around the block rather than through the cut).  We will continue to watch as it changes here - the energy, the flow of chi as it manifests itself through people, and butterflies, and care for the space - Another day of observation.