Feng Shui has often been referred to as the Mother of the Natural Sciences. Its origin began in China and is as old as the culture itself. The earliest form of Feng Shui was more concerned with the auspicious orientations of the tombs of the dead rather than the homes of the living. It is believed that a good burial site will bring peace and prosperity to the descendants of the deceased. Landforms play an important part in how a burial site would be laid out. In geomancy, an ideal configuration is called the “armchair” effect and like an armchair, you have a high back for secure support, symbolized by the Black Tortoise. To the East of the site is the Green Dragon and to the West, the White Tiger, with the Dragon side slightly higher than the Tiger side. The front, which is the South, is referred to as a ‘footstool’ and is symbolized by the Red Phoenix. In Feng Shui terms, the Phoenix is described as an unobstructed view, or a “pool of water” (ideally, the water should not stagnate, or moving towards or pass the site in a way a Feng Shui practitioner would deem inauspicious).
The south-pointing compass, also called the lo’pan, was first invented by the Chinese to ensure that the burial sites were correctly positioned to conform to the earth’s vital breath, called chi, which the Chinese believed flowed through the earth the way blood flows through the veins of the human body. Ancient texts trace its invention to the legendary Huang-Ti, or the Yellow Emperor, where it is said, that the “Lady of the Nine Heavens” gave him this knowledge. This ancient compass was called the Hin Shi and it is described as a square base, called a diviners board, holding a bowl of water which floated magnetic south-pointing spoon.
The Hin Shi slowly developed into the lo’pan between 200 AD to 700 AD. During the Sang dynasty, the compass was adapted for navigation at sea. By the 13th century, Arab traders brought the compass to the West. The arrival of the compass in Europe couldn’t have come at a better time and was essential for navigating out-of-sight of land. Before this sailors would hug the shore, a dangerous practice but was the only way they had of knowing where they were going.
In Feng Shui, the lo’pan is used to analyze the orientations of a site in relationship to the main door, the bed, and the stove. The lo’pan is an intricate circular object of a simple compass surrounded by movable rings encrypted with Chinese characters. There is a maximum of 36 tiers, with each tier having its own purpose for divination. It is then divided into 8 sections or trigrams. The Eight Trigrams were further developed into 64 hexagrams of the I-Ching with the astrological information of the Ten Heavenly Stems, Twelve Earthly Branches, the Five Elements, geological and celestial bodies.