I would like to take this opportunity to address the confusion about Flying Stars that exists ‘out there’ and which causes a great deal of frustration.
Flying Stars are an integral part of classical and professional Feng Shui. It is an advanced and powerful system that is applied individually to each building. It informs us of its positive and negative potentials, and how to activate its best energies.
Lately however, the term appears to have become watered down and confused. Flying Stars are now often referred to as nothing more than annual energies, which are smaller, far less important influences. As they are the same for each building, they can however be easily commercialised.
Annual energies ‘sold-short’ as Flying Stars
Do an internet search on ‘Flying Stars’ and you will find Wikipedia attempting to explain its depth in a mumbled series of terminologies – impossible to give it justice to on a single page.
The other search listings – including some of the big names of Feng Shui – promote simple tips and generalised cures for the annual flying stars. Reading this, you wouldn’t even know that there existed a deeper Flying Star knowledge.
The apparent message of these sites is ‘that the secret has been lifted’ and that Flying Star Feng Shui ‘is actually easy’. While a few hint at some deeper knowledge, it is implied or directly stated that this is either too complicated or unnecessary. Their sites promise easy DIY Feng Shui solutions and generalised quick fixes – followed by links to purchase your trinkets for the year or gaining site clicks.
This is frustrating and sad. This is also how traditional knowledge requiring individual care is invalidated and lost.
Flying Stars in classical Feng Shui
Just as Wikipedia states, Flying Star Feng Shui maps the change in quality of energies in a building over time. It is an integration of the principles of Yin Yang, the five elements, eight trigrams, the Lo Shu square, the 24 Mountains and time. Flying Stars not just track annual fluctuations, but major 20-year cycles of time that have large effects on the quality of a building.
‘Flying Stars’ is the poetic name for different types of energies that enter a building from the 8 compass directions. They give it its unique flair (energetically). A building’s Flying Star energy map is unique, determined by its construction period and exact compass direction. Altogether, there exist 144 possible energy charts, each of which interacts with the particular design – making each building ‘individual’.
There are 9 different ‘Flying Stars’, each useful for a different quality and purpose. Some energies are powerful and positive during the current 20-year period, some ‘heavy’ and negative. A building’s energy map contains Yang energies that give it its radiance and life force, Yin energies that provide personal and health support, and time energies that refer to opportunities (represented by three numbers in each compass direction).
Not all energies are ‘active’ even when present on paper. Some are inactive due to the design and you cannot understand a building’s energies by only looking at its numbers! Once actual influences are established, we use placement (design), as well as colours and shapes to enhance a building’s positive potential and reduce any negative influences. The aim is to activate and use its best energies (as much as possible within the constraints of a design).
As you see Flying Stars are complex. Of course you can learn about them, but it takes time and dedication to apply correctly. It took me a year of study to get a grip on their application and many more years of practical experience to become proficient at it. It is, together with the physical forms, the ‘powerhouse’ of Feng Shui practice. Feng Shui is about working with the existing natural energies to optimise a site or building – to make it harmonious, radiant, healthy and comfortable.
Where do annual Flying Stars fit in?
The individual Flying Star energy map of a building contains three stars in each of the 8 compass directions. Additionally to that are the passing influences of annual stars, monthly, daily and even hourly stars.
Some people become anxious about annual or monthly influences. I have even come across people who moved out of a perfect bedroom because of a passing annual or monthly star. That is crazy! It leads to anxiety. People end up busily chasing stars or ‘luck’ without time to live – ignore the positive potential of their building and sometimes activate its negative native energies just to please an annual star.
The way Flying Stars should be used to 1) have a home filled with radiant life force (good Yang) – which also cures many of the negative influences; 2) have a bedroom with supportive energies (good Yin); and only then consider annual influences where necessary.
Annual energies only manifest where the building has a weakness. Positive energies prevent negative annuals from having any influence and we should only look at them after the assessment of the building. However, as not all rooms in a building can be fantastic, there is a place for enhancing or protecting from annuals. I would never go as far as worrying about monthly’s though – rather spend that time living.
You and Flying Stars
It is important to remember that we (people) are the most causative force in our lives, not our environment and certainly not annual stars. And if it is anxiety that drives us, we will actually attract what we fear.
Someone like the Dalai Lama for example, would likely do well in a ‘bad’ house, while a criminal does not become a successful businessperson in a ‘good’ one. We need to have ethics and positive actions in place to reap the rewards. In a good building we are supported by nature, in a negative one life tends to be more of an uphill battle and require more force.
So, if you want good Feng Shui, invest in classical Feng Shui training or a good practitioner. I do not recommend chasing the annual ‘ghosts’ of the Flying Stars.