Every culture dependent on agriculture keeps a weather eye on the changing seasons. For a settled community it is easy to see that the sun rises each morning in a slightly different place on the horizon, and these regular, predictable movements make a very convenient calendar that has been celebrated around the globe in architecture and mythology.
The Early Heaven Ba Gua shows a clear relationship with the cycle of the seaons (and with the waxing and waning of the moon), and the seasons have an obvious parallel in the quarters of the day.
The gua were constructed and arranged in a circle to represent not just the compass points but the solar/seasonal features associated with those locations.
Chinese maps place south at the top of the chart (Western astrologers familiar with birth charts will be used to viewing the universe from this perspective).
Careful observations of these simple facts of life are the foundations on which the sophisticated art of geomancy or Feng Shui has been built. Many other factors have been woven into this framework, not least of which are the five ancient planets.
The words Yin and Yang were coined with reference to the sun, and respectively mean "the shady side of a hill" and "the lit side of a hill". For a farmer wishing to cultivate crops, or anyone building a house for example, it would pay to know all the subtle differences from one side to the other; and this accumulating body of lore became known as Feng Shui.
Anyone who has ever tried to keep houseplants healthy know that the correct amount of sunlight or shade can be crucial. Put cacti in a dull, north-facing window and they will grow pale and perish; put ferns in a bright, south-facing window and they will scorch from green to brown and be dead before long.
The obvious fact is that things need appropriate conditions in which to thrive. This is the motivation behind studying Feng Shui: the desire to bring our lives into harmony with nature. There is, after all, little prospect of bending the sun's path to suit our potplants!
The gua arranged in the Early Heaven cycle are in harmony with the points of the compass and, therefore, with the solar/seasonal events that are the source of their meaning. It is easy to see the distress that could have been caused by the rearrangement of the gua to accommodate Later Heaven ideas. Surely anyone seeking inner peace and harmony with nature would be tortured by Later Heaven Feng Shui, just like cacti and ferns moved into the wrong place.
When there is so much stress, illness and destruction in the world caused by inappropriate actions, it is surely high time that Early Heavn Feng Shui be given serious and popular recognition as a viable system promoting mental balance, social harmony, and integration with nature.
© Ken Taylor 2006