10,000 Blessings Feng Shui Blog

Feng Shui Adventures in Seattle

Spent some most-wonderful days in Seattle recently as I was checking out some places and spaces for a Feng Shui VIP day as well as a celebration for Lady Buddha Kuan Yin.

Here are some of my favorite haunts when I visit:

 

When I arrive, I always have to have a ritual bowl of "Seven Element Soup" at Wild Ginger which always feels like medicine, mmm!  www.wildginger.net

 

A wonderful way to get a huge chi infusion is receiving reflexology.  I love getting the African Foot Rub at the Ummelina Spa (ask for Nana from Ghana, he's the master!) and always wish it would never-ever end! www.ummelina.com

 

Another must-do ritual is a vist to the Korean Baths (www.olympussap.net) full of the Five Elements and the extraordinary healing of water, heat and herbs.  A wonderful place to restore life-force through rest and purification.

 

The Pan Pacific Hotel won me over with it's gorgeous zebra wood, soaking tubs, shoji sliding doors, wonderful staff and still-fresh chi.  The event rooms are gorgeous (inlcuding a roof-top garden overlooking the city) and hope you'll be joining me there for some Feng Shui!  www.panpacific.com/seattle

Rejuvenate Your Chi at the Five Pine Lodge

 

Gregory came with me on a little business trip I took to Bend in August and we stayed at the very beautiful (and romantic!)  Five Pine Lodge in Sisters.  I absolutely fell in love with the place and am now making some plans to lead a Feng Shui retreat there next summer, so stay tuned!

I've raved about the Shibui Spa in this blog before (with the most exquisite Buddha greeting you upon entrance into the sanctum) and I will now also rave about the entire facility built Green, the gorgeous pines, the refreshing saline (no chlorine!) swimming pool, the waterfall soaking tubs, the rainfall showers, the healthy and organic breakfasts, the meandering creek...

Is it Feng Shui perfect?  No, there are adjustments I'd love to make, certainly (you're never 'off work' when you're a practitioner!)--but the overall vibe is fab and can't wait to share it with you all for a super-duper retreat there next year!

 

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 11

The last cups of green tea... soaks in the ofuro tub...sushi...dropping of the cherry blossoms...good-bye, San Francisco.  We love you!!!

San Francisco Feng Shui: Days 9 & 10

I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to be with His Holiness Professor Lin Yun and Crystal Rinpoche again for two days of teachings, meditations and chi adjustments.  It is very difficult to convey how the immensity of his kindness and service towards easing others' suffering fragrances his Feng Shui remedies and cures that we learn.  While taking notes, it was easy to think of people whom these cures and adjustments would help and I look forward to sharing them with my clients.

After the first day, we had a celebratory feast--and I mean feast as in at least 20-something dishes of Chinese food and we felt lucky and happy to be at the Professor's table where we chuckled over his advice to Gregory and I when he married us which was: "the wife never makes a mistake"--don't you love it?!

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 8

"Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea.  The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle.  Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things".  O Kakura Kakuzo

I found this at one of my favorite tea houses in the city, Samovar Tea Lounge.  Gregory and I spent hours just being here looking out to the waterfalls and flowers of the Yerba Buena Gardens reading dharma and sipping incredible teas.  Behind us sits Ganesh in bronze with money offerings beneath his trunk, busily removing obstacles.

After we were fully steeped, back to Japantown for even more reflexolgy at Sain Saine where lucky for us, this phenomenal reflexolgy place is right off of our hotel lobby.  And then off for a ginger wrap at Kabuki Springs--this is where after after scrubing the body and massaging it with hot oil, they pack freshly-grated ginger all over your body and wrap you up--the heat penetrates to the core and it feels amazing.

I could so happily live every day like this day! :)

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 7

A wonderfully lazy day in bed drinking oolong tea, soaking in our in-room ofuro with sunlight streaming through the shoji screen windows.  Below our hotel at the Chinese Embassy are protesters with the Tibetan flag.

We got up for some yummy soba noodles, sushi and green tea at one of our our Japantown favorites, Mifune, before spending a divine hour in Asakichi where we found these incredibly pure incenses of Hinoki (Japanese cypress), sandalwood and aloeswood.  My favorite is one called "White Cloud".

Then off to the San Franciso Zen Center for sitting meditation--a most-wonderful hall steeped with such silence and simplicity and the gong gently inviting us to the continued meditation called 'life'.  The picture above is a Kannon scroll from the center--isn't she just utterly beautiful and loving?

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 6

Back to Chinatown for a visit to one of my favorite places to burn joss paper and shake the bamboo sticks of the Kuan Yin Oracle: the Tin How (Goddess of Heaven) Temple.  After the journey up three flights of narrow stairs, you ascend into the temple's clouds of incense smoke to make a donation to the old Chinese women guardians for incense to offer at the altars (including the Zodiac Gods and animals) and joss papers of gold crowns and pineapples and ingots and dresses for Kuan Yin as well as little red triangle talismans to wear for protection.  I had a wonderful on-vacation-kind-of-fortune: "your wishes will be fulfilled.  Your heart should be calm and free of care.  Why bother with doubts and worries?"  We burned papers with fervant prayers and threw them into the oven where thousands of prayers have burned up to heaven.

Across the street is the New Sam Bo Trading Company where the new owner gifted me with extraordinary black and white photos of Kuan Yin on a lotus flower riding a dragon taken by a friend of hers--so moved by this gift (you can click on the image to enlarge).

On another street, I found a set of a lotus-image water pitcher, offering cups and incense burner for the Kuan Yin on my office shrine--a little vacation prezzie for her when I get home!

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 5

We spent the afternoon at the exquisite Asian Art Museum where I fell utterly in love with this contemporary commission by a Korean artist of a Water Moon Kuan Yin hand-painted on a huge scroll--it literally took my breath away.  It's so wild in a museum to be pausing before Buddhas and Kuan Yins which once lived in temples where thousands of prayers and tears and fruit and incense were offered up--and now here, in a modern urban city, people still stop with their prayers.  The museum also had some fabulous videos on Tibetan sand mandala making; Zen meditation and the Shinto religion.  In that one, there was a beautiful image of folks ringing these bells atop long flowing red and white ribbons before entering the temple to wake up the "kami" (the spirit nature inherent in all animate and inanimate things).

We had supper at one of my favorite restaurants in San Fransisco is the E & O Trading Company, a Southeast Asian Grill decorated with huge silk lanterns, bamboo walls, colors of burnt orange, velvet and silk throw cushions--you get the idea.  Order the "Red Dragon"--this sublime tea mixed with juices with an orchid on top.

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 4

Gregory and I spent time in Chinatown today.  First, a visit to Gold Mountain Monastary for some quiet in front of the Kuan Yins and Buddhas where the altar was filled with the heavenly scent of yellow, pink and white lillies. I was happy to find an English translation of The Great Compassion Mantra.

I love walking the streets of Chinatown, especially the back alleys.  I found some beautiful pink lotus red envelopes for my Feng Shui and Gregory found his favorite red bean paste sesame balls.

We found this new tea shop called "Blest Tea" which they named such in hopes that the tea would bless people (just like me and my 10,000 Blessings Feng Shui).  The woman was so kind to give us a wonderful tea tasting (my favorite was jasmine mixed with rose) and we left with peach and ginsing oolongs.  She thinks I've been reincarnated from China and I think she's right!

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 3

After a day of silence and lots of napping (honoring the yin chi!), I spent three delightful hours at Kabuki Springs, this glorious urban Zen water temple.

I went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth from the hot waters and steam room (with salt scrubs) and then plunging into the cold water.  I did lots of the Breathing Meditation that we do in our school of Feng Shui (inhaling and exhaling on counts of nine while drinking in vitality and rest and rejuvenation and exhaling physical and mental fatigue and stagnation) as well as drinking lots of cucumber water.  What I also groove on about this spa is that the entire space is silent--a gong is rung to restore the quiet if the women get too chatty!

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 2

This is my second day of vacation: hours and hours of sleep; bathing in the traditional style bath (the "furo" soaking tub with a wooden stool and bucket); and receiving a full body massage as well as Japanese refelxology--this is incredible!

I was also served a traditional tea ceremony--"Sa-Do" or "The Way of Tea" in our hotel by the Urasenke School of Tea.  The beautiful hanging calligraphy was translated into "The spring wind brings a warm feeling" and the simple beatuy and tranquility moved me so very much.  The idea is to make tea with a pure heart and that each time it is "one chance in a lifetime"--an incredible practice of appreciating each moment--now, now, now...

Feeling incredible appreciation (the Japanese say "kansha") for this time of deep rest with my husband.

San Francisco Feng Shui: Day 1

Arriving at The Kabuki Hotel in the heart of Japantown--a gorgeous bed make up like a silk oragami present.  It was one of the few hotels I've stayed in where the bed was actually in a Commanding Position--and also had a strong head-board, as well!

Singapore Wealth Fountain

My beloved husband is back from his trip to Singapore where he did his “husbandly duties” by visiting many Kuan Yin temples and bringing back lots of Feng Shui goodies.    This is the bottom part of the largest fountain in the world, The Fountain of Wealth. You circumambulate and hold out your hands to the spray to gather the wealth chi.  The top of the fountain sprays down and inwards, gathering the prosperity. I think the cure is working as they sell delightful small vials of the water for $5 and they sell millions and millions each year!