I figured that you’d have had a nice cup of coffee, sitting in a comfortable chair all relaxed while you were finding the center of the house. You next mission, if you choose to accept, is to identify the facing and sitting directions of the house. In Feng Shui, the facing direction is the the starting point, the mother of all reference in plotting the Flying Star chart. Well, of course there are other information required, but just so you know that it’s important. That said, it is so direly important that you get this right but hey, it’s not hard at all.
Using a Luo Pan / Feng Shui compass, you would..
The Luo Pan or Feng Shui Compass
On a Luo Pan / Feng Shui compass, there is the 24 mountains ring. On this ring, there are 24 sub-compass directions (mountains) that are commonly used to determine the facing and sitting directions of a house. Each sub-compass direction is 15 degrees. Yup, you guessed it, 24 (mountains) * 15 (degrees) = 360. Now you would understand when you hear your someone saying “My house faces N2 and sits at S2”.
Do you see the ring that have the markings “N3” , “N2”, “N1”, “NW3”, “NW2”, “NW1” in the image below? That’s the 24 mountains ring on the Luo Pan / Feng Shui Compass.
But.. then again.. you don’t need a Luo Pan to get started with. You would definitely need a compass, any compass will do, even the app installed on your smartphone will do just fine. There are a couple of good practices that you would want to bear in mind while using the compass be it digital or old school.
- The compass app on your smartphone essentially processes the readings from a magnetometer
- The typical boy scouts compass is a magnetized needle on a free rotating pivot
Notice the common stringed up letters m-a-g-n-e-t? The reading from a compass can easily be inaccurate (false reading) when we are near objects that interfere with the magnetic fields. Simple examples are, grid doors, metal grills, metal beams, ceiling fans and so on. In other words, metal and electrical appliances that sneakily create magnetic fields. I’ve seen readings sway as many as 16 degrees, effectively rendering the Feng Shui Flying Stars formulation entirely wrong! So be warned, that the compass is a sensitive equipment requiring plenty of tender loving care.
How to Determine the Facing of a House
Okay, now that we’ve completed our compass reeducation, take note that I’ve been repeating “facing of the house” because that’s what we’re really looking for, and not the facing of the main door.
For the house below, the main door is parallel to the facade of the house. Easy peasy, with your back against the main door, with your iPhone in hand parallel to the ground, launch the compass app, and that’s the degree that you’d want to jot down. Next, take a few careful steps forward onto the path (away from metal beams, etc.) and see if the degree changes. You now have the facing direction of the house.
The house below, the main door is technically facing sideways with the double panel glass windows parallel to the facade of the house. In this case, you’d be taking the facing direction with your back against the windows.
Recording the 24 Mountains Direction
Say your trusty compass app reads 182 degrees, refer to the Degrees column from the table below and then the first column of the 24 Mountains cluster columns. 182 degrees, making S2 the facing direction of the house. Typically the sitting direction is the opposite, making it N2 for this house.
Off you go, find out your home’s facing and sitting directions will ya?
Related Writings;
Beginning with Feng Shui
Feng Shui Identifying the Sectors of a House