People travel all the time. Some people travel for fun, some for education. Some because their business depends upon buying resources at the source or selling their products in order to expand their market. And there are those who travel to survive a war or famine, and those who are just hoping for a better life elsewhere. Regardless of the motivation for travel, not everyone's journey is blessed with ease and the achievement of their intended purpose. With the help of feng shui and astrology potential difficulties can be smoothed way.

Energize The Ba-Gua - Ch'ien Trigram
If you are traveling from home for business, education or pleasure, it would serve you well to energize the travel area of the Ba-gua. This, interestingly enough, is the same area more commonly thought of as the Helpful People area.

Very little is written about the activation of this area for travel. The focus for this gua is almost always on mentors, maintenance people, networking, referrals and of course receiving gifts from others. Helpful People are certainly crucial to the success of any endeavor such as business or maintaining the smooth operation of your home or car. Just as Helpful People are crucial to these areas of your life, so too Helpful People are crucial to the success of your travel plans: travel agent, pilot, conductor or captain, hotel personnel, tour guides, business contacts, and so on. Putting together your travel plans is like fitting many pieces of a puzzle smoothly together. Even a simple journey requires many people to help you along.

Some ways to enhance your Helpful People Gua is to have pictures of the places you want to go or intend on going. After all, feng shui is very literal. Or if you have no particular destination and just want to travel, try putting up a picture of a plane, boat or any other preferred means of travel. And feng shui can be very abstract. This means you can energize the Travel Guas of your home by hanging a bamboo flute or faceted lead glass crystal ball on a 9" red ribbon. Whatever you choose to do, remember to empower the image with the Three Secret Enhancements: mantra (prayer), mudra (body) and mind (visualization).

Feng Shui Where You Stay
But once you get to where you're going, it is likely your hotel room or guest room in a friend of family member's house will need some adjusting. Some adjustments may be easy such as moving a piece of furniture to avert the poison arrow coming off of its corner. Or at least hanging something over the offending corner to soften and nullify its potentially harmful effects.

Having a few squares of fabric packed in your bags may come in handy for covering poison arrows or draping over that TV set staring at you, beckoning you to turn it on. In addition to covering the TV screen, it may also be a good idea to unplug the TV to diminish your exposure to its powerful electromagnetic radiations.

In regard to detrimental effects of electromagnetic fields on your nervous system, it is also a good idea to observe where the wall outlets are. In particular, see if there is one behind the head of the bed with more than one appliance plugged in. If so, unplug these or move your bed. You should also look out your room window to make sure there isn't an electric pole with a humming transformer hanging on it or wires attached from it to an electric box on the other side of the wall of your room. If possible, avoid hotel rooms near airport radar installation or cell phone microwave broadcasting equipment.

Beside paying attention to poison arrows in the room, notice whether or not there are poison arrows shooting at the room from other buildings or cars on adjacent roadways. Having an eight sided mirror with you in most cases can be used to deflect these sources of sha ch'i. Sometimes sha ch'i comes from unexpected places such as toilets, refrigerators or elevator shafts on the other side of walls which may not be noticed until their motors are turned on, or from the road when the "eyes of the tiger" come shooting at you as a motor vehicle zips by.

As much as possible avoid sleeping in beds that have a doorway facing any side of it, curtain the doorway, move the bed or sleep elsewhere. One night may not be problematic but your health ch'i will be compromised if you are exposed to doorway ch'i for an extended period of time. How long is long depends on your present condition of health and what health problems you are predisposed too. This includes beams, sloped ceiling and ceiling fans over the bed. Having a 30mm faceted lead glass crystal ball can be tacked up to protect you if any of these situations can not be avoided. It may be wise to travel with at least three crystals already attached to a 9" red ribbon in the event more than one of these conditions exist.

On The Road Space Clearing
If the room vibrations are particularly difficult and you have no option to stay elsewhere, space clearing may be essential. There are many approaches and certainly many levels of thoroughness which can be applied depending on complications of the situation and what resources you have available to you.

It seems the most common approach is the American Indian utilization of a bundle of dried sage and an eagle feather. Burning the sage is called smudging. Unfortunately, some people just go through the motions and neglect to do some variation of the Three Secret Enhancements. Using the sage bundle and eagle feather would be similar to the mudra but don't forget the prayer and the visualization to give it intention and assure its effectiveness.

Another variation of the smudge bundle is holding three sticks of incense (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) and wave the smoke around the periphery of the room, into the corners and under furniture. Tibetan bells or Chinese gongs can also be used with equal effectiveness. The concept in common to smoke or sound is that you affix your prayer to the smoke or sound and allow it to expand infinitely replacing all negativity with your positive intentions.

In Hawaii one Kahuna method is to use rock salt and ti leaves. As with the above methods, you walk around the periphery of the building or room, sprinkle the rock salt and wave the ti leaves. The ti leaf like the eagle feather has that ability to gather up negative astral-emotional energy thereby clearing the area. The rock salt, like crystal or any crystalline structure, has the ability to refract light. Inside the body it fragments the personality (cocaine, white sugar, salt, etc.); in the aura it breaks up negativity (like a swim in the ocean). Once you finish saying your prayer, gathering up the negative energy with your ti leaves and sprinkling the sea salt, you can visualize your home or room in a dome of light - a light that is luminous and bright.

(Note: Avoid white light in this situation as white light purifies negativity, which can be good. But then it, the white light, continues to attract negativity from the surrounding area. This continual inundation of negativity can be a bit hard to handle on a 24 hour basis. Even if you think you are the messiah, I wouldn't suggest you put a white light vortex around your self or your home.)

From these suggested space clearing techniques choose a method you resonate with and bring the supplies with you. You can learn more ideas and variations from either Karen Kingston or Denise Lin's excellent books with space clearing in their titles.

Of course it is most important as part of your spiritual development to learn how to clear your own psychic space and to eventually use your visualization ability to clear a space mentally. However, be aware, mental space clearing of this nature may only last several hours to a day or two. How long it will last will actually depend on your ability to combine emotional intensity, your will power and the degree of your spiritual attunement.

Check Your Transits
At times necessity determines the need to travel. Family emergency or other crises out of our control. Even then it is advisable to know what your astrological Transits are at the time of your journey. Knowing your Transits can help you understand what lesson in life you may need to be learning or what virtue you are being called upon to demonstrate (perseverance, humility, compassion, service, loyalty, honor, etc.).

Transits are the changing patterns of your birth chart. You might say, it is how the current position of the planets in the sky are interacting with the natal position of the planets as recorded in your birth chart. It can show what area of life activity you are particularly focused on. What part of your persona is being integrated. It might also show the kinds of situations and personal encounters you might be needing for this stage in your soul's evolution as you resolve previous karma and as you move toward fulfilling your life's purpose. It's a way of knowing where your at, where you're coming from and to where you are going in your life journey.

When traveling is to your own choosing, why plan in advance for a pleasure vacation when you are likely at that time to be going through an emotional upheaval? Unless you enjoy doing your therapy "on the road." Why not match the planned activity with the reality of how the energy actually is. If you know the transits are likely to be a test, why not plan a meditation or self-discovery retreat; or a series of therapy sessions to assist you in resolving your core issues at a time when they are surfacing.

Likewise, if you have especially good Transits coming up, perhaps it would be wiser to utilize that time for career advancement instead of soaking up the rays in the Caribbean. Though the vacation in paradise may at other times be desperately needed and a more appropriate opportunity to take.

Having your Transits is like having a road map. Transits enable you to evaluate road conditions. As with any map at your disposal, you can determine which route to take and what to anticipate: dirt road, drive slow and enjoy the scenery, smooth road, put your petal to the metal and enjoy the thrill. Not knowing your future can be at times an adventure into the unknown. Or, it can be shooting in the dark hoping that you'll hit the mark. Or, it can be fear and anxiety not knowing when the bubble will burst. When the highs are followed by the lows. How long the low will last before the next high. Or, if there ever will be another high.

Watching your Transits can be empowering. It can put you in the driver's seat. Transits do not predict events but rather describe the energetics. Being self-aware of your previous patterns may give you a hint of what the events are probably going to be. But ultimately, you won't know what will actually happen until it is happening. In this sense the only way to approach a Transit is with vigilance and with the willingness to be spontaneous. Just be there and observe and go with the flow; and know, if it is happening to you, it is happening for you. Trusting and knowing that all that you do is for the highest good of all.

Confer With Your Astro*Carto*Graphy Chart
In a previous issue of Feng Shui Journal (October, 1997) I reported extensively on Astro*Carto*Graphy as a new feng shui tool. The focus on that article was on choosing the best location to live for success, harmony and health. This is done by understanding the energetics of different locations as determined by which planet was passing over head at the time of your birth. An Astro*Carto*Graphy Map charts the movement of the planets across the face of the earth and puts this information at your finger tips.

In addition to using your Astro*Carto*Graphy Map to choose where to live, you can and should use it to determine the best places to travel whether for business or pleasure. I have quite a number of case histories that demonstrate this fact. It has also been demonstrated that the energy of other locations can be activate without necessarily going to that location. Kennedy and LBJ both had Mars in southeast Asia to draw them into war in that region, Bush has Mars over Iraq, Carter over Iran and Reagan over Granada. Interestingly, Nixon had Neptune over both Vietnam and Washington D.C. putting him into a fog of reality in both places ending in his paranoia, Watergate and eventual resignation.

If you want to do business elsewhere, choose a place where Jupiter or Mercury are present. Or Sun or Venus, or even Moon or Uranus depending on the nature of the enterprise. Only in rare situations does a Saturn line bare fruit, or a Pluto line avoid upheaval. Kennedy was assassinated on his Mars-Pluto line in Dallas. Clinton is blessed with a protective Jupiter line near D.C. and still beleaguered by his Mars line in Arkansas (abused by his father growing up and now by a fellow Arkansawan, Ken Starr). In short, go to where you'll have fun, be productive and make an appreciated contribution.

Cyclo*Graphy
The Astro*Carto*Graphy technique that is similar to reading the Transits of your natal astrological chart is called Cyclo*Graphy. A Cyclo*Graphy chart is a clear plastic overlay with the current position of the planets printed on it. Simply overlay the Cyclo*Graphy chart on your Astro*Carto*Graphy Map and you can know the changing highs and lows of your current location or where you may be choosing to travel to.