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Is this the Right Way to Move?

As part of a house or office consulting audit, I provide my client with one or more auspicious date and time for moving. I also provide a ‘feng shui’ moving-in guide which list down the steps that they need to observe to ensure a successful “move”.

Chinese Calendar
Chinese Calendar

In the past the guide was very elaborate and contains many steps. It includes not just instructions to observe on the actual day of the move but also instructions during the days prior to the move. Nowadays these are greatly simplified.

The moving procedure can differs between practitioners and you should not be surprised if other practitioner’s procedures are slightly different from mine.

For me, moving is already a very stressful process for the home owner and as a practitioner, I should not add to it by prescribing elaborate processes. For me, there are only three things that you must do. First is to arrive and move into the house within the designated “auspicious” date and time. Second, use the stove to make a warm beverage and to cook a meal – a simple one will do. And lastly you should sleepover at the new house. This is all you need to do to ensure a successful move in.

In the past the occupants may be instructed to declaring loudly that they are the new occupants and letting off fire crackers (which are banned in most places) to signify the occasion. It may also include “cleansing” by jumping over a fire pit and washing with water infused with the leaves of a kind of citrus plant. This is to ensure that negative energies do not follow you into the new house.

Using the stove to cook a meal is an important process in the move in procedure. As such, some practitioners emphasis this by making the stove work overtime. He may ask you to cook a Chinese dessert that requires simmering over a low fire for many hours!

Some practitioners may want you to energize the house and would advise you to switch on all the lights and power appliances such as air conditioners, radio and TV for a few hours. There is nothing wrong with it. In fact I also advise my clients to let the tap water run long enough to clear the water tank. In a previously vacated house, the water in the tank may be contaminated having collected water and left stagnant for a long while. The last think you want is food poisoning amongst the occupants. Some will surely blame it on bad Feng Shui!

There are also many pre-moving rules that were popular in the past but rarely observed nowadays. Here are some of them.

For example, the house should be left vacant for a few days prior to the move. No one including animals (though I suspect it will be difficult to stop the rats) is allowed. All vents should be sealed and natural lighting blocked from entering by pasting dark coloured paper on windows and other openings.

They should only be removed when you move in on the auspicious day and time to signify a rebirth of sort and an infusion of new energies into the house.

It is also a popular belief that negative “yin” energies can accumulate in the corners of a vacant house. The last thing you want to do is share the house with them. To overcome or neutralize these negative “yin” energies you can scattered the inside corners of your house with a mixture of items with strong “yang” energies in the days prior to moving in. They include a mix of salt, rice, tea leaf and dried chillies.

While on the subject of moving, I would like to clarify a misconception on the moving time. An auspicious time is usually a span of two or more hours in a given day, for example between 9 am and 11 am. It means that you must arrive and first occupy the house any time between 9 am and 11 am. It does not mean that you have to arrive and complete the move within the two hours! After you have move the first item into the house, you can continue to move the other items later in the day, the next day or any time after that.

Have a good move.

Feng Shui Buy House Guide
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