Nancilee Wydra

What do you celebrate, revere and honor?  Would I know what they were, if I came to your home?

 Are there signals in your personal space that trigger these concepts?  Are you reminded of what you hold dear, cherish and venerate in your home?  Today, Memorial Day, when we pay tribute to those who lives have been sacrificed so that the principles and ideals we uphold as self evident do not perish, we need to shape our ethics into a visual tapestry that we weave throughout our home.

I can’t tell you what your ideology is and how you would be comfortable expressing it, but I can tell you what I have done that pays tributes to that which I hold dear.

I have in my office, framed and hanging, my grandparents’ certificate of citizenship to these United States.  I have placed them on the wall facing me, in order to see them when working at my computer and I am reminded of the luck that was bestowed me by having ancestors who braved leaving their country of origin to come to a place of hope and opportunity.  It reminds me that I need to live up to what they dreamed.

If you were to visit me you would see people in almost 100% of the art.  There are people of every continent on this planet represented.  My commitment to equally respect and value all persons regardless of their heritage is reinforced by their presence in my home.

You would know I love my dogs because you would observe that their food dish is a pretty as the ones I use for myself and company.

The basket stuffed with toys for children to play with at the entrance to my main gathering space is sufficient to inform of my delight in and welcoming of children in my home.

I appreciate you, my readership, for taking the time to read about my visual remembrances of value in my life, but far more important is for you to think about your core values and how they are expressed in your home. Express those rocks upon which your moral fiber stands visually.

Last night I actually got a chance to see people trying to ride a mechanical bull and except for a ten-gallon-hat sporting orthopedic surgeon and a five year old, no one managed to ride the bull without falling off. It got me to thinking about our oil spill and the intractable time, that BP has failed to stop the raging torrent of slime gushing up from the interior of the earth.

Why did BP and our government think that there was only one approach?

It has broken my heart and scarred the earth beyond what we can imagine.  The Exxon Valdez, after all, was only one tanker that spilled a finite about in 1989 and the affects are today, still not 100% mitigated. 

The approach of plugging the hole is like riding the mechanical bull, only one aspect of the spill.  Yes, the flooding of oil must be stopped.  But what about the thousands of barrels vomiting into the ocean some to sink and wreck havoc with the coral reefs, the breeding grown for the ocean’s life and some to kill fish and some to spread onto the marshes and shores destroying natural barriers, the integrity of our coastline and countless people’s livelihood?

Why didn’t we act immediately to suck up the oil?  Why didn’t we let the world’s supertankers encircle the spill and extract the oil into their holding tanks? I think we should.  In feng shui= we know that the way we care for our homes, mirrors the care we give to ourselves. 

After you read this blog go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI&feature=youtube_gdata watch it and email it to Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

I picnicked on the beach with friends this evening as the full moon rose over the ocean and was reminded of the puzzle of the moon’s illusion. For most people the moon seems larger in angular size when it is near the horizon than when it is high in the sky. Some people judge it to be as much as twice as large, but the average estimate is 50% to 75% larger.  However, the interesting phenomenon is that some people don’t experience a size difference.  The variance in experience makes it difficult for science to come up with one concrete explanation.  It leads me to lean toward explanations that have to do with perception and the brain.

 Most people have a cognitive model that relates angular size to distance. This is called the “size-distance invariance law”. When one observes two persons, one judges the person who is more distant to be smaller. This works for objects that we know or have already judged (from memory and other cues) to be “really” about the same size.  So the moon above us in the sky is experience as further away than the one experienced as closer, thus smaller.

 Most of us have been given this on a test.  It’s called a Ponzo illusion. (not scheme) The two circles are the same diameter. Yet many people judge the right one to be smaller. The two converging straight lines nearby influence our judgment. If the lines are replaced with solid black areas, the illusion remains. 

Ponzo Illusion

The Ponzo illusion again, is perception of something contiguous with another think, in this case a diagonal line.  We know that the eye seeks diagonal lines in a space before right angled lines. I will do a blog of what the eye sees first when entering a space another time, but for now it is important to add on to this face with another fact, that the eye seeks to be led to where the diagonal line is going.  The illustration with the single line on the left makes our eye start at the right hand side and slide down to the point.  Thus the first circle is seen last in the over-all perception than the second, because the eye wants to move to the point, the end of the line. 

Also, vertical distances are underestimated as compared with distances in the horizontal direction.  Again, this stems back to the biological necessity of surviving.  We have many more things in our horizontal plane that can affect our survival.  Things from above, notwithstanding rocks falling from cliffs, etc, are not as frequent part of our common experience. Ergo what is on the horizontal plane must be spotted and digested visually first because we are more likely to have to interact with them.

What we can extract for pyramid feng shui purposes from this discussion is that when there are two similar objects in a room, the object closer will appear “more important” or bigger.  Thus, if there are two side chairs facing a sofa that is perpendicular to the entrance, a person sitting in the chair closer to the door will be noticed, attended to or included with greater frequency. 

  Go to www.windwater.comfor information and education possibilities for pyramid feng shui.

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

Human brains didn’t just happen; they evolved from simpler forms of life over eons.  The brain started out in a class of critters called reptiles.  The reptilian brain compared to ours, is quite simple.  Its sole function was to maintain survival functions such as respiration, digestion, circulation and reproduction.  It’s now one part of our brain that takes care of life supporting functions.  I can only imagine how we’d never have any time to do anything else if we had to instruct our hearts to beat, our lungs to fill with air and our stomach acids to digest food.  I for one am glad this part of my brain is automatic. 

Over volumes of time, another system developed that provided the capacity for emotions and coordination of movement.   When we feel sad we cry, and when afraid (fight or flight) we flee.  This is the limbic system.  One thing that you might find interesting is that every pixel of visual information your eye takes in is routed through the limbic system.

Finally, the cherry on top of the brain is the thinking system or the cerebral cortex.  It can solve complex problems, develop language, use numbers, store a great many different memories and be creative.  It is so pervasive that we often feel our cerebral cortex is us.  It is the messages of the cerebral cortex that give us the capacity of creativity. The signals we send and receive from the brain and body become the arbitrator of our capacity.

 It is helpful to know just a little more about the process of signals.  The cerebral cortex sends signals from across nerve endings through a miniscule space we label synapses.  Synapses allow never cells to communicate with one another through axons and dendrites that are tiny little specialized extensions like branches of trees. 

Dendrites receive information and axons send it.  What is most important to know is that these messages can be weak or strong.  Chemicals or neurotransmitters give graded responses that reflect the nature and magnitude of neurotransmitters released at the synapse at any given point in time.  In other words, some messages are stronger than others.  It is a fact that when you are worried about anything or if your limbic system is on alert to danger or enmeshed in emotions, your cerebral cortex has less potential to be creative.  In other words, when you are relaxed, feel secure, or have no reason to dwell upon a problem or sentiment you can send stronger signals.   

What ultimately is our goal in pyramid feng shui is to maximize the effectiveness of appropriate signals to affect the most potentially favorable actions.  It is our job to create an environment where the signals can flow without stressors.

 To learn more about pyramid feng shui education visit www.windwater.com

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

I remember sitting on the mossy edge of Turkey Swamp’s creek, a small stream that meandered along the rear edge of the bucolic five acres, I had just purchased and thinking of the magnificent responsibility I had incurred when I purchased it. I was filled with delight and fully accepted accountability for its care. When I sold it 18 years later to move to Florida, I hoped the rather acerbic new owner would be transformed by the awesome task of care taking this land. For me private ownership has always been associated with pride, custody and joy.

Imagine my surprise, when while entertaining two friends last night, I received a phone call from my neighbor across the street asking my guest to remove their car from what appeared to be an unused driveway. A rather narrow dirt path, with overhanging trees, with something covered with a tarp at the end, most certainly didn’t look like an active driveway. The caller’s voice sounded shaky and although the husband of the household mentioned that they didn’t need to move the vehicle under the tarp, still he wanted my guest to move her car.

“No problem”, I say unaware of where my guest had parked her auto. In defense of this guest’s selection, let me say that I live on a very small one lane sand road and her big car if parked in my street could block another car from passing. I had actually moved my own car to a spot on the street that was a bit wider to allow one guest to park in my driveway.

So my guest and I got up from the dinner table, popped out of the house into the car and was in the process of leaving the driveway when the female of the couple came bounding out of the house, pounding on the window and with a twisted expression of rage on her face screamed at us, “Don’t you know the meaning of private property? “ Her ranting and fury continued until we were well out of hear shot.

Actually, I thought to myself, I do know the meaning of private property it was her who needed a re-education.

For more pyramid feng shui education opportunities visit   www.windwater.com/education