Elixir
Tiburon Art Festival
8-22-09
Feng Shui Ceremony
The Ceremony

It's no small trick to get a pile of dirt to look this beautiful, especially in the context of the Tiburon Art Festival...

Activities commence as we begin to adorn our local celebritrees…

And explain to the locals what's going on. Here I'm describing the feng shui dynamics of the day to restauranteur Senor Pancho, El Gran Jefe de la Casa Manana…

Bringing fire into the Fire hour…

Participants prepare to plant the fire.

And the mound is activated.

Fire and Water begin to interact.

West Marin County ritualist Michael Stocker of the Ocean Conservation Research team places sage and copal onto gleaming coals. It's important to have the energy of an event like this go into something tangible and real related to the relationship described by the event. Ocean Conservation Research is precisely what we needed to complete this portion of the day's alchemy.

Placing railroad spikes into the earth mound during the Yang Metal hour…

A photographer from Tiburon's own Ark newspaper arrives to cover the event…

Fire, Earth, Metal, Water…

I precisely monitored the timing of each day's activities with my Yes Watch. The Yes Watch lends itself perfectly to such things. Here you can see that we were just in the very beginning phase of the New Moon, about three hours past solar noon.

Locals add their part to the evolving panorama of this day's events. Here's somebody pushing coins into the earth mound…

Accentuating the Metal hour…

There was a time in the afternoon to place jewelry on the mound. Here feng shui team member Cindy Pierson places pieces of her grandmother's jewelry in the West…

The energy picks up as festival goers, intoxicated with the moment, begin to dance around the earth mound…

And place their precious objects into the earth.

The next step is to place flowers during the Yin Wood hour…

Each person senses what's happening in his or her own way. Here team member Erik Ortman takes it all in.

Qi is a universal and objective phenomenon that anyone can utilize once they have the right training. Here Sausalito artist and Qi Gong master Jarl Forsman feels the energy of the mound with her hands.

Placing keys on the mound to ritually empower them.

Participants in the water ceremony bring water from the San Francisco Bay into the earth mound…

A late-afternoon view of the mound from the notch of an atlatl spear…

Our ceremony in full swing.

Continue on to deeper participation...

Elixir’s Feng Shui Gallery