N 000°

https://fengshui.info/directions/east/

Directions · E 090° · Sector 67.5°–112.5° · Lo Shu 3

East

NNEESESSWWNW 3060120150210240300330

Sunrise, spring and the first movement of the year. The direction of beginnings, of morning light on the wall, of the rooms in which a household starts its day.

In the tradition

Zhen is thunder: a single solid line at the base pushing two broken ones upward, the first shock of spring that wakes the ground. It is dawn and the eldest son, and its element is Wood, growth in its most vigorous phase.

The Western bagua makes this the sector of family and health, extending the classical associations with ancestry (the eldest son) and vitality.

In the room

East gives the house its morning: the low sun enters almost horizontally and travels quickly across the room. It is the best orientation for a bedroom if you like to wake with the light, and for a kitchen or breakfast table. Wood is the element, so height, timber and living plants belong here; they also happen to be what an east-lit room shows off best.

Sun path for a wall facing East, at 45° north 0810121416 Wall faces NESW
Fig. 02 · Sun path · 45°N The sky a East-facing wall can see, and the sun’s track across it in June, at the equinoxes and in December.
Jun
7.6 h
Mar · Sep
5.9 h
Dec
4.2 h

A geometric model, not a forecast: it assumes a clear sky and a flat horizon at 45° north, and it says nothing about qi. It is here because orientation is the one part of the tradition that can be drawn exactly.

See East on the Bagua explorer

Sources for this page · the full bibliography

  1. 01 Stephen Skinner, The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui (1982). Routledge & Kegan Paul. An early, serious English introduction to the classical system.
  2. 02 Eva Wong, Feng-shui: The Ancient Wisdom of Harmonious Living for Modern Times (1996). Shambhala. A compass-school practitioner’s account of the Form and Compass methods, clear about which is which.
  3. 03 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, part 1: Physics (1962). Cambridge University Press. The history of the magnetic compass in China, including its use by geomancers before navigators.
  4. 04 Mohamed Boubekri and colleagues, Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office workers: a case-control pilot study (2014). Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 10(6), 603–611. Daylight at work and sleep at night; a small study, honestly labelled a pilot.
  5. 05 Joshua J. Gooley and colleagues, Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans (2011). Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 96(3), E463–E472. Ordinary room light before bed, not only screens, delays melatonin.

The sun-path drawing and the hours of light are computed from a geometric model at 45° north (see the methodology page), not taken from any source; the directions' trigrams, elements and readings are the tradition's, as the manuals above give them.

Drawing
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