North · 000° — FengShui.info

In the tradition

North belongs to Kan, the trigram of water: a single unbroken line held between two broken ones, a current moving between its banks. In the Later Heaven arrangement it sits at the bottom of the diagram, opposite Li and the fire of the south. It is winter, midnight and the middle son; its qualities are depth, danger and persistence, the abyss and the well at once.

The oldest schools of siting (the Form School) wanted a house to sit with its back to the north and to a rising landform, the “black tortoise” of the classical armchair configuration, and to face south toward light and open ground. Much of what the tradition says about north is really about shelter: the cold comes from here, so make this the solid side.

In the Western or Black Sect bagua of the late twentieth century, the north sector became the area of career and life path. That association is modern and should be read as such; the classical texts speak of water, winter and stillness, not of employment.

In the room

In the northern hemisphere a north-facing room never receives direct sun. What it gets instead is the most even, coolest daylight of the house, light that does not move across the wall during the day. Painters wanted north-facing studios for exactly this reason, and it is why north rooms make good workrooms and difficult bedrooms in winter.

The practical reading follows: put work, reading and anything that needs steady light on the north side; warm a north bedroom with Earth’s materials (clay, plaster, wool, warm browns) rather than with more Water; keep glass and mirrors, already Water, to a minimum here.

Fig. 02 · Sun path · 45°N The sky a North-facing wall can see, and the sun’s track across it in June, at the equinoxes and in December.

Jun: 6.8 h
Mar · Sep: none
Dec: none

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.

How to find it

Stand at the centre of the room, or at the front door facing out, and take a compass reading. A phone compass is adequate for room-scale decisions; if you want the classical precision of a luopan, take three readings a few metres apart and average them, away from steel, speakers and large appliances that pull the needle.

See North on the Bagua explorer

Sources for this page · the full bibliography

01 Stephen Skinner, The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui (1982). Routledge & Kegan Paul. An early, serious English introduction to the classical system.

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.

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.

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.

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.