Northwest · 315° — FengShui.info

In the tradition

Qian is pure yang, three solid lines: heaven, the father, late autumn, the evening. It is the origin of the sequence and the trigram of authority and endurance. In the classical house the northwest was the position of the master’s room and of the household’s most important guest.

The Western bagua assigns this sector to helpful people, mentors and travel, a reading of Qian’s associations with patronage and the outside world.

In the room

Northwest rooms are shaded for most of the day and take a late, low sun in summer only. They are cool, steady and private, good for a study, an office or the bedroom of someone who works late. Metal is the element: precision, restraint, grey and white, the round table, nothing superfluous.

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

Jun: 6.3 h
Mar · Sep: 3.6 h
Dec: 1.0 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 Northwest 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.