N 000°

https://fengshui.info/directions/southwest/

Directions · SW 225° · Sector 202.5°–247.5° · Lo Shu 2

Southwest

NNEESESSWWNW 3060120150210240300330

The receptive: three open lines, the field that takes everything in. Warm afternoon light and the tradition’s direction for the rooms in which people are together.

In the tradition

Kun is pure yin, three broken lines: earth in its receiving aspect, the mother, late summer, the long afternoon. It is the counterpart of Qian in the northwest, and between them they frame the whole arrangement. The Western bagua makes this the sector of relationships and partnership; classical texts speak of receptivity and nourishment.

In the room

Southwest light is the warmest in the house, low and golden from mid-afternoon to evening. It flatters sitting rooms and bedrooms and suits any room that is used at the end of the day. Earth is the element: ceramics, plaster, warm textiles, things in pairs. The classical caution is against emptiness here; the receptive direction wants to be furnished.

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