I have met a lot of people who are very fearful of the annual shens. Some of them tell me that they do not open the window at all that year just in case the annual star 5 (also known as the 5 Yellow) gets into the room and send their luck flying into pieces.

You must remember that the annual energy, even if negative, are influenced by the inherent energy of the room (mountain and water star). If these inherent energy are positive, they will moderate the negative annual star and making them less malevolent.

This is one of the reason why a practitioner put in so much effort to get you to sleep in the right room or have the main door in the right place.

Even if you just look at the anuual star, they are in my opinion and based on my observation, not overly fearsome. If you stick to the rules governing renovations and usage, you should be fine.

To recap, you should not renovate if your animal sign clash with Tai Sui. For example, Rats should not renovate this year (of the horse). For a currently tenanted house, you should also not renovate if your house faces S2. Also avoid renovating the N2 (Sui Poh of Year Breaker) sector, the North sector (Three Killings) and the NW sector (Star 5 or 5 Yellow).

Which brings us to the next question. How much of renovation is considered major or enough to activate the negative shen? That is a difficult question to answer but any works that involve ground breaking (digging or changing floor tiles) and serious knocking (such as tearing down walls or roof) qualifies. You should most definitely avoid such works in the affected sector.

By what about drilling a hole to hang a picture? Or installing prefabricated kitchen cabinets? or opening the window into the affect area! Based on my observation, these are usually okay to do. Seriously, drilling a hole to hang a picture is minor and most likely not enough to trigger any of the “shens”.

Much also depend on your condition that year. For example if you wealth luck is very bad that year, then it wise not to carry out any renovation works that borders between minor and major. Again if you are of weak health, just recovering from an illness or pregnant and your room falls in a sector afflicted by the star 2 (illness) and star 5 (most negative), then you should exercise more care.

Another popular question relates to water feature. For example, is it okay to have my water feature e.g. fountain or aquarium in the sector affected by 5 Yellow. In my opinion and again based on personal observation, small water feature such as an indoor fountain or aquarium would have little or no significant effect.

Biggers ones such as an outdoor fish pond or a swimming pool can be a problem. But most of the time, these are fixed installations and they are not a lot that you can do about them.

For me, I would spend more effort locating myself in the auspicious sectors (which are north, south and south west in 2014). Absorb the positive energy. After all Feng Shui is often called a techniques to “Enhance the auspicious and avoid the inauspicious”.

Do the right think and have a good year, every year!