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Title: Living Color: Master Lin Yun's Guide to Feng Shui and the Art of Color by Sarah Rossbach, Lin Yun, Yun Lin ISBN: 1-56836-014-2 Publisher: Kodansha America Pub. Date: 01 December, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Too many lists
Comment: If this is your favorite book, I apologize for not giving it a well deserved 5 stars. I am writing for those who might share my perspective, and do not want to diminish the perfection of this book for many people.
This is only the third book on Feng Shui that I've read. My immediate interest was sparked by reading 'Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui' by Karen Kingston. Wanting to learn more and using my engineering research skills, I combed the reviews here and picked 'Living Color'. My color IQ is nil and I hoped the book might offer some assistance.
Unfortunately, I was too dense to make much of the insights offered. The various matrices of color vs. room or color vs. business or color foreground vs. color background went over my head. I'm already a habitual list/matrix maker, but they are memory aids for recalling 'known' insights. In this case, the original insight eluded me, so recalling it offered me little.
I did enjoy the first 3 chapters, which included preparatory material. Perhaps the book was simply too advanced for me. For example, the notion of a destructive and creative color cycle is very appealing; I just couldn't get a feel for it.
Near the end of the book, the use of color as part of meditation practice is described. I appreciated this section, too.
Rating: 3
Summary: helpful only to the intutive
Comment: I am someone who is deeply interested in and in agreement with the foundational principles behind what goes by the name of Feng Shui. And as much as I found this book helpful, I also tried to read it from the point of view of someone who might find the whole FS to be a bunch of BS. And I found it to be wanting in clearer explanations, even if only to explain why and how some of these things were beyond rational explanation.
This book IS about color theory and practice as espoused by the Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhism (BTB) in organizing the environment - micro and macro. By now the interested reader ought to know something about the historical dimensions that shaped the BTB, especially including the Chinese input over the last 1,000 years or so. That said, I can say that this book is helpful only to those who are artistically inclined and/or familiar with, AND accepting of the logic behind Chinese cosmology and cultural symbolisms. Why?
Take for example, the part where the author mentions that the color white for fences is bad and red is best. She recommends a cure that can be had by tying 9 red ribbons to the fence. Okay, let us leave aside for the moment the issue of whether that is "true" or not, on whatever level. The fact that the author would make such a statement is bound to rub the average American reader the wrong way, which is indeed unfortunate.
The fact that the color white symbolizes death and purity (to the point of permitting no life) to the Chinese is no reason to write off the whole Western practice of investing the color white with other meanings, such as purity (as in chastity), honesty, cleanliness, and new beginning -- all hopeful and positive things.
This book, as good as it could be, makes the same mistake as some of the other bestsellers in assuming that every reader will (have to) simply accept the Chinese cosmology as universal truth. It is not clear why this oversight continues to occur, but it gives the uncomfortable impression that only a particular culture had access to the "real" truth of colors.
This sort of explanation right from the start would have been helpful to the reader: That the FIVE ELEMENTS merely represent the five MODES of Ch'i, and the names (that is, the elements) associated with them were chosen largely for easier memorization and visualization, and thus application to the visible material world, including medicine. They could just as well have been labeled A,B,C,D, and E. (The subatomic particles also have names that are there just for easier identification. Are electrons really electronic?) The names of the five modes don't really matter, but the manner of their interaction does. The reader should not accept the (pseudo) explanation that "metal 'produces' water because water condenses outside a copper pail filled with cold water", or that "fire 'produces' earth by way of ash". Nor should the reader reject it as "bad science" and forego the more interesting stuff behind the immensely complicated system of observation (as well as observances) in FS. The five elements structure is a mnemonic device before it is anything else but the author does not tell you this, and the disinterested reader is left to follow wide-eyed, marveling at the "awesome" wisdom of the Chinese; or to reject it without furthur ado as New Age mumbo-jumbo.
Given that the BTB puts a lot of emphasis on YI (intention, will), and even in its meditation practices it encourages people to activate whatever religious symbolisms with which they feel most at home, it would only makes sense to assure the Western reader that the purpose of Feng Shui is to activate the energy (Ch'i) of one's environment in harmony with one's own psychic disposition, which would certainly include one's own traditional orientation and inculcation of values -- ethical and aesthetical.
This book, I think, can confuse as well as enlighten, depending on the reader's own level of intutional development. Those who are too uncritically enthusiastic about FS so as to accept everything written here, may end up with a mess of colors all over their house. If it's true that 'You can take a horse to the water but you can't make him drink', then it's also true that if you're the horse, you have to figure out just how thirsty you are, and for what.
All in all, this is a good book, but if you are trained to think critically, it may not be the best book out there for you....
Rating: 4
Summary: Terrific Guide
Comment: The subject demands illustration and this book delivers--big time! Full of instructive (and beautiful) photography, complimented by thoughtful and useful text.
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Title: Interior Design With Feng Shui by Sarah Rossbach ISBN: 0140196080 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 31 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Feng Shui Design: From History and Landscape to Modern Gardens & Interiors by Sarah Rossbach, Yun Lin ISBN: 0670882232 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Modern Book of Feng Shui: Vitality and Harmony for the Home and Office by Steven Post ISBN: 0440507685 Publisher: Delta Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Feng Shui: Harmony by Design by Nancy Santopietro, Lin Yun ISBN: 0399522395 Publisher: Perigee Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui (More Crystals and New Age) by Karen Kingston ISBN: 0767903595 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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