FEATURES >> THE GREAT NORTH-SOUTH DEBATE
Derek Walters

The Great North South Debate

One of the most asked questions regarding Feng Shui, is what happens in the Southern hemisphere. Since the Sun reaches its highest point in the North, and since the seasons are the reverse of those in the northern hemisphere, ought not the principles of the Eight Trigrams and the Five Elements to be reversed as well?

It is an intriguing argument, but alas, one which does not bear close scrutiny.

A demonstrably simple answer is that compass needles always point to the north irrespective of whether one is in the northern or southern hemispheres. Another is that the Sun rises in the East whatever part of the globe one may be at.

Then again, a moment’s thought will uncover the problem that if the rules of Feng Shui are to be reversed for the southern hemisphere, does the Feng Shui in equatorial places suddenly reverse as one crosses the road? More importantly, there is the question of defining the range of places where the change-over occurs. Between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the Sun will cross over the boundary line at some point in the year - more frequently the closer one is to the geographical equator. Any suggestion that the rules must be reversed for the southern hemisphere must therefore take account of the fact that the Feng Shui could change from one day to the next.

But there are many other reasons to show that the philosophies cannot be bent to accommodate the argument that the south is reversed.

The first is to remember that the association of the elements and the trigrams with the seasons is purely a notional one. While we might consider the Trigram Li to lie in the South, and Kan in the North, this only holds true when we are working with the Post-Heaven sequence. In the Pre-Heaven sequence, the trigrams are not associated with these directions.

The association of the elements with the seasons is also a useful aid to memory, and a way of understanding the latent forces of the elements, but it should not be taken too literally. After all, even in the northern hemisphere, places such as India regard the cool North as beneficial, and the Sun, instead of being a warming source of energy, is actually a destroyer of vitality. The rules of Feng Shui are not altered to suit the climate.

We can add to this the fact that the most populated area of the northern hemisphere is the ‘temperate’ zone. There are very few places, remote and scattered as they are, lying in equivalent latitudes in the southern hemisphere. Just as the Pacific side of the globe is a landless vast expanse of water, so is that part of the southern hemisphere which corresponds to the continents of North America, Europe and Asia.

Then there is the astronomical correspondence to consider. The principles of Feng Shui are universal in that the northern sky and the Great Bear is always above the North Pole, and the southern sky, with the Southern Cross, above the South Pole - or below it, if viewed from beyond the Earth’s orbit. Even though the sages of old referred to the Earth symbolically as square, they were well aware that the Earth was a globe, and indeed the Chinese pantheon includes Nan Ji Lao, the Old Man of the South Pole.

So to the question of whether the principles of Feng Shui are reversed for the southern hemisphere, the answer has to be a resounding No.