A highlight of a trip into China is traveling south into the province of Guangxi and viewing landscapes seen and experienced by ancient Chinese thousand or so years before and as these ancient people we absorbing the Qi (Chi energy) of the place and wondering why is it so. I understand Feng Shui origins come in part from the landscapes of limestone peaks and adjoining rice paddies and fields of Guilin and regions including that of Yangshuo which I recently visited in May 2010.

My day arrived when I took a bus trip from Yangshuo to an ancient trading village called Huangyao which is preserved as is as a trading centre dating back well over five hundred years. My trip was on the bus was consumed as that of a camera bug pressing the shutter as I marveled at the limestone peaks jutting from the plains and the rice paddies and villages scattered within. A panorama of peaks stark and patterned against a horizon shrouded in mist and in their foreground, clusters of homes and rural villages nestled underneath and adjoining the fertile soils and streams flowing into the Li River. Soils rich in colour and texture and rewarding those who tilled them (with a hand held hoe) cultivating rice, maize, vegetables and fruits and recently fields of in ground trees for extraction as landscape features.

But to a silly person like myself, I couldn’t just admire and appreciate the landscapes as it flowed past the bus windows. I had to view it and question myself which parts are the Yin and what is the Yang. You know, this area was supposed to host the origins of Feng Shui and all that stuff. And thousand years or so, Chinese would have observed the same landscapes and lived within them and made decisions like myself or pondered over them. They knew they lived within a region with extremely high Qi energy and reasoned out the why’s and there for’s.

What represents the Yang? Is it the peaks and mountains disappearing into the mist and sit vertically above the level plains. They appear as pedestals and are hard, rock like, and masculine in appearance, unyielding, somber and permanent.

Is it the plains which are Yang and offer life, transition from what’s underneath them to life in its covering of plant life and birds? Is it the streams which ply their way winding and oscillating between peaks to gently flow past villages and fields of green?

When does Yin come into it? Is Yin the mountain peaks because from these mountains came the soils in the field? The mountain peaks, parent and host to the landscape and shielding and protecting what underneath. Maybe Yin is present in the fields? These are flat, green, soft and yielding to the touch of mankind. Is Yin present in the streams and pond-age and within the rice paddies or crops of orchards and trees? Is Yin within the homes that take care of the people who work the land with their hoes and live off the land sustainably and have done so for so many years?

So the confusion of Yin and Yang differentiations spoil my bus trip and I subjected to confusion. I now understand why those ancient Chinese drew a circle with one part white (Yang) and the other part black (the Yin) and gently defining the two with a curved line to ensure each is equal to the other and each influence on the other as neutralised. The two parts equal and in unison with the other and that of harmony when their influences are balanced in their Qi. Maybe that’s an explanation for the circle’s existence and my confusion elapsing when the black portion contains a small circle of white (the Yang) and accepting its intrusion to suggest there’s no such thing as a pure Yin or Yang. Each is part of the other. There’s something of Yin in every Yang thing and vice versa.

Sure the Sun is representative of Yang as compared to the dark and empty space that surrounds it and Earth is Yin. It’s the heat and light from the Sun that gives Earth its life and just enough to ensure life as we know is maintained and in harmony with its surroundings, ambient in temperature and through wind and water, climate and home to life. Our planet Earth so delicately balanced in its Yin and Yang and the chance of it occurring as such elsewhere in the galaxy of stars and moons is remote.

Maybe that’s the gift of life we enjoy here on Earth so perfectly illustrated here in the landscapes outside Yangshuo and upon myself cocooned on a bus marveling at a perfectly balanced landscape of Yin and Yang and that of perpetual harmony. No wonder Feng Shui origins and testament was built from such places.

And as such, I also see the relationships between mountain peak and stream and what’s in between, the mountains acting as guardians and saviour to life underneath and that of auspicious Qi (Chi) energy presence in abundance. Qi flowing from the mountains to the streams and passing over and staying within the landscapes, ensconcing the landscapes residents including its plants, birds and people, as part of the landscape and intrusion limited by our ability to change it.

Maybe we should treat a landscape as that of Yin and its impositions from Yang and not get too lost in separating them as one or the other. I’m sure we could suggest a landscape is of a Yin or Yang nature through its dominant characteristics such as vegetation cover, soils, slopes and the built environment.

The Yangshuo landscapes I passed through to me were blessed landscapes in Qi abundance and representing that of Yin and Yang harmony. And there supported by an idyllic climate, regular and reliable rainfall patterns and very fertile soils. The land use patterns adopted by the Chinese farmers have been sustainable from the time they first learnt to cultivate the soils and as such have preserved the harmony and balance to such places.

Maybe that’s where the lesson is offered. Our inputs on our surroundings influence the natural balance of Yin and Yang and the Qi (Chi) that flows through them. Yin and Yang.

Author Bio: I hope you enjoyed reading my article as much as I enjoyed pondering over and writing it. For more related topics and complete eBook Publications, please visit my website Feng Shui Garden – a Modern and Unique Concept to Feng Shui in the Garden and Harmonious Chi (Qi) Within Our Lives. Drop by and pick up your Free Feng Shui Ebooks Sample today!! Regards, Ross Lamond

Category: Travel
Keywords: yin,yang,yin and yang,landscapes,life,qi,chi,feng shui