Riding the Dragon in Corsica.

It always amazes me that although other cultures don’t have feng shui, we often locate and build our cities, villages and houses the in same way using feng shui, whether we are conscious of it or not.

We went walking from a village called Soccia to the Creno Lake (1310 M above sea level) in the western part of Corsica yesterday and on our way back down the mountain, I noticed that the old village of Soccia (650 M in altitude), with its granite houses, is built along a ridge branching out from the top of the Monte Retondo Mountain.

It is a classic case of riding the Dragon Vein in feng shui, with the village church right at the end of the Qi flow, sitting on a rocky spur projecting out onto the Fiume Grosso Valley. The church is the most important building in a traditional European village and it collects the Dragon Qi of the land, as it should.

In feng shui we say this is a Yang way of locating a site; in contrast, the village we are staying in is located in a wok-like landscape, protected by mountains on three sides and facing the warm South sun, it is a classic case of a Nest Formation and is considered a Yin way of sitting (see water colour painting by my wife Gyda in the last photo).

But I am sure the Corsicans don’t know anything about feng shui and don’t have any of these feng shui terms I mentioned, but they do it the same way as the Chinese would, in sitting their traditional villages in far away China. To me, from this perspective, the application of feng shui is quite universal.