Feng Shui
Feng shui is a description of how energy in the land and your dwelling flows. It is a Chinese cultural tradition which was told to me through the SO's martial arts teacher. The SO became a practitioner of feng shui because her teacher (and mine) became aware of the oneness or universality of energy.

The basic idea is the each area of the house represents a particular area in a person's life. There is the prosperity / money corner, the children corner, the relationship corner and the community corner. If the prosperity location is not present in the house, most likely, that person's life will have problems with money.

During R's wedding in Las Vegas last year, somehow or the other, the topic drifted to feng shui. Another person in the table asked "How can you believe that? You are a scientist?" My reply was "It is precisely because I am a scientist that I believe in it."

In my line of work, patterns and probabilities in the form of statistics govern the way things occur. Logic, physics, chemistry and biology are known quantities to me. I have spent half of my life studying these disciplines. So when feng shui begins to create patterns and twist statistics, I begin to pay attention.

Several weeks ago, someone in the floor of the condos passed away. She was a single woman with no husband or children. However, she was a very active participant in the House association and in the SPCA. Today, we sneaked into the open house to examine her abode. True enough, in the relationship and children locations were the the two bathrooms. The physical layout of her home once again reflected her life.

Occurrences like this jar my way of thinking with respect to feng shui. Yes, my scientific mind can not explain the rationale. But when I see a pattern often enough, I have to believe that my science is not advanced enough to see or understand the phenomena which I am seeing. Then, I have to choose faith.