Sha and the soil-based dust

For some reason, there is a natural human aversion to dust. Dust actually looks weak and unthreatening, and “death by dust” is almost laughable. Although it may be usual to think that dust is harmless, a housewife, on spotting some dust, will immediately pick up a damp cloth and wipe it away. Obviously, some deep rooted instinct of nature is at work.

Learning from evolution

The human body has evolved a mechanism against dust. The nostrils contain tiny hairs and these act as a filtering barrier to keep out dust from the lungs. Evolution must have thought that dust was dangerous enough to be kept at bay. It is strange that we did not evolve with ear flaps to keep out harsh sounds or nose flaps to keep out foul smells, but we evolved with nostril hairs to keep out the dust. Could it be that dust is the most threatening factor among them all?

Learning from the poor

In the poorer sections of towns, ghettos exist around dirty rivers and rubbish dumps. Somehow, the people living there are able to survive. However, it would be difficult to find anybody living near a dusty quarry. Even poor people shun such living conditions. Goodness knows why because there are more germs in dirt than in dry dust. One would not be faulted for concluding that the human body has a lower tolerance for dust than for dirt. Dust comes from all materials, but it is the soil-based dust that we shall focus our attention on.

The argument

I will now present an argument to show that we should treat soil-based dust as we would treat sha in fengshui . Soil-based dust is different from other types of dust in that they are more radioactive. Anything from the soil will be radioactive because of the presence of traces of uranium, thorium and other radioactive solids.  Unlike radon, which is a gas, these radioactive solids do not follow the laws of gas diffusion. Instead, they move in a “hopping” manner. Air currents shift the earth dust particles and the particles settle in a new spot usually at a lower level. Following gravity, they normally “hop” downhill. As they move, they undergo radioactive decay and ionize the air around them into positive and negative ions. In fact, their ionizing capacity will rival that of radon. A rough rule of thumb says that 40% of air ions are from radon, 40% from radioactive solids, and 20% from cosmic rays. These are very rough portions and would vary from place to place.

As long as soil-based dust particles do not enter our lungs, they are friendly and usable. It is a widely held hypothesis that the moment they enter the lungs, they possess a health threat, because being solid, they can get stuck in our bronchial tubes and bombard the bodily tissues with alpha radiation. However, this has been happening since time immemorial so I believe that the human body must have developed a certain level of immunity to it.

Another source of radioactive solids is the radioactive gas radon. Although radon is a gas, it decays into polonium(Po₂₁₈)  which decays to lead(Pb₂₁₄) which decays to bismuth(Bi₂₁₄) which decays to another polonium isotope(Po₂₁₄) which decays to another lead isotope(Pb₂₁₀) and so on and so forth until the final stable lead isotope(Pb₂₀₆). Except for radon, all of these daughter products are solids and can get deposited in our lungs. In fact, this is the real reason why a lot of people in the scientific community have an issue with radon. Radon is considered safe, but not the radon daughters.

Not all dusts are soil-based. Wood-based dust, or smog particles from car exhausts for instance, are less likely to contain anything radioactive.

As mentioned before, I believe that human beings have developed some immunity to these radioactive solids in our lungs. Not only that, because humans are bioelectrical organisms, so some radioactive dust inside our bodies may actually aid in our very survival! Radioactivity is related to the production of electrical charges and a live human has a constant flow of electrical charges inside from cell to cell. It is doubtful if we can survive for long on a planet without radioactivity. Science is unable to prove it yet, but there is a possibility that we may actually need a fair bit of these radioactive dust particles!  The only danger is in having much more radioactive particles in our lungs than the body can handle. In such a case, the system is out of balance and one can expect sickness to result.

A system in balance

So now we have a love-hate relationship with radioactive solids. We love the fact that they ionize the air. We hate the idea of too much radioactive solids settling inside our lungs. We need to find a way to live such that we benefit from air ionization without getting too much radioactive particles inside us. This means orientating our homes to receive radon but at the same time preventing too much soil-based dust from entering. Such is the balance that we are striving for.

Nature seeks a balance point

The ancients have shared their wisdom with us in that we should be moderate in our ways. The human body is an organism in fine balance. Tilt one way, it loses its balance. Tilt the other way; it too loses its balance. We need to always keep this in mind.

A case in point is the subject of noise. We have study after study proving that noise pollution is hazardous to our health leading to the erroneous conclusion that noise is “bad”. However, life is not about “good” and “bad”. It is about the fact that Nature seeks a balance point. If the world suddenly falls absolutely silent, I bet that many of us will feel eerie and uncomfortable. Some background noise is desirable to get to that balance point. Because of this law of Nature, we can also conclude that some radioactive particles inside us will be desirable. I will admit that this is not a scientific way of argument, but that is only because science has not yet caught up with the Wisdom of Nature as far as radioactivity is concerned.

We see the Wisdom of Nature at work even in the animal world. The lion kills and eats members of a deer herd. So, is the lion bad for the deer? With too many lions around, the herd will not survive. If there were no lions at all, the deer would soon grow indolent and unhealthy. Actually, with no lions to pick them off, any sick deer would spread its diseases to the rest of the herd, thus killing off the whole herd! Lions are neither “good” nor “bad” for the deer. It is all about the balance point, and the Wisdom of Nature seeks that balance point.

Comparing sha and dust

Fengshui has certain rules concerning sha and they appear to be related to soil-based dust. I tend to believe that they are there to prevent excessive soil-based dust from entering a house. Let us examine some existing fengshui philosophy at this juncture.

“A green lush mountain is qi”

A mountain is a source of radon and that ought to be usable. If the mountain is covered with vegetation, mountain winds will find it much more difficult to dislodge tiny radioactive soil particles from the mountain surface. Such a mountain is a healthy dragon.

“A barren mountain is sha”

Some mountains are barren with little vegetation cover. They yield soil-based dust easily to the winds. Thus, they are also categorized as sha in fengshui. Mountains with exposed rocks and boulders will also fall into this category. It may not be a coincidence that many so-called ill winds are blowing across either barren mountains(e.g. Santa Ana) or mountains with rocks(e.g. Rocky mountains and Swiss Alps).

“A broken mountain is sha”

If the mountain has been broken by excavation or blasting, bare soil will be brought up to the surface. Winds will easily carry the exposed soil particles and deposit them elsewhere. Such a mountain is a sick dragon. If your house is facing such a mountain, chances are that the radioactive soil-based dust will find a way to your house. This mountain is sha.

“Houses should face away from the mountain”

One of the first questions I had as a fengshui student was thus; if mountains were sources of qi, why were houses built with the main door facing away from the mountains? It was very much later that I theorized that perhaps this has to do with the manner by which radon and soil-based dust moved. Radon moves by gravity and diffusion. Soil-based dust “hops” by a combination of gravity and air currents, but not by diffusion.

If a house faces the mountain, both radon and soil-based dust will enter the front door.

If the house faces away from the mountain, the downward hopping soil-based dust will hopefully bypass the house. It is akin to being in a dust storm; one will breathe in less dust if one faces downwind rather than upwind. This is not a foolproof method against dust but it is still better than nothing. In fact, practically speaking, one cannot totally prevent dust from entering our homes.

Since ancient times, in many architectural designs of houses around the world, many cultures have thresholds built in the doorways to block out the dust.

Today, many of us do not know what the threshold is there for. In the past, there must have been a general concern that dust has to be prevented from entering a house in both ancient eastern and western cultures. The threshold may not look impressive, but it acts as a simple dust trap and constitutes the inner line of defense. Actually the threshold works better against the heavier dust particles, which more often than not, are soil-based. The radioactive elements have high atomic mass and if they are found in a dust particle, then the particle will be much heavier than a similar sized particle of smog for instance.

Unfortunately, the lighter dust particles have little problem in entering a house, thus keeping the homemakers busy dusting and wiping. If the house faces the mountain, then the threshold may not be effective enough to stop even the soil-based dust from entering.

“A ming tang dissolves sha”

A ming tang constitutes the outer line of defense. Again the issue is balance. A small ming tang will slow down the air currents at the front of the house. This causes a slowdown in the speed of the air and that will in turn cause air-laden dust to precipitate out onto the floor instead of being carried into the house. In a way, it does dissolve sha but I do not think that that is the main function for a ming tang. The main purpose of a ming tang is to collect qi. Dissolving sha may just be a side benefit.

“A ming tang should not be too large”

A ming tang that is too large will not be effective in slowing down the air currents. That is why the main door of a house should not face a large open field. Needless to say, there is an optimum size for a ming tang. Note that the ming tang is a complex subject and slowing down the air currents is just one of its many uses. Two centuries ago, there were less people on earth and houses were more exposed to the elements. If television is to be believed, everybody lived in a “Little House on the Prairie”! There were lots of fresh air and sunshine.  And yet, the life expectancy of people was low and only less than 60 years. There is a distinct possibility that their ming tang was much too big and they had a far bigger exposure to soil-based dust than we do.  Today, in the modern world, despite the increase in pollution, the life expectancy of people has been going upwards.

“Houses that face the mountain should protrude the doors.”

A protruded door helps somewhat in allowing the soil-based dust to slip around the protrusion instead of gathering around the threshold waiting for the next strong air current to pop them into the house. Personally, I do not like protruded doors much as I think that they look funny and their effectiveness may not that high. Nevertheless, it is a solution for a house that is facing a nearby mountain, especially a broken mountain. While on this topic, my feeling is that taking care of soil-based dust particles is just a minor function of a protruded door and that its main function lies somewhere else. I hope to do some research on protruded doors in the future to discover its main intention.

Conclusion

The arguments that I have provided in this article are intended to reinforce in the mind of the reader that Wisdom of Nature seeks a balance point and that fengshui is the application of that wisdom. We should exercise some care against the wholesale categorizing of things as either “good” or “bad”. Fengshui is about living a rewarding life that is in balance. Although fengshui lies in the realm of metaphysics, it may actually have a foundation in real physics. This ancient art has guided our ancestors to live life to their capacity and it is still applicable today.

Our guest author, Mr Mike Teh, is a senior lecturer in a private university. He did his masters in engineering through research in fluid dynamics. In his spare time, he studies the practice of Feng Shui to see if a scientific basis can be found. This is his fourth contribution to our journal. - Pau Wan Leow (ed.)