Getting your kitchen ready for the holidays

Hey guys welcome to the Learn Feng Shui podcast where you'll Learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taking out the myth and Superstition so if you're interested in learning funu Chinese astrology all things Chinese metaphysics as well as the superstitions and myths that connect it all you'll enjoy learning funu with me hey guys let's talk about getting our kitchen ready for the holidays and a funu for the kitchen all right guys we're gearing up for the holiday season and you know kind of whether you cook or not you know it doesn't really matter I suppose but you know we we use we tend to use our kitchen a lot even if we're not cooking so even if you're getting the takeout what are some things we can do to prepare especially our kitchen for the time of year where it tends to get used the most so we're going to look at U some things we can be prepping in our kitchen some deep cleaning decluttering and we're going to talk about kitchen forms in today's episode I forgot to tell you I'm Candice Berlanga certified fun CH practitioner red professional and your host for the Learn Feng Shui podcast so let's get into all things fun kitchen and preparing for the holidays all right guys so let's kind of start with the deep cleaning in our kitchen so it really is kind of a time of year where we kind of need to take assessment and look at decluttering I think stuff tends to pile up in our kitchen so again as I mentioned even if we don't cook like I could get take out all week long all you know weekend whatever and my kitchen still has to be cleaned and it still gets messy so no matter if you cook or not this kitchen gets it just gets a lot of use you know we eat there we put our food there um so yeah but when we start thinking about the holidays again I know I do a lot of like baking I love baking I don't cook as much as I used to because my kids are all big but um one thing I kind of noticed we need to take assessment of is like the cabinets and the pantry those are the two main things so when we're looking at our cabinets kind of decluttering you know just kind of take it slow and think about one cabinet at a time you know maybe look at some professional organizers I I don't have that capacity but I know that um my cabinets get out of control and usually doing like one thing at a time just helps helps me feel less overwhelmed and organizing my entire Kitchen in one go and so usually what I'll do is I'll just kind of take that drawer you know once you get a system down you have things organized it really does help a lot um especially if you have the little you know container within the drawer whatever that has you know a little slot for everything right and so um throwing out the you know unused or plastic forks and spoons like just stuff like that um you know one one little thing at a time one drawer at a time um and when we look at our cabinets like things like Tupperware uh getting rid of the ones that don't have lids things that are broken and then of course if we have extra pots and pans uh maybe you want to donate something like that to a women's shelter and kind of clear that out a little bit so it's not overflowing out of your cabinet you know another area I think and this is just a kind of a a good one to assess this time of year because we do tend to do more baking I think is the spice cabinet and so my spices were out of control I like spices and I like uh buying different flavors of stuff and so they tend to accumulate and um sometimes they don't get used as much and they do expire so check the expiration dates of the spices um and you know just kind of organize them I found at Walmart the other day a really cool little spice rack that kind of gives you like extra shelf uh behind everything so you can see it and so that was really handy um you know you don't have to go out and buy all the organization stuff but sometimes it does help quite a bit you know when we're looking at the pantry again one same type of concept one Shelf at a time and it is a time of year where we want to assess our canned goods and donate and um the stuff that we're not going to use and throw away stuff that is expired it really kind of blows my mind because I feel like I'm pretty diligent on my canned goods and on my pantry items but the other day I went through and I looked at some stuff that expired a couple years ago I was like I don't even know how I missed that right so yeah stuff just kind of tends to accumulate in the pantry so thow throw away and donate things that were no longer using or expired okay so yeah that's kind of it for organizing um let's get into kitchen forms and talk about uh what makes good funu way in our kitchen okay so the kitchen from a functua perspective does simpol symbiz your health and in some schools of thought it does symbolize also your prosperity and if you tend to use your kitchen a lot or you cook a lot it does impact you kind of greatly so um there is a few things here that you can uh for in particularly with forms which is the way the uh stove is set up so particularly with the forms of the space there are some rules you want to follow so it is believ that the kitchen should not be smaller in relation to your master bedroom and in a larger house your kitchen should be fairly large you know in proportion to the house but again your master bedroom should not be any larger than the kitchen okay so that's just kind of a rule of thumb there um from a form's perspective um kitchens really shouldn't be located directly in the center of your home this is a formation called fire burning the Heavenly heart and it these kind of speak to your health issues so since it does symbolize Health um longterm if you cook a lot on a stove rather than um you know or if it's directly in the center of your home it can definitely have an impact on your health long term so you might not feel it for a while but maybe there's a year that comes in that one of the family members you know starts having some kind of long-term health issues and it could be from the stove okay so your stove should have a uh backing too it shouldn't really be on an island so same type of concept as fire burning the Heavenly heart stoves should not be on the island but rather have a backing kind of like the bed you know be placed up against a wall for the support St also shouldn't be under Slants slopes beams because it is said to suppress the energy and also cause the long-term health problems if you have a two-story house you should not be positioned uh directly over a stove like your bed or a stud desk it is say to create a fiery temperament and stoves should also not be facing a bed so maybe you have a smaller home that um maybe it's an efficiency you know put a little partition between your bed and the stove you know and they kind of block the energy and stoves also show should not be facing a door directly so if you have a back door if your stove directly faces it put up a little partition or place a plant between the two you know somewhere and the plant can help to redirect the energy so if you do practice btb or you like the idea of um placing items out stuff like that in btb Traditions it is said that you can place a mirror on the backsplash of your stove and it is said to double Prosperity since from that perspective it represents prosperity and that fire energy or you can turn on all the burners to you know for a certain amount of time each day to promote that prosperity and that fire energy so if you'd like to do that like if you don't tend to cook a lot this might be a good one for you to do but yeah it is said to promote prosperity and abundance all right guys well hope that helps you kind of prepare your kitchen get ready for the holidays and we kind of want everything to flow in our home but we are trying to finish up our work I know it does give us a short work schedule when there's of you know our kids are off for a week for Thanksgiving break and two weeks off for Christmas and you know maybe you work from home or maybe you you know are just trying to get everything done so you could take a little extra you know some days off but you need to get it done um I definitely feel this with podcasting and my work I had to get it done before um my my my kid is home last one's still in school but to do this and to be productive I've actually been drinking something called Magic mind productivity drink so it really helps with the U mental fatigue I was looking for a alternative to coffee so I do love me a peppermint mocha this time of year but I do notice that I think the older I get the more sensitive I am to caffeine or not necessarily caffeine but coffee in particular and I do feel like it does kind of give me that jittery feeling uh the magic mind productivity drink does also help with the caffeine crash that I experienced usually mid morning I'll get this caffeine crash and I'll feel like I I'm like man I just want to sit down for a minute and I just woke up you know that caffeine is is uh it'll just just make you crash and uh energy slumps so I do experience also midday energy slump about 4:00 when I go to pick my kid up I just feel so sleepy like I just want to close my eyes and lay down for a minute um so magic mind has actually helped really uh quite a bit with that you know I don't I don't feel that energy slump have been taking it kind of midday you know kind of combat that and the caffeine does come from matcha so it's not to me I feel like it's a different kind of a wakefulness if that makes sense it's like you know you're just able to be productive and move around without having the jittery like uh feeling sometimes that you get from drinking a coffee it also has neut Tropics in it that do help with Clarity and it does help fight the mental fatigue sometimes I feel like I just need to like know to talk to me CU I just feel so mentally fatigued not physically but just my mind is tired and talking is too exhausting for me and that's not good for podcasting right uh so yeah I I do feel like it's helped with the mental fatigue and it does have Ash Wanda which helped with Stress and Anxiety so Stress and Anxiety we can feel around the holiday season especially when we're busy you know doing our our holiday stuff and preparing it's pretty yummy too it does have aave and passion fruit and it does kind of remind me of of a pineapple flavor with like a earthiness to it so almost like a we grass shot with a pineapple and I think that's just from the matcha pretty dang good so yeah they are today's episode sponsor they'll be sponsoring a few different shows so I'm excited for that and I do have a discount code for you guys if you'd like to try that you need to be more productive this time of year you can go to magicmine docomo so that's magicmine dcom backf n g Hui and of course include a link in the show notes so you can check that out um for 20% off your first order go to U you can put in code Fe NG shui 20 so fun 20 that's Fe n shui 20 so yeah go check that out and I think you'll really enjoy it as much as I do uh and I'm happy to have them as Today's Show sponsor and and keeping it kitchen themed let's go ahead and go to today's folklore Friday and talk about the kitchen God a household deity that reports back if you're naughty or nice from mythology source.com zun the Chinese Kitchen God so in Chinese folklore zun is known as the kitchen God he was a household deity of fire so how did this male deity become associate with the kitchen the kitchen God often called by the name Z Jun was at the center of chines family life presiding over the stove he inhabited the heart of the family unit but unlike other domestic Gods however Saun was not primarily concerned with family Unity or the protection of the home but instead his main purpose was to tell the Jade Emperor each year what the family had done and said in private the household God who reported back to the authorities is uniquely a Chinese deity and he and his reflect Origins reflect not only the structure of Chinese family life but also the bureaucracy that permeated virtually every aspect of their culture in Chinese folk religion Z June was one of the names used for the god of the Hearth household deities were common in many cultures and they served as patrons of the family protectors for the home and emblems of domestic life Z Jun also served their purpose though he reported what happened in each home to the Jade Emperor each year a few days before the new year of the Lunar New Year that would be zun would leave his place in the home and return to heaven and he would tell the Jade Emperor what each family had done throughout the year and blessings and punishments will be given out accordingly he was not only a spirit of protection but also kept people accountable China is somewhat unique in personifying the spirit of the household as a male figure figure while the kitchen Gods spread to neighboring Asian countries most of these cultures put a goddess in the domestic position where the cooking occurred and of course there's some folk tales that go along with this there is a trigger warning of suicide if anyone is sensitive to that um I feel like in a lot of stories that is a lot the case right I'm not sure why so the two stories here uh the first names the kitchen God as the Mortal Kaza Jun and he was a good man but also desperately poor and so much so that he was actually forced to sell his own wife which is tragic right and um yeah women didn't have rights back then I guess years later Z Jun became a servant in the household of his wife's new husband talk about Karma and this man is wealthy and Z's former wife lived very comfortably but upon seeing how poor and sadden her former husband was she actually took some pity on him and slipped him several homemade cakes but into the cakes she actually baked some money he of course didn't know the true value of the gift and sold the cakes cuz he was a jerk for repentance when he realized his mistake he was so ashamed and brokenhearted that he took his own life the gods did take pity on him however and spared him punishment that was usually promised to people who committed suicide and instead he was given the position of the kitchen God which means he could remain near his beloved wife in another story The God was originally named Jang Lang he was blessed with a faithful and devoted wife but he carried on an affair with a much younger woman Jang Lang abandoned his wife for his young M mistress and in punishment the gods struck him blind as they should unable to work or care for himself Jang Lang fell into poverty and his lover deserted him when he was forced to beg for food one day his former wife wife found him begging in the street and she invited him into her home and offered him food because he could not uh see her and didn't even recognize her so Jean Lang's wife cared for him and he told her the story of how he ended up betraying um his wife and was in this desperate situation so he wept as he told her of his betrayal and how he suffered so much afterwards the wife listened to him and told him to open his eyes and his sight was actually restored and he could see the woman who had taken care of him once again he was so ashamed though by his treatment of the wonderful wife that he threw himself into her fire and although she tried to save his life she was only able to pull his leg out in his memory his wife placed a shrine above the stove where he died and the gods allowed him to return to the kitchen so he could be reunited with the wife he had not appreciated in life in which I don't think I would be so happy so in both these stories though he's made to be the god of the stove and not because he lived a good life but because he had missteps and personal tragedies that caused the gods to pity him and was given a place by the Hearth so he could remain close to the wife that actually never abandoned him he was the one so yeah that's the story of the origins there here it says in this modern interpretation that the worship of the kitchen God reflects beliefs about the family um and the nation of and Chinese culture but many ancient societies saw the Hearth as a center of family life and it was where meals were prepared Wen P shared and often they were sacrifices that were burned to these Gods so the Chinese however tied the stove in so closely with the idea of family that was not unusual for a single family to have multiple brick stoves and I think that was because okay so I'll keep reading here um it it was because there was multiple families though it says It's Not Unusual in Chinese Society for extended families to live within the same home and grown children often remain in the family home and raise their children alongside their married siblings Aunts Uncles and grandparents so this kitchen space was a shared space and often they would have multiple stoves for multiple family members it does say here when a man died his stove would be passed on to the eldest son and younger married Sons would have to install their own stoves even if the families lived in the same household so the stove defined a family unit and a man who used another man's stove was guilty of neglecting the well-being of his own family and children the origin stories given for the kitchen God emphasize the stove's role as the center of the family unit and in both the man abandons his wife and fails to provide for her but is reunited with her once he is associated with her stove many historians have pointed out that Z June also illustrates the way in which Chinese bureaucracy was reflected in the religion of the people his presence in the home is not primarily to protect or unite but instead he acts like a spy and reports Behavior to the officials so it says this explains at least in part why a masculine deity is associated with her traditionally feminine space and women worshiped a household Goddess that served the more tradition role of protection while men recognized Z June as a representative of the type of authority that impacted their daily lives like many secular bureaucrats however it is believed that Z June could not be bribed and offerings were made to him not only for his birthday but also um on the day that he was said to make his report the paper Effigy that often hung above the stove was smeared with honey as well both to sweeten zun lip lips and to seal them shut so while the kitchen God's main role was not to bring the family together he still did so on feast days and tradition held that the stove could only be properly prepared for the new year if the entire family was present for the holiday all right guys well I hope you enjoy today's episode about the kitchen and kitchen Gods uh and all things of that sort so I hope you guys um have a amazing holiday if you celebrate Thanksgiving um the next week will be a replay in order for me to spend time with the family and I encourage you to do the same thing so um you guys have an amazing holiday weekend and if you don't celebrate just have a great weekend and I'll catch you guys for December's energy update after our replay next week for a free energy mapping of your floor plan please check the link in the show notes to support today's podcast go to learnfengshui.com sign up for emails leave a review and share with your family and friends