Note: this is an installment in a series on how I combine astrology, Feng Shui and energy healing. SEE THE COLLECTION HERE.

How did your earliest experiences of your surroundings set your expectations for the world? That is the question asked by the third house. The content of the third house is often described as daily life: neighbors, siblings, errands, communications, short trips. This can feel like a superficial, small talk, surface-level kind of place. But, investigating this area calls you deeper: to question your personal rhetoric and your embedded assumptions about "how the world works," which formed so early in life you've forgotten they come from your perception of the world, not the world itself.

Digitally mediated culture has taken over daily life for most of us: work, relaxation, planning, staying connected with family and friends, getting the news, getting the gossip, getting the mail, getting directions - all happening through the glowing rectangle that is always at your fingertips. Today's "immediate environment" is bigger than anything you can imagine, but with the physical blast radius of a mouthful of pop rocks. This digital illusion of endless variety obscures the monopoly this glowing force has on what you expect from the world, and what you think it expects from you.

The Grain Lamp bears the elements metal, wood, fire and water

I see my Pisces third house reflected in the part of the bagua that I associate with daily life: the Tai-Ji. This section is at the center of any home, and does not belong to any one element but ideally embodies a balance of all five.

In my home, this space hosts a large farmhouse table made of salvaged floorboards which can seat 8 people comfortably. With my home's population size of 2 (and often times just 1), this extra capacity at the center tells a Pisces story of what I think the world expects of me: to be the one who holds space for others.

5 elements represented in the Tai-ji gua in the center of my home

In order to balance the five elements here, the Grain Lamp above the table embodies four of them: the black finish as water, the interior pattern as wood, the reflection of light on brass as fire, the material itself, metal.

To add earth, there's a large, matte brown pot of cacti below the lamp, stones at each place mat's corner, a pink ceramic dish of salt, and fawn-colored felt cushions for each chair. Beneath it all, yin and yang are balanced in the dark blue (yin) rug that bears a repeated pattern (yang) of imperfect (yin) white (yang) dots.

Balancing the five elements at the center of the home is a practice that reminds you of the physical reality that underlies all of daily life, whether you are conscious of it or not. It's the place where everything and everyone, even the glowing screens, actually come from.

How you perceive your reality determines everything about your experience of it. Finding balance in the center of your home, the center of your days, the center of your life, sets the baseline expectations for how you perceive, and enjoy, everything else.