The Affiliate Mentoring Program
The Creative Journey of the Heart

Katherine’s Place . . .

I saw the first glimmer of the Affiliate Mentoring Program almost fourteen years ago as I moved my home and office from San Francisco to Los Angeles. During my twenty-two years in the Bay Area, raising a family and creating The Art of Placement, I met remarkable people who nourished and shaped my career as a Feng Shui consultant, teacher, and Bau-biologist. Leaving was to leave all of them - students, clients, and my teacher, His Holiness Professor Lin Yun.

Then one afternoon it came to me. I could pass on my San Francisco consultations to my students, and offer any support they might require. And so was born the precursor to the Affiliate Mentoring Program, the Affiliate Program. Today, participants in the original program are well-known practitioners and teachers of both Feng Shui and Bau-biologie. One has become a published Feng Shui author. Others continue, as invisible as the wind, to change the world with their Bau-biologie meters and transformative songs of Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.

A new structure of support and connection was in place, however the dismay of leaving Professor Lin, and the temple, remained. My weekly time with him there would be lost. Even before I left San Francisco, I began to feel the separation. Los Angeles brought new work, new clients and students, and a new understanding of what it meant to have Professor Lin in my life, even at a distance.

He was simply present with me always. His guidance whispered to me from over my shoulder, giving me valuable and timely insights during consultations, asking me to listen to myself, to trust this work and myself. He appeared in my dreams, challenging me to show up. And consistently there was his gentle admonition to be quiet and still, a whisper that was loud and clear. In the heart of the City of Angels, I was awakened to the power and clarity of simple quiet presence.

My mind tells me I created the Affiliate Mentoring Program nine years ago to fully share the powerful teachings of Professor Lin, and to offer my experience as a teacher of Black Sect Feng Shui. As I write this, my heart is telling me something more about the journey. The job given to me in Los Angeles was to learn to be present. Becoming a mentor was the path to mastery. As I review the events of the first eight years of the mentoring program, I am astounded. I began this job propelled by whispers of wisdom, but I could not have known what was to transpire.

I have watched myself and all the affiliates slow down, and with patience, courage, and determination, take action to live lives that honor our individual and collective ideals and values. I have also watched each and every one of us negotiate with resistance to change, to telling the truth, to setting priorities, to making commitments, and to taking action. And in the same breath, give the gifts of time, kindness, prayer, support, and empathy.

I have watched us face the reality of this ancient art finding its place in a modern world, and bowed to the grace of every participant. Without being swept away, they have summoned up the effort required to remain present, able to respond to a difficult house, a client out of balance, or a hostile audience. Acquiring new skills and insights has allowed them to touch the clarity of the timeless dimensions of the present moment. I am now in awe of the connection, wholeness, and vitality I sensed as these moments were shared with me during mentoring sessions.

These quiet moments together have helped me to see that we have stopped running around outside of ourselves now and then. Study and practice have brought us home to the realization that the work of Feng Shui is done from the inside out. Guided by Professor Lin, I know that all of us have been asked to open our hearts to our original inner beauty and wisdom, and to add our special touch to the art of living well. I have seen the creativity of the affiliates spring up all around me, and I am humbled by the bold and courageous steps they have taken inspired by the genius of their hearts.

With open hearts and minds they have added study time to their already busy days. They have taken time to share with one another their difficulties and their successes. They have set aside their accomplishments and expertise in other fields to become beginners once again. They have risked being less than perfect. They have changed habits in conflict with being centered, and they have taken time to be still.

They are present with themselves, with others, and with this work. I sense, learning Feng Shui, we are cultivating the presence of bodhisattvas.

I can hear Professor Lin whispering over my shoulder what he has known all along.