Spotlight
Marites Allen: The Trust in Her Stars
How did Feng Shui guide Marites Allen in building her business and raising her family?
Many are quick to dismiss Feng Shui as an old wives’ tale. However, they cannot deny the comfort it provides against the unseen and unknown. Whether in business, romance, new beginnings, family, or hoping to change one’s fate, the science behind the language of the stars is a mastery of Marites Allen. And troubled hearts often seek her out for this. Ironically once a non-believer and defiant against the stars’ judgment, the International Feng Shui Expert and Philippine Feng Shui Queen regales the many who listen to her interpretations with lessons that can be learned from trusting the mystics and being a mom.
A Day in the Life of Marites Allen
The high demand for her ability to read and interpret the stars can make her quite busy especially when the holidays happen consecutively. “I have two seasons.” Marites laughs. “There’s Chinese New Year and then, there’s Christmas. That’s how busy we are. Sometimes, it demands that I have to be in five places in one go but I’m trying to balance it.”
To maintain the balance, she consciously integrates the mystics and spiritual elements into her daily life. Her morning starts with prayers, meditations, and even yoga before taking the most important meal of the day: breakfast. “If I have a lot that day, I make sure that I’m full for the morning. But if I’m just going to work at home, I usually have coffee or juice before having my big lunch and dinner later.”
With a business empire that evolves daily, Marites saw the benefits that technology offered to make sure the mystics can keep up with the demand. “The business even has a call-center aspect to it already. I usually upload the readings on the site. Then I have the staff redirect the people there if it’s just asking for luck. But some of the questions are more personalized. When it’s something more specific like, ‘What’s the difference between sleeping in the northwest section or the southeast section of the home?’, ‘Where should I move this?’ — those are things I have to handle myself.”
Handling things herself such as organizing and preparing her slides sometimes leaves her sleep deprived. “I usually joke that ever since I started this Feng Shui thing, I haven’t slept for like 20 years,” she admits light-heartedly.
But why become an interpreter for the stars and how does she keep it relevant in modern-day times?
A Little Skepticism is Always Healthy
Marites Allen is proof that sometimes, a little skepticism is healthy in understanding and believing in Fate and the stars. Having annulled her first marriage and dealing with a lot of misfortune but, not willing to “just jump into another frying pan,” Marites Allen discovered a lot of merit in Feng Shui. This was especially true in finding new love. “I got promoted in my job, built my career, and was even able to afford nannies for my kids as a single mother. I realized how much it enhanced my career luck. So I decided to try applying it to enhance my love luck.”
Although considered eccentric for some, the wearing of auspicious colors and fashion eventually attracted her husband. But to make sure, she went to the old Mandarin Hotel along Makati to speak to a Feng Shui interpreter. Unfortunately, the reading dismayed her. “He said that we weren’t a good match,” Marites recalls. “I even still have the paper. He wrote the reading in Chinese.”
But the dismay soon turned into defiance; she was going to make the relationship work! Instead of rejecting it and seeing its effects on her life, she decided to embrace Feng Shui. “Instead of seeing it as something that we cannot change, we can see it as a guide on what to look out for so we can deal with it when we get there.”
Today, she has four kids and a happy marriage.
The Language of the Stars and Adult Kids
While she continues building her empire with her ability to interpret the stars, Marites Allen is still learning another language: the language of adult children. Although it differs from her usual hands-on approach to her empire, the love is still there. “You have to trust them to know what they want for themselves. Parents have often come to me, too, about these things. They ask me for some Feng Shui readings. Things like, ‘My kid is 29 and doesn’t have a girlfriend yet’ or ‘When are they going to find work?’. And while I do the reading, I always remind them to also trust their kids. They know what they want.”
Moreover, she shares that she did not regret sending her kids to London. “Here in the Philippines, we have people who pick up and clean after us. But my kids had to learn in London there is no such thing. It wasn’t easy to let them go but the return and the learnings they come back with are invaluable.”
She reveals that while our dreams may not always match theirs, they will still need our love and support. “My son, 29, I wanted him to be a lawyer. But one day, he opened up to me saying that he was doing it [law school] more for me rather than him enjoying it. It was a shock but I realized that I had to let him decide what he wanted to do.”
Feng Shui and the Metaverse
Instead, her son became the innovator who introduced her online business, Frigga, and Feng Shui to the metaverse. “I wanted people to enjoy Feng Shui but make sure that it was trendy enough for it to be included seamlessly into our daily lives. It’s also why I’m glad that my son is helping me integrate the NFTs into Frigga.”
After joining other women who see the benefits of IT in business, and taking her son’s suggestion on how to use the NFTs, Marites found another door opening to establish a wellness resort. “My son suggested using the art that was created for Frigga to be a token or their entry pass into the resort by transforming it into an NFT. Can you imagine? It’s also a step forward when we apply the same technology using Alternative Reality [AR] to the store where shopping will be a lot easier. You can try a shawl and even earrings before even buying them!”
Although there are challenges, the greatest perhaps is to try not to control everything. There is comfort in the road more traveled. But sometimes, there is a much greater reward to letting go, facing the unknown, and like Marites Allen, trusting in our stars.
Words KEVYN GOHU
Photography ED SIMON
Sittings Editor MARGA MEDRANO-TUPAZ
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