Nafu Brass Gourd

A brass gourd banded with the eight trigrams.

The hulu (葫芦) takes its shape from the dried calabash once carried to hold medicine, and its narrow waist is read as the meeting of heaven and earth. Taoist practice has long used it to draw off what unsettles a room and hold it away. Around the lower gourd runs the bagua, the eight trigrams that map the directions, a second guard worked into the metal. The top lifts off, so it can hold rice, coins or a written wish.

Kept in a bedroom, a sickroom, or the corner of a house that never quite feels right.