Are you looking for help with a move to a new home? or, a purchase, rental, or vaca? How aware are you of all the sensory input that happens in your body/mind when you walk into a space?
Any space, outside or inside.
Most people think of Feng Shui as synonymous with interior decoration & artistic design with an Asian flavor. However, feng shui is more than a pleasing appearance.
When properly understood feng shui becomes a methodology for creating harmony, balance, prosperity, health, & an expanded awareness of the interaction between environment and self.
Every culture on the planet has their own techniques for connecting buildings & man-made structures with nature and the cosmos. The idea that we are affected by our surrounding is universal and well known. As above, so below and so it goes. The more one works with their environment, the easier life becomes.
(In India, Vaastu Shastra was practiced. Their spatial map looks like this. (Geomancy & Sacred Geometry are both related fields.) The medicine wheel is the map used by Native Americans to line themselves up with the cosmos. The root intention of all of these disciplines is to align oneself with that which is greater as represented by sun, moon and other celestial bodies.
Wind and Water
are the chinese characters, used to describe Feng Shui. (Please note. When we translate from language to language, meanings can become confusing.
Today, basic feng shui techniques have been promoted by a cadre of organizers, de-clutter experts, stagers and those producing products. Forgotten are the underlying principles that created the need for the techniques. Awareness is the key element. It’s easy to disregard what has always been in sight.
Aside from techniques to move chi (energy), Feng Shui provides a map for us to see ourselves in relationship to others and the greater whole of our communities.
I became interested in feng shui, per se, in the late 80’s. Previously I had studied architecture & interior design in college. At the same time I was working as a real estate agent which enabled me to see thousands of homes & businesses…although with a different focus. My right brain began to relate to my left brain in new ways and I began to understand how different surroundings impact our lives in significant ways, and that we could change our lives with some simple ‘cures’. Feng Shui became a tool for self-discovery as well as practice that kept me grounded and stable through difficult times. Another awakening occurred when I discovered the role that astrology plays in determining auspicious design & placement.
The compass school of feng shui makes specific use of astrological information.The practitioners used a luopan which was placed in the home in alignment with the birth information of the head of the family…..usually the father.
With the advent of the computer, we are now able to create personalized maps of the planetary locations for anywhere and any time on earth. When these maps are placed in your home/office/business it is easy to see the ‘lines of energy’ radiate through physical space. From here, we can then apply ‘feng shui’ to mitigate, minimize, maximize, alter and adjust our interior spaces to take advantage of the movement of chi. The results are usually pretty immediate and impressive.
This is what a local space map looks like. You place it in the center of the space and work from there. (If you live more than 50 miles from your birth place then you need to recalculate the map for the current location.)
Of course you also need to be knowledgeable of all the other correlations and correspondances that are part of the astrological/feng shui vocabulary…..none of these techniques are as simple as they appear and one needs to be quite balanced with both information and intuition to make use of the data.
I like to think of feng shui as environmental acupuncture, or perhaps astro-ecology.
How you choose to define feng shui is a personal choice since Feng Shui can be either a noun or a verb.Since the late 80’s I have been working as a feng shui consultant using the bagua & the local space map. The results have been quite amazing.
Like Yoga, Feng Shui can also become a daily/weekly/seasonal practice. Taking a few mindful moments to quietly walk around the perimeter of your space looking for what has changed can alert you to things that could easily go unnoticed.
Noticing. Observing. Witnessing. All good.
