Arts & Entertainment
FENG SHUI Baby!
FENG SHUI Baby!
by Roland F. Palmer
Where have I been? Where have we all been?!
Thanks (or maybe not) to a recently transplanted bi-coastal friend, I have been shown the light of feng shui.
For those who don’t know the name, it isn’t a hip new drink, nor the latest designer label, nor a trendy chain of dim sum eateries. Feng shui is a 4000-year-old Chinese philosophy that teaches the art of living in harmony with one’s environment. According to the principles of Feng Shui, attaining fame, wealth, health, love, and happiness is simply a matter of understanding how to manage the flow of chi and keeping the ever-battling yin and yang forces balanced. Sounds easy enough—yeah, right!
Fear not, my friends, even you can begin to understand and incorporate the principles of feng shui with only a little reading or online surfing. In the tradition of Publishers’ Clearing House, you may already have won good feng shui without knowing it —read on to be sure.
On the other hand if, you discover en route that you have the misfortune to have bad feng shui, there’s no need to panic. While it’s whispered on the West Coast that bad feng shui has thwarted many million-dollar real estate deals, there is no need to burn your house down and start over. Simply fly in a feng shui consultant—from California, not Shanghai—who will work in your home or office to restore the missing harmony. Perhaps as well the fame, wealth, health, love and happiness that has gone astray, although these are not necessarily in the contract. The aforementioned bi-coastal friend also insists that in California, at least, feng shui consultants are as plentiful as personal trainers, and as expensive to boot. Most will probably accept your platinum card as payment and will insist on flying first class. (There’s rumored to be better feng shui in first class!).
And now, on with the story
But before you apply for that second mortgage to finance the consultation, allow me to share with you some of the feng shui principles that now occupy my now enlightened mind. Consider this a free consultation—no first-class air ticket required. Grab your compass—that’s right, your compass—and let’s start with some basics that will help point you the path to good feng shui.
In fact, speaking of paths, let’s start there. Curved pathways are a must. They bring better luck because they cause chi—cosmic energy—to slow down, thereby bringing good fortune and helping it linger in your general vicinity. If a straight path, or worse, a straight road, faces the front of your house, you’ll have to consider some serious re-engineering. Or you could simply move out.
Fortunately, there often seem to be escape clauses of sorts in feng shui, and this situation is no exception. If perchance you have trees in your backyard, which offer you the protection of the ‘celestial turtle,’ there’s no real need to move nor to re-landscape.
Let’s move onto water and wealth. With no view from the house of a natural waterfall, you can help lure wealth simply by introducing an artificial waterfall into your garden. Keep in mind, though, that water features work best in the north or southeast of a garden.
Furthermore, ponds in front of your house must be to the left of the main door. If your pond is on the right, don’t be surprised if your partner develops the ‘roving eye.’ And if, like so many of us, you went overboard and installed ponds on both sides of the curved pathway, better call for a backhoe.
Now take out your compass—you thought I was kidding, didn’t you?—and go into your bedroom. Make sure the head of your bed is facing east, and take down that mirror if you have it facing the front of your bed. (You all know who you are. Don’t make me name names).
Consider the fireplace. Is it in the northwest corner of the room? If so, better call someone this instant to get it moved to the south wall. In a pinch, the east, southeast, southwest or northeast walls are still an improvement.
On to electronics. If your stereo equipment isn’t on the west wall, make sure you move it there before the year 2003. Supposedly, this will create potential for good fortune until 2023.
Also, remember to crank up that stereo at least once a week; loud music washes out old energies and welcomes in the new. I know, more cleaning, but it has to be done! Your neighbors won’t mind this because they, too, will have converted to feng shui during the bulldozing and excavation of the straight road you all share… uh, shared.
Maybe you didn’t make it through Scouts for, oh, some reason or another, and you’re not great with compasses and directions. Fear not. We now move onto color.
Shui-ing Colors
The next time you insist on redecorating, or giving friends an unsolicited consult on décor, you should keep in mind that there are Good Colors and Bad Colors for each area (see list accompanying this article). At the very least, try to paint your front door the color appropriate for the direction it faces. If you must, find a Girl Scout to read that compass for you before you start shopping for paint.
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If you have a room at the end of a long corridor, generally you’d be facing killing energies—chi gets desperate when it rushes down a long hallway and ends up with nowhere to go. You can simply counteract these ‘killing’ energies by painting the door the bad color for the direction it faces—got to love the escape clause once again.
Back into the boudoir. If you’re in the early years of your relationship, you should decorate your bedroom using reds. Seasoned couples should use more muted yin colors, although this does not mean everything should be draped in black.
Feng shui certainly can make for some very interesting paint jobs, but you’ll make it fabulous, of course. A word of caution to the décor elite: faux finishes, sponge treatments, texturizing, and glazes are tricky and covered only in advanced feng shui manuals, so proceed at your own risk!
Outside the home
Of course, your home isn’t the only place you spend significant time, and there are many ways to apply feng shui in the office or workplace as well. Your research and efforts toward enlightening your managers and staff will undoubtedly pay off. Certainly, you’ll be given highest priority for the newly created position of Vice President of Feng Shui, as long as you remember to hang a crystal above your computer, add plants and fish tanks, and make sure your desk is facing the entrance.
Travelers may also want to take the art on the road. If you’re headed for a northern destination, burn incense. When traveling to the southwest or northeast, you should plant trees at the back of your yard, but you only need to light a candle if you’re headed west. Southbound voyagers should throw a bucket of water in that same direction. My favorite, and a sure hit at airport security checkpoints, is to slice the air with a curved knife if you happen to be going to the east or southeast.
Remember, this is just the beginning; there is a wealth of information out there from which to learn more. I highly recommend Lillian Too’s books as great starting points; they’re perfect for those with a short attention span. She also has several illustrated guides, and a Web site, too. For monthly doses of advice, magazines abound, and you can also pick yourself up a Feng Shui Wall and Desk Calendar set, complete with instructions on the proper locations for displaying both.
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Resources
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Books Little Book of Feng Shui Little Book Feng Shui at Work both by |
Web
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