Feng Shui for Prosperity

With the Chinese New Year approaching, people tend to think about bringing more prosperity into their lives. 2012 represents the year of the Black Water Dragon, which needs the water element to prosper. This is a time to add a water feature to your Career and Wealth sectors of your environment. My daughter just enhanced her wealth area, which is her bedroom and walk in closet. She refreshed the  walls with a neutral eggshell color  and added opulent purple accents. (The primary color representing wealth)  She also decluttered and organized the closet, and hung a lavender 30 mm. round faceted crystal in it.  Looking at the pictures below, based on the Chinese New Year I would recommend adding a small bubbler fountain in the bedroom to call in the Chi. With positive affirmations, her prosperity is bound to increase.

        

        

Feng Shui's Treasure Map

Whether you realize it or not, your home environment is constantly either supporting, or sapping your life energy. Making a few simple changes within your home can have an immediate and powerful effect on your personal energy levels, as well as the physical and material aspects of your life.

The Bagua:

One of the most provocative, powerful and important tools in Feng Shui is the Bagua (Ba-gua) Map, represented as a grid of nine sectors.  I call this the “Treasure Map” to enhancements.  The Bagua comes from the Chinese Book of Changes, “The I Ching,” and literally means “eight trigrams.” These trigrams form the basic building blocks, or treasures that hold the most significance in our lives: career, knowledge/self cultivation, family/health, wealth/prosperity, fame, love/marriage, children/creativity, and helpful people/travel.  Each of these building blocks is represented in the Bagua map, and are formed around a ninth sector which is the overall center, or grounding element of your life.

The home’s main entrance is always located at the bottom of the grid, (in the knowledge, career or helpful people sector). Once you have identified where your entrance falls in relation to the map, you can identify where the remaining areas of your environment fall.  Now your home can begin to tell the story, and shed some light on issues you may be facing in your life.

What happens if one or more of these sectors is missing from your home or business environment? I can help you make structural or symbolic enhancements to anchor these areas.  I invite you to share your Feng Shui questions with me.                                                 

                                                                               BAGUA MAP

WEALTH PROSPERITY	FAME REPUTATION	LOVE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIPS
FAMILY FRIENDS HEALTH	CENTER GROUNDING	CHILDREN CREATIVITY
KNOWLEDGE SELF-CULTIVATION	CAREER	HELPFUL PEOPLE TRAVEL

                                                                                                                           

                                                                              Entrance Quadrant

Successful Feng Shui Decluttering Tips

What are your most successful  decluttering strategies? I encourage you to start a list. This will help others on their journey to create harmony in their lives.

Feng Shui - Open new Doors through Decluttering

  When practicing Feng Shui, the first step to take is  decluttering.  An organized home can have a calming effect on you, your family and guests. This does not have to be difficult; in just minutes you can begin to make changes that can turn your home into a comfortable, peaceful haven.

What works is balance. You can begin to transform your home from chaos to paradise with the “few minutes a day technique”. I call it the “Salami Method of Time Management”, taking one slice at a time.  Organizing possessions and eliminating clutter can be viewed as an adventurous mission that opens portals to your personal paradise.  By getting rid of the things you no longer want or need, you revitalize your home and make room for what you really DO want to flow into your life; you enhance your happiness, clarity and peace of mind. In Feng Shui everything counts, so your storage areas are as important as the most lived-in areas. In other words, if your room is orderly because everything is stuffed into a closet, you are not practicing Feng Shui.

Clutter is defined as any items that are disliked, unused, in excess and/or unorganized.  To begin choose a space you consider cluttered, such as a closet, storeroom, cabinet, desk drawer, table top, or kitchen cupboard, then follow these simple steps:

As you’re organizing and decluttering, ask yourself these questions:

“Do I love it? Do I need it? Does it represent or support who I am now? What pleasant or unpleasant memories does it hold? Does it need repair, and am I willing to restore it right now? If I’m letting go, will I sell, lend, or give it away, and when?”

Label 3 boxes or bags:  Throwaway, Giveaway, and Stowaway. When you have separated all items into 3 categories, put the throwaways in the trash immediately, prepare and label the giveaways to go to their new homes (family, friends, and charities) and make sure you remove them from the space and give them away within a week. Stowaway the items you are keeping to their proper places with love and gratitude.

 Your environment displays your consciousness, and there’s no more revealing place to look than behind closet doors. You’ll know that you’ve succeeded in reinstating balance when you respond positively to every part of your home, and can easily put your hand on everything you need at any time. Congratulations!  Now watch for the helpful people, opportunities, and things that flow into your life because you have let go of the old and made room for the new.

Symbolism of 3:

The numbers 3 and 9 are auspicious in Feng Shui, because they are said to bring luck. I have read that to open fresh opportunities in the New Year, it is recommended to get rid of 27 (3x9) items from your house. Symbolic, yes…but it also helps clear the clutter. My husband and I make game of finding 27 items each before New Year’s and donating them, then we visualize doors opening.

               Enjoy the holiday season!  I invite you to share your decluttering stories.

Enjoying the Holiday Season

I hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving; giving thanks for all your blessings. So much of Feng Shui is about gratitute, thankfulness, positive thinking, intentionality, affirmations and visualizations. Make it happen for yourself!
Let your environment reflect who you want to be. I'm visualizing your feedback...

Without Change There Would be no Butterflies

In the last week I have seen the positive effect that change and clearing energy has had on two of my close friends. Both were stuck in their lives through their environments. Through affirmations and visualization, both were able to move to  new homes with great Chi (life energy) and synchronicity. After Feng Shui consultations one was able to locate the perfect studio for her art; which also will bring her many blessings. The other friend told me recently that men are beginning to pay attention to her for the first time in a long while. I told her that her home was beautiful, the energy was flowing and that she was glowing. I love the effect that a few Feng Shui enhancements can have in people's lives. Do you have something you would like to change?

Feng Shui by Maria

Welcome to my new blog. This kind of technology is very new to me, I'm definitely stretching. After 37 years in education, the last 16 of which I had become increasingly interested in the positive effects of Feng Shui in my life and those of friends, I made a resolution  to further my studies and become a certified practitioner upon retirement.  My immersion in the Western School of Feng Shui taught me so much, and helped me create life long bonds with some wonderful people. I am reinventing myself; as I move forward I feel nothing but gratitude for the people who have come into my life, and the positive energy I am able to help  them create.  People come to me when they are ready for change, and I find it fun and rewarding to work with them. Another love of mine has always been writing; I'm now blessed with the opportunity to write Feng Shui Columns for the Benicia Herald newspaper. I invite you to continue this journey with me: enjoy the updated website, read the columns and testimonials, sign up for my classes, and respond to this blog with your questions and thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.
Maria