Plants as Feng Shui Chi Enhancers

Plants are among the many Chi enhancers that you can use to correct architectural problems and enhance your energy flow. To do this it is important that they be healthy and vibrant. They also clean the air around us, making their use invaluable.

Make sure you choose “friendly” plants, such as those with wide, rounded leaves or those having a soft, graceful appearance. Among many others are: schefflera, philodendron, pothos, jade, croton, Chinese evergreen, peace lily, ficus, ivy, and most dracaenas, ferns and palms. Blooming plants are also an excellent alternative to fresh flowers. These include begonias, gloxinias, chrysanthemum, violets, Gerbera daisies and cyclamen.

Avoid “unfriendly” plants with a sharp or spiky appearance, or place them in a location away from people.

Plants have a myriad of uses: They soften the hard angles and sharp corners found in furnishing and architecture,  like this artificial pothos hiding and softening the sharp corners of this armoire.

They also fill in unusable spaces. This large ficus is in the shape of a heart in the relationship corner of a bedroom.

 

 Plants can be made a part of a 5 element display bringing in the wood element or other elements depending on the color of their flowers. This beautiful orchid works to embrace the couple in the picture with its “pair” of stems, and evokes the earth and fire elements in the red and yellow colors, as well as wood from the plant itself  and metal in the vase.

 

Consider using silk plants in dark, high or untended areas, but ensure that they are kept clean and look vibrantly alive.  Place your plants in beautiful containers, making their “homes” pleasing to the eye. When a plant becomes diseased, infested or unsightly, it’s best to “give it back to God” and replace it.

Feng Shui Offices Bring Career Success

Whether in your home or at work, your office can act to empower or disempower you.  Make your home/work office your place of power; what you do there leads directly to your prosperity and success. 

 

“The act of turning the places where we work into places that we love, can transform our own lives, and will in turn positively affect the lives of everyone around us.” Denise Linn

 

Recommendations for creating powerful home and business offices:

· The most important recommendation is that your desk is placed so that you’re sitting in the room’s most powerful“command” position. You want to have a perfect view of the door. It is also best to have a solid wall, not a window, behind you. If you can’t move away from the window, put plants, shades of furniture as a buffer between you and the window. If your desk is built in, and you can’t reposition it, put a mirror on or behind your desk to reflect the door.

· As always in Feng Shui, being organized is critical. Powerful, productive Chi cannot find its way through piles of papers, files and office equipment. Your productivity will skyrocket if you adopt an organizing strategy and stick to it.  This office corner not only is cluttered but the chair has it's back to the door.

 

·        Sharp angles and corners promote irritation and aggression, so camouflage them with plants, fabric, or small hanging items such a crystal. When buying new furniture choose designs with rounded corners. Circular and oval tables are the best for sustaining harmony at meetings.
·        Your chair, or “throne” should be the most comfortable and ergonomically correct for you.
·        Choose a desk large enough to store all of your work and give you adequate working space. Ensure that all wiring is hidden in desk openings, or behind screens or plants.
·        This is a place for powerful art and colors that represent your career and contributions to the world. As in applying the Bagua to your entire home, you can apply the same Bagua to your office beginning at its front entrance.

 

The areas in your office should take on the qualities of the Bagua area in which they reside. Stand at your office door and face the room. Determine if you are entering from Knowledge, Career or Helpful People, and arrange the room accordingly. By placing objects in your office that anchor the various Bagua areas you stimulate and sustain your creative juices and provide your office with meaning and balance.

Nature Objects Enhance Feng Shui

Objects from nature can enhance the Chi in your home when they connect you to the special experiences you’ve had outdoors. Bowls of shells, baskets of pine cones, and collections of rocks, stones and fossils van bring back many memories, especially if you gathered them yourselves with your loved ones. These memories associated with your objects of nature help you keep connected to the natural world, even when living in a city without a garden. These objects are pretty low maintenance, requiring only occasional cleaning.

The shell below was collected and painted on a romantic trip to Mexico with my husband.

                                      

The rock shaped like a heart was picked up while on a walk on Pismo Beach. One of my favorite places to stay with loved ones.

 

 

Mirrors - The "Aspirin" of Feng Shui

Mirrors are called the “aspirin” of Feng Shui because they are used to cure many architectural challenges. They activate, expand and circulate the Chi throughout interior spaces. When properly chosen and installed, they can visually enlarge small rooms, double beautiful views, make walls disappear, send energy back in uncomfortable situations and keep the energy flowing in the house.

Mirrors make rooms active. They are great for lively rooms such as living rooms, family rooms, offices, bathrooms and kitchens – in fact, the bigger the better, but they are not meant for relaxation rooms such as bedrooms. The rule for bedrooms is one or fewer.  When hanging mirrors, ensure that the people using them are not cut off in any way, and avoid fragmented mirrors as they create confusing energy. The before and after pictures below show a man being disempowered by his mirror – and then the noticeable difference when the correction is made.

Mirrors are wonderful for opening up small spaces that would otherwise feel confining. Hung directly across from hall doors, they make the wall disappear and give the impression of more space. Mirrors hung across from windows will increase light, as well as the perceived size of small foyers, dens and home offices. If a Bagua area in missing a mirror on the adjacent wall will push the wall back and fill in the area.  

Also mirrors can be used to reflect what’s behind you when your back is to the door – when you’re sitting at your computer for example.

In Feng Shui mirrors are also used to push the energy back from where it came. Of you have an unsightly view of power lines, a neighbor’s yard or negative energy from an impossible neighbor; you can hang a small mirror that faces in that direction. It can be places on a fence, a door, window or tree and can be hidden by bushes so that it’s not readily visible. Hang it in the spirit of goodwill, with the intention that the energy will shift and create good Chi.

Feng Shui Lighting

 

Lighting can greatly enhance the Chi in your home. There are numerous options including incandescent and halogen electric lights, candles, oil lamps, fireplaces and natural light. Improve the Chi flowing through your home by illuminating dark corners, camouflaging sharp angles, and warming gloomy rooms with lighting. Consider leaving low wattage lights in all the time in rooms with no natural light, or consider installing a light tube as in the picture below.  This home office was an interior room in the Career area, which was always dark. The natural light now pouring in has greatly enhanced career energy.

 

Lighting can also be artistic, and be used to balance the elements. Light itself represents the Fire element, but the colors and shapes of the fixtures bring in the other elements. The red hanging lamps in the picture represent 4 of the 5 elements (red – fire, yellow-earth, wavy lines – water, metal – the fixture) they hang above a flower arrangement (wood) creating a 5 element display. The gold glass wall sconce represents earth, water, and fire. It is used to illuminate a long hallway.    See more beautiful hand-blown glass at www.nourot.com.

 

In all cases choose fixtures you love! Collect lamps that add personality to your décor. Let the light that fills your home be a reflection of your taste and creative expression.

Feng Shui Enhanced Kitchens

Kitchens are very important rooms in your home because, in Feng Shui, food symbolizes health and wealth.  The idea behind this is if you are prosperous you have more money to purchase food and stay in good health. Therefore enhancements and locations of kitchens in a home are very important. One of the most auspicious locations is in the Center Area, because kitchens are considered the “hearth” of a home, and the center is the area for centering and grounding. In this location earth tones and ceramics help with enhancement. In other Bagua areas the enhancements need to align with the attributes of that particular sector. (To read more go to Newspaper Columns - Aug. 2011)

For instance some pictures below demonstrate how our kitchen in the Love and Romance area is enhanced with pairs of items, shades of red and pink, and romantic representations.

There are a few other specific enhancements that can be made in all kitchens – no matter where located: 1) Always declutter kitchen countertops. Put away items you don’t regularly use. Make plenty of room for meals to be enjoyably prepared and for the Chi to flow. 2) Keep your knives completely out of sight when not in use (use a drawer knife block rather than one on the counter). 3) If the stove is located next to the kitchen sink, place a healthy plant, flowers, or bowl of fruit between them to represent the wood element, thus balancing the elemental relationship between the sink (water) and stove (fire).

 

Feng Shui's Joyous Lake

In Feng Shui the middle right area of your home is known as the Children and Creativity area; also known in the I Ching as “Joyous Lake.” This is an important area because it’s associated with pleasure, generosity, encouragement and creativity. The essential idea of this teaching is that by encouraging others to fully express themselves; we bring success and pleasure to ourselves. Parents and teachers are energized when they encourage their children to learn and grow through creative expression. This is true of our own creativity; we all need encouragement and admiration from our family and friends so we can blossom into full creative expression. Being supporters and cheerleaders for each other is very important!

This area of your home can be enhanced through whites, pastels, metal items, whimsical art, pictures of children, or items created by children or yourself. This is an excellent spot for children’s rooms or craft rooms. In my home this area is my laundry room, so I have enhanced it by hanging numerous collage frames of pictures of my daughter through the years. I can do laundry and take a trip down memory lane as I watch her grow up. Where is this area in your house?