Feng Shui Sound Makers for Harmony

Sound makers such as wind chimes, bells, bead curtains and gongs summon and protect harmonious Chi.  Their musical sound can also signal someone’s approach, enhancing safety as well a sense of welcome.  Their melodious sound can lift people’s moods, transforming stress or lethargy into a more harmonious energized state.

The black and red wind chime in my Career Area home entrance invites  the positive Chi to flow in,  with its watery black color and red representing prosperity. I can hear the lovely sound from my bedroom, bringing me peace and contentment.

Romancing Your Home with Feng Shui

In her book, The Western Guide to Feng Shui for Romance – The Dance of Heart and Home, Terah Collins states that “Every square inch of your home is considered equal in importance. It all counts. To hold happiness in place, it’s important to balance the whole house with Yin and Yang influences.” http://westernschooloffengshui.com/

Your home is alive with energy and critical for your wellbeing. It’s important to create a relationship with your home and nurture it as you would a significant other. Create areas that you love within your home and show gratitude for what your home offers you.

Look to the following areas to beautify, enhance and nourish:

The Front Entrance: The all-important mouth of Chi, which welcomes happiness into your home.

The Living Room:  Which shows the world who you are.

The Dining Room: Where you relish the good life and replenish yourself.

The Kitchen: Where you nurture your body, heart and spirit.

The Home Office: Where you do your creative work, and sit on top of the world.

The Bedroom: Your oasis of serenity and sensuality.

The Sanctuary: Wherever this is it rejuvenates your spirit.

The Bathroom: Avoiding the draining of energy and providing you with an everyday spa.

The Closets, Garage and Storage Areas: Giving everything a good home.

Romance every part of your home and create a personal paradise.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Guide-Feng-Shui-Romance/dp/1561708143

 

This bathroom,  by being romanced and loved gives back to its owners by shining vibrant rays from the crystal knobs. This is a happy room!

 

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.