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Welcome the Power of positive Feng Shui into every area of your life

by Treena Dean

copyright 2004

Table of Contents
How to Use this Book Chapter One: Understanding Feng Shui What is Feng Shui? History of Feng Shui Is the energy of your space positive? Is the energy of your space negative? 8 cures for negative energy The five elements The Bagua Chapter Two: Feng Shui for the Interior General guidelines for a favorable interior Specific structural elements Which room should go where? Bedroom Bathroom Kitchen Living room Home office A final word on Feng Shui for your home Chapter Three: Feng Shui for the Exterior Choosing the perfect location The four animals Fortunate landscapes Remedying a bad location Other landscape considerations Rivers Roads Driveways Pathways The shape of your home Neighbors A final word on location Chapter Four: Feng Shui at the Office Desk Position 1 3 3 3 5 5 7 10 15 18 18 19 23 23 26 27 28 29 31 33 33 33 37 38 39 39 43 43 45 45 49 51 52 52

Non-desk jobs Arranging your personal space Unique professions, unique Feng Shui A final word on Feng Shui for the workplace Chapter Five: The Bagua Using the Bagua to enhance your life Career (Kan trigram) Knowledge/Self-cultivation (Gen trigram) Health and Family (Jen trigram) Wealth (Hsun trigram) Fame and Reputation (Li trigram) Love and Marriage (Kuen trigram) Children and Creativity (Dwei trigram) Helpful People and Travel (Chyan trigram) The Center (Tai Chi) Final thoughts on the Bagua Moving forward with Feng Shui Sources for further inspiration

56 57 61 63 65 65 66 68 69 71 72 74 75 77 78 79 80 81

How to Use This Book


Since the dawn of civilization, we as human beings have been fascinated by the unseen energy we feel at work around us. We sense that powerful energies are circulating through our bodies, touching our souls, and somehow helping to shape our futures. We believe we could take control of our destiny if only we knew how to harness this amazing power and use it for our own good fortune. Throughout the centuries this wisdom has been known to different groups of people, but always somehow the knowledge was lost. Though the druids of Stone Henge and the designers of the pyramids may have had useful secrets to share, there remains no written record to help us benefit from their wisdom. Luckily for us, however, the ancient Chinese science of Feng Shui has managed to survive the ages! Feng Shui offers both an explanation of that unseen energy we feel as well as powerful and practical ways to begin using that knowledge to affect positive change in our lives. By learning this ancient art of placement, you will begin to balance the energy of your surroundings and bring harmony to both your outer and inner worlds. Some of the possible benefits of Feng Shui include: Better Health Enhanced Love Life Increased Wealth A Better Reputation Increased Wisdom A Happier Family A More Successful Career A More Harmonious Life Can simply rearranging your furniture do all that? Well...not exactly! Feng Shui is an extremely complex art form that involves much more than simply shifting the position of your couch! In fact, many Feng Shui specialists spend years in training before they feel capable of properly advising their clients. In China, birthplace of Feng Shui, it is expected that a novice could spend at least ten years studying the science before they would be even nominally qualified to begin dispersing the teaching to others. Therefore, this book is meant as an introduction to Feng Shui, rather than a complete authority on the subject. It is meant to help the average busy modern individual learn how to apply Feng Shui to their own lives without years of study. We

2 hope to help you rapidly grasp the concepts of the science and then teach you how to quickly and easily begin incorporating the principles into your life. As you read through this book, you will learn ways to remedy energetic problems in both yourself and your surroundings. You will also learn the many negative effects that energetic imbalance can have on you and your family. Dont worry, however, if you find that your bathroom is in the wrong place or that youre living on the wrong end of a river! The negative effects of poor Feng Shui can take years to begin to seriously affect the inhabitants of a given space. Also, it is very easy to take steps to remedy energy imbalance, much easier than you might assume. In fact, you could probably have your home feeling 100% more harmonious in as little as a few hours. Every member of modern society could use a little more harmony and balance in their lives, but few have the time to dig through the abundance of information available on Feng Shui to find the aspects of the practice that would be useful to them. These are the people for whom this book was created. After all, the more hectic your life, the more you can benefit from a little Feng Shui!

Chapter One: Understanding Feng Shui What is Feng Shui?


Feng Shui: Literally translates as wind and water. Simply put, Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of placement (whether it be a home or objects within the home) in order to balance the energy of an environment and to create the best possible quality of life for the people living within that environment.

The History of Feng Shui


Feng Shui was created in ancient China, though it may have evolved from an even older science with roots in India and Tibet. Originally Feng Shui was known as Kan Yu, which means heaven and earth. This gives us a sense of how the ancient Chinese felt that the unseen world influenced the everyday world within which we live. Kan Yu eventually became known as Feng Shui, meaning wind and water. This name is thought to have come from the word, fang-shih, meaning a master of the Taoist tradition. These masters were skilled as healers, diviners, and magicians and created the Eight Branches of Chinese Medicine. Feng Shui is considered one of these branches, all of which share the following common principles.

Principles of Chinese Medicine


Tao Taoism is one of the three major religions of ancient China (along with Buddhism and Confucianism). The word Tao means the way, meaning the eternal way, or the way of god. Any further definition becomes tricky, for as the Tao Te Ching (the scripture of Taoism) says, any Tao that can be told is not the real Tao. The goal of Taoism is to achieve oneness with the Tao through self-discipline and increased wisdom. To be as one with the Tao means to be in harmony with nature and all the invisible forces of our universe. Yin and Yang To achieve this harmony, one must find a balance between the two opposing primal powers of Yin (female energy, receptive energy) and Yang (male energy,

4 creative energy). These two energies compliment each other, rather than compete with each other. Both are needed to keep the universe in motion. Balance of Yin and Yang in the human body is necessary for good health, wisdom, spiritual awareness, and basically every other quality that is desirable for human existence. In order to achieve personal energy balance, however, you must make sure that your environment isnt working against you. This is where the science of Feng Shui can help enhance the quality of human life. Feng Shui seeks to balance the Yin and Yang energies of the home in order to encourage balance for the occupants within. Feng Shui is actually divided into two distinctly different practices using Yin and Yang. Yang Feng Shui deals with the orientation of buildings and objects, while Yin Feng Shui deals with the orientation of graves and tombs. In this book we will be concentrating on Yang Feng Shui. Chi Yin and Yang are simply different qualities attributable to the basic energy in all life. This basic life energy is called chi, which means cosmic breath. We as human beings have chi within ourselves and our homes or living spaces have a separate chi of their own. In order for our lives to be balanced and harmonious, the chi within us must be in harmony with the chi around us. For example, if a persons home is ineffectively arranged, the chi of the home will be sluggish and will likewise influence the chi of the occupants. This sluggish environmental energy may have serious effects on the people living inside the home leading to illness, depression, and discord within a family or marriage. In contrast, if a home is effectively arranged, the chi flows smoothly and the occupants benefit from this vital and life-affirming energy. It may sound like a strange concept, but think of it this way; if a home has poor air circulation, it absolutely affects the occupants of that home. Poor air circulation can cause feelings of fatigue, headaches, and can be a real hazard if there are any toxic fumes released into the air (such as the fumes from certain cleaning products). The effects of poor chi circulation can also be harmful, maybe more than most people realize. Many people can sense whether the chi around them is balanced, simply by using their intuition. An intuitive knowledge of good or bad environmental chi is often responsible for where we choose to live, whether we realize it or not. Its why we decided we just couldnt take that particular apartment, even though it was in the perfect

5 neighborhood and at the perfect price. Instinctively, we realized that the apartment had negative chi and would be detrimental to our well-being as the occupants. If you feel your chi instincts may not be functioning at top form, youre not alone! As modern people, we have lost our sense of connection to the energies of the earth and our instincts have become dulled. Luckily for us, we can still use our other five senses and the rules of Feng Shui to discover the state of the chi in our environment. Ways to know if the Chi of your environment is Positive: According to the principles of Feng Shui, the chi in an environment should be able to enter a home easily, flow through the home without being blocked, and exit the home through a door other than the door through which it entered. The same principles apply to the rooms within the home. A room with no windows will have a very poor chi flow. The energy enters, but then has nowhere to go. Therefore, the chi energy becomes stagnant. Over time, this stagnant energy can become negative energy and prove harmful to the occupants utilizing the room. Well get to the specifics of how to encourage good chi in later chapters, but a good indication of the how well the chi in your home is flowing is to observe the flow of air currents. If you open the doors and windows on a calm day with a gentle breeze flowing outside, does that same gentle breeze pervade the entire home? If so, chances are the chi of your home is flowing nicely as well. If you have some rooms that are breezeless, and others where the breeze has become a strong wind, chances are that your home has poorly flowing chi and that the Yin and Yang aspects of the chi are out of balance. Ways to Know if the Chi of your environment is Negative: Sha is the name often given to negative chi energy. Sha travels in hard, straight lines, in contrast to the gently meandering quality of chi. It is never a desirable type of energy and can have profoundly adverse effects on the people living in an environment in which it rules. While chi energy gently encourages the life energy within a home, sha energy cuts through the environment, stripping a space of positive energy and leaving negativity in its wake. A dominance of sha energy is often responsible for the chronic illnesses, increased stress, and general bad luck of a homes occupants. Sha energy can become powerful in a home for a variety of reasons.

Possible Sources of Negative Sha Energy


Steps lead straight to a home. A pathway leads straight to the front or back door. Power lines or telephone lines run directly toward a home. Straight shadows are cast by telephone poles, streetlights, or other buildings and fall directly toward the home. River, stream, gully, or ravine flows straight toward the home. Roads lead directly to the home before turning. Road dead ends at the home. Home is located at the corner of an intersection. Home has the corners of other buildings pointing directly toward it. Home has a front and back door directly opposite one another. Home is located on a natural fault line in the earth.

There are hundreds of reasons that sha energy may be present in a home. To determine if sha energy is entering your living space, look for any long straight lines that may be leading up to your house. Whether it is a natural ditch, a flight of steps, or a shadow cast by a neighboring building, these straight lines are nearly always pathways for sha. The good news is that there are several very simple ways to deflect sha and increase the positive chi within your living space.

8 Ways to Cure Negative Energy


1. Bright Objects
Mirrors Mirrors placed on the exterior of your home will help to deflect threatening sha from the outdoors. This can be a simple cure for negative energy that results from living at the end of a dead end street or at the corner of an intersection. Theres no need to move house; a simple mirror of any size, small or large, will help to protect the home. A convex mirror can be particularly effective by dispersing the negative sha in all directions. In your interior, mirrors can be used to draw good chi into the home as well as to encourage the flow of chi within the space. A reflection of a peaceful outside garden is an excellent way to bring in good chi, while a mirror on a wall lacking windows is a great way to keep the chi moving. Indoor mirrors should be large and hung high enough so that they dont cut off any heads. Mirrors hung too low can be a cause of headaches and low energy. Some Feng Shui specialists advise against putting a mirror in the bedroom, however, as it is believed by some that the soul floats above the body during sleep and can be frightened by its own reflection. But if you feel certain that your soul stays firmly in your body while you sleep, a mirror in the bedroom can be a great way to increase the energy of the space and possibly lead to a more fulfilling love life! Lights Lights are powerful cures for negative energy. Plentiful light is considered very important in Feng Shui. Outdoors, a light can mend a missing corner on a home (more on missing corners later). Indoors, light enriches the energy of both a room and the inhabitants. When considering which lamp to choose, a good rule is the brighter the better!

2. Sound
Any source of sound within a home can be used to ward away bad sha energy. This may be why many people find it comforting to always have the television or radio on while they are at home. A more peaceful way to create sha-dispersing sound is to use a fan, a burbling fountain, or an air purifier. Even running the vacuum will disperse bad sha energy. Wind chimes may be the best choice for a sound cure, however. Wind chimes not only disperse negative sha, but encourage positive chi when hung on the eaves of a home. Wind chimes (as well as bells) can also be used to summon wealth into a home or business. Therefore, hung near the entrance of a store, chimes serve not only to bring in business, but to discourage intruders (bearers of sha energy).

3. Moving Objects
Negative sha can also find an avenue of movement in long, straight areas within the home. If you have corridors that proceed for more than a few feet, youll want to put a moving object in the room at the end of the corridor in order to prevent negative energy from lodging there. A fountain is always a good choice for a moving object. Flowing water is money producing, chi activating, and sha dispersing! Other options for moving objects could be a toy train for a childs room, or a mobile hung above the bed in the nursery.

4. Living Things
Plants and Flowers Plants and flowers, as living things, are natural conductors of chi energy and can be used to keep chi flowing effectively throughout a room. Plants symbolize nature, life, and growth and are natural indicators of good chi. Where a plant thrives, so does a human being. In contrast, if you have a trouble keeping plants alive in your home, you can be almost certain that you have an excess of negative sha present. Outside your home, plant and flowerbeds can be used to attract good health. Potted plants can also be placed on either side of a doorway to encourage good chi to

9 enter the house. Outside a business, a healthy selection of vegetation will encourage good business by attracting money energy into the establishment. As far as a green thumb is concerned, dont worry if you dont have one. Artificial plants can be almost as effective as real plants when concerned with proper Feng Shui. Simply purchase high quality artificial flowers and plants and keep them clean and free of dust. In this way, even the most botanically challenged can benefit from the good chi created by plants in an environment! Fish Bowls If you live next to an ocean, lake, or stream, chances are you wont need a fishbowl in your home. (Unless of course, you simply enjoy caring for fish!) If the element of water is not readily present, a fish bowl or aquarium can be a great way to introduce water into a home. Water is the element of Feng Shui that encourages wealth. Fish bowls are particularly good choices for introducing the element of water because they contain a living being. Like plants, fish disperse negative sha and encourage the flow of chi. Fish also prevent accidents, ward off bad luck, and are just about the easiest pets in the world to care for. If you have plant in your bowl, you shouldnt even have to change the water more than twice a month! Ideally there should always be an odd number of fish present and if a fish dies, it should be immediately replaced. Gold fish can be a great choice for your fish bowl if you have a room (or sector of a room) in which the fire element may be lacking.

5. Heavy Things
If youre having difficulty with commitment, oftentimes a strategically placed stone or statue can have a powerful stabilizing effect on your personal chi. A statue in the bedroom could be helpful for your marriage, while a bowl of stones in the career sector of your home could keep you from losing your job.

6. Electricity
Electricity naturally stimulates the area in which it is placed. Well learn later how to place your radio for enhanced health, your television for more wealth, or even your air purifier for a better love life!

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7. Colors
Colors can be added to different sectors of a room to boost the effectiveness of the objects arranged there. For example, red, the color of Chinese weddings, is a lucky color. Red flowers in the career sector of your home could help you gain the promotion youve been longing for. In contrast, you wouldnt want white, the Chinese color of mourning, to be the predominant color in your career sector. That is, unless you were hoping to lose your job! Other important colors are yellow for longevity, green for freshness, growth, and tranquility, and black for wealth. Black can represent a loss of light or life, however, and should be used carefully. Black in your health sector might not be the best idea. Blue is another ambiguous color. It represents sky and the heavens, but can also be a color of death.

8. Bamboo Flutes
In ancient China a bamboo flute was blown to report that peace had been declared after a time of war. A bamboo flute in the home can bring peace and safety. With its hollow interior, a bamboo flute is naturally a conductor of chi. When the flute is played or blown, it stimulates positive energy flow. Flutes of all kinds can bring protection to a home or business. Because of their former association with war, flutes also protect from theft and bring misfortune to those who would seek to harm your home.

The Five Elements


In addition to the Eight Cures, the Five Elements can be used to create harmony within the home. They are equally effective in deflecting the forces of negative sha. We already know that chi energy can have both Yin and Yang qualities, but chi can be further subdivided into the categories of wind, water, fire, earth, and metal. Each of the five elements manifests a distinctive quality of chi energy. Though none of the five elements are truly negative, they can cause destruction if not properly balanced. Because the elements mutually create and destroy one another, the proper flow and balance of their energies must be achieved in order to protect a home and its

11 occupants from the possible negative side effects of an elemental imbalance. The following diagrams illustrate both the creative and destructive cycle of the elements.

The Creative Cycle: Water feeds Wood, Wood feeds Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth
creates Metal, and Metal creates Water.

The Destructive Cycle: Water cools Fire, Fire melts Metal, Metal destroys Wood,
Wood destroys Earth, and Earth destroys Water. Arranging your home or room using the creative cycle of the elements will create harmony and balance both in your environment and your life. Chi energy is naturally encouraged to flow throughout a space that is arranged according to the creative cycle. But there are certain occasions when the destructive order can be used to your advantage. You would use the elements destructive order if you had an overabundance of a certain element in a room. For example, an overabundance of the fire element within a space can make the room itself more vulnerable to destruction by fire, while making the inhabitants of the room experience greater stress and a higher incidence of flaring tempers. To balance the fire element, you would introduce a water element. Water naturally cools fire. A fountain or fish bowl would help to balance the room and protect the inhabitants from a fire element threat. (In this instance, you wouldnt want to use goldfish in your bowl since their reddish gold color represents and encourages the fire element.)

12 To further understand the elements and their applications, we must take a closer look at their individual properties. Each element has its own unique energy and is associated with a specific color, time, season, and direction. Each can also be applied to aspects of human personality and even specific body organs.

Wood
Energy Quality-expanding energy, newly sprouting energy Wood is associated with the season of spring, which accounts for the quality of its energy. Wood energy is creative and fresh like sprouting leaves in the springtime. This element is represented in the environment by trees (of course!), pillars, chimneys, towers, narrow skyscrapers, and by tall, gently sloping hills. Its symbolic color is green and its shape is a long straight line. Wood follows water in the creative cycle because it is fed by water (water causes plants to grow). It in turn feeds fire (logs are cut to build a flame). In the destructive cycle, wood saps earth (too much planting of a field can ruin the soil) and can be destroyed by metal (an axe that chops down a tree). Wood is usually dominant in the most easterly point of a room or home and can be used to encourage good health and positive family relationships. Within a persons body, wood is associated with the feet, and within a persons personality, wood manifests itself as a kind and generous nature.

Water
Energy Quality- sinking energy, energy that submerges Water energy is sinking energy, but this should not be confused with lowered energy. This is more the energy of subconscious investigation and self-knowledge. Water is associated with the season of winter. Though winter may seem a barren time, it is a necessary period of rest and regeneration before spring can burst forth. In the same way, sometimes a

13 person will need to cultivate water energy before they can begin to outwardly manifest. This is well known to people working in creative fields. In order to avoid artistic burnout, an artist must take time to cultivate their water energy. Water energy is associated with the north and is represented by the color black, the color of a deep still pool. The shape of water is a rounded form. It is represented in the environment by mountains with uneven tops, rolling hills, rounded buildings, domes, and of course by the actual presence of water in a lake, river, stream, or ocean. Water is produced by metal (condensation on the outside of a tin cup) and in turn produces wood in the generative order. In the destructive order, water destroys fire and in turn is destroyed by earth (filling in a pond with earth). Water is associated with career by direction on the Bagua (next section), but is also responsible for generating wealth. On the human body, water is represented in the ears. In a personality, water energy is utilized in moments of insight, revelation, and deep understanding.

Fire
Energy Quality- rising and sustained energy at its highest level Fire energy is the energy of reason. For centuries many cultures have used a light or a burning flame to represent knowledge. It is this high, sustained fire energy that we use to grasp complex concepts and acquire new wisdom. Fire energy is associated with fame and status, two possible byproducts of knowledge. Fire is fed by wood in the creative cycle and in turn creates earth (ashes). In the destructive cycle, fire is destroyed by water, and in turn destroys metal (melts metal and returns it to its liquid form). Fire is associated with the season of summer and with southerly directions. Its shape is pointed or triangular and it is environmentally represented in pointed mountains, church spires, and other buildings with steeply pointed roofs. In the human body, fire energy is represented in the eyes. In a personality, fire is displayed in people who are logical, reasonable, and have excellent manners. An overabundance of fire in a personality can make a person bossy, antagonistic, and rude (if not actually violent). Too little fire can cause the internalization of thoughts and feelings and put stress on the organs of the body (especially the stomach).

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Earth
Energy Quality- stable energy, constant sustained energy Earth energy is the energy of the center. It is the stable energy that sustains our bodily functions and at the most base level keeps our spirit united with our living body. Most of the time, we dont have to consciously attempt to manifest earth energy within us. In times of illness, however, it is the weakening of our earth energy that can lead to serious mental and physical infirmity. Earth energy in a personality is the energy of honesty and loyalty. People who have a healthy amount of earth energy will always be sincere in their words and actions. They will consider others, while not neglecting themselves. They will be truthful, but compassionate. In the creative cycle, earth is created by fire and in turn creates metal. Earth is symbolized by the color yellow, while its signature shape is a flat, even plane. Environmental earth elements include plateaus, grasslands, and buildings with flat or gently sloping roofs.

Metal
Energy Quality- solidifying energy, contracting energy. The energy quality of metal is well represented by its corresponding season, autumn. Just as the energy of the earth begins to contract after the expanding energy of summer, so does metal energy contract. Metal energy is the type of energy you would experience in your life after a big event. A lack of metal energy is what causes many people to fall ill after a period in which they have been utilizing a great deal of fire energy. For example, many women get sick on their honeymoon. After all the work and excitement involved in planning a wedding, they finally become energetically exhausted after the event is over and therefore are more vulnerable to illness. If a woman has a good supply of metal energy, however, she will be able to recover from her fire energy expenditure without suffering any ill effects.

15 The color of metal energy is white and its corresponding shape is a square. Metal energy is represented in the environment by mountains with rounded summits and in buildings with block shaped tops. It is associated with the west and can encourage the health, well being, and happiness of children. In the human body, metal energy is associated with the mouth, the organ that takes the fire energy of the mind and contracts it so that we can express our ideas in words. In a human personality, metal is associated with righteousness in that a person with the adequate metal in their personal chi will have ideas that are well thought out and will more often than not speak the truth.

The Five Elements at a Glance


Element Direction Water North Wood East Fire Earth Metal South Center West Quality Season Color Shape Body Persona Sinking Winter Black Round Ears Insight ExpandSpring Green Vertical Feet Generous ing Lines Rising/ SummRed/ Angles Eyes Knowledge Sustained er Orange Steady Time Yellow Flat Total Compassionate Btwn Body Contract- Autumn White Square Mouth Truthfulness ing

The Bagua
In order to know how to use the Eight Cures and the Five Elements most effectively, you must understand how they should be placed. The Bagua is a specially designed map that helps Feng Shui practitioners to organize homes to facilitate the flow of chi in both the environment and the inhabitants. This map reveals how a space should be arranged in order for the environment to function harmoniously and for the occupants to have a fortunate existence. The Bagua is an

16 octagon shape that is divided into eight sections, each one representing one of the eight trigrams and one of the eight life situations. Li- Fame and Rank Gen- Knowledge and Dwei- Children and Creativity Chyan- Helpful People and Travel Kan- Career Kuen- Marriage and Love Jen- Family and Health Hsun- Wealth

The 8 Trigrams
According to ancient Chinese legend, the eight trigrams were revealed to Fu Hsi, the father of Chinese divination and first Chinese emperor of legendary times, over 3,000 years ago. Collectively, the eight trigrams are called the pa-kua and they each represent one aspect of nature: Heaven, Earth, Fire, Mountain, Lake, Deep Water, Wind, and Thunder. Each trigram is made up of a series of broken and unbroken lines, the broken lines representing Yin and the unbroken Yang. The eight trigrams were first written in the ancient text of the I Ching, or Book of Changes. This ancient text has been used for divination for centuries and is considered sacred to the Chinese. The I Ching and its companion text, the Li Shu (Book of Rites), are where many of the founding principles of Feng Shui have their roots.

The 8 Life Situations


Each of the eight trigrams has a corresponding life situation and each life situation has a corresponding direction. Wealth- southeast Fame/Rank- south Marriage/Love- southwest Children/Creativity- west Helpful People/Travel- northwest Career- north Knowledge/Wisdom- northeast Family/Health- east

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How to Use the Bagua


Learning to use the Bagua is fairly uncomplicated. You simply superimpose it on whatever part of your home you might be concentrating on at the moment. The Bagua can be applied to a plot of land on which you are looking to build, can be utilized over the entire layout of your home, or can be used to focus on a specific room or rooms you feel might need some extra help in order to be energetically balanced. Some Feng Shui specialists even use the Bagua to deconstruct specific pieces of furniture. For example, which area of the bed you choose for making love may influence both your level of pleasure and the likelihood that you will conceive a child. You can also use the Bagua on the human body with the eight directions corresponding to specific internal organs: the heart representing fire, the kidneys representing water, the liver representing wood, the lungs representing metal, and the spleen representing earth. The same principles used to balance a room can be used to balance your body and optimize your health. Well be using the principles of the Bagua in the following chapters to discern the most advantageous arrangement for the interior of your home as well as the most desirable location and orientation for the exterior of your home. Though we wont go into further depth on the Bagua until Chapter Five, its important to realize that this map is forming the groundwork for all the rules that follow. In Chapter Five, well learn ways to use this ancient map to encourage good fortune and improve your overall quality of life. Well also learn how to address any specific concerns that you may have. Whether its a career promotion or an advancement in your love life, the Bagua can help you to achieve the specific outcome that youre longing for.

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Chapter Two: Feng Shui for the Interior


Feng Shui for the interior is the most well known aspect of the art. It is also the area of our home in which we have the most control as modern people. We cant always live near a protective dragon (next section), and we may not be able to choose the ideal shape for our structure, but we can always decide exactly where wed like to place our bed and how we want to arrange our living room!

General Guidelines for a Favorable Interior


Light There are certain basic properties that every interior should posses if a home is to possess good Feng Shui. First of all, every room should receive adequate natural light. Light is the energy of yang, the life energy, and is necessary for the occupants of a home to thrive. If a house is dark, there will be an overabundance of yin energy and occupants will suffer with illness and depression. During the day, the sun should be the only light your need if it has good Feng Shui. At night, you should have bright lamps for the rooms in which you spend the predominance of your evening hours. Lamps can be used on cloudy days to keep the chi of the house from becoming listless and the occupants from becoming unproductive. Levels The levels of the home should be as regular and even as possible. A split-level house is prone to having poor Feng Shui. The chi has a difficult time flowing smoothly through the home and this can lead to negative results for the family. If the front of the home is higher than the rear, it is held that the children of that particular family will have difficulty achieving independence. If the rear of the home is higher than the front, the family will have difficulty making financial ends meet. Ceilings An arched or dome shaped ceiling is the most desirable shape. It will help in moving chi smoothly throughout the home. If you have a two-story home, then a high

19 arched ceiling is especially useful in helping chi to flow smoothly from the first floor onto a landing on the second floor. Flat ceilings are desirable because they will help to keep the energy within a home steady and even. Triangular or steeply pointed ceilings should be avoided as they harbor destructive sha energy and can cause the fire energy of a home to become overly exaggerated.

Specific Structural Elements Doors


Doors are probably one of the most important considerations when trying to enhance the positive chi of your home. Exterior doors are responsible for connecting your home and family to the outside world and interior doors are a huge element in helping the chi to move smoothly from room to room. The arrangement of your doors will affect every aspect of your life including career, happiness, health, and overall prosperity. As design elements, they should be taken very seriously. The Front Door The front door is the point at which the chi energy first enters the home. As such, it should be welcoming. The door should open out into the widest point of the room and the room or foyer that first meets the eye when opening the front door should be warm and light and encourage chi to enter. The front door should be proportional in size to the rest of the house. A door that is too big or too small will throw off the balance of the home and lead to arguments between family members and overall bad luck.

The Back Door First of all, a home should always have a back door. A home with only one door will have a very difficult time achieving good chi flow. For security reasons, it is also a good idea to have more than one method of entrance or exit into a home

20 Back doors should be similar in size to the front door in order to ensure that the flow of chi is smooth and regular. A back door that is larger than the front will cause the energy of the home to exit more quickly than it enters, causing a chi deficiency in the home. Door alignment Rule number one of door alignment is to never have the front door and the back door in direct line with one another. A house with this door arrangement will find it nearly impossible to keep good chi energy inside the home. Negative sha energy, on the other hand, will enjoy sweeping in and out of this long straight line through the center of the house. The closer these two doors, the worse the situation will become. You can remedy this problem by installing wind chimes, plants, and fish bowls directly in the pathway of the two doors. These items will help to catch the chi as it blows through and disperse it throughout the home. They will serve to disperse negative sha energy as well. Another door problem is created if doors are directly aligned with either interior or exterior staircases. Straight stairs are pathways for sha energy. Negative sha will have a chance to get a running start into a home if a long narrow staircase leads directly to the front or back door, or if a door opens onto a flight of interior stairs. Remedy this problem by installing wind chimes above the door to disperse sha and arranging potted plants on either side of the front door to welcome chi. Interior door alignment is very important as well. Awkwardly arranged doors can cause health and relationship problems, as well as being annoying to deal with on a daily basis. Doors placed directly opposite each other within the home will be fine, however, as long as the doors open away from each other and do not touch in any way. Doorknobs that touch each other create conflict within the home and increase the likelihood that a resident will sustain injury (especially a broken bone). In this instance, it can be worth your time to switch the hinges on one of the doors, allowing it to open in another, more favorable direction. If switching hinges seems like too much of a hassle, you can heal the door by painting it red, or by tying red bows around the doorknobs themselves. A red door is good luck on either the interior or exterior of you home. Red is an especially auspicious (or lucky!)color for the Chinese and is associated with increased fame, rank, and wealth. One final rule is that no door that opens directly onto a wall will bring good fortune or facilitate the flow of chi. In fact, if the front door opens into a wall, Feng Shui

21 specialists advise that you should tear down the wall if at all possible, or consider moving. It is believed that a front door with such a poorly placed wall blocks all good energy from entering the house. You can lessen the severity of this energy block by placing trees in planters on either side of the door and mounting a mirror on the wall. Interior doors that open into walls are not quite as serious and can be fairly easily remedied. One solution is to install a mirror opposite the opening of the door so that the room you are leaving is reflected back to you. You could also hang pictures of beautiful scenery or pleasing vistas, or paint a mural that depicts an outdoor scene.

Windows
Windows are nearly as important as doors when it comes to facilitating the flow of chi within your home. Windows should be large enough to allow the home to breath, but should not be too large or your home will have a difficult time holding in the proper amounts of chi. The most desirable windows will actually open to the outside as a door would, swinging open to welcome in passing chi energy. Inward opening windows will impede the flow of chi and encourage the residents to be suspicious of others and excessively inwardly focused. Windows that slide up and down do not harm the chi of a residence, but neither do they enhance it. Make sure sliding windows open completely. Windows that only open halfway will harm your reputation, causing other people to get the wrong impression of your actions. Windows should be placed high enough on the wall so that no resident of the home has to stoop to look out. Just as mirrors placed too low on the wall can cause headaches and low personal chi, so can a low window depress energy levels.

Stairs
Feng Shui has several recommendations for the placement and appearance of your stairs in order to avoid common energy pitfalls. First of all, it is best if there is only one staircase within a home. Multiple staircases muddle the flow of chi and lead to confusion and misunderstandings within the family. Secondly, the staircase should not be located in the center of the home. The center of any building should be the most stable position within that particular structure. On the outskirts, chaos may reign, but the center must hold. Since a staircase is a point of activity for chi as it rises and circulates to the next level of the home, it is considered

22 too active a structure to be placed in the center sector. Over time, a central staircase will lead to decreased wealth and reputation in the community. As for the appearance of the stairs, they should be wide and well lit. Narrow, dark stairs restrict the flow of chi and lead to anxiety within the residents. Stairs that have spaces instead of boards between the treads allow the chi to seep away before it reaches the second floor. To counter this problem, install plants or an aquarium underneath the stairs to help facilitate the rising of the chi energy. As for the overall shape of the staircase itself, a gently curve is the most fortunate and chi enhancing shape. Beware of spiral staircases as they create a symbolic hole within a home. Homes with spiral staircases are likely to cause numerous health problems including high blood pressure and heart disease.

Corners
Just as a missing corner on the exterior of your home can cause energetic imbalance, missing corners on the interior are also considered unlucky. They direct negative sha energy directly into the center of the home and can cause residents to feel guilty or ashamed for no legitimate reason. Remedy: To remedy a sharp corner within your home, you can hang mirrors on both sides of the structure to soften its impact. Placing a large potted plant in front of the corner can help, as can hanging a mobile or wind chimes from the ceiling directly in the path of the sharp corner.

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Which room should go where?


The way in which the rooms within your home are arranged influences your daily activities and over time creates a pattern for your very existence. Not only does room arrangement force you to physically move through your space in a pre-determined way. It is a scenario that can be compared to a rat in a maze. The rat becomes so accustomed to moving in a certain way, that even when removed from the maze, it will still continue to move in the same patterned way. Depending on the effectiveness of your layout, that pattern could be very positive, or quite negative. If you live in a U-shaped home (as discussed previously), and your bedroom is located within one of the protrusions, over time this pattern of daily behavior will begin to affect the course of your life. Because sleeping in this unfortunate space causes you to feel distanced from your spouse and family, you may become unsatisfied with your life and be compelled to abandon your family altogether. In contrast, if you live in a U-shaped home and your bedroom is located within the heart of the home, your daily pattern creates quite a different consequence. You will most likely feel connected to your family and spouse and be quite pleased with the overall quality of your life. A dramatic difference considering youre only changing the room in which you sleep! The average person will spend eight to ten hours a day (or approximately 1/3 of their entire life!) in their bedroom, however, so where you sleep is not a consideration to be taken lightly. The placement of the living room, bathroom, and kitchen are also very important because these are the rooms that most families will frequent for the majority of the day. In addition, you would want to give special attention to the room in which you have your office if you work out of the home. Well learn more in Chapter Five about how to use the Bagua within your rooms to enhance every aspect of your life. Listed below are general guidelines and rules for effectively positioning your most frequently used rooms as well as advice for correctly placing the key elements of each space.

In the Bedroom
The bedroom is the place where we recharge ourselves. Sleep is when our body repairs damage done to our cells and when our nervous system rests and assimilates the knowledge learned on a given day. If the quality of our sleep is good, our mind will be clear and our waking lives effective. If the quality of our sleep is poor, we will be anxious, dull witted, and ineffective in our waking lives.

24 The location of your bedroom within your home is the first contributing factor as to whether or not your sleep will be peaceful. The ideal placement for the master bedroom is diagonally across from the front entrance to the home, with the bed against the central wall. This arrangement will keep the bed near the heart of the home, but still allow privacy and quiet. Logically, the closer you are to the hustle and bustle of the comings and goings of the house, the less peaceful your sleep will be. In a house with multiple bedrooms, two bedrooms should never face directly across from each other. Not only is this bad for privacy, but Chinese tradition holds that children who grow up in a bedroom directly across from their parents will be rebellious and disrespectful. You should avoid having the bedroom door in direct line with the front door as this encourages the urge to sleep even when you may not be tired. You may come home from the grocery store and decide to take a nap rather than making dinner as you planned if your front door leads directly to your bedroom. The subconscious urge to sleep will just be too powerful to resist!

As for the arrangement of the furniture in the bedroom, the bed itself is of course the element of central importance. If at all possible, the bed should be located on a diagonal from the door. This allows a clear view of anyone entering the room and will keep the sleepers chi from becoming restless and beginning to cause problems in their health and career sectors.
*Ideally place bed, cater-corner the entrance to the bedroom.

If for some reason the bed cannot be placed on the diagonal, a mirror can be used to reflect the entrance diagonally across from the bed. Remedy: Mirror is placed in the diagonal position so that the bed is reflected back into its ideal place. The mirror also helps to facilitate the movement of chi throughout the room. *Some Feng Shui experts advise against a mirror in the
bedroom, saying it stimulates chi in a way that is unhealthy for sleep or that a mirror can frighten the soul of a sleeper as it rises from the body during the night. Other Feng Shui experts recommend mirrors for the bedroom to increase the quality of sleep as well as to encourage an enjoyable

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and fertile love life. Therefore its up to you and your instincts to decide whether or not a mirror in the bedroom is desirable for you own personal situation.

A mirror cure may be desirable in a room in which the diagonal position would force the foot of the bed to face toward the nearest pole of the earth. Meaning, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, you wouldnt want to sleep with your feet facing north. In contrast, if you were in the Southern Hemisphere, you wouldnt want to sleep with your feet facing south. It is energetically unwise to sleep in such a position as it will draw the focus of your energy down toward your feet and away from your brain. The ideal positioning for the bed is with the head facing slightly east or west of the nearest pole for increased knowledge and wisdom. (Slightly northeast or northwest for Northern Hemisphere, slightly southeast or southwest for the Southern Hemisphere.) Aligning directly with the pole is not advised as it can cause an overabundance of mental activity during sleep and even lead to psychological disorders. Facing the bed from east to west or west to east is also acceptable as it will maintain even energy levels throughout the entire body. Another unfavorable bed position is with the foot of the bed directly in line with the door. In ancient China, as in many other cultures, a corpse was laid with its feet toward the door while awaiting the day of its burial. On that burial day, it was carried from the home with its feet leaving first. Sleeping with your feet in such a position, therefore is considered bad for your health and generally unlucky. The lighting for the bedroom should be warm, but not overly bright. The bedroom is the one area of the home in which low light levels are not only acceptable but preferable. In order to prepare properly for sleep, the body must be able to stop manufacturing the wakeful chemicals that are produced when the skin is exposed to bright light. If at all possible, the bedroom should not be directly attached to a bathroom. This creates a Feng Shui situation called, hitting the emperors seat, that is very unfavorable. (One can imagine that in ancient China, hitting the emperors seat was probably not a very wise practice if you hoped to escape with your life!) Unfortunately, most modern homes have a master bath attached to the master bedroom. While convenient, this is poor Feng Shui. Bathrooms generally have poor chi quality and toilets are especially inauspicious fixtures that cause money energy to be flushed away from the home. To remedy the problem of an attached bathroom, keep the door closed between the two rooms as much as possible. Hang a mirror on the bathroom door so that the bedroom will be reflected back on itself, lessening the influence of the bathroom. Wind

26 chimes or a mobile can be hung in front of the bathroom door to help circulate chi and keep it from being sucked into the bathroom.

The Bathroom
On the subject of bathrooms, there are many ways that you can counteract the negative effects of bathroom energy. Bathrooms are one of the few areas in a home where yin energy will reign, regardless of the amount of natural light present, or what steps you take to encourage positive chi flow. Yin energy isnt always negative, but an overabundance does encourage listless personal energy and ineffectiveness in the work place. The yin energy of the bathroom, however, is considered to be generally unlucky and sometimes actually harmful. You can minimize the danger of a bathroom by paying close attention to its design and by always keeping the door to the bathroom firmly closed. Location First of all, a bathroom should never be located in the center of the home. Just as a staircase brings instability to the center, so does a flushing toilet. If you have a bathroom in the center of your home, you should try not to use the facilities there if at all possible. There is no way to remedy a central bathroom except by not using it or by moving to another home. A bathroom should not be located near the front door or in a place where guests will have to view the facility when coming and going. The more a bathroom is viewed by strangers, the more encouragement the unlucky yin energy will have to emerge from the bathroom and begin to flow throughout the rest of the home. Finally, with regards to orientation, the bathroom door and the front door should not face in the same direction. If they do, the family will be visited by cycles of misfortune and it could be possible that the women of the family will be more likely to suffer from miscarriage. Design After location within the home, the location of the toilet within the bathroom itself is the most important consideration. The ideal location for a toilet is in a position in which it cant be seen when opening the bathroom door. The more hidden the toilet, the

27 less malevolent the yin energy of the particular bathroom. If your toilet is highly visible, using a screen to hide it from view can be an effective method of counteracting the unlucky position. To further reduce the impact of yin energy, it is important to make sure that your bathroom is well lit and well ventilated. If you have a window in your bathroom, using mirrors to reflect the outdoors within the space will help bring in positive energy. Painting the walls in a pastel color is also beneficial and will help to promote harmony within the family. The final word on the bathroom supports what women have been asking men to do for years; put the seat down! The toilet lid should be closed at all times when the toilet is not in use in order to prevent money energy from being lost. It is a good idea to close the lid firmly before flushing for the same reason. In addition to being good manners, closing the lid is correct Feng Shui.

The Kitchen
A kitchen is representative of wealth. In fact, the Chinese word for food sounds the same as the word for wealth. Just as proper nutrition nourishes the body and generates good health, proper placement and arrangement of your kitchen will generate wealth and prosperity. In order to bring about good fortune, a kitchen should not be placed near the middle of the home. A kitchen that is dissected by the centerline of a structure will cause the bodies of its residents to likewise divide against themselves. They will therefore be at risk for a higher incidence of illness within the family. A kitchen should not be visible from the front door. Just as a bedroom near an entrance will encourage too much sleeping, a kitchen near the entrance will encourage overeating. Children will be especially vulnerable to this invisible pull and will be at an increased risk of suffering from childhood obesity. Within the kitchen, the stove is of primary importance. The stove should be clean and working well in order to allow wealth to enter the home. The stove should

28 be used regularly. Each burner should be utilized an even number of times in order to keep money energy from being blocked. The more burners utilized, the more wealth will be accumulated by the family. This is why many Feng Shui experts advise putting a mirror on the wall behind your stove. The reflection doubles your number of burners and likewise doubles your money! The stove and cooking areas should be well lit and spacious enough to make preparing and cooking food comfortable for the chef. This area should be located in such a way that the chef is not surprised by anyone entering or exiting the kitchen. In addition to the fact that no one working with sharp knives should be startled, it is poor Feng Shui and will lead to decreased wealth, health, and decreased intimacy between husbands and wives. Remedy: This problem can be remedied using mirrors to reflect the entrance and hanging a wind chime above the door so that the chef will be aware of any entrances or exits into the kitchen.

Living Rooms
As a place where the family spends time together and where you will entertain your guests, the living room should be well lit and exude feelings of warmth and welcome. It should be the largest room in your home as well as the most carefully decorated. A properly arranged living room is a great choice for the room that will greet residents when they first open the front door. If a living room had good Feng Shui, the sight of this room at the end of a long day will make residents feel comfortable, relaxed, and happy to be home. In the same way, a cozy living room will make guests feel welcomed and at ease. Furniture within the living room should always be facing the entrance. No seat should have its back directly to the door, and no furniture should be placed too close to the entrance. The chairs and sofas should be arranged to facilitate conversation and comfort, with each seat having a clear view of all the other seats.
*This living room is beautiful and the light is very good. It is also pleasantly decorated and very welcoming. For proper Feng Shui the residents would need to move the red plaid couch. It is too close to the door and is facing the wrong direction.

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Using the Bagua (Chapter 5), plants, mirrors, and water features can be placed to make the living room one of the most auspicious in your home. Good Feng Shui in this room will facilitate unity within the family and a harmonious connection between the family and the outside world.

A Home Office
Having your office located within your home even more intimately connects the arrangement of your space and the successfulness of your enterprise. As such an important aspect of your existence, its placement should be taken seriously. Locating your office in one of the corners of your home is the ideal. Just as the big boss at work gets the corner office, give yourself the same Feng Shui advantage by placing your home workspace in an auspicious corner. To discover the most auspicious corner for your personal chi, use the tables below. Simply find your year of birth and observe the corresponding direction. If you were born near the changing of the year, you may find yourself in a cusp situation and will have to use your personal intuition to see which direction is best for you. Chi Orientation for Males SW 1917 1926 1935 1944 1953 1962 1971 1980 1989 1998 2007 2016 2025 2034 2043 2052 E 1916 1925 1934 1943 1952 1961 1970 1979 1988 1997 2006 2015 2024 2033 2042 2051 SE 1915 1924 1933 1942 1951 1960 1969 1978 1987 1996 2005 2014 2023 2032 2041 2050 SW 1914 1923 1932 1941 1950 1959 1968 1977 1986 1995 2004 2013 2022 2031 2040 2049 NW 1913 1922 1931 1940 1949 1958 1967 1976 1985 1994 2003 2012 2021 2030 2039 2048 W 1912 1921 1930 1939 1948 1957 1966 1975 1984 1993 2002 2011 2020 2029 2038 2047 NE 1911 1920 1929 1938 1947 1956 1965 1974 1983 1992 2001 2010 2019 2028 2037 2046 S 1910 1919 1928 1937 1946 1955 1964 1973 1982 1991 2000 2009 2018 2027 2036 2045 N 1909 1918 1927 1936 1945 1954 1963 1972 1981 1990 1999 2008 2017 2026 2035 2044

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Chi Orientation for Females SW 1917 1926 1935 1944 1953 1962 1971 1980 1989 1998 2007 2016 2025 2034 2043 2052 E 1916 1925 1934 1943 1952 1961 1970 1979 1988 1997 2006 2015 2024 2033 2042 2051 SE 1915 1924 1933 1942 1951 1960 1969 1978 1987 1996 2005 2014 2023 2032 2041 2050 SW 1914 1923 1932 1941 1950 1959 1968 1977 1986 1995 2004 2013 2022 2031 2040 2049 NW 1913 1922 1931 1940 1949 1958 1967 1976 1985 1994 2003 2012 2021 2030 2039 2048 W 1912 1921 1930 1939 1948 1957 1966 1975 1984 1993 2002 2011 2020 2029 2038 2047 NE 1911 1920 1929 1938 1947 1956 1965 1974 1983 1992 2001 2010 2019 2028 2037 2046 S 1910 1919 1928 1937 1946 1955 1964 1973 1982 1991 2000 2009 2018 2027 2036 2045 N 1909 1918 1927 1936 1945 1954 1963 1972 1981 1990 1999 2008 2017 2026 2035 2044

Using the indications for personal chi can be confusing when you are considering the needs of a large family. If a husbands chi is oriented toward the southwest, and wifes toward the northeast, how will they arrange the house to benefit both of their personal energies? This situation can become even more complicated when considering the needs of children and grandparents who may be living in the home! Because of this dilemma, many Feng Shui specialists advice using personal chi orientation only in matters that are unique to the individual and will not influence the family at large. Therefore, locating your home office in an auspicious corner for your own personal chi will not damage anyone else in your family and will actually benefit them in that there will be more wealth available for the family at large. Arranging the entire home to suit one persons chi, however, would be selfish if there are several other family members to be considered. That is why most Feng Shui experts advise simply following the directions as traditionally indicated by the Bagua (Chapter 5). In this way, the entire family will continue to thrive, regardless of the orientation of their own personal chi.

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A Final Word on Feng Shui for the Interior of Your Home


In modern day life its clear to see how interior Feng Shui can affect our lives more than the location of a mountain range. Its easier to place faith that rearranging the rooms and furniture within our homes might really make a difference in our lives. Its also easier to believe that poor placement may cause serious harmful consequences. If youve discovered during the reading of this section that your home is experiencing terrible interior Feng Shui, dont panic! Theres no need to sell your home or move to a hotel until more suitable accommodations can be found. The consequences listed above occur after years of living in the worst Feng Shui environments possible. If you even begin to make subtle changes in your environment, you will be able to avoid the most serious of these without any problem. If you do have a bathroom or staircase located in the center of your house, for example, you will learn ways to increase the energy of that sector in Chapter Five. You can help remedy such a situation by encouraging the earth element (the energy of the center) in your home with color and shape. The most important thing to realize is that you have the power to shift the course of your fate. By taking the time to enhance the energy of your home, you will also be enhancing the quality of your personal energy. You will begin to feel better and think more positively and soon you wont feel the need to worry about the state of your Feng Shui. Positive Feng Shui should free you from such anxieties about your destiny, giving you the strength to think positively and deal with hardship when it arises (as it will in every life, properly Feng Shuied or not). If you find that you continue to experience anxiety about the placement of your home after making a few adjustments, you should reexamine your motives for using the art. You may have some deeper-seated problems with desiring an unreasonable amount of control for your life. No science, not even Feng Shui, can promise that its laws will give you absolute power over your destiny, only the opportunity to create the most fortuitous conditions possible. So relax and take these principles for what they are, a useful guide in understanding a subject that is mystical, esoteric, and deeply personal. Use your

32 personal intuition to discover how much Feng Shui is appropriate for you and let the other rules fall where they may. Though a Feng Shui master would gasp at this blasphemy, every individual truly knows within themselves how their personal space should be arranged. It is only because our instincts have been dulled that we need to follow the rules of Feng Shui. Once your instincts start working again, you will be able to put your own personal spin on this art of placement, making it not only more suited to your individual taste, but more effective for the unique being that you are.

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Chapter Three: Feng Shui for the Exterior


In ancient times, the location for a home was the primary concern when trying to create the most positive flow of energy possible. The general shape of the land and the arrangement of the specific features within the landscape were closely analyzed before any building could take place. Many ancient battles were fought over who claimed the rights to a particularly prime property. Even in present day China, land disputes over desirable Feng Shui property wage for years on the battleground of the modern legal system. Why all the fuss about location you may ask? The fact of the matter is that there are actually far fewer desirable Feng Shui sites than there are people hoping to build. The science of location is incredibly complicated and at the same time very specific. With so many rules to follow, there are very few pieces of property available that will truly fit the bill for ideal Feng Shui. This problem with location is even more pronounced for modern people. Many people live in apartments or in rented homes where they have very little control over the particular location of their home. Even those people who can afford to buy or build their own home rarely have the luxury of putting good Feng Shui above all else. When it comes time to buy, usually factors such as price and proximity to work must be first on the list of considerations. A bad Feng Shui location doesnt have to be a death sentence for the well being of your homes chi. There are many ways to counteract the negative effects of having a landscape that is less than ideal. First well learn what constitutes the perfect Feng Shui spot and then well learn ways to remedy the specific problems you may face with your personal location situation.

Choosing the Perfect Location


The Four Animals
In Feng Shui, proper location is determined by carefully observing the arrangement of the four celestial animals as they are manifested in the landscape. These animals are symbolized by distinct land formations or shapes that must occur in a specific combination with one another. Because the landforms will serve as

34 the guardians of the home, their presence is considered extremely important. The fewer animals present, the less protected the home. Each of the animals corresponds to a specific compass direction, as well as a specific side of the structure that will sit upon the land.

The Four Celestial Animals


Animal Green Dragon Red Raven White Tiger Black Tortoise Season Spring Summer Autumn Winter Direction East South West North Side of Building Left Front Right Back

The Dragon
The most important of the celestial animals is the dragon. Even if the other animals are missing, a strong dragon presence can still make a site desirable and provide protection for the home that will be built there. Thats why the first stage of scouting any site for Feng Shui desirability is to determine the presence of the dragon in the landscape. The dragon is detected simply by observing the surroundings. If you live near hills or a mountain range, you would look for formations in the hills that resemble a dragon. It could be a dragon in any position (sleeping, seated, standing), but a dragon with a raised head is considered to be the most fortunate.

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Dragons can be present in the cityscape as well. Perhaps the city skyline near your home resembles a dragon, or maybe a combination of natural and man made objects could form a dragon shape. A good time to look for a possible dragon formation is in the very early morning as the sun rises and the skyline is in shadows. Oftentimes it is easier to spot a dragon when you view your surroundings in silhouette. You could look for a dragon at sunset, but since the most desirable location for a dragon is in the easterly direction, sunrise is your best choice. If you do happen to find a dragon in a direction other than the east, it is still a desirable formation and you will be able to rearrange the other animals in order to take advantage of the strong dragon formation. The one rule for the dragon is that he always guards the left side of the home or structure, regardless if that side is the easterly side.
Example: Sleeping dragon on a hillside, head is to the right, body to the left.

The Tiger
The dragon and the tiger should always exist as opposite polarities. If the dragon is east, then the tiger will be west. The dragon is left and the tiger is right. Of the two, the dragon is the dominant landform and should always be visible even if the tiger is more hidden. The tiger is represented in the natural landscape by low, crouching hills, or by a rock formation that has no jagged edges. In the city landscape, a small, solid building could represent a tiger. Even better if this building is white. White is the color of the tiger and will serve to enhance the power of this celestial animal. If you seem to have a white tiger present in your landscape without the balancing force of the dragon you should beware. White tigers can be a threatening influence to a home without the power of the dragon to keep them in check. In order to counter the potential aggression of the tiger, you would establish the presence of the dragon within your home by using the dragons color, green, on one or several of your walls.

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The Tortoise
The black tortoise guards the back of your home and can be represented by a row of tall trees or a higher mountain range. In the case of a mountain range, your home should be at a fair distance from the range. Like the white tiger, the tortoise can become a menacing figure if located too close to your home. In the cityscape, the black tortoise could be a higher stand of buildings behind your own property. Once again, the buildings should not be too close. In addition to the tortoise becoming a possible menace, high mountains or buildings too close to your home will block the light from reaching inside. Light is vital to good Feng Shui; the brighter the better. Therefore, you wouldnt want to live too close to the tortoise, even if the thought of a menacing turtle doesnt frighten you quite as much as a menacing tiger! Its important to remember that though the rules of Feng Shui may at times seem purely mystical, there are grounded in practicality.

The Red Raven (or Red Phoenix)


The Red Raven is known to some as the Red Phoenix. This celestial animal has an energy very similar to the energy of the fire element. It is highly active and creative and ideally should front a home in a southerly direction. The Red Raven is the least dominant of all the celestial animals. In an ideal setting, the front of a home should roll down and gently away from the structure presenting a vista of a valley or lowland. Somewhere in that vista is a large boulder, a slightly larger hill, or maybe even another home that will represent the Red Raven in the landscape. Because the intense energy of the raven can be so powerful, it would be bad Feng Shui if the raven were too close to your home and overpowered the influence of the other animals, especially the benevolent dragon. The dragon would find it difficult to nurture and protect your home if the raven were constantly blasting you with agitating fire energy.

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Fortunate landscapes and how to place your home among them


How to position your home is perhaps most easily understood by observing a few very simple diagrams. The following are a few examples of how to position your home in landscapes that are manifesting the four celestial animals. Remember, even if you only have a dragon present in your landscape, you can still profit from a great deal of protection by aligning your home with the dragon on your left side.

Example One: This diagram reveals the ideal Feng Shui property. The dragon is located to the left (east), the tiger to the right, the tortoise behind, and the raven to the front. The dragon is large enough to keep the tiger in check, and both the tortoise and raven are far enough from the property to be protective rather than detrimental to the property.

Example Two: This diagram is even more fortunate than the first, though the Feng Shui involved is a little more creative. In this figure, the dragon shape in the landscape wasnt distinctive. By building the home on the top of the rise, the owners gave the dragon a head and brought wholeness to the animal. This is in turn brings harmony to the landscape and to the residents. Also, by building in the realm of the dragons head, the residents of the house will experience increased strength in the knowledge sector of their lives. You must be careful when creating a dragons head however. You should never build your home on an overhang, especially if there is a white tiger present below who may be waiting to devour all of your good luck energy. This site is suitable because the rise of the dragons body isnt too steep and the tiger is big enough to protect, but not to threaten. The tortoise is suitably distant, as is the raven.

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Example Three: This diagram gives a possible example of an ideal Feng Shui location for an urban dweller. A dragon with a raised head (the most fortunate dragon) is represented by the skyscrapers to the left of the home. The white tiger is found in the short, squat home to the propertys right. The tortoise is found in the tall, distant skyscrapers behind the building and the raven is represented by the smaller home located at some distance to the dwelling.

Remedying a bad location


If you find that your home or apartment conforms to none of the rules governing the four celestial animals, dont worry! You can still summon the energy of the dragon into your home by using the dragons signature color on the appropriate walls. The following diagram reveals which walls on the interior and exterior of your home would correspond to the dragon. The exterior wall to the east of your home (hopefully the left as well, but if not choose east) is one of the walls of the dragon. You can enhance the dragon protection of your home by planting trees against this wall. Another choice would be to encourage the growth of a climbing vine, like ivy. You could paint the wall green, but your neighbors might find that a little strange if the rest of your home wasnt green as well! The Interior wall of the dragon would be the western interior wall. Even though it is located on the western side, it is still facing east and so is claimed by the dragon.

39 You can enhance the dragon in your home by painting this wall green or by using wall hangings or curtains in a green color.

Other Landscape Considerations Rivers


Rivers are powerful conductors of chi within a landscape. They can bring amazing good fortunate or devastation, depending on several key Feng Shui factors. It is generally assumed, however, that a house with a view of water of any kind will bring success to its inhabitants. Quality of the River When deciding to live near a river, you should carefully observe the quality of the water. The river should be clean, flowing, and lively. Fish, wildlife, and people should be able to use and enjoy the river with no ill effects. This is a sign that the chi of the river itself is pure and beneficial. If the water is murky, stagnant, or has a foul odor, you should think twice before considering making your home there. Though stagnant water can still bring money into a home, it will be unlucky money that can carry death and destruction in its wake. The chi of a stagnant or polluted river is tainted, and so the manifestations of the water energy in your home will also be tainted. In addition to the negative chi of such a river, there are many health risks associated with living next to stagnant water. Still water is a breeding ground for disease carrying insects such as mosquitoes. Whether it be malaria or West Nile virus, these insects continue to be a threat to human health. Throughout human history, stagnant water has been a dangerous health hazard, causing plagues and widespread death, and it is best avoided at all costs. Once again, the rules of Feng Shui prove to be practically sound as well as mystically powerful.

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The Position of Your Home If you do find a river whose chi is pure and powerful, you must consider the placement of your home in relation to the river. The first rule of course is distance. You want your home to be at least twice its height away from the riverbank. If the home is large and tall, this is far enough away to benefit from the power of the river without suffering ill effects. If your home is small, four times the height would be a better distance. If a small home is too close to a river, it will be overpowered by the waters chi and there will be an increased incidence of illness within the family. Next, it is important which direction your home faces with regard to the river. The ideal is to have your house front the water for increased wealth. If your home faces away from the river, you will be presented with opportunity, but will never be able to successfully grasp it. You can remedy this easily by installing several mirrors to reflect the river within the home. In this way you will draw the positive energy of the river into your home and your life. There are other factors to consider other than direction and distance from the water. How your home is placed with regards to the shape of the riverbank will also be very important. While the proper placement will bring good fortune, improper placement can cause negative consequences. Most of these consequences will involve difficulty with finances since water symbolizes money. The following are a few examples of less desirable river locations.

Less Favorable River Locations

Example One: If a river forms a horseshoe shape away from the home, you once again have a situation where the inhabitants will be able to see good fortune, but never be able to claim it as their own. This situation can be cured by using a mirror to reflect the image of the river inside the house, bringing the good money energy indoors.

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Example Two: This home site could be either beneficial or unbeneficial, depending on the quality of the water. If the water of this bay is gentle and peaceful and in no way threatens the home, then this is a very auspicious location. If the water is violent and unpredictable, this would be a very unlucky location and probably at high risk for being damaged in a flood.

Example Three: This location could be either lucky or unlucky. If the river flows toward the home, this is a lucky site and will bring the inhabitants wealth. If the river flows away from the site, however, it is unlucky and the residents will watch as all of their wealth flows away from them. This too can be remedied with mirrors. Use a pair of mirrors to bounce the reflection of the water into the home in such a manner that the water appears to be moving toward the home instead of away. It may take some time to discover the proper arrangement for the mirrors, but in the end your effort will be well rewarded.

Favorable River Locations


Even though a river can cause money difficulties, it is much more likely that you will experience great good fortune in your money sector by living near flowing water. Even an

42 unfavorable location can usually be remedied and even a troublesome river is better than none at all! The following are examples of desirable river locations. Example One: When a river curves around a property in an embrace, the residents will enjoy great wealth. An embracing river also bestows luck upon the home.

Example Two: This river location is a study in contrasts. The embracing river here bestows luck and wealth, but the opposite side of the river horseshoes away, carrying opportunity for wealth away from the site. These two sides of the river will battle for a time and the inhabitants of this home may experience some setbacks in their financial sector. Eventually, however, the embracing river will triumph and the inhabitants will overcome adversity and be both wealthy and successful.

Example Three: This river can be lucky or unlucky. If the two tributaries are flowing toward the home and meet in front, then this is an auspicious site with double the money energy. If the two rivers are both flowing away from the home, it is doubly unlucky as wealth will be swept away from the home on two strong streams.

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Waterfalls in a River While waterfalls can be beautiful, Feng Shui specialists consider them to be bad neighbors. The louder a waterfall, the more dangerous it will be. A waterfall that sounds like thunder spells disaster for the homes nearby. Smaller waterfalls are not as dangerous, but are still considered inauspicious. While it is true a gently burbling fountain, or a babbling brook are good for dispersing sha energy, a waterfall is just too noisy. One Feng Shui specialist compared a waterfall and fountain in this way: You spot a hungry tiger loose in your backyard so you whisper to your brother that it is time to go indoors. Thusly, you both escape the tiger. That is the energy of the fountain. On the other hand, if you spot a hungry tiger loose in your backyard and scream for your brother to go indoors, thus alerting the tiger to your presence and causing him to eat the both of you; that is the energy of the waterfall.

Roads
Roads, like rivers, are avenues for the flow of chi. Curving roads are best of course. Straight lines of any sort are pathways for negative sha energy. That is why it is undesirable to live at the end of a dead end street or at the corner of an intersection. High-speed roads and highways are especially dangerous vessels for sha. The energy on a super highway has been called killing chi because it is moving much too quickly for the human body to assimilate. If you happen to live in an undesirable road location, the best cure is the mirror cure discussed earlier. Placing a mirror on the outside of your home will help to deflect the negative energy and protect your family. Outdoor wind chimes or fountains located between the home and the street can also be beneficial

Driveways
In addition to the street on which you live, how your own driveway approaches your home can have a negative or positive effect on your homes energy. The driveway is the vessel that links your home to the energy of the main street. A good

44 driveway will filter out negative sha while allowing positive chi to meander toward the house. Example One: The fork formed by this driveway is a bad omen for the family. Traditionally it meant that the first-born son would quarrel with his father and would end up moving his wife and children into his own home instead of staying to take care of his parents in their old age. In modern times, Feng Shui specialists say that a forked driveway will mean a breaking off of relations between the first born child and the dominant parental influence.

Example Two: This driveway narrows as it approaches the street. This dwindling signifies reduced career opportunity and can mean a decreased life span if the driveway slopes down hill away from the home. You can remedy this situation by installing a lamp at the bottom of the driveway. This light will help re-circulate chi that has become stuck at the end of the drive.

Example Three: A circular drive is the most auspicious. It helps chi to move slowly and effectively up to the home and is a symbol of wealth. If the center of the driveway is planted with flowers, family prosperity will be increased. If the center of the driveway contains a fountain, wealth will be attracted to the family, while negative energy is repelled.

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Pathways
The path leading from the driveway or street up toward the home is also a conductor of chi energy.

Left: The house on the left is suffering from the same bottleneck problem as the home with the narrowing drive. The owners will benefit from installing a lamp near the end of their drive. Center: The house in the center has a long narrow path that will direct malevolent sha energy straight into the home. These people can cure the problem by installing a mirror on the exterior of their home. Right: The house on the right has a path that widens out to the street. The future is open for the inhabitants of this home. The sha energy will be slowed by the narrowing path, but could still possibly find a way to enter the home. These inhabitants could benefit from a mirror on the exterior. Steep Stairs A home with a steep steps is allowing money energy to roll out of the house. You can remedy this problem by installing a mirror at the bottom of the steps facing the house. The money energy will be reflected back to the home before it can roll out into the street.

The Shape of Your Home


Once you have placed your home properly and managed to get your driveways and pathways up to Feng Shui standards, then you must consider the shape of your home itself. Shapes are very important in Feng Shui. As weve learned, each element has a shape, and each shape has a unique energy.

46 According to Feng Shui, square, rectangular, or round shapes are the most ideal for a home. They are even, regular shapes that will bring stability to the family. Unfortunately for many western cultures, we have a tendency to build irregularly shaped structures. This can lead to discord within the family and a life that is lacking in the sectors of the home where the structure is considered incomplete. The following are a few examples of common irregularly shaped home designs and how to remedy them. If your particular shape is not discussed, simply apply the outdoor light and plant cures discussed below to the specifics of your particular home. Remember, you are seeking to achieve a balance in the overall shape, coming as close to a perfect square, rectangle, or circle as possible.

U-shaped Houses
U-shaped homes can be unlucky for a marriage. If the master bedroom is located in one of the protrusions, it can symbolically separate the marriage from the solid steady chi energy of the home. In this situation, one or both of the spouses may find reasons to sleep outside the home, engaging in infidelity and putting their marriage at risk. If the kitchen or dining room is located in one of the protrusions, the family will not enjoy eating in their house. This will lead them to eat more meals out at restaurants or fast food joints. While this isnt such a tragedy, it can get expensive and lead to unhealthy eating habits. Its much harder to find healthy food in reasonable portion sizes when you are eating meals that you havent prepared yourself. If a childs room is located in one of the protrusions, the child will eventually grow to feel distanced from their parents and siblings. They will be symbolically locked out of the family unit and will become resentful. This child will find every excuse to stay away from home and may even eventually decide to leave their family before they are of age. A living room or family room located in a protrusion is the most unfortunate arrangement of all. In this instance, the family will likely be plagued with chronic headaches, backaches, and other general aches and pains. They will be at a higher risk for having to undergo major surgery and will suffer losses in both their money and career sectors. Remedies: To help remedy the problem of a U-shaped home, there are many simple steps that you can take. First of all, begin by filling in the U with trees or flowering plants. Next, install

47 outdoor lights that will shine into the U during the evening hours. If possible, rearrange your home so that the rooms least used are located in the protrusion. Though locating a guest room in a protrusion may cause guests to feel unwelcome, this is preferable to causing discord within the main family unit. You could use one of the rooms as a storage area, an exercise room, or a playroom for the kids as long as they have a room of their own where they sleep. If you simply have to locate a principal room in one of the protrusions, leave the doors to these rooms open as much as possible, so they will fell less cut off from the rest of the home. In addition, hanging mirrors to reflect the room into the main portion of the house will help facilitate the flow of chi and reduce the negative impact of living in a U-shaped home.

L-Shaped Homes
L-shaped home are extremely popular in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, they are considered poor Feng Shui because a large portion of the shape is missing. This results in an imbalance of the homes energy as well as the energy of the occupants. L-shaped homes are much more dangerous than U-shaped homes and can cause both minor disruptions as well as life-threatening crisis. Depending on the arrangement of the rooms within the home, an L-shaped living space can lead to poor study habits in children, poor work habits in adults, reduced wealth, reduced opportunity, an increased incidence of both mental and physical illness, and an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Remedies: Luckily, remedying the problems caused by an L-shaped home can be very easy! By simply installing a light that shines into the missing corner, you can fill in the space and encourage a balanced flow of chi within your home. To further facilitate good chi, install wind chimes or bells over your doorway. This will invite good energy in, while deflecting negative sha. Mirrors can also be used to even out the space.

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Cleaver or Pan-handle Shaped Homes


Not to frighten anyone that may live in a cleaver shaped home, but a bedroom, kitchen, or office located in the blade section of the home will lead to the death of success as well as the early demise of the inhabitants. People living in the blade of a cleaver shaped home will feel out of control in all aspects of their lives. They will be terrified of change and will likely suffer from panic attacks or even agoraphobia. This fear causes them to avoid going into the outside world which causes them to spend more time in the very place that is causing their anxiety: their own home! If you do live in this type of home it would be advisable to move your bedroom to the panhandle of the home right away. This will immediately begin to increase your feelings of safety and security. Remedies: Begin by installing a light cure to fill in the missing portion of the home. You may want to plant flowerbeds and create a pathway that will further help to solidify the shape of the home. On the interior, try to arrange your rooms to keep the bedrooms, office, and kitchen away from the cleaver section of the home. If this isnt possible, use mirrors to reflect beds, desks, and kitchen appliances back into the safe portion of the home, away from the blade. A cleaver shaped home can be remedied fairly easily. If you live in a cleaver shaped apartment, your situation becomes a bit more difficult. The installation of the outdoor cure is especially necessary in remedying the shape of a clever shaped home. Though you will be able to improve your situation with the use of mirrors, you may want to consider moving to a more fortunate space if your finances allow.

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Neighbors
Its always a good idea to check out the neighborhood before you decide to purchase a home or rent an apartment. Are your neighbors friendly and prosperous? Are the exteriors of the homes near yours well maintained? If so, chances are that the energy of the neighborhood is good and that you and your family will thrive there. On the other hand, if the community is in a state of decline and the citizens are guarded and unfriendly, you should reconsider your decision to move to this area. Even if you are on a limited budget, there are low-income communities that are as clean, friendly, and well-kempt as the wealthiest neighborhood in town. You dont have to be wealthy to have good energy, though it is a fact that good energy will afford you a better lifestyle. If you are going to be opening a business in a neighborhood it is even more important to carefully observe the surroundings. You may have to do a little homework, learning how long each of the establishments on your block has been in business and how they are faring financially. If others have had bad luck with bankruptcy and failed enterprise, chances are you will have difficulty getting your business to thrive in that particular area. The only constant within the universe, however, is change. So even if you choose the most fortuitous neighborhood possible, there is a chance that the buildings near you could be torn down and new structures will be built that will change the chi dynamic of the entire community. The following are a few ways to counteract the negative energy created by new neighbors moving in on the block.

High Rise
If a high-rise complex is built across the street from your home, there is still a chance that you will remain relatively unaffected. If the street that separates you from the high rise is at least four house lengths wide, you and your homes energy will be safe from the bullying energy of such a large structure. If a high rise is built right next door to a smaller home, it can wreak havoc on the energy

50 within that home. Not only does a high rise block light from reaching the interior of the smaller home, it negatively impacts the personal chi of the people living inside. People living in the shadow of a high-rise will experience setbacks in their career and will fail to meet their personal potential. Remedies: You can overcome the negative impact of living next to a high rise by installing a mirror that will reflect the building back on itself. Its even better if this mirror is convex and the image of the building is turned upside down.

If the building is located to the west, or right hand side of your home, it can become a threatening tiger in your landscape. This effect will be doubled if the building is painted white, the tigers sacred color. In order to counteract this effect you would enhance the dragon in your home using the methods mentioned previously.

Unfriendly Corners
Sometimes, your new neighbors may be the nicest people in the world, but the way theyve built their home is decidedly unfriendly. If a neighboring property is angled in such a way that a corner of the home is aimed directly at your own, your homes chi will suffer. If the neighboring home is larger than your own, this problem can become even more exaggerated, causing you and your family to become ineffective in your worldly endeavors. Remedies: The first step in both improving your chi and ensuring your privacy is to plant a stand of trees between your and your neighbors property. To further counteract the negative sha energy aimed towards the home, you can attach a mirror on the exterior of your home and install a wind powered lawn decoration. Miniature windmills or pink flamingos with wind-powered wings are two possible choices.

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If a pink flamingo offends your personal aesthetic (and you wouldnt be alone if it did!), you could choose to use bamboo poles amongst your plantings. Bamboo deflects negative sha energy and is great for encouraging climbing vines.

Institutions
If a school is built on the block, you wont have much to worry about as far as your homes chi is concerned. Though the playground may be noisy, the presence of children can actually bring good fortune to the neighborhood. Small businesses are also fairly good neighbors, as long as they keep regular business hours and dont lure undesirable people into the community. A church can be a good neighbor if it is primarily a place of worship or if weddings and christenings are often performed there. If the church is the site of frequent funeral services, however, it can cause the yin energy of the community to begin to outweigh the yang. Yin energy is the energy of the dead. When living residents of a community begin to absorb too much yin energy, they will be at an increased risk of perishing in a sudden accident. An overabundance of yin will lead to decreased ambition, decreased creativity, and decreased effectiveness in the world. Remedies: You can remedy the influence of a nearby church or funeral home by planting trees between your property and the other structure. The trees should be planted close together, with thick foliage. Another option is a tall fence, covered with climbing vines.

A Final Word on Location


No matter how your landscape is manifesting, and regardless of whether or not you are fortunate enough to live near a river, you can still benefit from the principles of good external Feng Shui. By simply using color to encourage the protection of the green dragon, you have already greatly enhanced your positive energy. If you go a step further by mending broken corners and installing mirrors to deflect negative neighborly influences, you will truly begin to notice an improvement in the energy of your living space and the quality of your life.

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Chapter Four: Feng Shui at the Office


When you work at home, you can choose any desk position you like, work the hours you choose, and arrange your personal belongings any way you please. When you go to the office, chances are that the most desirable Feng Shui locations will be reserved for top management and that your superiors will be telling you where to sit, exactly when to come in, and what is acceptable to have displayed in your workspace. If you are top management, then the Feng Shui of your office is probably working well for you (or at least you have the authority to change it!). If you are not yet, but would someday like to be top management, you may have to get a little creative with your Feng Shui in order to increase your energy and productivity and catapult yourself into a position of power.

Desk Position
A cushy corner office is of course the most desirable Feng Shui location in any workplace, especially if the corner you choose corresponds with your personal chi orientation. If you arent one of the privileged few to have such a prime space, you can still make your workspace a place of power and effectiveness by making a few adjustments, the most important of which is the position of your desk. The most auspicious placement for your desk is diagonally across the room from the entrance into your office. This position allows you to view your entire workspace as well as be immediately alerted to anyone entering or leaving the room. This location will increase your concentration, cause your business to thrive, and put you in a position of control and authority. Having your back to any door is decidedly bad Feng Shui. It will lead to business being conducted behind your back. You will be out of the loop on business deals and partnerships and will be passed over for promotions and wage increases. The severity of the problem will only increase the closer you are to the offending door.

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Example: Poor Desk Arrangement In this situation, the worker is both too close to the door and facing in the wrong direction. If at all possible, this person should turn their desk around to face the entrance and move it three to four feet back towards the diagonal wall. If this is not an option, they can install mirrors both in front and to the side of their desk. This will keep them aware of the comings and goings of the rest of the office. Chances are that they will still feel as if they are constantly looking over their shoulder. Even with the mirrors it will be difficult for this person to work up to their full potential.

Common Desk Locations And Their Subconscious Associations


The position of your desk not only influences the way your work, but affects the way people view you and your achievements. If your colleagues seem to disrespect your opinions, or you are never invited out to lunch with the boss, it may be your desk position that is to blame rather than any particular aspect of your job performance. The following are a few common desk locations as well as the possible consequences of being the person who occupies that particular desk. Desk with Back to a Window If you occupy this position, you will not be listened to carefully. Its logical that someone seated in front of you might be more entranced by the activity outside your window than the words that are coming out of your mouth. People who are forced to spend the majority of their day indoors often find the world outside the window irresistible and will be tempted to daydream instead of take notes on your latest company improvement plan. In order to keep the focus on you and not the clouds rolling by outside, you should rotate the position of your desk so that you are the one facing the window. If you find that you get too distracted, you may simply have a window that is too large. An oversized window can cause a room to have difficulty holding in the appropriate amount of chi energy. In

54 this case you could try placing a few potted plants in front of the window, or installing a fountain to help keep the chi circulating within the room. If all else fails, you might have to invest in some blinds and lower them halfway. In this way, youll still allow chi enhancing natural light to enter the room without allowing all your rooms chi and your focus to be sucked out through the floor to ceiling window. Though its a sad thing to close out a beautiful day, sometimes you must make the sacrifice in the name of increased concentration and productivity. Desk Closest to an Interior Opening Door The person in this desk will be assigned more work than anyone else in the office. This could be a boon if the increased number of assignments leads to increased company visibility and perhaps even a promotion for work well done. However, it can be exhausting to be forced to handle extra work and you may become frustrated that you are doing more than your coworkers and still not getting paid a higher salary! A grueling work schedule can lead to feeling burned out on the job. Your personal life will suffer, youll have higher stress levels, and the quality of your work may eventually start to decline if youre forced to carry an abnormally heavy workload for months at a time. One possible solution for this problem is to install a ticking clock, a fountain, or anything else that will help generate repetitive, white noise. This soothing sound will help to lower your Yang energy levels and make your personal aura a bit less bright. This decreased visibility will keep you from being overloaded with work. Desk Closest to an Exterior Opening Door The person closest to the front or back door will be considered expendable. Though they may be well liked by their coworkers, the person in this desk will be seen as the least essential member of the office team. That means if youre the unlucky person to be assigned this position, youll be the first to go in the event of any company cutbacks. This desk also puts you in a poor place for inter-company communication. Though you may know whos coming and going, you wont be clued in to the decisions being made by the rest of the company. To avoid being considered dispensable, first make an attempt to relocate your desk. If that isnt possible,

55 try to keep fresh flowers or plants on your desk at all times. This will keep the energy around your desk stable, and prevent the positive chi energy from being swept out the door as it opens and closes throughout the day. Another possible cure for this situation is to place a heavy stone paperweight in the future sector of your desk (more on this in the next section). Simply place the stone in the center of your desk at the point furthest away from your seat. This should weigh you down in your career and help you to be taken more seriously around the office. Desk facing a Wall People whose desks directly face a wall will be considered inaccessible by the rest of the office. Your coworkers will go out of their way to avoid talking with you if you are the person who occupies this desk. They will consider you closed off, uncommunicative, and a poor collaborator, regardless of whether any of those things may or may not be true. The easiest way to counter this negative image is of course to turn your desk around so that the wall is at your back. If for some reason this isnt possible, you can install a mirror to your front, to your side, or in both locations as in the example of poor desk placement illustrated at the beginning of the chapter. As we said before, this will still leave you with the feeling that you have to look over your shoulder and you will have difficulty working up to your full potential. Desk enclosed by Interior Glass People who work at a desk enclosed by interior glass will inspire envy in their colleagues. If this is your desk, people will perceive you as standing in the way of their own personal advancement and will do whatever they can to strip you of your position. You will be the subject of viscous office gossip and will feel like an unwanted outsider in the company break room. An office enclosed by glass has very poor Feng Shui. It will be unable to hold proper amounts of chi energy and the energy that does make its way in will be unable to circulate properly. The best remedy for this situation is to remove the glass walls if at all possible. Revolutionize your office by tearing down walls and uniting the workforce! If your superiors wont go for that idea, try installing blinds on one side of the office for increased privacy and a line of potted plants on the other side for more effective chi

56 flow. A mirror behind you should help to deflect negative sha energy aimed at you by coworkers. Desk in the Center of the Room The person seated at this desk will be considered old reliable. If this is your desk, you may not get the hot new assignments, but you will be the person that your superiors turn to in a time of crisis. They will depend on you to rise to the challenge presented and save the company from a loss of both money and reputation. Depending on how well you deal with the crisis you could be on the fast track to company advancement. In a study of ten different office spaces, Feng Shui expert Steven Cardiff discovered that the desk located at the center of the office experienced the highest rate of turn over due to promotion in nine out of the ten sites. (The tenth site had a staircase in the center of the office, bad luck for the general energy of the building as well as for employees who could have benefited from central placement!)

But I dont work at a Desk!!


You may be asking yourself, What good are these rules if I dont even work at a desk?! The principles of desk placement can be applied to many other types of employment as well. Simply substitute the area where you spend most of your time for the desk in the situations mentioned above. If you are the line chef whose food prep station is closest to the exit, youll be considered the least vital part of your team. If you are a mechanic whose work area is closest to the interior door, youll be receiving the majority of the oil changes. If you are a doctor and you to face the wall when discussing your patients x-rays, you will be considered uncommunicative and your patients will feel uncomfortable asking you questions regarding their treatment. The list could go on and on. The point is that wherever you spend the majority of your workday will influence both the way you work and the way that people perceive your work. Giving a little Feng Shui attention to this often-used area can increase your productivity and improve your relationships with coworkers and employees. If your routine varies and you are rarely in the same place, you would need to substitute your own body for the desk. When you visit clients do you stand facing a wall, do you stand in front of a window, or do you lead them to a nice comfortable spot in the center of the room and proceed to make the sale every time?

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Arranging your Personal Space (Taking the Bagua to the Office)


Once you have your desk positioned for optimal Feng Shui, you should shift your focus to the objects located within your personal workspace. Its common knowledge that paying close attention to how your desk is arranged can increase productivity. A tidy desk can reduce stress and help keep your mind as clear and clean as your workspace. A nicely decorated desk makes you happier to be at work and helps you assert your individual identity. Using the principles of Feng Shui, we can take your desk organization to an even higher level. With only a few minor adjustments, you will be able to increase your efficiency, productivity, and creativity, all while influencing the opinions of your coworkers and superiors and putting yourself in the position to move quickly up the corporate ladder. In order to accomplish these goals, we must turn our attention to the Bagua, the Feng Shui map that was introduced in Chapter One. Well be focusing on this ancient map in great detail in the next Chapter, but for now well use a few of the basic principles to help you achieve your work related goals. The Bagua as designed for your personal workspace is slightly different than the classical Bagua well be using in the next section. Feng Shui experts believe that the energy of the work environment slightly alters the importance of the key directions. Therefore, instead of focusing on North and South, well be locating objects simply based on their relationship to your own body as you sit in your chair. Goal #1: Keeping your Present Job, or Advancing in the Company Location: Center, Far Side of Your Desk This goal is represented by the central area on the far side of your desk. This is the career section of your desk and what you place here will have an impact on how well you perform and how far you will advance in your chosen field. Depending on your unique needs, you have several options as to what items will prove most beneficial to you if placed in this sector. If you have anxiety about your job performance or worry that you may be fired, you should place a fountain, a ticking clock, or even a small stereo in this location. Playing classical music, or simply having another source of steady, rhythmic sound in

58 this area will help to banish anxiety and disperse negative sha energy that may be flowing in your direction from the corners of other peoples desks or down long hallways in your place of business. If you have trouble focusing on the task at hand and you feel this is endangering your job, you should place an object representing the fire element in this position. The fire element is represented by the colors orange and red and by pointed, triangular shapes. The fire element will focus your energy and help direct your efforts toward the task at hand. This will help improve your productivity and possibly put you in a better position for advancement. If you cant seem to put together a long term plan for your future in your present job, youll want to encourage the metal element in this area. Metal is represented by square shapes and by the color white. Encouraging the solid, contracted energy of metal will help you to sustain your focus until you have solidified your long-term goals. Goal #2: Enhancing work relationships Location: Right side, Far side of Desk No matter what your business, good working relationships are vital to your job success. People have been scratching each others backs since the dawn of business. Who you know and how they feel about you is often more important than what you know or even how well you do your job! To help make sure you are able to establish strong ties with the powerful people in your work place, install a mirror or other reflective object in this area. This will stir up the chi in your relationship sector and help you to become a dynamic figure that the people in your office will want to get to know. To maintain these connections once youve made them, use symbols of earth energy (flat, yellow) in this area to encourage long, sustained relationships. This could be a vase of yellow flowers or something as simple as a yellow notepad or a yellow folder. Remember, Feng Shui manifests in even the most mundane of objects. If you have a superior who seems unapproachable, a green plant in this sector will help you to gather the courage you need to make an impression on this imposing

59 person. As a living thing, it enhances chi as well as being representative of the wood element, the energy of spring, early growth, and new connections. Goal #3: Expanding Creativity Location: Left Side, Far side of Desk There are many jobs out there that rely heavily on sustained creative energy. If your job is in marketing, advertising, writing, entertainment, or another creative field, this is the type of energy you need to keep flowing. Your job depends on your creativity and you cant afford to let this all-important energy wither or wan. To make sure that your creative energy will be there when you need it, use the fire element in this area. Anything red or orange, or possessing the sharp, triangular shapes of the fire element will suffice. If your phone is located in this sector, make it red. If you have a little bowl of candies in this area (a sure way to make sure your desk is popular), make them red jelly beans or cinnamon drops. In order to feel more secure when making a creative leap, enhance the earth element in this area with color or shape (yellow, flat). This could mean that your computer will be yellow in color, or that you will have a vase of yellow daisies on the far left hand side of your desk. If you feel that your creative potential is still relatively untapped, you can help yourself to manifest his type of energy by using the metal element in this area (white, square shapes). Keep your pencils in a small, white box, or better yet, keep your red jellybeans in a small, white box. That way youll be getting fire and metal in one tiny package. Remember, Feng Shui is definitely open to multi-tasking! If on the other hand you feel that your creativity is way over tapped and youre feeling creatively drained, encourage the water element in this sector. The water element will encourage the energy of your subconscious, helping you to fill the well of creativity. A small fountain is a good choice, or multi-task by installing a small fish bowl with goldfish (fire and water combined). Goal #4: To encourage communication and trust Location: Left side of desk, closest to you If you are the leader of a company, you have an especially strong need to encourage communication and trust in your employees. You need to communicate effectively to get the most out of your employees and you need them to trust your

60 decisions in order to move the company forward. If no one understands your orders, or if your workers are always second guessing your directions, neither you nor your company will reach the highest level of success. To encourage your workers or co-workers to feel comfortable expressing themselves, install an element of earth in this sector. This will help you to be a calm, solid force that encourages people to feel safe sharing their concerns with you. Earth energy will help you to be sincere and direct, but compassionate in your communications. To help those who may seek your advice to articulate themselves more clearly, use the metal element in this sector. That could be found in the form of a metal letter opener, or in a small white box filled with metallic paper clips. To help keep your entire office free of petty gossip and politics, encourage wood energy in this sector. Wood is the energy of kindness and generosity. A bonsai tree would be good for this sector, or even something as simple as a container of wooden pencils. Goal #5: Increase your salary, or increase your sense of self worth Location: Right side of desk, closest to you Almost everyone thinks they could use more money, but most people could definitely use a higher sense of self worth. Though there are the occasional egomaniacs of the work place, most people tend to underestimate their talents and skills. What you place in this sector could increase both your self-image and your paycheck. To increase your overall confidence, and possibly your pay as well, use the fire element in this sector. Gold fish in a bowl will introduce the fire element while also enhancing the water element of this sector. The water element will further boost your self-esteem by helping to banish any feelings of self-doubt. If you feel you just arent getting paid enough money to meet your personal needs, you would encourage the earth element in this sector. Once again, a flat yellow folder could do the job, or perhaps mix a few yellow fish in with your gold fish if you choose to place a fishbowl in this sector. (Just make sure the fish will make friendly bowl mates. Some fish have the tendency to attack and kill different species. A killing frenzy in your self-esteem sector is definitely not a desirable occurrence!)

61 Goal #6: To be happier and more productive on the job Location: Your desk chair This is the sector of yourself. The energy of this area will influence how people view you, how your view yourself, and how happy and satisfied you feel about your work and the time you spend in the workplace. To assist you in fulfilling your overall potential, you should enhance the fire element. You could sit in a red chair, use a red mat for underneath your feet, or even make a habit of wearing the color red yourself. To help you to go with the flow and be able to evolve to suit the needs of a changing work environment, you would use the wood element. Once again, your chair could be made out of wood (painted red to promote fire as well if you like), or you could introduce the color green into your self station. To give yourself a confidence boost, you would encourage the earth element by using yellow. To keep your mind focused and your emotions in check, you would encourage the water element and utilize the color black. Though black can be dangerous in some sectors, using black at the workplace is perfectly acceptable. It will help you to remain inwardly focused amidst the swirl of office activity and allow you to refrain from becoming overly emotionally in situations where it is best that you behave in a more detached, professional manner.

Unique Professions, Unique Feng Shui


Though the rules above can be applied to any personal workspace and to any profession, there are certain ways to tailor the rules of Feng Shui to enhance the energy of your specific business or profession. The first consideration is the external Feng Shui of your office or place of business. The shape you choose for your building can increase your productivity and likelihood of meeting with success in your chosen endeavor.

Fortuitous Shapes for your Chosen Profession Circles


The circle is representative of the water element. As such, a circular shape is good luck for a fishery, seafood market, or pet store specializing in fish and aquatic life. A circular building is good luck for a business such as a video store or lending library that requires people to come full circle and return the products theyve borrowed in a timely fashion.

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Sharp Points and Triangles


These shapes represent the fire element. Since the organ associated with fire is the eye, businesses that deal in appearances will benefit from doing business in a building that is manifesting the fire element. Beauty salons, clothing stores, and department stores will do well in such a building. Grocery stores and restaurants that depend on their food looking appetizing will flourish by choosing a fire building. Christian churches have chosen to use the fire element in their structures for centuries. Their tall pointed spires are more a call to the fire energy of the mind, however, rather than the eye. These holy buildings hope to set fire energy to work in the minds of their devotees. They hope this focused, highly charged, thought energy will lead seekers to recognize the truth and wisdom of their teachings. Churches in other cultures use the dome in their structures. This is a call to the water energy within their spiritual seekers. You can imagine that the people who constructed these buildings hoped that the circular shape would help their devotees to dig down deep within themselves, using the power of water energy to lead them to a personal revelation of the truth of their spiritual teachings.

Flat Lines and Planes


Straight lines are representative of the earth and of the constant base energy that unites our soul to our body. As such, any business that deals with ministering to the health and well being of the soul or body would do well to be in a building manifesting earth energy. Pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, outreach programs, shelters for the abused and destitute, and doctors offices would all benefit from being in such a building.

Long Straight, Vertical Lines


Wood is manifested in building with long, straight, vertical lines. Skyscrapers are the most extreme example of this sort of building. Accounting firms, lawyers offices, and real estate firms would all do well in a wood manifesting building.

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All three of these deal with finishing up old business and getting a fresh start. Realtors help people to purchase new homes, accounting firms help people to get a fresh start for the coming fiscal year, and lawyers deal with an untold variety of fresh starts, from finalizing a divorce to clearing an innocent person who has been charged of a crime. That energy of the fresh start is the springtime energy of the wood element.

Square
Square represents the energy of metal. Any industry dealing with metal or metalworking will therefore thrive in a metal manifesting building. Jewelry stores, auto mechanics, car rental agencies, and banks will all benefit from locating their business within a square structure.

Getting Creative With the Shapes


You can use Feng Shui to help enhance the image of your business even when your potential customers are nowhere near your building. By using the shape associated with your profession on your business card or logo, you will make a positive impression on your target audience. For example, for years a major airline had a logo in which a square box was created by the three letters of its abbreviation. This airline struggled with bankruptcy throughout this time and even threatened to cut pension benefits for its retirees. When the logo was changed to include a triangular shape behind the three letters, the airline began to thrive and was soon in the red once more. As wind fuels a flame, so did the fire energy represented by the triangle fuel the efforts of this airline.

A Final Word on Feng Shui for the Workplace


In China its not at all unusual for institutions to seriously consider the Feng Shui of a particular office space before deciding to set up shop. Banks in particular are known to bring in the top Feng Shui consultants available in the belief that proper Feng Shui will help their institution to survive in the world market and outshine their competitors.

64 If you work within a western culture, chances are that proper Feng Shui isnt high on the list of considerations when your superiors are considering the design and layout of your office. Therefore, you may meet with more resistance when deciding to rearrange your desk or office space in order to be more Feng Shui friendly. If you feel your co-workers will be supportive of your choice to encourage positive energy flow at work, feel free to share with them your plans and thoughts for improving the chi of the workplace. Many high profile firms in large urban centers of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe openly use Feng Shui to enhance productivity and worker satisfaction. If on the other hand you feel that your co-workers will mock your interest in Feng Shui, or that your boss may start to think youve gone off the deep end when you start rearranging mirrors to facilitate chi flow, you may want to keep your intentions to yourself. Let Feng Shui be your secret weapon in this case. Simply make your changes quietly and leave others to wonder how you managed to snag that great promotion or to finish all your work reports before six oclock in the evening!

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Chapter Five: The Bagua


How to use the Bagua
Feng Shui is an ancient practice and like any ancient way of thinking, it has evolved into slightly different schools over the years. Just as there are hundreds of distinct sects within the larger umbrella of Christianity (Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopal, etc..), there are numerous sects within the basic art of Feng Shui. Depending on which sect you follow, the Bagua will be used in slightly different ways. The Black Hat sect of Feng Shui has dispensed with the concept of directional orientation altogether. They instead base the sectors of the room according to their relative location to the main entrance to that room. The direction in which that main door opens is also taken into consideration and will further affect which sector will be placed in which part of the particular room. In this book, we will be using the Bagua as it has traditionally been used, with the cardinal directions corresponding to specific sectors of a room as well as specific aspects of a persons life. Classical Feng Shui considers the directions of the compass to be a reliable way of deciphering the sectors of a home or rooms within that home. Some Feng Shui experts have suggested that these directions may need to be modified with consideration to your hemisphere. Therefore, if you live in the southern hemisphere, you may want to consider reversing the directions for each of the following sectors. Your career sector may be to the south, for example, rather than the north. The reason for this is that Feng Shui was developed with the gravitational and energetic forces of the northern hemisphere. These forces work in different ways when the dominant polar influence is a southerly force, rather than a northerly one. Use your personal intuition to decide if a directional flip flop might be advisable for your particular situation.

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Kan Trigram The North Element-Water Color-Black Sector-Career


In Chinese, the word Kan means deep water, meaning the deepest, most personal, intuitive energy that we possess. For many people this intuitive energy is what we use to chart our chosen career path and so the Kan trigram has come to be associated with career and professional success. Kan is also the trigram of the journey of personal creation. This journey can of course take the form of a career, but you may find the deep water energy of the Kan trigram manifesting in different ways in your life as well. For example, if you are a parent, your intuitive, creative energy will be what you draw upon when raising your children. Though many would consider child rearing the realm of a different trigram, many mothers and fathers feel that their parenting work is an intimate part of their personal journey in the world. First they must use their Kan energy to transform themselves to meet the challenges of parenthood, and then they must continue to draw on that Kan energy to raise their children to be strong, self-confident individuals who are prepared to make a personal journey of their own. Kan energy will be used in areas of our lives that many people consider hobbies rather than full-fledged careers. If you enjoy artistic pursuits in your spare time, such as painting, writing, knitting, or interior decorating, you will be using Kan energy to fuel your creative efforts. Though the energy of the creative process itself belongs to another trigram, there would be no creative process without the energy of Kan. Kan energy fills your creative well, it fuels your dreams, and it inspires you to begin the process of outward creation. So when considering the needs of your Kan or Career sector, be aware that you may be able to use this sector to enhance other areas of your life as well. If you were suffering from a chemical dependency, for example, you would need the deep intuitive energy of the Kan trigram to help you discover the root of your problem and urge you toward a transformation. You would also need a little extra Kan if you are feeling unfulfilled in your life and are looking for a deeper meaning in your day to day activities. The intuitive power of the deep water will help you to discover hidden truths that may not be readily apparent.

67 Object Placement for your Kan or Career Sector The Kan trigram is located due north, though people in the southern hemisphere may want to consider switching the location to the due south position. Therefore, in order to locate this sector in your home or within a particular room in your home, you may need to use a compass to locate the northern most position. Once you have located the northern direction, you have a few Feng Shui decisions to make. Some people prefer to take their entire home or apartment into consideration when using the Bagua, others prefer to apply the map to each room individually, and still others use a combination of both methods. Its really up to you to decide which method your feel will be most beneficial to your personal living space. If you have a teenager whose bedroom is located in the most northern position in the house, you may find it difficult to convince them to let you place items in their room to enhance your personal career Feng Shui. You may also have difficulty convincing them to keep the room clean enough for sanitary standards, let alone Feng Shui standards! In this situation it may be best to place careerenhancing items in the northern most point of your bedroom, living room, or other space where you spend a majority of your time. When deciding which objects to place in your Kan sector in order to improve the energy of your career, any of the eight basic cures can be used to create positive chi and to deflect negative sha from that area of your life. Mirrors, wind chimes, fountains, and plants and flowers are always good choices. You can use objects that are specific to your chosen profession or desired goal to help you make advancements in this sector. If you are an architect, place your drawing table in this sector. If you are a writer, place your desk and computer in this sector. If you work in a lawyers office, keep your law books on a sturdy shelf in this area. Using these objects will help to improve the overall quality of your work, as well as your satisfaction with your chosen job. Using the five elements can help you to address more specific career related concerns. Since water is the element associated with Kan and with the northerly direction, you will find special power in using water elements in this area. Water naturally enhances the career sector and cultivates money energy (as weve learned previously). Using the color black in this sector can be a successful way of promoting the water element and increasing your income. Youll use the fire element in this area if you want a promotion or want to step up your rate of production. If you want to stabilize an uncertain job situation, use the earth

68 element. If you want to regain your enthusiasm and enhance your motivation, once again, use the water element. If you want to improve your working relationships or make new work connections, use the wood element. And if you want to be more creative at work, use the metal element. With regards to your personal life journey, use a water element in this sector if you have lost your passion and excitement. Use a fire element if you want to advance to a higher level of understanding regarding yourself and the course of your individual existence. Use the wood element if you are looking for someone to help you on your life journey, whether it be a mentor, friend, or life partner. Use the metal element if you are looking to create a new identity for yourself. And use the earth element if you are feeling detached from your life and need to ground yourself in the reality of the moment. People who suffer from panic attacks and anxiety may be able to find some relief for these conditions by encouraging the earth element in the sector of their personal journey. Their anxiety may be directly related to fear, uncertainty, or dissatisfaction with their personal life path. By bringing the energy of the center into this area, they may be able to center themselves as well as encourage feelings of stability, safety, and security.

Gen Trigram Northeast Color-Blue/Green Sector-Knowledge/ Self-cultivation


This trigram, Gen, is actually pronounced as Ken so you may find that other Feng Shui books will refer to it as such. Gen is the energy of the fierce wind, the energy of knowledge and self-cultivation. It is ironic that in order to harness the energy of Gen, we must learn to calm the fierce wind of our mind and bring ourselves into a peaceful state in which will be able to have the discipline to absorb the knowledge we need and to cultivate our strengths and talents. Many eastern cultures encourage a practice of meditation. Though this practice first began as a way to discover and assimilate spiritual wisdom, it is beneficial for people seeking to gain new knowledge of any kind. A mind that is able to quiet itself will be able to learn more quickly and evolve more effectively. It only makes sense that a person who can shut down all the thoughts of what I have to do today and simply concentrate on the task at hand will be better able to complete that task. You would want to enhance the energy of the Gen Trigram if you are having difficulty focusing your attention or your efforts. A child with Attention Deficit Disorder would benefit from enhancing this sector of their room. A stressed out mother who is

69 longing to find the time and mental energy to devote toward her dream of returning to school would also want to enhance the energy of this sector. Object Placement for the Gen or Knowledge and Self-Cultivation Sector Most of us will have difficulty taming this fierce wind of the mind and will therefore actually benefit more from calming the energy in this sector rather than kicking it up a notch. If you are one of the few people in the world who is skilled at mental stillness and serene contemplation, you may want to add a little of the fire element to take you out of your mind a bit and urge you to interact more with the world. For the rest of we stressed out, over worked, mentally frazzled people, well need to concentrate our efforts on calming the energy of this sector. Any element of fire, metal, or wood should be avoided in this sector if you are looking to encourage a quiet and more receptive mind. The water element would be a good choice for calming the fire of the mind and helping you to pull on your inner resources. The earth element would be beneficial for centering your energy and pulling your mind back from the million different directions in which it is trying to run. This sector of a room or home is a great place to set up a meditation area or a study room. Decorate this space with blue/green colors and let the light in the room be soft and soothing but bright enough for hitting the books if need be. Keep noisy appliances away from this space and instead soothe the mind with a gently burbling fountain. The body part associated with this sector is the hand, so this can be a great place for engaging in soothing, repetitive, handicrafts. Activities such as knitting, whittling, or sketching can actual help many people to transition their thought patterns into a more receptive and contemplative place.

Jen Trigram East Element-Wood Color-Green Sector- Health and Family


It may seem strange at first that the Jen trigram is pulling double duty for both health and family, but on closer inspection it actually makes a lot of sense. The organs of the body must all work harmoniously together (like a family) if a person is to thrive and experience all the benefits of good health. If one body system suffers, than the whole body suffers. It is the same with a family. When one family member is in trouble, the whole family will be weakened. In contrast, if the family is working well together, all of the members will flourish.

70 Health and Family are also both highly affected by the past. The way you live your life from the moment you are born affects whether or not you will experience good physical health. A lifetime of poor eating habits and high stress will predispose you to disease, whereas a lifetime of exercise and eating right will increase your chances of living a long and healthy life. It is the same with a family. The way you were raised affects the way that you will raise your children, which in turn affects the way that they will raise their children. Though health and family are both influenced by the past, the Jen trigram is associated with wood energy, the energy of springtime and new beginnings. It is the energy of the Jen trigram that we must use to keep our health and our relationships bursting with vital, healthy, new energy. Object Placement for the Health and Family sector As weve said previously, any of the eight cures will help to boost positive chi energy when placed in this sector. Bamboo flutes would be an especially good choice in that they are also representative of the wood element, the signature energy of the Jen trigram. Mirrors, wind chimes, and water fountains will help to stimulate positive chi, while a smooth round stone in this sector can help to stabilize a family relationship that may have become strained. When using the five elements, wood will prove to be the most beneficial energy for this sector. Wood encourages vital, healthy energy to circulate through our bodies, our minds, and our family relationships. Decorate this sector with wooden objects, with the color green, and with shapes that are long and vertical. Pictures of trees or forests can help to enhance the wood element, as can carpets or upholstery that display flowers and plants in their motifs. The other elements can also prove beneficial in the family and health sector. Use elements of earth to lower stress levels and to center a family that is in crisis. Use the metallic element to aid in recovery from illness and to encourage children to maintain family ties. Use the fire element to increase physical and mental energy and to help the family engage with each other more directly. (The fire element can be especially useful for a family who tends to scatter to every corner of the house and spend little time with each other.) The water element can be used to correct the opposite problem, cooling the tempers of family members who engage too directly or who may be irritable from being forced to share a small living space.

71 Another enrichment for the family aspect of this sector is to place pictures of loved ones, both living and deceased, in this area. In this way you will encourage the ancestors of the past to provide protective energy to their descendents and you will remind the living of the family members who came before. For good health, it is especially vital that this sector be free of dirt and clutter. A dirty Jen sector will lead to disease of the physical body, while a cluttered Jen sector will lead to scatterbrained behavior and possible mental illness as well. Using green in this sector, especially in the form of healthy plants, will encourage health and vitality.

Hsun Trigram Southeast Color-Purple Sector-Wealth


When considering the Hsun trigram, we are not only concerned with material wealth, but with blessings of all kinds. What those blessings may be depends on your personal idea of what a wealthy life entails. It may mean that you want to be blessed with many children, that you want to lead a long and healthy life, that you want to achieve your ambitions, or that you want to be able to retire by the age of forty. Whatever your desires, enhancing the energy of the Hsun Trigram can help you to achieve wealth and blessings of a wide variety. Material wealth is an issue that almost everyone is concerned with. Not only do we need money to survive, but having extra money can mean that we also have extra time, the most precious commodity we have as human beings. Much of our desire for material wealth is really a desire to be free from having to spend so much of our time scrambling to make enough money to get by. Wed all like to have more time to spend with family and friends, more time to engage in hobbies and pastimes that are meaningful to us, and more time to simply relax and let the world rush by. At different times in our lives, however, wealth can take on a different meaning. For a man diagnosed with a terminal illness, the concept of personal wealth would be to have a few more days to spend with his loved ones. To a couple who has been trying for a child for years, the symbol of personal wealth would be finally seeing that second pink line on a home pregnancy test.

72 Object Placement for the Wealth Sector For thousands of years, purple has been the preferred color of royalty, most of whom have an abundance of monetary wealth. Using purple in your wealth sector will help to encourage material abundance. Mirrors, wind chimes, and flowering plants (especially with purple flowers!) will help to stir up the chi of your wealth sector and help get the positive money energy flowing. As weve said before, water is the element that brings money energy flowing towards or away from your life. To keep money energy flowing in the right direction, always keep the doors to the bathrooms in your house tightly closed and keep the lids of the toilets down unless they are being used. Also, fix leaky faucets in sinks, showers, or bathtubs right away. To encourage good water element energy, use mirrors to reflect any outside water inside the house. If you live near a river, pond, or lake, or have a water feature in your yard, make the most of it by reflecting the image into your money sector. Fountains and fish bowls are good ways to enhance your wealth. Fish bowls are especially fortunate as fish will bring good luck as well as good energy. Another way to encourage wealth is by placing actual money in this area. You may choose to keep your personal lock box or safe in this sector. Even a dish with a few coins inside can help to stimulate positive money energy. If you have a bowl where you dump your loose change, move it to this area to make the most of its positive monetary influence. In order to encourage blessings of a different sort, use items that symbolize your desire to decorate your wealth sector. If you wish happiness and long life to your children, keep their pictures in this sector. If you wish for increased opportunity, put a climbing vine in your wealth sector. If you simply want to increase your overall abundance, place an object that symbolizes that quality to you in this sector.

Li Trigram South Element-Fire Color-Red Sector-Fame and Reputation


In our modern culture, the lust for fame has become a disease. Every person believes they deserve the chance to have the focus of the entire world firmly trained on them for at least their fifteen minutes. Whether this obsession is due to the popularity of reality

73 television programming, or is simply a result of our entertainment-obsessed culture, it has gotten decidedly out of hand. The Li trigram is not the energy of this type of fame; the Li trigram is representative of deserved recognition. For example, if you were a scientist who has spent your entire life trying to cure disease, the energy of the Li trigram would ensure that your discoveries brought you the recognition and good reputation that your efforts rightfully deserve. Not every situation would necessarily have to be that heroic, but the point is that enhancing the energy of your fame and reputation sector will not make you win a national singing competition unless you have the skills and talent to warrant such a prize. The energy of the Li Trigram will naturally be manifested if you are simply pursuing your creative destiny as a human being and concentrating your efforts on mastering your life goal. A person who volunteers their time, will automatically become known for their charity. A person who is helpful to strangers, will become known for their kindness. A person who endeavors to bring compassion and excellence to their work, will become known for their skill. Your actions will speak for themselves and they will speak louder than any words, or even any Feng Shui! Object Placement for the Fame and Reputation Sector If you feel the need to help your actions along a bit, you can use any of the eight cures to liven up the energy of your fame and reputation sector. A water feature would be a wise choice if you seek both greater fame and greater wealth. A fish bowl would also encourage wealth. Choosing goldfish as the residents of your bowl will encourage the fire element as well. The fire element will be the most powerful of the five elements as it is the signature energy of the Li Trigram. This is the energy of intellectual investigation, high sustained activity, and mental clarity. All of these qualities will lead you towards excellence in your chosen field of endeavor, thusly increasing your chances of achieving fame and a good reputation. Encourage the fire element in your fame sector by using triangular shapes and the color red. You could also burn candles and incense in this area. Most people will want to avoid using the water element in this area because it will dampen the energy of fire. If your lust for fame is so all consuming that it is negatively affecting your life, however, a little water might not be a bad idea. Earth energy in this

74 sector will bring a center to a wildly fluctuating reputation and wood energy will help you to break in to the area in which you would like to achieve your good reputation. An actor trying to land their first big role, would encourage wood in their fame sector to help them take their first steps toward their ultimate goal. Objects that are unique to your particular area of expertise may help to encourage the energy of the fame sector. The same actor above may want to keep scripts in this area. A professor would put lesson plans in the fame sector, a policeman would keep his uniform in this sector, and a concert pianist would store their sheet music in this sector.

Kuen Trigram Southwest Color-Pink Sector-Love and Marriage


Love is the most powerful force in the world. Nearly all the Holy Scriptures agree that the creating force of the universe is an entity based in profound love. Loneliness, however, is also a very powerful force and one that most human beings dont enjoy experiencing at all. Even if you arent the type to want to eventually get married, chances are you would still like the opportunity to share your life with someone who loves you and whom you love in return. There is something about a life that is shared with someone else that is more meaningful than a life spent all on our own. Not only do we enjoy the closeness, intimacy, and support that a partnership can provide, but by engaging in an intimate relationship with someone else, we are forced to confront negative patterns in ourselves and in our mate. One of the functions of a good relationship is that we learn about these destructive tendencies and hopefully learn how to leave these tendencies behind. Though it may in some cases be easier to hold onto negative patterns and live alone, we will progress further as human beings if we are forced to engage with others and evolve to meet our potential. In the search for love, human beings have tried every thing from love potions to love spells to specially designed voodoo objects in order to try to find the partner that is right for them or to force another person to return their unrequited love. There is very little Feng Shui can do for you if you are infatuated with someone who does not return your feelings. But proper Feng Shui in your love sector may help you to be able to move past your infatuation and explore other romantic possibilities. Object Placement for the Love and Marriage Sector To enhance the energy of this sector you can use any one of the eight cures. The elements will help you to achieve specific goals. Fire will help to increase the passion of

75 your relationship. Earth will help to stabilize a rocky relationship. Wood will help to get a new romantic relationship started while metal will help to create a deeper connection in one that your already have. Water will help you and your partner to connect on a deeper level. If you are specifically looking to increase your chances of getting married, there are many Feng Shui recommendations. Pairs of anything in this sector will encourage your to pair off as well. Two identical statues, two matching trees, or two small fountains will all help to move you closer to the altar. You should avoid matching bookends in this sector, however, unless they are touching. Bookends separated by books may mean that you will remain separated from your future mate. The color pink will also help to enhance the energy of your love and marriage sector. If you happen to already be in a relationship with a partner who cant stand the color pink (many males and females have a strong aversion to the color for some reason), a combination of red and white stripes will work to strengthen the energy of this sector.

Dwei Trigram West Element-Metal Color-White Sector-Children and Creativity


The Dwei Trigram is a bit confusing upon first examination. It is the sector responsible for children and creativity, but it is associated with the metal element, which is the energy of contraction, not of new life (wood energy). This trigram is also associated with the west, the direction of sunset, not sunrise, and its signature color is white, the Chinese color of mourning and death. On the Bagua, however, the Dwei trigram is located directly across from the Family trigram, the realm of the ancestors. Neither children nor any creative project can separate itself from what came before. Children depend on the past for their very

76 inception and will continue to depend on the past until they are of an age to care for themselves. The color white helps to remind us that no new life can emerge without others passing away. The quality of metal energy makes sense as well. Both children and creative works come to us in a raw form. Both must be refined and shaped as we would refine a piece of metal. We must teach our children everything they need to know to survive and thrive in our individual culture. We must help mold them so that they will be able to grow into effective, compassionate people. In the same way, we must continue to fine-tune our creative works until they are the best that they can possibly be. Object Placement for the Children/Creative Sector Metal will be the most influential element for this sector. Use metallic objects and square shapes in this area to encourage good relationships and to promote the overall health and well being of your offspring (whether they be little girls and boys, or your latest novel!). If you are trying to conceive a child, metal energy will be very useful in your children sector, especially in your bedroom. A little metal energy in the bedroom will help to take the passionate fire energy between you and your mate and contract it into the metal energy of a new life. If you already have children and simply want to encourage peace, harmony, and love in your relationships with them, place their pictures in this sector. Baby books, old toys, and their arts and crafts projects are also good choices. By hanging their drawings and childhood artwork in this section, you will be encouraging their creativity as well. To hone in on your own creativity, place any works in progress in this sector. If you have a painting youre working on, let it rest overnight in your creative sector and you may wake up in the morning knowing exactly how to proceed. To enhance creativity further, you may want to decorate this section with the color white. White is the signature color of metal energy and will help you to stay focused on the creative process and sustain your creative energy. Be careful using white in this sector if you are having problems conceiving a child. Though white is the color of metal, it is also the color of death and can have a negative impact on your chances of conceiving. The energy of the Dwei trigram can be used to encourage your own inner child. If you are one of the many adults in the world who have forgotten how to play, the quality of your life will be greatly enhanced by a little metal in your creativity sector. Metal energy in this area can be used to heal the child within yourself. Perhaps you had a traumatic childhood, or perhaps your inner child is still very much alive and is mentally holding you in the past and keeping you from moving forward.

77 To encourage your inner child to let go of old wounds and to allow the adult you to move forward, use metallic objects and the color white in this sector. Placing a picture of yourself as a child in this area can help you to recapture your childish feelings of joy, discovery, and play, while keeping childish fears from encroaching on your adult life.

Chyan Trigram Northwest Color-Gray Sector- Helpful People And Travel


The Chyan trigram is the trigram that represents strength and power. It looks at where you have received your strength and how generous you have been in sharing that strength with others. In other words, who were the helpful people that encouraged you to become the person that you are today, and who have you helped in return? To achieve strength and power in your life, you will continuously need to be nurtured and aided by others and you will need to keep that energy flowing by supporting the efforts of those who need your help. This is the energy of the Chyan Trigram. Travel is part of this trigram in the sense that our travels are also journeys of understanding. Entering into different cultures and unusual surroundings helps us to come to a deeper understanding of the world around us. It also provides us the opportunity to help others enhance their awareness. Travel can even help bring together different cultures and reduce the violence that can result from a lack of empathy and insight. Object Placement and the Helpful People/Travel Sector Everyone could use a few more helpful people in their life. In todays world, we often live far away from our families and old friends. It seems there just arent as many helpful people around as there used to be. Communities arent as close knit and people are generally more distant than they were fifty years ago. This problem is at its worst in large cities where people will often live in adjoining apartments for years and never even learn their neighbors name! To attract helpful people into your life, decorate this sector of your home in gray or silver colors. Use the elements of both metal and wood to help form new relationships and use the element of water to help strengthen bonds from the past. The element of fire will help you to attract like-minded people and will help you to fuel your own helpful nature, allowing you to be a positive force for those who may need your assistance. If you are specifically hoping to make contact with a mentor, place pictures of admired people in this area. If you are seeking professional guidance, place pictures of well-known leaders in your chosen field. If you are seeking greater wisdom, place the

78 images of wise people from history. If you are seeking spiritual guidance, try placing an image of Mother Theresa, Gandhi, or other admired spiritual figure in this sector. To increase your opportunities for travel, or to help make the most of a planned trip, place images of your dream destinations in this sector. You can also store your travel books and itineraries in this sector as well as any meaningful souvenirs from past trips.

The Center (Tai Chi) Symbol- Ying and Yang Color-Yellow Element-Earth
The final sector of the Bagua is not represented by a trigram, but by the symbol of Ying and Yang intertwined in harmony. They are perfectly balanced and proportional and each one contains a little seed of the other. Tai Chi is the name given to describe this balance, the perfect harmony of Yin and Yang. A strong, balanced, and harmonious center is the most important element within any home as well as within each person. A balanced center enhances the functioning of all the other trigrams and leads to health, good fortune, helpful people, happy families and children, and overall success on our life journey. This is why it is so important to pay special attention to the center of our homes, our bodies, and our spirits. Object Placement for the Center Sector To encourage stability in your life and to give a strong foundation for the other eight trigrams, use the earth element in this sector. Painting the area in earth tones is a good place to start. Yellow is the signature color for the center, but you can also use muted browns, tans, and reds, colors that are manifested in soil. If at all possible, make sure that there are no stairs or bathrooms located in this section of your home. They will cause the energy of the center to be unstable and overly active. Avoid using wood elements. Wood destroys earth in the destructive cycle and will undermine the strength of the center. Subtle touches of the fire element can help to fuel positive energy (fire creates earth in the creative cycle), but an overabundance of fire should not be encouraged as it can raise the energy of this sector to an undesirable level. Plants and flowers are a great choice for decorating the center of a room or home. They come from the earth and naturally encourage strong, positive, central energy. In addition, they stimulate chi and will deflect any negative sha that may be aimed into the center of your home. Remember, even artificial plants and flowers can be used so dont

79 despair if the center of your home doesnt receive adequate light for growing live plants or flowers.

Final Thoughts on the Bagua


The Bagua is not only helpful in learning how to arrange objects, it is a useful tool for enabling us to more closely examine our lives. By taking a closer look at each of the eight trigrams as well as the energy of the center, we can begin to become aware of areas where we may be lacking in essential energy. Sometimes it can be easier to observe our strengths and weaknesses when we break our lives down into smaller, more manageable sections. Perhaps the Bagua can help you to discover the forces at work in your own life. Hopefully you will be able to use this ancient map to remedy energy deficiencies and make the most of your natural sectors of power. No matter how well rounded you may be, we are all born with elemental energy imbalances. In ancient China it was believed that a persons fate was decided at birth. This fate (or karma) was manifested in the balance of the five elemental energies within the persons body, mind, and spirit. Since no human being is perfect, there is always one element that is significantly weaker or stronger than the rest. The challenge of our karma, therefore, is to balance our elemental energy to avoid potential dangers associated with our personal elemental imbalance. This is how the Bagua can help us to control our fate. Though an excess of fire energy in your personal karma may put you at a higher risk for burning out early and perhaps even dying at a young age, you can counteract this tendency by encouraging the water element in yourself and your surroundings. This means that our future is not predetermined. By cultivating self-knowledge, we can learn how to balance our elemental energy and create the most fortuitous conditions possible for a long and happy life.

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Moving forward with Feng Shui


How to Advance your Practice
If the ideas in this book have intrigued you and you feel drawn to advance your knowledge of the ancient art of Feng Shui, there are more resources available now than ever before in history. There are hundreds of books, several instructional videos, and even Feng Shui institutes and personal consultants who can more closely address your personal needs. As you continue to dig through the information available, however, you will find that many of the sources contradict each other, and that at times individual sources will even contradict themselves! This can be frustrating, but is to be expected. There is not a single mystical text or art in the world that is not at times seemingly contradictory. Whether it be the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or the teachings of the Buddha, all mystical traditions are filled with inconsistency and seeming paradox. It is our job as students to seek to understand and assimilate these contradictions as best we can. This is why we must be empowered seekers, using our own personal spirit given intuition to interpret the information that we are given. Though many religions and mystical practices will claim that strict obedience to the rules is the only way to achieve personal blessing, the texts of these traditions will lead us in a different direction. All spiritual writings emphasize the importance of seeking direct guidance from a deeply personal source. In Christianity it is the Holy Spirit that will lead you to personal truth. In Buddhism, you yourself must become a bodhisattva, or little Buddha, and seek your own unique enlightenment. In Feng Shui, you must use your intuition to apply the guidelines of the practice to your own life in a way that is the most useful and powerfully to you personally. So enjoy your search, increase your knowledge, but always return to the center of truth within yourself for the final word on any Feng Shui decision. Use your intuition to apply the rules of Feng Shui in a way that will bring harmony and balance to the energies of your home and to your own personal mind, body, and spirit. Youll be amazed how far you can go with a few guiding principles and a sense of self-faith.

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Sources for Further Inspiration Books


Simple Feng Shui By Damian Sharp. Conari Press, Berkeley, CA. 1999. Feng Shui for the Home By Evelyn Lip. Times Editions, Singapore. 1986. Home Design from the Inside Out By Robin Lennon with Karen Plunkett-Powell. Arkana Press, NY. 1997. The Art and Science of Feng Shui. By Henry B. Lin. Llewellyn Publications, MN. 2000. Creating Home Sanctuaries with Feng Shui By Shawne Mitchell with Stephanie Gunning. New Page Books, NJ. 2003. Journey to Mastery By Dr. Kathryn Mickle, Ph.D. Frederick Fell Publishers, FL. 2001. Feng Shui Handbook: How to Create a Healthier Living and Working Environment By Kam Chuen Lam. Henry Holt, NY. 1996. Feng Shui: Art and Harmony of Place By Johndennis Govert. Daikakuji Publications, AZ. 1993. Feng Shui: The Chinese Art of Placement By Sarah Rossbach. Dutton Press, NY. 1995.

Institutes
The Feng Shui Institute of the Americas P.O. Box 488 Wabasso, Fl. 32970 United States www.windwater.com The Feng Shui Institute of New Zealand P.O. Box 89186 Torbay, Auckland New Zealand www.fengshuir.co.nz/ The Feng Shui Society London United Kingdom www.fengshuisociety.org.uk

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