Adventures in Feng Shui

Feng shui is the ancient art of balancing energies in a space to bring health and good fortune for the inhabitants.  Just as we want and need a healthy, balanced body, we need and should want a balanced living environment.  This is what Feng Shui provides.

Developed in China over 3,000 years ago, today it is known and practiced throughout the world.  It deals with placement of a building on land, location of doors, windows and rooms and objects within the rooms.

I am a believer because I study and teach about energy so feng shui makes perfect sense to me.

While there have been many books published on feng shui, I always feel that to do something truly well, you either have to dive in and study for years, or hire an expert to do it for you.  I opted for the latter and have had feng shui done on my last three homes by experts and the results have been tangible.

House No. 1: Wings to Fly

 I had been living in a cute duplex in Santa Monica, California for 17 years [yes, I am very stable!] and for reasons I don’t even recall at this point, decided to hire a feng shui consultant to spruce up the place.

When a house is already built and you are stuck with the layout of doors and windows, a good consultant can give you “cures” – move this, get rid of that, paint the walls this color.

One of the things my consultant, Lillian Garnier Bridges, observed was that I had been living in the duplex so long it was as if I’d grown roots and couldn’t leave.  I did feel stuck, so looked forward to changing the environment.

It took me four months to make all the changes Lillian suggested, but I did absolutely everything she told me to do – everything!

Three months after completing the changes, my landlady [who’d been single for all those 17 years] told me she was getting married and she and her fiancé wanted to convert the duplex to a single family home for themselves and did I think I could find a new place to live in three months.

I honestly believe that the shift I made in my half of the building also shifted the energy in her half of the building and created the space for her to attract the husband she had been seeking for a very long time.

Just like that, my roots were cut and I was free to fly – I bought my first house!

House No. 2 – Prosperity

I invited Lillian to see my new home before I even moved in so she could tell me where to place furniture and what colors to paint the walls.

Here is a good example of a cure:  the front and back doors were in direct line with one another.  This is undesirable in feng shui because it represents energy [including money] coming in one door and going straight out the opposite door.

My choices were to remodel and move the back door or to place a table in between the front and back doors with a crystal vase on it to redirect the energy and prevent it from going out the back door.  Guess which cure I used?

I received a crystal vase as a housewarming gift and as soon as I placed it on the table, I could literally feel a shift in the energy of the room.

It was a happy, lovely house with great energy.  Health? Yes.  Prosperity?  Five years after moving in I sold it for more than twice what I paid for it.  So I would say feng shui worked again.

House No. 3: Harmony — the Magic Continues

I designed and built my current house with input from an architectural interior designer and two feng shui consultants [Lillian for the house and another for the landscaping].

Everyone who walks in the front door comments on how serene and peaceful it feels.

Here are just a few of the fun feng shui practices I incorporated :

Because my house is on a corner and cars come right at it before turning, I planted five blue spruce trees on that corner because they are protective.

I did ceremony and prayed to the spirit keepers of the land to ask their permission and blessings to build on the lot.  [When we build, we are disturbing the nature spirits and plant life; permission should always be sought].

Because the lot is on a slight slope, it can represent money falling off the lot.  The cure was to bury a crystal in each of the four corners of the lot in order to lift up the energy, so to speak.

The day before the foundation was poured, I placed a set of five Chinese coins in each of the four corners and the middle of the hole in the ground.  The cement was poured right over them.   Again, this was to bring harmony, health and abundance to the house and all who live in it.

There are also things I put in the walls before the drywall went up.  I’m certain my contractor thinks I was a bit odd, but he respectfully went along with all my requests.

But word spread. One month after I moved in, I was attending a seminar in another part of the state and, in conversation with one of the participants, discovered we were neighbors.  When she realized which house I lived in she said, “Oh, you’re the one with the crystals buried under the house!”

Not quite, but close.

Energy, unseen to the eye, but sensed by our intuition, impacts everything we do.  We should always be striving to surround ourselves with good energy.  Feng Shui for the spaces we live in is a great start.

[quote]“The purpose of life is to be who you are, as much as you can be; to find your talents and abilities and express them; to live in a way that supports you; and then give yourself back to the world as a gift.”   Lillian Garnier Bridges[/quote]

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