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Balance & Relationships
January 2012
This room is lovely, but I’m surprised at how conservative it is. That comment gave me pause. Conservative? Compared with what? And while one client may require a look that’s more predictable (does predictable mean conservative?), another may need an emboldened experience.
This room is not conservative or non-conservative to my mind. It is designed with balance in mind, first of all a balance of the elements: earth, fire, water, wood, and metal. Metal is in the color of the loveseats and the color of the pale pink walls, the pale orange ceilings as well as the lamp bases, the fireplace (hidden in the photo) and the various round and oval elements in the room. Wood is found in the chair legs, floors, hidden-from-view bookcases, plant life, and vertical structures. Water is the blue in the carpet. Fire is in the pink color, the red upholstery, the leather on the loveseats, the fireplace, the lighting, and the people who gather in this room. Earth energy is in the rectangular shape of the room and furniture and the pale orange ceiling. All the elements are found in the art work by Bob Ransley.
Balance of the elements was one goal in setting up this room. Of equal importance was creating relationship energy: a space where people can be close together and speak to each other face-to-face and heart-to-heart, literally. The furniture arrangement achieves this goal. The goal also is achieved by separating the one long room into two by using carved screens and plants as a divider.
Good Feng Shui should not necessarily call to mind the phrase Feng Shui. Good Feng Shui should call to mind other terms: comfortable, lovely, inviting, cozy, beautiful. Are those things conservative? Perhaps so, in the best sense of the word: conserving our truest values.
Selling a house
September 2011
Ending any relationship requires a wealth of skills during the important transition time. And although we rarely think of it, we have a vitally important relationship with our homes. Letting a home go to a new buyer requires some skill in completing the relationship you now have with your home. And it also requires an ability to move into the unknown, your new living space. Feng Shui tools for the successful travel through these important transitions can determine the success of your home sale and your home purchase. A consultation and coaching session might make the whole process easier for you.
Grounding
January 2011
Almost no one is fully grounded, but we all recognize a grounded person: The eyes sparkle, and there is a sense of having landed in the present moment; there is a sense of calm, contentment and strength.
How do we create this in our homes and offices? Completion is probably the most powerful way I know. Buttons not sewed on, door knobs that are loose, projects left unfinished, bills not paid, important papers that get lost. Or simply dirty dishes in the sink. Each is an example of something left incomplete. Finish even one of the projects and notice how you move into the present moment. Finish them all and watch your consciousness. Wow.
On an emotional realm consider: Things left unsaid, apologies never delivered, regrets or other emotional tugs on our minds and bodies. Complete these things powerfully (with gratitude for the opportunity to bring yourself into the present) and with compassion and notice how you move into the present moment. Another wow.
In a home there are ways to arrange the furniture, art work, floor coverings, and lighting to help promote grounding. Colors can also promote grounding. But none of it matters much unless the projects, people, and thoughts left dangling get put back in their proper perspective as well.
Feng shui colors
December 2010
A local publication recently showed a photograph of one of my projects. The caption read "Feng shui colors." And I began to ponder what someone thinks feng shui colors might be.
I still don't know, but I do know that all colors are useful, and each provides a different frequency. Some paint companies even list the frequency on the back of their color chips. What we do know is that different frequencies affect us in a variety of ways. The color that may be perfect for you may be totally wrong for another person.
Don't get fooled. There are good Feng shui colors and bad Feng shui colors. Trust what your body experiences in the presence of different colors. Consider your body to be your mother-ship, and remember that mother knows best.
Client expectations
October 2010
I recently walked into a home of a man who confessed he hired another Feng Shui consultant ten years ago. He also confessed that he had not done any of the recommended work from that time. As I was preparing to leave, I asked if our session had been anything like the session ten years ago, and he said no. He indicated that ten years ago had included recommendations for prayers in boxes and crystals among other things, something not included in our time together.
Feng Shui schools will teach about blessings, cures, crystals and so forth. Are they useful today? That’s not for me to say, but I find I would use them when all else is in order: cleaning, sorting, organizing, painting, arranging furniture and art work, etc. Dealing with the most superficial part of a space opens it up to receive the more subtle: your desires, your dreams, your prayers and intentions.
Recommendations from other cultures and other times often don’t translate well to modern times. Who would have dreamed, hundreds or thousands of years go, that we could have as many material objects surrounding us as we do? And who could have dreamed how these objects would change our orientation to our environment?
When we go camping, we get a sense of living simply. Our ancestors “camped” perpetually in that they had few, if any, of our modern conveniences.
Without overlooking their hardships, I emphasize that they also had freedoms. The goal of today’s Feng Shui work, from my point of view, is to re-establish those freedoms in our modern world. That usually means priorities beyond crystals and blessings in boxes for a starting point.
All things in due time.
What are the ancient Feng Shui texts and what do they tell us?
September 2010
Thousands and even hundreds of years ago in China there were no Feng Shui texts. We know that before the modern conveniences of indoor plumbing, floors and roofs made with insulation, homes were very much aligned with what was essential for survival: cool in summer, warm in winter, positioned so that crops would grow and that enemies would be readily seen. Homes and offices today are not built with these considerations in mind.
Intuiting the logic of human needs and societal needs is the best we can do. What about the oral tradition? I’m reminded of the children’s game called Telephone: A group of people sit in a circle, and one person whispers a message to her neighbor who then passes it along to her neighbor. By the time the message has moved around the circle it is, more likely than not, a different message!
Follow the chi: Watch your feelings; watch how a space affects your thoughts and desires. Start with something easy: We know that we feel differently in an ER than in a maternity ward. We know that a great cathedral will evoke different feelings than a shopping mall does. As you master the obvious, pay attention to the more subtle.
What is valid about Feng Shui schools since they differ so greatly?
August 2010
Ancient Feng Shui aligned buildings and burial sites according to compass readings. The connections of the people in those cultures with nature were firmly established, and there was no profusion of electro-magnetic energies interfering with the flow of natural energies as we find today.
The Compass School of Feng Shui is one form still practiced today.
The Form School is another. And while they have elements in common, their starting points differ.
Both schools focus on the elements. The elements (fire, earth, metal, water, and wood) are found in other systems as well, acupuncture, for example. Everything can be categorized as one or more of the elements, and a balance of the elements creates a sense of balance and wholeness.
Consider a white microwave oven: The white is metal energy; the electrical part is fire energy, the food inside is either fire (meat) or wood (vegetable). If the oven is a square or rectangle, it is also earth for those are earth energy shapes. One microwave oven: fire, metal, wood, earth, all wrapped up in one.
When you consider that everything in a given room may be several elements at once, you begin to understand that creating a balance is tricky. Trickier yet is the probability that your own energies are imbalanced: some people are all fire; some are mostly water, and those considerations count as well.
The ability to read these things can not be taught in a school, for there are few generalizations possible. Pay attention to how you feel in a space. Does your space nurture you? Are you at your best there?
If there are no Feng Shui rules or generalizations, why do you give public talks with a general audience?
July 2010
This is a brilliant question and one which hit home strongly after I gave a talk and later saw people who had attended. They told me how they were looking for a specific type of sofa, one I had mentioned during the talk. And I saw red flags.
Everything matters, everything. Entire schools of Feng Shui have popped up based on rules, many reputed to be ancient. And yet the ancient cultures of any country are so vastly unlike our culture today that we have to wonder what might remain in translation.
Some kinds of furniture will promote relationship more than others. For example, consider the difference between a king sized bed where the inhabitants might never bump into each other and a double or queen where coziness is a given. One is not wrong and one is not preferred, but the relationship potential differs with each.
And so it is with sofas. What might be perfect in one home could be the worst thing in another. And so how can I make recommendations in a talk?
With any luck, my public presentations will focus on the principles of how we feel in a space and how we begin to notice our own feelings and NOT on which piece of furniture to buy.
Always remember that your space is quite unlike any other and that your needs are particular to you and your space. Pay attention to your feelings and not to the rules.
Why do I not get the results I wanted after my Feng Shui work?
June 2010
The goal of a Feng Shui consultation is a feeling of wholeness in your space. And while you may love your views out the windows or your beloved art work or your piled and unsorted recipes, there can be too much of a good thing. And that’s called an imbalance.
And yet we love our imbalances. We know ourselves to be them, as strange as it sounds.
Often I will consult about the front of a house and include color, landscaping, sculptures, benches, whatever. The intent is to keep each piece flowing into the next, to keep the eye moving from the street up to the front door while including all the vantage points. And how often I will find, months down the road, that only some of the work gets done while the other parts are neglected or even changed: the benches are moved; the shrubs are pulled out, or only some of the color gets painted. And once again, that’s called an imbalance.
To create something new in your life, each of us has to be willing to go to a new place, perhaps a place that’s so new that it scares us. Or is, at least, uncomfortable. If you make changes according to what you’re already familiar with, you are likely to get the same familiar results.
Clients who want a relationship with someone who cooks!
May 2010
I’m struck by the number of clients who are looking for a relationship or for an improved relationship with partners, spouses, children, parents, or work colleagues.
Especially interesting are the clients who confess to eating every single meal out, clients who never cook. Some even admit to owning no pots and pans. And in the back of their minds is the desire to find a partner who does enjoy cooking.
When working with the homes of these take-out devotees, I’m struck by how lonely the kitchen looks and feels and wonder what kind of potential partner would be drawn to such a space.
If you want a partner who cooks or someone to cook with you, make your kitchen look inviting. Make it beloved. Perhaps that means inviting friends over regularly to share take-out in this part of your house. A space that is filled with good feelings will attract you and anyone else you bring into your home.
Why do some people thrive without Feng Shui? A look at body, mind, environment, and spirit.
April 2010
The organization of human activities takes on many forms in different cultures. In some cultures the body is the focus of growth. In others it is the mind. And others yet it is the environment. And within those categories, there are further distinctions. And because the spiritual or non-physical realm exists beneath all other categories, it exists in all of them.
Many people work on their bodies, and the health and radiance acquired then improve their minds and environment.
Others work on their minds, and the growth and insights acquired from that work inform their environments and their bodies. I’m struck by the homes of people who have been meditating for 20, 30 or 40 years. Their minds do indeed infuse their environments. Do they benefit from Feng Shui? I’ve seen such people come alive on a different level when their objects are balanced and color is introduced.
Still others prefer to work on their environments and yes, there are effects on their bodies and their minds. Feng Shui places the focus on your environment, and the effects do indeed show up in clarity of mind, a greater ability to realize dreams, and a more fruitful use of the daily energies of any given household, especially the energies of relationships and health.
Most of us work on all: body, mind, and environment. Most important of all: Attend to the spiritual, no matter how you define it.
Feng Shui and yoga can provide a greater balance.
Feng Shui and Decorating
July 2009
While walking with a neighbor last night, I heard his comment, “So you do Feng Shui decorating, right?”
I knew where he was headed. He was thinking that Feng Shui is a branch of interior decorating or a specialty of it. Until I heard the comment, I was unaware of how common the misconception is. And while a fully Feng Shuied place may look as if it’s been decorated, so much more is going on.
The intention of the client is foremost. Most clients call asking for balance, harmony, or empowerment in specific areas of their lives. Decorating questions usually start with a concern for matching a sofa or rug with curtains, etc. Feng Shui work does not ignore curtains, rugs, and sofas, but the comfort and flow with them usually is a by-product of the process, not the full process itself.
Today’s client is living with depression, a back injury, and multiple sclerosis. Decorating is the last thing on his mind. What he wants is relief from the challenges, and we both know where to begin: with the clutter in the basement, drawers, closets, etc. Once things are flowing better from clearing those spaces, there is a need for a balance of the overwhelming wood energy in the home (wood floors and furniture, green everywhere, plants in abundance, vertical structures). The Feng Shui perspective knows how important it is to have some fire, earth, and water energy as well.
How do you balance your space? What thoughts lead to the results you seek?
Facets of Color
May 2009
A few years ago, I recall the phone calls I received for Feng Shui work: Help my marriage! I want a new career and my finances need a boost. My teenager is in trouble, and I need your help.
Almost no one called asking just for color, yet nearly all the phone calls I get lately are about color, color, color. Is it that we want a lift from the gray news, or are we becoming more sensitive to the effect of the environment on us?
Color is a boost and an unexpected source of chi or energy.
How are colors picked by most people? I’m often amazed to be standing in a paint store, watching people hold up color chips to see which ones they want. Perhaps that’s why my phone rings.
When I look at color chips in a room to be painted, I am amazed at how unreliable the color is until it’s on THE wall to be painted. Holding the chip in my hand is not the same as taping the chip to the wall. Light changes everything.
I recently was asked to pick colors for a spiritual center. There were several good choices until I taped the color chips onto the walls. Everything changed. The colors that looked great in my hand and spread on the floor were totally inappropriate when I taped them to the walls.
How do you pick colors and what are you learning in the process?
The Physical and the Spiritual
December 2008
While chatting with a friend who has a regular and long-standing meditation practice, I heard a brand new question: Why, she said, do you have to work on physical spaces? Why can’t you just work on the spiritual or energetic and raise the frequency of the space that way?
I loved the question for I had never considered it before, nor did I know what the answer was until I heard what came out of my mouth: We incarnate into bodies, into a physical world. What is our job while here? It may vary for each of us, but it seems clear that mastery of the physical realm, however that looks, is a constant throughout our lives.
When do we find ourselves running into problems? Usually it’s when we neglect the physical. We neglect what we know to be the true needs of our bodies (clean food and water, proper nutrition and exercise, sleep and loving relationships). We neglect our closets, drawers, and attics or basements. We neglect our yards and gardens, our garages, our purses, our paper work. The feeling of overwhelm that comes with the neglect of the physical is a sure sign that we’re missing something, no matter how much we may meditate, pray, do yoga, tai chi, lift weights, run, ski, etc.
The body has three basic rhythms: the breath, the circulation and the ebb and flow of cranial-sacral fluid. When they are in synch and are flowing freely, our health is at its best. Sluggishness or stagnancy in our bodies shows up as stagnancy in other parts of our lives. And when things move much too quickly, we often experience ourselves “on speed.” It is the purpose of Feng Shui to balance all the pieces so that the tranquil inspiration we find in our favorite spots in nature enter our home experience and infuse our lives with that same fullness.
Either/or is rarely the answer. Spiritual is important. Physical is important. Both matter. Environment matters. Environments matter.
Isn’t Feng Shui Chinese?
October 2008
While talking with a friend recently, I heard her comment, “I would never want Feng Shui in my home. I’m very Italian and would not want a Chinese sensibility in my space.”
Ah, the old stereotype, I smiled to myself.
What precisely is Chinese about Feng Shui, and how Chinese will your space look after a consultation?
The name Feng Shui (meaning wind, water) is, perhaps, its only Chinese aspect. For my friend, a consultation would likely make her space far more Italian than it now is. And were I to work in an Amish home, that home might feel even more Amish afterwards and certainly not Chinese.
But isn’t Feng Shui from a Chinese tradition asks another friend? Feng Shui works with chi, the life force in e-v-e-r-y thing from pencils to art work to frogs to furniture and people. Physics tells us that every atom is both a wave (energy or non-physical) and matter (physical). The wave property is in everything. It didn’t originate in China, and there’s nothing uniquely Chinese about the wave property of chi.
Feng Shui also works with the elements of fire, earth, metal, water, and wood, as does acupuncture, another Chinese art form. But fire is fire; earth energy is earth energy. They are not Chinese.
Other systems around the world have worked with the same concerns over time. In India, the system is called Vastu and is not, as some would call it the Indian Feng Shui. Native American groups have long been known for their attunement with natural forces, with the same elements the Chinese and Norwegians and Yoruba and Aztec used. No one culture or system of thought has a stamp of ownership on the elements of nature or on energy.
Feng Shui also works with the bagua or a specific floor plan. Is it uniquely Chinese? Not likely. Some suggest that the bagua corresponds with right brain/left brain abilities. Perhaps modern science has located what the ancients knew long ago.
Do we need concern ourselves with the tradition from which Feng Shui arises? Of course origins are important. So what do we keep from that tradition?
We keep the commitment to following the chi, to increasing the chi in a space (the restful liveliness), to augmenting the chi so that it, in turn, augments the lives of those who use the space. Environments cause thoughts and feelings. Environments matter.
Why do we ignore the Chinese origins of Feng Shui? We don’t ignore the origins. We actually work with the identical concerns from long ago. But the chi or energy in your home or office today is not the same in the wide open spaces of thousands of years ago. Will the Feng Shui rules create the same balance of chi the ancients experienced? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. What’s more important to start with is the chi flow and not with the rules laid out in modern books.
Why is there so much difference between the ancients and today’s life? In ancient times there was no electricity; there was no indoor plumbing; there were no homes filled with computers, televisions, stoves, refrigerators, etc. There were no industrial factories, no automobiles, concrete highways, electrical wires and electrical poles sunk into the ground. There were no closets filled with 17 pairs of shoes and 43 sweaters. There were no medicine cabinets stuffed with unused medicine. There were no persistent distractions from the material world, and there was no unrelenting over-stimulation from stuff we look at, buy, sort, clean (or not), categorize or forget we have.
Moving chi to create harmony and balance hundreds or thousands of years ago was an entirely different practice than it is now.
What remains from ancient times? Working with the chi to create harmony and balance. Nothing more and nothing less. Is it Chinese? Not likely, but you can call it that if you prefer. Just don’t expect your space to look Chinese after Feng Shui work unless, of course, you’re very Chinese.