Curiosities
Feng Shui vs. Decorating
July 20, 2009
While walking with a neighbor last night, I heard an unexpected comment. The neighbor said, "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 speciality within interior decorating. Until I heard the comment, I was unaware of how common this misconception is. The short of it is that a fully feng shuied space may look and feel as if it's been decorated, but so very much more is going on, and decorating would never occur to me.
First of all is the intention of balance, harmony, and whatever else the client intends. I can't recall one client of hundreds who has asked for or expected decorating. The calls usually are from people seeking transformation from crisis, or wanting a whole new life. In other words, it's about their lives, their desires, their aspirations, and ultimately their minds or thinking patterns, and not about the furniture and wall colors.
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 facing him now, and we both knew exactly where to begin: with the clutter in his basement, drawers, and closets. To boost his experience of the unbalanced space, we added some color because everything in his home was wood energy. He needed some fire, earth, and water.
For a family with multiple health challenges, there's an urgency as well as a knowledge that we must move slowly enough for the family to integrate the major changes.
Facets of Color
May 28, 2009
Two or three years ago, I recall the phone calls coming to me about feng shui: 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 our environment on us?
Color is a boost and an unexpected source of chi.
How are colors picked by most people? I'm often amazed to be standing at a counter in a paint store, watching people hold up color chips to see which one they will use in their homes. Perhaps that's why I end up getting so many calls.
When I look at color chips in a room to be painted, I often am amazed at how unreliable the color is until it's on THE wall to be painted.
I recently was asked to pick colors for a Buddhist center. There were several good choices until I taped the color chips onto the walls. Everything changed. The lighting on every wall is completely unlike the lighting on others, and what looked like a medium-to-pale color in my hand looked very dark on the wall. Square one.
Ultimately, the colors chosen, when held in my hand, looked so pale as to be another shade of beige. (There are thousands of shades of beige. Just look at any public school classroom or hospital corridor.) But on the wall, they clearly were colorful greens and browns.
I watch this transformation from a piece of paper into a colored wall or ceiling daily, and yet I am still amazed at the process.
How do you pick your colors, and what are you discovering in the process?
The Physical and the Spiritual
December 12, 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 level 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 in order to live in bodies, in the physical world. What is our job while here? It's likely that the mission for each of us varies, but it seems clear that mastery of the physical realm 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. 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, do yoga, qi gong, tai chi, exercise, run, 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 they are each flowing fully, our health is at its best. The same holds for the rhythm of our homes and offices. When the chi flows smoothly, our lives flow smoothly. When areas stagnate, areas of our lives show stagnation as well. And when things move way 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 9, 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 the Chinese part about Feng Shui, and how Chinese will your space look after a consultation?
The name Feng Shui is, perhaps, the only Chinese aspect to the practice. For my friend, a consultation would likely make her space far more Italian than it now is. It might look more Italian, and it might feel more Italian.
Were I to work in an Amish home, that home might feel even more Amish afterwards and definitely 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 frogs to art work 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 or chi.
Feng Shui also works with the elements of fire, earth, metal, water, and wood, as does acupuncture. But fire is fire; it's not Chinese. Earth energy is earth energy; it's 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 call it, the Indian feng shui, for Vastu is older than Feng Shui. Native American groups have long been known for their attunement and harmony 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 floor plan. Is it uniquely Chinese? Likely not. My teacher suggests that the bagua corresponds to right brain/left brain abilities. Perhaps modern science has located with 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, to augmenting the chi so that it, in turn, augments the lives of those who use the space. Environments cause thoughts and feelings. Environments can be measured by how chiful they are or are not. Environments matter.
Why do we ignore the Chinese origins of Feng Shui? The chi from thousands of years ago is not what's in your home or office today. What matters is what's there today. Will the Feng Shui rules create the same balance of chi the ancients experienced? Sometimes yes and sometimes now. What's more important is to start with 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 medicines. There were no persistent distractions from the material world, and there was no unrelenting overstimulation from stuff we look at, buy, sort, clean (or not), categorize or forget and let grow stagnant.
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 afterwards, unless, of course, you're very Chinese!