is Feng Shui, and How Does It Work?

Feng shui (say "fung shway"), often called the art of placement, could just as accurately be called "the art of flow." This ancient Chinese practice, literally translated as "wind" and "water," aims to maximize the beneficial movement of chi--the universal life force present in all things--through an environment.

Just as fresh air and clean water nourish our bodies, so does fresh, clean chi nourish our homes and our lives. When the flow of chi through our space is blocked, weak, or misdirected, our relationships, cash flow, creativity, health, and career can suffer. Chi wants to meander gracefully through a space, like a gentle breeze or a winding stream. When it flows too strongly, it becomes like a hurricane or flood. We are likely to feel tossed about by winds of change, unstable, prone to crises, struggling to "keep our heads above water." Where chi is blocked it becomes stale and stagnant, like a pond choked with algae and fallen leaves. We may feel tired, run down, depressed, unable to focus, hampered in our efforts to move forward in our lives.

In a corporate environment, poor feng shui can result in miscommunication between managers and employees, conflicts among team members, and lack of support for key initiatives. Individuals may be overlooked for promotions or deserved raises, suffer damage to their reputation in the company, or even lose their job. The company may have difficulty attracting or keeping key customers.

In a retail store, feng shui problems can block the flow of customers into and through the store, contribute to theft and staffing problems, and have a negative effect on the amount and size of sales.

Feng shui provides tools and guidelines for analyzing and correcting the flow of energy into and through our space. It uses the arrangement of rooms and the placement of furniture to create a smooth pathway for chi through a home, office, or retail location. Blockages and other forms of negative chi are removed or counteracted in order to welcome in opportunities and encourage progress. Colors and shapes associated with the five elements-wood, fire, earth, metal, and water-are used to create movement, balance, or protection, depending on the needs of the client. Imagery and objects such as paintings, photographs, statuary and other accessories are chosen and placed to enhance and reinforce the client's intention.

Feng Shui reminds us that everything is connected, and that our physical surroundings have a significant impact on our mind, body, and spirit. It teaches us to be mindful caretakers of our environments, so that we may be mindful caretakers of our lives.

Stephanie Roberts is a feng shui consultant in Maui, Hawaii, and the author of the best-selling "Fast Feng Shui" books (rated 5-stars by Amazon.com readers). To find out how you can use contemporary Western feng shui to help you achieve greater success and happiness in your life, please visit http://www.fastfengshui.com or subscribe to the Fast Feng Shui newsletter at mailto:subscribe@fastfengshui.com and receive free feng shui tips by email.

Fast Solutions with Feng Shui

Fast Solutions with Feng Shui By BatSheva Vaknin

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art used in the home to create balance and harmony. Feng Shui Practitioners have many tricks of the trade used to get rid of negative energy and promote happiness, stability, affluence, tranquility and peace. With the help of this guide, now you, too, can use Feng Shui to enhance your surroundings.

Here are some Feng Shui fast solutions to allow you to experience maximum fulfillment in your current home:

Color. Color can lift you up or bring you down, so pay attention to the colors you choose for your furniture and to decorate your house. Decide on which color best suits your living room, bedrooms, dining room and furniture by figuring out the energy you would like for that particular room or area.

* Red: Great for energy and excitement. Works perfectly in a dining room to keep folks awake at the dinner table. Not so good for bedrooms and studies, as its properties can make it hard to relax and unwind. * Orange: Stimulates hunger. Softer, lighter shades work great for living rooms, playrooms, and even bedrooms. * Yellow: Inspires happiness and creativity. Use in any room to add brightness and vitality. * Green: A healing and soothing color. A perfect choice for a living room or any room where you want to enhance the energy of balance. * Blue: A healing and soothing color. A perfect choice for a living room or any room where you want to enhance the energy of balance. * Indigo: Yet another color that heals and soothes. Good for a child's room to promote healthy sleep habits. * Purple: A highly spiritual color that promotes richness and transformation. Can be too high of a frequency for a large room, so consider using accents of purple as an alternative to painting an entire room.

Light. Light exerts a strong influence over how we feel. Take care to light each room so that you achieve the appropriate calming or energizing effect.

* Sunlight: Natural lighting is the very best way to brighten a room. * Good Quality Lighting: Second best to natural lighting. If possible, don't skimp when it comes to buying lamps, track lighting, or fixtures for your home. * Bright Lighting: Promotes energy and activity (for a playroom, for example). * Low Lighting: Promotes calmness and relaxation (for a bedroom or study, for example). * Dimmers: Can be purchased at a local hardware store. Dimmer switches give you the flexibility to alternate between bright and low lighting in the same room. With a dimmer, bedrooms can be used to play, study, or sleep, your dining room can accommodate a lively brunch or a romantic supper, and the living room can foster animated conversation or some quiet family reading.

Touch. Designers often overlook the power of texture and how it influences the energy of your home and surroundings. Play with accessories and furniture of different materials to achieve surprising results.

* Rugs: A shag rug emits a playful energy, while a tightly coiled country rug adds a homey, nurturing touch to a living room. Decide whether you would prefer to tread barefoot upon a soft carpet or a cool shiny wood floor. One draws the energy of comfort, the other professionalism. Choose the materials best suited for the energy you would like each room of your home to radiate. * Pillows: Silk pillows add richness and sensuality. Cotton is good for kids or casual relaxation, and fun, fluffy pillows can be employed for a lighter, playful effect in a living room or playroom. * Furniture: Sleek wood furniture conveys a sturdy and reassuring energy, while soft leather couches and armchairs add a luxurious energy to a living room or study.

Smell. Aromas are an easy and inexpensive solution to help you achieve a harmonious home environment. Play with different scents in each room, changing them occasionally to see how the smells aid in energizing or relaxing you.

* Flowers: Flowers can be a terrific addition to any household because of their color and innate positive energy. Easy to forget, however, is how wonderful a room smells when fresh flowers are added. * Candles: Candles look beautiful and have an immediate calming effect on a room. Use different scents for each room, or place various candles with unique smells together in one collection. * Cooking: Cooking provides nourishment and comfort. An added benefit is the wonderful smells of cooking, which contribute to a balanced atmosphere in your home. * Incense or alternatively, Sage: Incense is a fantastic cleansing agent. Use it to erase negative energies, such as after an argument. The scent will permeate all corners of the room, and either relax or invigorate the inhabitants, depending on what type of incense you use.

You! Don't forget the most important element of your home: you and your family. Even plants and flowers play a vital role in livening up an environment. Pets and children are great for adding movement in each room, which, in turn, keeps the energy of your house circulating. Play with these and other Feng Shui solutions, to maintain balance and perfect harmony in your home.Please find the original article and more information about this subject at http://www.homeandliving.com/DesignAdvice.aspx?Category=FengShuiCures When Yale graduate, BatSheva Vaknin is not writing helpful and insightful articles like the one you just read for www.homeandliving.com, she writes plays, screenplays and short stories. In fact, she has just completed her first novel.

If you would like to publish this article on your own site, please feel free to do so. Please let us know the URL of the posted article by emailing the URL to article@homeandliving.com . All we ask is that you include the whole article, without changes, including the link to the original article location, author information, this disclaimer and the following link. Find great home furniture online at www.homeandliving.com...

When Yale graduate, BatSheva Vaknin is not writing helpful and insightful articles like the one you just read for www.homeandliving.com, she writes plays, screenplays and short stories. In fact, she has just completed her first novel.

Moving to Your New Abode A New Life Feng Shui

The move to a new home or office is exciting. It holds promise for all kinds of new experiences and opportunities. We may well think in advance that new space will not have much impact on the lives or us and loved ones. But think again. Once we occupy a different space in the universe our lives and events are inextricably changed that is hopefully for the better. It is as if different geography affects our very karma.

What to do? First of all it is most important to start with a clean slate. There is something drawing and inviting about a new place. It is like a vacuum waiting to suck in all the adjacent influences. We can see this opening as the very spirit of our own potentialities.

This is what makes moving into a new space so vital and important in itself. Exploit the vastness of this potential to its very core. Get into the right mold by making actual conscious as well as the resulting "intuitive" " that it just feels right " subconscious choices as well. Moving in a deliberate thoughtful manner will help you to make sure that good karma comes and remains. Feng Shui.

First of pack early and pack often. Get started as soon as the moment you know events are chain. Secondly you should clean as you go. Clean your items before you pack them. Not everything is meant to be moved. A good rule of thumb is that if you have not used the item in the last year you are unlikely to use it in the next year. Donate or trash what you do not keep. Someone else at the local value village may be just thrilled at your throwaway. As for sentimental items best to keep only those items that impart good memories. The others - why let them drag you down.

You will need packing supplies. Plan ahead to buy on sale. Packing tape, duct tape, scissors and exacto knives are always necessary. You can never have enough boxes when you need them. Plan for double the amount of cardboard boxes you need.

You may want to hire a professional services to clean the space ahead of time or you do it yourself if funds are limited. A good time frame is 2 to 3 days ahead of the move in.

What else can you do to Feng Shui your move? Prepare your move with welcoming items for the new home such as beautiful flowers or plants, music and special items to make you feel welcome and loved. Next you can buy new mops and brooms. Why sweep away the past with the past. A new life needs all the help and the less drag it can afford.

It cannot be stressed enough the importance of picking the correct date for your new move. With a suitable Feng Shui astrological calendar pick a suitable personal Feng Shui moving date.

Lastly be ready for that big day. Prepare your arrival. Buy your house a gift. Have all your legal papers including your closing real estate documents or lease. Make sure you have a first meal there with friends and family whose company you enjoy.

Stand at the threshold of your new home. Enter that threshold. Open the door and begin your new life full of all its potential and vitality. Feng Shui your new home.

Amy Goodmann Senior analyst frxforex@yahoo.com www.tratfor.com www.forexforexforexforex.com

Feng Shui In The Past And The Present

Feng Shui, translated as ?wind and water,? is perceived as representing two symbols of the natural flow of nature. Feng Shui practices attempt to recreate this natural environment in which the life positive life force or energy known as ?chi,? flows as freely and easily as wind or water. An ancient Chinese art, Feng Shui is believed to increase the flow chi in any area, large or small. Its intent in enhancing the amount of chi, releasing it to flow freely throughout any area, permits any practitioner to achieve their personal goals. For several centuries, people have applied the principles of Feng Shui to attract success in many areas, including in the kingdom of the heart and in the business world, and to win friends.

Traditionally, the school of thought known as Feng Shui has been practiced only by experts. Originally, more than 3,000 years ago, it was fashioned by a spiritual master, a student of nature and the spiritual realm. In order to maximize the positive characteristics of an area, he designed a set of basic rules directed at increasing positive energy. The end result of his dream lay in the construction of homes, workplaces and other buildings that would be beneficial to the occupants, helping them to invite good luck and positive fortune while supplying them with the ability to make the most of good luck when it arrives. His wish is still alive and well today.

In China, the acceptance of Feng Shui was swift. It quickly gained popularity and credibility with certain people becoming skillful experts in the subject. This knowledge and positive reception soon spread to other countries, becoming world wide in scope. Today, many homeowners and businesspeople traditionally consult Feng Shui experts when decorating rooms or locating a business. These consultants can draw on several thousand years of tradition and investigation. Using any number of techniques, a Feng Shui an expert can alter the energy of any particular space or area.

Over time, several different schools of Feng Shui have become apparent, each with its own unique goals and approach. As a result, finding a Feng Shui pertinent to your own specific situation is not difficult. The process of increased specialization, moreover, simplifies the means and ability to incorporate Feng Shui it into their lives. A further benefit of the continuous evolution of Feng Shui is the increased exactitude. As a result, superior results are possible with less work and less cost than in the past.

Over the centuries, the art of Feng Shui has become refined into an increasingly adept mathematical science. With the implementation of this characteristic Feng Shui has become much easier to apply to a space today than it has in the past. There are now clear guidelines to facilitate in the process so that even an inexperienced amateur can apply Feng Shui to a home or office space, creating a feeling of balance and harmony in any space of any size. Furthermore, with the availability of Feng Shui guides and information through the internet, you can eliminate the need to consult an expensive Feng Shui expert before you undertake to practice and benefit from the rules of Feng Shui.

Candace Czarny,ASID,CFM,LEED AP, "Award Winning" Interior Designer, Feng Shui Expert & author. http://www.ArtOfPlacement.com is continually ranked "Top 10" in Google and Yahoo. Clients testify of dramatic results!