Basic Concepts of Feng Shui

Feng Shui is the Chinese art of placement that is thousands of years old. In Feng Shui, your surroundings or environment can be a reflection of your life. You can thus influence your life in positive ways by making appropriate changes in your environment and surroundings. Below is an outline of several things you can do to start applying Feng Shui principles to your home.

Evaluate your home using the bagua: The bagua is the map of life's valuable qualities. Your experiences, at any given moment, can fit into one these nine areas of the bagua. These areas include: Wealth and Prosperity, Fame and Reputation, Love and Marriage, Family, Health, Creativity and Children, Knowledge and Self Cultivation, Career, Helpful People and Travel.

The bagua (map of qualities) is overlayed onto your home. Then it is possible to evaluate and analyze your home in relation to the areas of the bagua. Are there areas in your life that you would like to improve? Use the bagua to work on the areas of your home that correlate with areas of your life you would like to improve.

Clutter: One basic and important principle in Feng Shui is clearing your clutter. Clutter is our home symbolizes clutter in our lives. It can present itself as procrastination, feeling overburdened, or avoiding things or tasks that need to be addressed. It can also drain your energy, and leave your feeling fatigued.

By cleaning our clutter, we are making room for new experiences in our lives. For example, by cleaning your desk, getting rid of old papers, organizing the drawers; you are making way for new experiences in your business life.

Chi Enhancers: After evaluating your homes life areas using the bagua and then cleaning your clutter, you may consider using items known as chi enhancers. Chi enhancers are items to place in your home that will attract chi. Chi is the vital life energy. We want to attract more chi in our homes to provide harmony and balance in our lives.

Crystals are beautiful chi enhancers that can be used anywhere in your home. By placing the chi enhancer in a certain bagua area of your home that needs uplifting, it will contribute to bringing harmony and balance to that area of your life and home.

Water features are another type of chi enhancer. Water features include fountains, fish tanks, birdbaths, etc. In Feng Shui, water brings good luck and wealth. Wealth can be financial wealth, or spiritual and emotional wealth or fulfillment.

Water features can be placed inside or outside the home and can contribute to a soothing and relaxing environment. One key point, the water features, of course, must be kept clean to promote positive chi.

Plants are also good chi enhancers for the home. Plants must be kept healthy and in good shape for chi enhancement. Silk or real plants both work well. Avoid dried flowers. Since the plants have already died, they will not attract chi.

Animals and pets are also good chi enhancers. Their life and presence is a powerful attraction for chi. The animals must be well looked after and their homes or special areas kept clean and cared for.

Anything moving and flowing also contributes to bringing chi into our homes. Wind sculptures, wind chimes, flags, etc are examples of some items that can be used to encourage chi. Placed on the front porch or entrance attracts the chi though the door and into the home.

As you can see, there are many things you can do to begin applying Feng Shui principles to your home. Consider Feng Shui as a way to improve your home and life.

Amy Toplikar is the developer of alternative-stress-management.com This website offers information about Feng Shui, Qigong, aromatherapy, and meditation. To learn more please visit http://www.alternative-stress-managment.com.

Business Prosperity And Feng Shui

Whilst it is clear that not everyone is destined to own and run a business and certainly there are a lot of budding entrepreneurs entering the world of business today. Effort, energy, attitude, skill and knowledge are all factors that govern, at least to some degree your ability to own and run an efficient and highly profitable business. Another factor that can impact on the degree of business success that you experience is ? Feng Shui.

Feng Shui is the force that is said to be able to influence your destiny. It is able to modify the standard and level of your success. And there is an abundance of evidence from many satisfied customers, globally, that claim Feng Shui assists in changing the level of gains or losses in business.

There are two types of Feng Shui environments. The first is the physical, commonly known as ?Form School? and this refers to the actual visible surroundings. Examples of this are; the external environment such as the general landscape, mountains, rivers, roads, other buildings, the internal design and layout of the building, the position of our desk, chair and settee. Each one is considered to bestow some Feng Shui influence in your life. To this end, there are certain ?shapes? that can reduce prosperity and especially if you are searching for New Premises then you would do well to keep them in mind.

Sharp pointed objects; Sharp edges facing a building are considered a physical ?sha?. A curved blade, a road, a river, a flyover with the curved edge facing your building is considered bad Feng Shui. This is usually explained as the blade of a sword cutting through the building. However, the truth is, that it is considered to be inauspicious because your prosperity is turning away from you. Indeed the reverse configuration, i.e. when the curve of a road, a river or any of the above is embracing your building it is considered beneficial and is often called the ?jade belt?.

Water cutting the feet; a building standing right at the water front with little space between the foot of the building and the ocean or river is not particularly good. In this situation the water is considered too strong and symbolizes a lack of a strong foundation.

A building such as a police station is said to be related to violence. A Church, temple or religious building is said to absorb the beneficial influences of the surrounding environment, leaving little prosperity for its neighbours. Other sites such as hospitals, funeral parlours, prisons and graveyards are associated with sorrow and misfortune ? therefore not good neighbours to have.

Also as a part of the ?Form School? principles, there are some guidelines for placement of furniture. What is particularly important in an office environment is the placement of desks. Therefore after determining the entrance to the offices, the next step is to place the desk in the best possible location. The natural position for placing the desk should be at the corner of the diagonal line from the entrance, so that the person can face and see the entrance and has a solid wall behind you. To enhance the symbol of power, the desk should lean against a solid wall.

Sitting on a straight line towards the entrance, or with your back against the entrance, is not recommended.

It is not advised to place the desk in the middle of the room without leaning against any wall. This promotes a sense of floating and thereby a level of insecurity.

The second type of Feng Shui environment is somewhat more abstract and therefore subject to much speculation. Nonetheless, this influence is derived from the invisible, directional forces and has an impact on your life based on your buildings exact degree of orientation and the factor of time. And lets face it, if we think logically, absolutely everything changes with time and so you cannot ignore this very important factor.

So what are these invisible directional forces?? Some of us say they are magnetic waves; others suggest they are cosmic rays, celestial energies etc?.. It really doesn?t matter how you or I translate this more abstract quality ? most of us agree that there is ?something else? that influences our lives. The Ancients from China however, seem to have discovered a pattern to trace the indiscernible influences so that we can predict their movement and, just as importantly they developed theories enabling us to fully utilize these enigmatic forces. These techniques have indeed emerged from a lengthy and committed study of nature thereby providing a solid foundation of Chinese metaphysical views about the universe and nature.

With respect to the invisible Feng Shui inflluences during 2007, there are some adjustments that you can make that will be valuable, at least to some degree, through the course of the year. These modifications can also be placed in the correct sectors of your home as well as your business during the coming year.

You will find a troublesome influence coming from the Northeast bringing with it difficulties and obstacles. If this part of your business is very active such as a front, back or side entrance, a passage, the reception area, boardroom or even the directors office, then this energy needs to be dealt with by placing an all-metal wind chime or metal prayer bell in this area particularly in the months of February, August, and November. Now, this is not always easy to achieve depending on the area therefore, at the very least place a metal object such as a ?five element pagoda? in the appropriate position.

The Centre resonates with the force of sickness during 2007. Therefore you will require a string of six metal coins to be placed in this area, and this is particularly important if a major thoroughfare is located in that area of your business premises.

An energy of arguments is located in the Northwest and so it could be valuable to place a red object or the more traditional option of red paper in this area to help minimise this influence.

Another destructive influence is arriving from the North. Hence, it is best to place Four bamboo stems (only those that grow in water) in a clear glass vase within the North sector.

Finally, do not sit with your back against due West, especially whilst you are working. It is also advisable to not carry out large-scale construction work in the Northwest for the coming year, as this is the location of the ?Grand Duke?. Should your business face Northwest then place a Dragon Tortoise to face the same direction.

Juliana Abram is one of the leading Feng Shui consultants in Australia having been traditionally trained in Hong Kong by Chinese Feng Shui Master Raymond Lo.

Juliana specialises in ?Flying Star? Feng Shui and the Four Pillars of destiny.

Juliana runs her own Feng Shui consultancy ( see http://www.fengshuicentre.com.au )

and her own online Feng Shui store ( see http://www.fengshuishop.com.au ).

Feng-Shui enhancers and cures for your relationship

Although fate, may help you to find a suitable partner, feng-shui can certainly have a strong influence on how your relationship turns out.

When moving in with someone, often the nature of a relationship changes in totally unexpected ways. Areas of your life such as career, family or health, might change for no apparent reason. If both partners move into a new home, then both may be affected.

If the partnership feng-shui is placed correctly and stimulated then the happiness and longevity of the relationship are enhanced and chances of either partner embarking on an outside relationship will be limited.

Feng-shui can cause problems as well as solve them. One of the classic simulators of chi is the fish tank or fountain, but if this is placed on the right-hand side of the main door, it can increase the sort of energy which attracts other women to the husband. It is for reasons like this that the manipulating of feng-shui should be done carefully or get the help of an authentic feng shui consultant .

Good feng-shui in the bed room.
Traditional symbols of romance such as red roses or heart shapes, in the south west sector of the bed room is beneficial. Red is symbolic of fire and fire produces earth. The south west sector is the earth sector, so the color red will help produce more earth and stimulate this sector. It follows that red lights or anything red, particularly in pairs is useful.

Things to avoid
No mirrors over the bed. It will create a double image of the relationship.
Keep the space beneath the bed free of clutter so that the chi may flow freely.
Do not place the color green or live plants in the south west sector. Green is symbolic of the wood sector and destroys earth.
Remove all mementos of past relationships from the room.

Applying these principles of feng-shui will lead to positive changes in your relationship.

Mrs. Lynn Ristich is a Psychic and Feng-Shui consultant,for more than 25 years. http://www.asklynn.net
Author and lecturer, seen on CBS Morning News. Writer of Ask The Psychic in the Chicago Suntimes,and recently published in "Crain's Chicago Business".