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.

How to Improve Your Love Life with the Power of Feng Shui

FENG shui (say "fung shway") is the art of creating a home environment that supports the life you wish to live. A key element of feng shui is creating a smooth flow of chi (positive energy) through your space. Chi likes to move through your home as though it were a gentle breeze or a meandering stream. Where it is blocked, the energy becomes stagnant--like a pond choked with algae and fallen leaves. You are likely to feel blocked in life, and your energy and enthusiasm for matters of the heart will be low. Balancing and correcting the chi of your bedroom helps encourage and invigorate romance. Here are some quick and easy ways to improve your love life by improving the energy of your home:

1. Clean up your bedroom
When your bedroom is cluttered and untidy, the energy in there will be low and slow. Clutter is a sure sign that chi is stuck, so roll up your sleeves and clean the place up if you want to jump-start your love life. Ring a bell, shake a rattle, or clap your hands loudly around the room to clear out old, stale energy.

2. Make room for love
If you want to attract a new romantic partner--or move a casual relationship closer to commitment--make sure there is space for that person in your home. Look at your closets, shelves, and dressers, especially in the bedroom; if they are all filled to capacity with your own stuff, make clearing some room for your current or future partner a priority. Aim to free up 25% of the space in your bedroom for someone else's things. When you are done, take a moment to visualize your loved one's belongings finding a home there.

3. Don't work out in the bedroom
When you exercise in the bedroom, or store your sports equipment there, you bring the energy of hard work and exertion into your romance space. Do you want your relationship to feel like a tough workout? If not, move your workout stuff somewhere else; your relationship is likely to move along more smoothly.

4. Remove old relationship energy
Go through your home--especially your bedroom--and remove anything that reminds you of past failed relationships; this could be an ex-boyfriend's old sweater you find in the closet, photographs of you with a previous partner, a gift that reminds you (unfavorably) of a giver with whom you are no longer in love--anything that reminds you of a love that went bad. No matter how incurable a romantic you may be, do NOT keep old love letters anywhere in your bedroom unless they are from someone with whom you are still blissfully paired up.

5. Remove inappropriate imagery
The images with which you surround yourself can have a powerful effect on your love life. Feng shui clients who complain of difficulty finding romance often have surrounded themselves with images of a person alone. Inappropriate imagery includes anything that represents solitude, loneliness, aggression, hard work, conflict, or disagreement in any way. That old photo of your Dad when he was in the army may be a treasure, but the wartime energy it carries doesn't have any place in the bedroom; find another place to keep it.

6. Open the door to love
Make sure both the front door of your home and the door to your bedroom open easily and completely. Doors that stick, squeak, or that only open partway because of all the stuff stored behind them are blocking the flow of romantic energy and opportunity into your home. A loose doorknob on your bedroom door could mean you're having a hard time "getting a handle on" romance; get out your screwdriver and tighten it up.

7. Create a path for chi
Walk slowly from your front door to your bedroom, pretending that you are a gentle river of chi. Look for any areas where furniture or other belongings are stopping or slowing the flow of chi, or where chi is diverted away from the bedroom to other areas of the house. Clear a path so fresh chi can find its way to your bedroom and nourish your love life. Make sure all the lights along this route are working, replace any burned-out bulbs, and be alert for dark or dingy corners where you can increase the energy by adding more light.

8. Move your bed
If one side of your bed is against the wall, the person who sleeps on that side may feel confined or disempowered in the relationship. If possible, place the bed so there is equal space on either side, so you and your partner can find equal enjoyment in the relationship. The ideal position of the bed will be on the opposite side of the room from the door, but not directly in line with it. If you can't see the bedroom door from the bed, hang a mirror where it will provide a reflected view of the entry.

9. Bring romance chi into the bedroom
Be sure to place romantic imagery in these two key places in the bedroom: the wall opposite the foot of the bed (where you naturally look when lying in bed), and whatever area of the room you first see when you enter. Beautiful, romantic artwork is always good, as are fresh or silk flowers and anything in pairs (such as birds, cherubs, candles, or decorative pillows). A round mirror is also good for the bedroom, as the shape signifies completion and unity. Look around your home for whatever says "romance" to you, and find a good spot for it in your bedroom.

10. Clarify your intention
Make a collage of images that symbolize your perfect relationship, and place it where you will see it every day. If you are already in a relationship, invite your partner to make a collage with you, to represent your intention to build a joyful and loving future together.

Copyright 2002 Stephanie Roberts

This article is based on information in the book Fast Feng Shui for Singles: 108 Ways to Heal Your Home and Attract Romance (Lotus Pond Press, Kahului, HI, ISBN 1-931383-04-9), also available at Amazon.com.

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 the Fast Feng Shui website.

Feng Shui Tips for the Bathroom

The bathroom has a bad reputation in feng shui, and in some ways this is deserved, as you will discover. But it's not all negative. Comfort, cleanliness, and convenience are key ingredients to good feng shui, and our modern bathrooms provide them all.

One of the challenges posed by the modern bathroom is that there's no good place for it in the ba gua* [the feng shui map of a space], which long predates indoor plumbing. We can look at the ba gua and see at a glance that the Family area would be a good place for the living room, that a home office is well-placed in the Knowledge, Wealth, or Career sectors, and that the Marriage corner of the house is a great place for the master bedroom. But where does the bathroom go?

The bathroom is a little out of place anywhere, although some locations are more troublesome than others. The thing to keep in mind is that bathroom plumbing has a draining effect wherever it is located.

Some very difficult bathroom locations are next to or above the front door and on the second floor directly above the kitchen. These locations are particularly difficult because:

- A bathroom in the front hall, close to the door, can drain chi away before it has a chance to circulate through the rest of the house.

- A second-floor bathroom above the front door floods the main entry to your home with negative energy.

- The water energy in a bathroom above the kitchen will extinguish the hearth's fire energy, and flood the entire kitchen with negative energy. This is potentially damaging to both health and prosperity.

The worst location for a bathroom is in the center of your home, where it will destabilize the energy of the entire home. If you suspect that the bathrooms in your house are affecting important spaces, there's no need to panic. Use these simple feng shui remedies to help keep your health, wealth, and happiness from flowing down the drain:

- Problem: bathroom in an important feng shui area (wealth, fame, marriage, etc.)
Solutions: a full-length mirror on the outside of the bathroom door helps deflects chi so it won't be drained away; keep sink and shower drains closed when not in use; keep the toilet seat/lid down when not in use.

- Problem: bathroom in the center of the home
Solutions: paint the walls red, and place a stone, large crystal, or other earth-type object (such as a heavy ceramic bowl, vase, or statuette) in each corner to help stabilize the energy; a mirror on the outside of the door is highly recommended for this bathroom location.

- Problem: bathroom over the front door or over the kitchen
Solutions: hang a faceted crystal in the center of the room; place a three-inch round mirror on the ceiling directly above the toilet to visually reverse the downward flow of water (use double-sided tape to hold the mirror in place); place earth-type objects in the corners of the room to stabilize the energy; add an image such as a bird or tree to the downstairs area below the bathroom to help lift the energy there.

Bathrooms are places for purification and cleansing, so a clean, sanitary bathroom strengthens and supports this important energy. A dirty bathroom, on the other hand, emphasizes the negative qualities of this room. If your bathroom occupies any of the more challenging locations described above, it is essential to keep it sparkling clean, tidy, and well-lit.

After implementing the necessary precautions described above, you can further improve the chi of the bathroom by making it as pleasant a space as possible. This is where you begin and end the active part of each day, so the more attractive and inviting you can make it the better.

Most of us live hectic, stressful lives, and are in serious need of soothing places where we can relax and unwind. A clean, tidy, nicely appointed bathroom invites you to soak your worries away in a hot bath with lavender-scented bath salts. Make this pampering experience even nicer with candlelight, soft music, and a pile of fresh fluffy towels with which to dry off. All-white bathroom decor can seem cold and clinical; add warmth with pastel-colored towels and accessories, colorful scented candles, and attractive artwork.

Excerpted from The Pocket Idiots Guide to Feng Shui by Stephanie Roberts (Alpha Books, 2004)

2004 Stephanie Roberts

*To learn more about the feng shui ba gua and how to use it effectively in your space, click here.

Stephanie Roberts is the author of the popular Fast Feng Shui book series, available at Amazon. com and Fastfengshui.com. Subscibe to the Fast Feng Shui Newsletter and receive FR(EE) Feng Shui tips in every issue. Visit Fast Feng Shui.com for details.