by Phoenix, HSM team writer

Feng shui is one of the five arts of Chinese metaphysics: invisible forces that keep man, the universe and the Earth bound together.

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese environmental practice for living in harmony with ones environment. It is used to create positive energy, called chi (universal energy) in that environment in ways that create peace, prosperity, love, health and abundance in all aspects of one’s life. It can be used to boost, the flow of good chi in one’s life. It has its beginnings in history, when it was widely used to orient buildings; these buildings were most often spiritually significant.

I am a proponent of this practice in my real life. When I began to use it, I started in my garden first, then gradually in one room at a time in my home. Little by little, I changed the flow in my environment to one conducive to the flow of chi that brought me the most beneficial results at that time in my life. As I have come to spend more and more time in Home in my spaces, I decided to try and use it in my designs there.  Feng shui can be used in any of the personal spaces, not just the Asian-themed ones.

Feng shui uses the objects in your home — objects with memories attached, objects we have fondness for — to change the chi in the home and in your life. Colors and items play a role in shaping the energy around us, even in Home.

The Bagua is a map of placement in feng shui: it helps lay out the eight important areas in the feng shui grid. Each room in a space, home, office or work place can be set up to give maximum chi. The bagua is used to strengthen or lessen the natural effects of chi in your environment. I figured these same ideals and rules could be employed here. Have you purchased a space that you rarely use anymore? Does it just not feel good being there? Why not change the way it feels, and maybe enhance some area in your life when you are there, with Feng Shui?

It’s pretty simple to do. When using feng shui, you have to identify the main entrance to a space and work from there by imposing the bagua map over the space.

The eight areas are:

• career-K’AN
• water, knowledge-KEN
• earth, family-CHEN
• wood, wealth-SUN
• fame-LI
• fire, marriage-K’UN
• earth, children-TUI
• metal and mentors-C’HEN

With health and well being at the center, ninth area. Each area sits in a zone in your space. Even if you have only three rooms, you can still employ feng shui just by placement of the elements at right, left and center. You simply place an item or color in the area the bagua denotes. Natural elements are used, such as water, earth, metal, wood and fire. If you want to enhance your career, you will want to use the colors found on the map in the main entrance area of the bagua. I say the main entrance, because real homes and business often have more than one entrance. The one you use the most is the one you work with in feng shui. In the case of Home, it’s the spawn point you arrive at when you enter an estate or clubhouse.

Feng shui is based on the fundamental belief that everything is linked: our health, happiness, financial growth and family prosperity and longevity.

Using feng shui is another way of saying that you took control of your own destiny.  One principle, in particular, resonates with me: the principle of no clutter. Clutter is a blockage; it keeps the flow of chi blocked, causing stagnation. In feng shui, if you allow blockage to manifest, you see a diminishing in that area of your wealth, health, creativity, energy, et cetera. Practitioners teach that to have a lot of clutter or disorganization in one of the eight areas of the bagua will lead you to having difficulty in that area of your life. The way to correct this is to de-clutter or organize the space. In Home, this is easily done; you can remove anything in the blink of an eye. I choose the items I really really want; be they rewards or purchased items I only use the ones I have a connection to.  You don’t have to change what you already have, either; just add something from the element and color need in that space if you don’t have it there already. Using feng shui also helps keep from using up the 100-slot maximum in my spaces.

Going to the bagua, you find the elements, represented as colors, that control this area. If career is what you want to enhance, you place items representative of the element appropriately. Career, for instance, is emphasized with the use of furniture or items which are blue or black. If you have it, place a rug or carpet in one or both of these colors here.  In the real world I have tile the color of sand and red carpeting here, which are not the right colors. I had to use a black iron table and black fragrance warmer by this entrance to enhance my career chi.  In the helpful people-and-travel area, I have a gray and black sofa; in Home I used a black sofa set, and so on.

In using feng shui you will find some colors are the same in different areas. This isn’t a problem. On the contrary, it makes using the rules of feng shui easier. There will be cohesion throughout the space. This will be all the better if you’re working in a one-room space. If you don’t have, say, red items where fire is needed, you can use a lamp as representative of fire, or a cone-shaped item; light, heat…fire.

It’s important to note that there is more than one school of thought for feng shui: there’s the classical form, and then there’s the western form. There is also more than one bagua as a result. It is advised that you use the one that feels relative to you. The principle is basically the same.

I found I enjoyed the results of using feng shui in my Home estates. For me it is yet another way in which to incorporate my real-world practices with my virtual life. The spaces, the environments in Home are basically just spaces for a lot of us, and not much more. But for me, they are more than that.  They are the places I spend hours of my time. While I am there, they should benefit me and my well-being. Real rooms and virtual rooms alike should be filled with good chi. I wanted to do more with all the spaces and items I have then just decorate them; after all, we purchase personal estates because they speak to something in us we want to enhance.

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