The Chinese art of Feng Shui is both ancient and highly complex. Put simply, Feng Shui is the art of placing buildings and objects in relation to energy, to accentuate the positive elements and minimise those which are negative.
Feng Shui literally means 'wind and water', and these are the two most significant features in the art. Ch'i energy moves on the winds, while water nourishes the soil. Mountains offer a vantage point and shelter from harsh winds, and these also play an important role.
Feng Shui links and interacts with the movement of Ch'i energy; with the balancing feminine and masculine characteristics of Yin and Yang; with the five Chinese elements of earth, metal, water, wood and fire; and with Chinese astrology.
Underlying the principles of Feng Shui is the idea of Ch'i, the animating life-force that exists everywhere and permeates both ourselves and our homes and physical surroundings. Ch'i energy is positive when allowed to flow freely, negative when left to stagnate in nooks and crannies, and harmful when channelled too quickly along straight paths.
The purpose of Feng Shui, the art of placement, is to enable you to organise your home so that the Ch'i energy has free movement and is not allowed either to stagnate or to accelerate too quickly. To achieve this, you use precise placement of furniture and belongings or symbolic objects to remove barriers to the free flow of Ch'i. The result of this is that you can tap into the beneficial positive Ch'i energy to the maximum, and disperse, disrupt or remove negative energy. This understanding and recognition of the positive features that enhance the free flow of energy will have a direct impact on your well-being and financial prosperity.
Allied to this is the concept of complementary forces of Yin and Yang - light and dark - the polar opposites of all existence. Yin is the feminine element and Yang is the masculine element. When they blend together to create balance, harmony reigns.
With the motion of the earth, astral and magnetic influences vary, affecting different people to different degrees. Applied to people, Feng Shui is about fine-tuning our physical surroundings to harmonise with our inner life-force, Ch'i, based on the premise that an imbalance of energies displaces good luck and brings about internal disorders.
These same concepts can be applied to buildings, whether homes, factories or offices, and to the furniture and decoration we place in those buildings.
Homes are bought or chosen every day and are the base from which we live our lives. So it is vital that the largest single investment most individuals make harmonises with the living land and is positioned so that it is poised to ride the winds of prosperity, health and longevity. When we choose a house, we can consider these factors before we select it. If we have already selected our home, we can assess its features and make changes - simple changes of the placement of furniture or symbolic gestures such as using blinds or curtains which will place the house and its contents and occupants in a position of harmony with the energies of the life-force, and harness the positive elemerits that will change our lives.
The purpose of having a house Feng Shui-ed is to make that assessment; to discover the movement of energies through the house and relating that to the specific birth signs and elements of the occupants - choose the best use of rooms, the optimum placement of furniture, even the decor and colour schemes.
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist