Home Flow

Daily Om: Our living spaces can become nurturing homes for our bodies and souls when we make sure that our surroundings accurately reflect who we are as individuals and who we aspire to become. No matter how positive and creative you may be in your inner world, if your home or work surroundings are contradictory or present energetic barriers, you are likely to find it difficult to manifest all that you desire.

By paying attention to the flow of energy around you, you can align your inner intentions with your outer realities to make your life a conscious act of creation.

We can look to the ancient Asian art of feng shui for guidance. Since the words "feng" and "shui" mean "wind" and "water," you may want to walk through your home and imagine the way these elements would flow through your space. You can evaluate whether or not your home is a balanced ecosystem that would allow a plant to flourish....read more>>>...

Feng Shui Secrets

Daily OM: The underlying premise of Feng Shui is that everything in your environment, down to the smallest detail of furnishing and décor can either further your goals in life or work against you. By understanding the subtle currents of energy that flow through your body and through everything in the universe, you can arrange your living and working spaces to help you reach your goals.

The arrangement of your home or office can affect your peace of mind and physical health. By applying the principles of Feng Shui, it is possible to make your relationships healthier and to create living and working environments more attuned to the life force that surrounds each of us.

Clearing your clutter is essential in Feng Shui.

What you want is available to you, but there may be no room in your home or your life for it! Letting go of what no longer serves you must occur before more treasures can come into your life. The simple act of clearing clutter can transform your life by releasing negative emotions, generating energy and allowing you to create space in your life for the things you want to achieve....read more>>>...

Home Flow

Daily OM: Our living spaces can become nurturing homes for our bodies and souls when we make sure that our surroundings accurately reflect who we are as individuals and who we aspire to become. No matter how positive and creative you may be in your inner world, if your home or work surroundings are contradictory or present energetic barriers, you are likely to find it difficult to manifest all that you desire. By paying attention to the flow of energy around you, you can align your inner intentions with your outer realities to make your life a conscious act of creation.

We can look to the ancient Asian art of feng shui for guidance. Since the words "feng" and "shui" mean "wind" and "water," you may want to walk through your home and imagine the way these elements would flow through your space. You can evaluate whether or not your home is a balanced ecosystem that would allow a plant to flourish...read more>>>...

Design for Life

Daily Om: A well-kept home can be compared to a living being in optimal health—it is fueled by intention, thrives when in balance, and relies on the energy of life itself for sustenance. Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of harmonious placement, describes the living room as the heart of the home. Maintaining the gentle flow of chi, or life energy, is important since it is the home where members of a family and the larger community come together to engage with one another in fellowship. A living room that is organized and decorated in accordance with the balancing principles of feng shui is inviting, encourages relaxation and conversation, and makes all who enter feel content. All of this can be accomplished by simply changing the physical and aesthetic character of a room. When its flow is blocked by furniture, walls, or doorways, we tend to feel uneasy and become less satisfied with life as a result. Promoting harmony in a home's living area is simple when it is regarded as both a single, unified space and a collection of smaller regions of space. First, stand in the room's main doorway to examine your living room as a whole. Look for and clear away clutter— the rightmost side of the room can inspire stability in close personal relationships, while tidying the leftmost side will increase your prosperity potential...read more>>>...

Design for Life

A well-kept home can be compared to a living being in optimal health—it is fueled by intention, thrives when in balance, and relies on the energy of life itself for sustenance. Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of harmonious placement, describes the living room as the heart of the home. Maintaining the gentle flow of chi, or life energy, is important since it is the home where members of a family and the larger community come together to engage with one another in fellowship. A living room that is organized and decorated in accordance with the balancing principles of feng shui is inviting, encourages relaxation and conversation, and makes all who enter feel content. All of this can be accomplished by simply changing the physical and aesthetic character of a room. When its flow is blocked by furniture, walls, or doorways, we tend to feel uneasy and become less satisfied with life as a result. Promoting harmony in a home's living area is simple when it is regarded as both a single, unified space and a collection of smaller regions of space. First, stand in the room's main doorway to examine your living room as a whole. Look for and clear away clutter— the rightmost side of the room can inspire stability in close personal relationships, while tidying the leftmost side will increase your prosperity potential. Release stagnant energy by orienting chairs and sofas in a ring, veiling harsh angles with plants or ornamental screens, and using other furniture to break up direct pathways. A fireplace that serves as the focal point of the room stimulates passion and openness, while sculptures absorb negativity. If the structural design of your living room does not allow you to decorate in accordance with the principles of feng shui, there are steps you can take to ensure that balance is nonetheless maintained. Mirrors, fountains, chimes, crystals, and aquariums all redirect the flow of chi, while also attracting luck, abundance, and peace. Adding warm colors such as pinks and reds to the living room can be curative even when no other changes are feasible. It does not matter how large or small your living room is, nor how fancy or plain. Address the energy needs of the heart of your home, and you will find your home as a whole is soon imbued with a new harmoniousness that manifests itself indelibly in your existence.

A Word on Feng Shui

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. (Spiritual.com)

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.

Feng Shui – Harmony and Balance

The origins of Feng Shui go back to ancient China where it was developed as a means to live in harmony with nature. Feng Shui is concerned with the effect of the environment and with the structure and interiors of buildings. A location within a landscape of good Feng Shui is said to promote good fortune for its inhabitants. For a particular home or business, the occupants can experience good health, joyful relationships and abundance or they can experience sickness, distress and scarcity depending on the influence of the Feng Shui of the property. ‘Feng’ literally means ‘Wind’ and ‘Shui’ means water. So how does the study of wind and water help us achieve health, wealth, fame and fortune?

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Source: Feng Shui

The Bagua

The Bagua (pronounced ba-gwa) is a color chart with nine boxes. Each box represents a specific life situation that can be correlated with a specific part of your home or office. By using the bagua color chart to divide your space, you can improve your quality of life by importing your environment. To Feng Shui your space, follow the easy steps below.

1. In your mind's eye (or, even on an actual blueprint) visualize the space that you are attempting to Feng Shui as a perfect square or rectangle. (Note: Do not include any spaces built as additions. These areas get Feng Shui’d separately within the bagua).

2. Now, divide this space into nine equal squares or grids, like a Tic-Tac-Toe board.

3. This grid is known as the Feng Shui bagua map. Click here see illustration in top right corner; use this application to navigate through the bagua and find tips in each section.)

4. Align the bottom of the board with the same wall that includes the front or formal entrance way. This is the door that the building intentioned as the formal entrance. It does not matter what door you use the most often. We are only speaking of the front door.

5. Your entrance, then, will fall into one of the three front or bottom grids (individually called 'guas') on this Feng Shui bagua map.

6. Your entrance through the bagua map will fall into Knowledge or Career or Helpful People. There are no exceptions to this. Sometimes, though, your entrance will 'stradle' or 'bleed' into two different areas. This is fine. Just remember to divide the main floor into nine equal spaces as if there were no standing walls in the house, and it were an empty plane to work with.

7. Standing at the threshold with your back to the street side, you are now ready to identify which locations correspond to the energies of which sector on the grid of the bagua.

8. Although the basement, second and third floors in the home/office should eventually be appropriately assessed, for immediate and accurate Feng Shui response, we are only superimposing this bagua map onto what would be considered the main floor. You may, additionally, center this grid over any individual room and begin to Feng Shui as the macrocosm to the micro. But, we like to use the pecking order of; main floor first, master bedroom second, living room third, and outside property last.

9. You can even employ this method of superimposing this bagua over the top of your desk using your seating as the 'entryway.'

10. Be sure to remember that one of the three energetic grids that lie along the same wall as the front door will always be your entranceway, and the rest of the Feng Shui bagua remains fixed according to that entry. (For example, if money is an issue or concern, then stand stationary at your front entrance with your back to the street. Now, where is the far back left-hand wall located? That’s right: the wall that is farthest left and to the back of the whole space, that’s the Wealth area of the bagua map. Now, make an adjustment to stimulate the Chi and watch your fortunes become fruitful. See? Easy!

11. This method of employing the bagua is considered Western (or Black Hat Feng Shui) and disregards the more traditional practice of using compass directions and/or personal astrology in defining space/issue boundaries. (Ellen Whitehurst)

Feng Shui Tip for the day ....

Make sure all your new and supportive love energies don't all end up going down the drain. Try best to keep all bathroom doors shut, commode lids closed and drains in sinks, showers and tubs all pulled tight. This will keep healthy and happy and loving energies circulating all around your space without any fear of them getting flushed away.

Yin Yang Concept

In the study of Chinese medicine, we are well when the Yin and Yang of our body is in a state of balance. But when the body body goes out of balance or when when there is too much Yin or Yang, we fall sick. The aim is to keep the body in balance. This is the basic Yin Yang concept.

This is why watermelon is consumed in Summer while double boiled soup is taken in winter. Watermelon has a cooling effect and it serves to cool the body during the hot summer months. In Winter, the hot double boiled soup provide balance by warming the body.

But what has this to do with Feng Shui?

Just like our body, we are also striving for balance in our home. For example, the concrete structure of your home is Yang while the plants in the garden is Yin. A good Feng Shui home should ideally have a mix of concrete structure and landscaping.

Here are more example. A large home with very few occupants is considered to be Yin. A house that is brightly lit and painted entirely in white is too yang. A home that is dark with small doors and windows that are closed most of the time is too Yin and considered to be out of balance.

The balance of Ying and Yang is a fundamental requirement in Feng Shui.

This Yin Yang concept is pervasive in Chinese metaphysics and is use in many other disciplines. Let me give you an example from Chinese naming.

In this system we are influenced by elements that are derived from our date of birth. By charting our birth chart we can see the mix of elements that we are 'made' of. Let's say that you have too little water elements in your chart. Water is needed to restore balance. In the system of Chinese naming, one of the technique is to introduce the character 'water' or either characters that represent water such as river, lake, sea etc into the name.

This is the basic yin yang concept.

What is Chi or Qi?

Chi literally means breathe or air. You should however not think of qi in its literal sense. If you do that you will seriously limit your undersanding of Chinese metaphysics. Instead for now, think it it as an invisible 'energy'.

So what really is chi? The ancient Chinese believe in the existence of an invisible life force or energy that permeates the universe. You cannot see it (like radio waves) but it exist in the environment, in things (matter) and in humans.

Zhang Dai, a great scientist during the Song Dynasty said of Chi:

"The universe is a body of chi. Chi has both positive and negative qualities. When qi spreads out, it permeates all things; when it coalesces (spreads out) it becomes nebulous (gaseous or vague). When it settle into form it becomes matter. When it disintegrates it returns to its original state."

The explanation appear to imply that all things are a body of energy and that energy and matter are the same and the states are interchangeable. Since all things are 'energies', the idea that one (the environment) can affect another (mankind) when brought in close proximity makes Feng Shui entirely plausible.

Positive Qi is known as Sheng Qi or Living Qi while Negative Qi is called Sha Qi or Killing Qi. In the practice of Feng Shui sheng chi can help improve wealth, heath, relationships etc while Shar chi may cause injury, accident, fire, lawsuit, illness and so on.

The whole idea of Feng Shui is to position, orientate and layout our homes and workplaces to accumulate and tap on Sheng (good) chi and avoid or minimize Shar (bad) chi.

Ming Gua

Ming is Chinese for life or destiny. Therefore Ming Gua means Life or Destiny Gua.

It is a diagram (also denoted by a number) that is assigned based on our Chinese Solar Calendar year of birth. The number (or Gua number) can be between 1 to 4 and 6 to 9. The number 5 is not used. (The Chinese Solar year usually starts on or around the 4th February every year. Therefore if you are born before the 4th February you should take the previous year as your year of birth.)

There is a simple technique to calculate the Ming Gua number. For someone born between 1900 and 1999, you take the last two digits and reduce it to a single digit. Then take 10 and subtract it from this digit. The resulting number is the Ming Gua number. For someone born on or after 2000, you do the same but instead of subtracting from 10 you subtract from 9.

Let’s take the example of someone born in 1948. The last two digits are 4 and 8. When we add them together we get 12 (i.e. 4 + 8). We can further reduce the number 12 to a single digit, 3 by adding the numbers together (i.e. 1 + 2 = 3). Finally we subtract 3 from 10 giving 7 which is the Ming Gua for someone born in the Chinese Solar year of 1948.

Similarly for someone born in 2003, we take the last two digits 0 and 3 and reduce it to a single digit, 3 by adding them together (i.e. 0 + 3 = 3). Finally we subtract it from 9 (i.e. 9 – 3) to give a gua number of 6.

The Ming Gua is use in many systems of Feng Shui such as the Eight Mansions and Xuan Kong Da Gua.

You should note that in some systems the gua number is calculated the same way for both the male and female born in the same year. In others the gua number for the female born in the same year is calculated differently resulting in a different gua number of the female born in the same year as another male.

For example in Xuan Kong Da Gua, a Feng Shui system, the gua number is calculated in the same for both the male and female. It is used primarily to determine the optimal orientation of the front door and water location.

In the Eight Mansions (a.k.a Eight Houses) system the gua number is calculated differently for the male and female members of a household. The application is different. It is used mainly to determine the optimal location of the main door, kitchen and bedroom plus the orientation of the main door, stove and bed for the occupants of the house.

Although in both cases the same Ming Gua is used, there is no conflict as the way that it is applied is different. Both systems have their own unique way to apply the Ming Gua.

(Absolutely Feng Shui)

More on 'Feng Shui'

Feng Shui which literally means Wind Water is a ancient Chinese metaphysical discipline that study how mankind is affected, for better or for worst, by the environment.

The environment is not just limited to the surrounding features such as mountains and rivers or the internal arrangement of the home of office but also include astronomical influences.

The interest in this study is growing and the aim of this website is to provide information on as many aspect of classical Feng Shui as possible.

Feng Shui is a study of the effect of the environment on mankind. While Feng Shui is one of the factors, there are other factors that affects mankind's life path and the most significant is astrology or destiny. As such, I have also included sections on Chinese Astrology and other related disciplines.

Feng Shui

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art used to promote such things as health, happiness and prosperity. The words literally mean 'wind' and 'water'.

Feng Shui, also called the Chinese Art of Placement, is a technique that is thousands of years old for bringing balance to one's home, business and the land that surrounds them. It looks at many areas of one's life (health, wealth, family, relationships, career, friends, fame, children, and knowledge) to determine blockages within the home or business, that might cause some type of problem, and then at the different types of "cures" that can be used to alleviate the problem. The methods for analyzing a space and the "cures" to correct the problems can vary from esoteric modalities used for centuries to technological solutions of our current timeline. Both must blend in harmony to created balance in one's life.

The purpose of life is to create balance in all things allowing your consciousness to evolve beyond time and emotion, the duality of the illusion. Healing and working on yourself - is part of the equation - as all things are created by mathematical design / the blueprint or architecture of our consciousness program in third dimension - sacred geometry. When you are in a space where feng shui has been used to create balance - you will experience it in all levels of your soul's awareness ... then you will understand.

One important Feng Shui formula concerns the eight main life Aspirations, corresponding to the four cardinal Directions and the four inter-cardinal Directions of the compass (Lo Pan).

Each of these Aspirations is symbolized in the octagonal shaped Pa Kua, one of the most basic Feng Shui tools, which identifies where the particular Aspirational locations lie in your home or workplace, allowing you to energize them as required.

This will stimulate positive chi (life force) flow and create good Feng Shui for you.

Feng Shui has its roots in the Chinese reverence for nature and belief in the oneness of all things. The assumption is that the key to living a harmonious life is to reflect the balance of nature in their daily lives. This is most easily understood by the following concepts: Yin and Yang, qi, and the Five Elements - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. In rural China, however, according to recent fieldwork by Ole Bruun, qi flow is rarely mentioned. Nevertheless, Feng Shui is used to increase wealth, health, and harmonious relationships.

Classical Feng Shui began as an interplay of construction and astronomy. Early Yangshao houses at Banpo were oriented to catch the mid-afternoon winter sun at its warmest, just after the solstice. (Some tribes in southern China still refer to this month as "House-building Month.") Professor David Pankenier and his associates performed retrospective computation on the Chinese sky at the time of the Banpo dwellings (4000 BCE) to show that the asterism Yingshi (Lay out the Hall, in the Warring States period and early Han era) corresponded to the sun's location at this time. Several hundred years earlier the asterism Yingshi was known as Ding. It was used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city, according to the Shijing.

The grave at Puyang (4,000 BCE) that contains mosaics of the Dragon and Tiger constellations and Beidou (Big Dipper) is similarly oriented with cosmological accuracy along a north-south axis.

The tombs of Shang kings and their consorts at Xiaotun lie on a north-south axis, ten degrees east of due north. The Shang palaces at Erlitou are also on a north-south axis, slightly west of true north. These orientations were obtained by astronomy, not by magnetic compass.

All capital cities of China followed rules of Feng Shui for their design and layout. These rules were codified during the Zhou era in the Kaogong ji (Manual of Crafts). Rules for builders were codified in the Lu ban jing (Carpenter's Manual). Graves and tombs also followed rules of Feng Shui. From the earliest records, it seems that the rules for these structures were developed from rules for dwellings.

The oldest known Feng Shui device consists of a two-sided board with astronomical sightlines. Liuren astrolabes have been unearthed from Qin-era tombs at Wangjiatai and Zhoujiatai. These devices date between 278 BCE and 209 BCE. Today Feng Shui practitioners can select from three types of Luopan or Feng Shui compasses: San He (the so-called "form school," although the compass name means "Triple Combination"), San Yuan (the so-called "compass school," although the compass name actually refers to time), and the Zong He that combines the other two.

Classical Feng Shui is still considered important in some segments of modern Chinese culture, especially Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is less common among educated Chinese in the People's Republic of China as it is often thought of as peasant superstition. Since the mid-20th century, it has been illegal in the PRC because of the propensity for fraud. This all came about because of the Cultural Revolution that set about destroying most of the old culture of China. It has been kept alive in books and practitioners in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the 1960s, Feng Shui was introduced in the West. Regardless of the country of practice, East or West, businesses typically use Feng Shui to increase sales and boost morale. Homeowners have come to use Feng Shui in an attempt to bring peace and harmony to their surroundings.

Feng Shui promotes the searching for places where Chi forms or accumulates as these places are perfect to live happy, prosperous, successful lives. In Feng Shui winds are noted as being bad as they scatter Chi rater than accumulate it, so when searching for a site bypass any that are wind swept.

Geomancy

Strictly speaking, the term "geomancy" refers to an ancient form of divination in which, simply put, handfuls of soil or other materials were scattered on the ground, or markings made in the earth or sand, to generate a range of dot configurations which could then be "read" by a seer.

In the 19th century, however, geomancy came to be applied to the Chinese practice of feng shui by which the location and orientation of houses and tombs was determined with close regard to the topography of the local landscape. The feng shui master or geomant employed a circular magnetic compass, called a luopan, which was marked off in rings containing data relating to astrology, directions, the elements, landscape forms, times of day, and so on. The aim was to locate a site where the energies or ch'i of the land and sky were brought into perfect balance. The harmony of these energies ensured good fortune.

The science of feng shui, literally "wind and water", recognized that certain powerful currents and lines of magnetism run invisible through the landscape over the whole surface of the earth. The task of the geomancer was to detect these currents and interpret their influences on the land through which they passed.

These lines of magnetic force, known in China as the "dragon current", or lung-mei, existed in two forms: the yin, or negative, current represented by the white tiger, and the yang, or positive, current, represented by the blue dragon. The landscape will display both yin and yang features; gently undulating country is yin, or female, while sharp rocks and steep mountains are yang, or male.

It was the aim of the geomancer to place every structure precisely within the landscape in accordance with a magic system by which the laws of music and mathematics were expressed in the geometry of the earth's surface. The landscape itself may be manipulated in order to achieve the harmony sought through the placement or adjustment, or removal, of trees or rocks, or bodies of water. Every feature of the landscape may be contrived to produce an effect which ultimately is perceived as beautiful; indeed, perceived beauty in a landscape may in fact be simply when the lines of the dragon current are in balance.

At the outset, a geomancer must locate the course of the major lines of the dragon current in his or her area. These days, it is claimed that such energy lines can be detected, and traced, through dowsing.