Wednesday, December 27, 2006

What is This Thing Called Feng Shui?

Are you finding that there is a room in your home in which you just don’t feel comfortable or that all your arguments happen in one particular room? This could be due to a bad flow of harmony which is what Feng Shui helps to balance.Feng Shui is pronounced "fung shway" and Feng Shui means wind and water.This is an ancient Chinese art for living in harmony with your surroundings. It is the art of placing particular elements and colors to achieve positive and negative (yin and yang) flow in certain areas of your home or office to achieve the balance of energy (also called the flow of chi) in any given space. Feng Shui can facilitate the balance of issues such as: health and family, wealth and prosperity, fame and reputation, love and marriage, children and creativity, helpful people, travel, career, knowledge and self-cultivation. Feng Shui Examples:Metal produces water... like a cold can of soda makes condensation when it is in a warm environment. Water gives life to wood. Without water wood would perish.Wood is fuel for fire. I think we all know how this one works.Fire helps to create the earth. The earth’s core produces volcanic activity which changes continuously, thus creating more earth.Earth provides metal. As everyone knows, metal comes from the earth (i.e., copper and lead).The Cycle Continues:That takes us full cycle – back where we began. Many spiritual cultures refer to this as “the circle of life”.In other words, Feng Shui is the practice of using nature to achieve complete balance.Is Your Environment in Balance?Now think about this. What if one of those elements was to disappear? What would happen?Answer: Nature would be out of balance and havoc would result (i.e., if there was no source of water). We, of course, would not survive. Without water, wood would eventually die leaving no fire. Without fire, there would be no earth leaving no metal. No metal - no water. While this may seem somewhat convoluted, the cycle is simple to understand.Take a look around your home or office. See if you are missing one or more of these elements or have an abundance of only one Feng Shui element in your home. Again, if you have no water, let’s say in your bedroom, consider your bedroom out of balance. Maybe your love life is not doing so well or you’re not sleeping well. The lack of the water element could be the problem. Try putting a small fountain in your bedroom and see if this helps. Yup! It can be as simple as that.