The Spiritual Feng Shui newsletter Issue 9 September 2007 Bring Nature to You – Water and Earth Danger, Will Robinson! How Not to Add Elements Also: Feng Shui Tip Inspirational Quotes Dear Friend, Welcome to The Spiritual Feng Shui newsletter for September 2007; it is good to have your company once again! This month we look the huge benefits of bringing outdoor elements into your home, which can easily become stark and artificial. However, we also look at how not to do this! We also have inspirational quotes and Feng Shui tips, as usual. May peace and harmony reign for you in September. 0x Feature Article: Water and Earth – Elementary, my Dear Watson! - Fell the earth move, under your feet even indoors. 0x Q&A: No Earthly Business Being There… - Where don’t water and wood work for you? 0x Feng Shui Tip – Being a Mover and Shaker 0x Inspirational Quotes Enjoy! Mike Z. Wang Author of The Spiritual Feng Shui Thespiritualfengshui.com Unit 616, 220 Lake Promenade, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, m8w1a9 Feature Article: Water and Earth – Elementary, my dear Watson! Often the inside of our homes is as far from the outside as you can get, in terms of contents, feel, smell, look and sounds. You don’t hear the birds as well … it either smells like cooking, cleaning products or sometimes, garbage … and things inside are made of things that you never find in nature,like plaster, painted metal, or polyester. We become so used to it that we don’t even realize how cloistered we can become. Especially if you live in an apartment in a city, it can be especially hard to connect with nature. It can take hours of public transport rides, or similar distances driving a (nature-polluting!) car to actually get to see trees, grass and flowers all in the one spot, that human didn’t put there. However, bringing the outside into your home is not only refreshment for the soul, but is great for the Chi of your home, too! Putting a fish tank in your home is invigorating, but not only because you have to get off your bottom once a day to put fish food in it! Water is one of the five elements of Chi, and the energy it brings includes feelings and ideas like tranquility, depth, calmness and maternal feelings. In the same way, potted plants are one of the nearly universal solutions in Feng Shui. They bring energy not only by recycling a little of your carbon dioxide into fresh air (although this benefit is undisputed!), but also because they represent the elements of both wood and earth. Wood represents growth and also permanence for you, and Earth brings with it the energy of compassion, nurturing and rest. Using Water in Your Home Water is such a versatile element – it takes on the shape of whatever holds it in reality. It can be inhaled as a gas, in the form of steam, and it can become solid, and even be made into works of art in the form of ice sculptures when it is cold enough. In the same way, the Chi of water is also very versatile. Fast running water creates a feeling of agitation and urgency, while still water imparts serenity to the room. Going further from this, stagnant water is quite negative chi for your home – a fish bowl without any fish in it, or which constantly grows algae is a source of staleness and inaction for whatever area it is placed in. You can integrate water into your indoor surroundings in various ways: ·Fish tanks are especially good because as well as being water, they hold living things. Most apartments allow fish, even when other pets are not allowed. If fish are not allowed,check whether it is okay to keep water plants and snails in an aquarium in your apartment. ·Water features are readily available from both hardware stores and home decorating and supplies stores. Ask if you can plug it in beforehand, somewhere in the store, and make sure that it isn’t too noisy – electrical hums are not usually part of creating positive chi! ·Ponds and swimming pools are a source of water energy also – but not practical to install on a whim! ·Drink plenty of water yourself. An optimal amount of water is medically accepted to improve the health of many people – the human body is over 90% water. As you should when introducing all elements, consider exactly where you are placing the enhancement. Look at the Bagua map (available with explanation and discussion in our e-book at www.thespritualfengshui.com), and consider what areas of your life could be improved by bringing more energy to these areas of your home. Would you like to be healthier, more romantic, or more prosperous? Place the water feature in the appropriate spot in your home to encourage this. For example, to bring some sparkle back into your love life, place your water enhancement in the bedroom. If you’d like the energy to get up and about, and have the blood flowing around your body instead of pooling in your rear end (it is easy for this to happen, in these times of computers, televisions and washing machines!), place the water feature in your health gua, in the centre of your house. It will also work well in your kitchen. Using Wood and Earth in Your Home I’m going to look at these two elements together, since the most usual and easiest way to incorporate both of them into your home is by using potted plants – where wood and earth always coexist harmoniously! Wood encourages growth – after all, it is created by growth. Metals are found, water is produced via chemical reactions, and earth simply is, was and always will be… but growth is the source of wood. It also brings energy and vitality – side effects of this growth. Earth, on the other hand, brings with it feelings of calmness, permanence and stability. There are certain areas which benefit from growth, and certain ones which benefit from stability. Luckily in potted plants, the two help balance each other out! Bringing earth and wood into your home can be achieved easily with potted plants, but here are some tips about them: ·In rooms where there is little light, makes use of the windowsills for plants, or you could buy hanging baskets to keep them near the light so that they can thrive and grow. ·In areas with little free space, use hanging baskets again, or place plants on top of other furnishings (with the appropriate protection!). Use the television, the dresser drawers, or the tops of bookshelves to put plants on. ·Investigate natural fertilizers that work well for whatever types of plants you have. Some plants appreciate coffee grounds, some especially like bones from leftover meat. This is also a great way to recycle and be environmentally friendly! ·Always check the tag and ask the sales assistant before buying a plant, to make sure that it will suit the area you plan to put it in. Also ask how you should best take care of it. Like with your water enhancements, placement is crucial for your potted plants. One area which benefits from both stability, and growth, is the bedroom – your romantic energy center. The same can be true of your home office, or your financial Gua. In this area, you need both security and growth. Too much earth can create stagnant, inactive energy for your home though … be aware of this when placing plants in large pots in areas that relate to your health, to your creativity, and to your knowledge energy centers. Areas which already have a lot of earth energy simply from their coloring will probably benefit more from wood energy in isolation – in the form of cut flowers or artificial plants. When you have your enhancements in place, simply relax and enjoy them! Trail your fingers through the water in your fish bowl as you pass by … Smell the flowers and the mineral scent of earth from your potted plants … Know that your body is working even better than usual because of the water you have drunk and the extra oxygen in the air in your house. Above all, enjoy your little bits of nature! Q&A: No Earthly Business Being There… How to combine plants and water features to make the environment ideal? “I know that there is always a yang for every yin, and an up for every down … so where is it not good to place water features or potted plants? Is there anywhere they are not a positive influence?” Of course, you are right – there is an up for every down, a left for every right and a yin for every yang. So, there are places where it is less than ideal to put your water features and potted plants. he way to determine where you should put them is twofold. Basically, look at what is happening in your life, and what you would like to encourage or discourage (love … wealth … children … etc). If you already have enough of something in your life, there is no need to bring even more energy to that area. Don’t be greedy now! It is also wise to look at the components of the space, and think about what they already represent in terms of the elements. Every color, surface and fabric has a complementary element. As you could guess, green colors represent wood energy, brown colors represent earth energy, and blue colors represent water energy. Also, paintings or photographs of water bring that element’s energy to the room, just as photographs of trees and plants, or paintings of earthy and natural scenes do. If you add a potted plant to a space which is dominated by the color green and already includes silk flowers and a painting of a nature scene, you can sort of overdose on wood energy! You have then made a space which feels quite uncomfortable to relax in, which may make your heart rate go up and make you feel agitated. The same is true for earth energy. If you add a plant in a large pot of dirt to a space with tan walls, deep brown furnishings, and an ochre, sand and earth colored hanging tapestry, then depending on where in your home that space is, you’ll find an area of your life where nothing seems to get done, nothing seems to change and is a bit of a black hole for time and energy. You can imagine the effect this would have on your whole life if the area happens to be your finance Gua! Or, if the area happens to be your health Gua, you may find yourself with sluggish digestion, a lacking memory, and never having the energy to get up off what you’re sitting on, let alone move forward with your life. Another point is that it is a little superfluous to place fish tanks in the bathroom – there is a lot of water energy here naturally. The same advice goes for the laundry. If one of your Guas happens to be outdoors, because of an oddly shaped house, then adding more plants to it is probably also unnecessary! In short, the better places for water and earth enhancements are where they are needed, depending on the context. Looking at the broader picture is a skill for Feng Shui, but also for life! Feng Shui Tip: Being a Mover and Shaker Did you know that Feng Shui is about more than your house and what color objects you choose to decorate it with? It is centrally about energy, and guess what the biggest energy source in your life is? You! One of the best ways to increase your energy, keep it positive and in regular, steady motion is to do some exercise. It can be hard, especially in winter, to motivate yourself for it, but it is much easier if you integrate it into things you need to do anyway. ·Don’t take up a contact sport, but take the dog for a run. They never say no! ·You don’t need to find time for an extra run if you are able to walk to work, or to the shops when you need something extra for dinner. ·If you’re feeling sleepy at lunchtime at work, get out into the sunshine instead of getting a sugar hit from chocolate, or an artificial high from caffeine. ·Get up five minutes earlier (it’s not that hard!) and do some stretches first thing in the morning – if you start off moving, limber and ready, your day is much more likely to continue like that. Let your body be a source of energy, not a drain for it! Inspirational Quotes: We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. ~Frank Tibolt Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. ~Jesse Jackson If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain