Feng Shui for Beginners

Feng Shui principles have become the guide lines for home decor. Feng Shui's design principles are a vast collection of traditional Chinese teachings on the science of creating a home blessed with harmony. Harmony is achieved in a variety of ways, and experts spend years learning to perfect the art of Feng Shui consulting. If you don't want to spend years studying Feng Shui, or hire a professional, there are a few basic guide lines that will help you to improve the harmony in your home, using Feng Shui for beginners.

First of all, there is the principle of Chi flow. Chi is vital energy, and is fluent. Imagine that your home was being flooded by a steam of water. Where would the stream be blocked? Where would the current have to slow down to go around an obstacle? Where would there be a stagnant pool or puddle? Where would the water leak out from? When you can envision the chi flowing around your home this way, you can identify problems and fix them yourself. Ideally, you want Chi to circulate to every nook and cranny of your home, but to do so in a gentle fluid way that is not hurried, frantic, or overbearing.

Hallways make good examples to illustrate this idea. If you have a long hallway with nothing in it but a door at the end that opens into a bedroom, the Chi goes barreling down the hallway and hurtling through the door. This prevents the occupant from getting good rest. Conversely, if the hallway is choked with clutter, the Chi gets blocked and barely reaches the bedroom, leaving the occupant with no source of revitalization. Adding two small tables with a plant or decorative item on either side of the hall way, and spaced so that they are staggered (ex. First the one on the left, then five steps later the one on the right), requires the Chi to flow like a stream meandering around two bends. This serpentine movement slows the chi down without blocking it, and allows it to reach the bedroom door at a pace of flow that nourishes rather that bombards the occupant.

The other principle that Feng Shui beginners can work on is the balance of five elements in every room. Chinese culture recognizes water, wood, fire, earth, and metal as the five elements that must be balanced in order to have a harmonious living space. Look around a given room; wood and metal are easy to spot. Fire is easy to spot in the kitchen (stove, oven, etc.) and water is easy to spot in the bathroom (toilet, shower, sink, and tub). But where are these elements represented in other rooms, and where is the earth element represented? Fire can be represented with red and orange candles, or an image of the sun. Metal energy can be raised by displaying interesting coins, chimes, or jewelry. Earth energy can be introduced, literally, with potted plants containing earth, or energetically, with clay pots, ceramic tiles, and pretty rocks or stones.

In a room deficient in water energy, you can either add real water in the form of a fountain, or you can add symbolic water in the form of blue glass or blue fluid drapes. In a room with too much water energy, like the bathroom, you can drain some of that off by introducing more wood energy in the form of plants or wooden accessories. Just as trees drink water and convert it into the nutrients for their growth, so too does adding a bamboo bathmat, bamboo soap dish, and bamboo towel rack convert the excess water energy in your bathroom into wood energy for greater balance. Each of the five elements is depleted by another of the five. Each of the five also nourishes another of the five. For example, fire is supported by wood, and depleted by earth. That makes sense, as fire consumes wood and can be put out by smothering it with earth. When all five elements are brought into balance, harmony prevails in that room, and contributes to the well being of the occupants.