feng shui tips A-G

five elements

Feng Shui  (wind and water) is such a fascinating subject that I decided to share additional Do's and Don'ts alphabetically. This photo captures all the elements in one.  Nice.  Since this is our gardening season, I have embellished on flowers and gardens today, but other topics may pique your interest. It is the little things that can make a difference in how our energy flows in our lives.  It has worked for thousands of years, why not today?  After all, we must continue practicing living in the NOW.  Today is our present to ourselves, our gift. 

Altars: light your altar with artificial lights or candles to distinguish it as a special or holy location.  Put your altar in a quiet location, away from the flow of traffic in the house.  Your altar should have an undisturbed place of honor. Place statues of deities in high places.  Choose a spot higher than the tallest person in the household.  Clean and maintain altars by discarding dried flowers, fruit, incense and other offerings that are past their prime.

Bathrooms:  Hang mirrors on the outside of the bathroom door if the bathroom happens to be in a wealth area.  Put a wind chime in the window to dam the flow of water, or enery, from the house.  Make sure your toilet has a door to close it off.  Remember the original name for the toilet was water closet.  Keep seats, covers and doors to bathrooms shut at all times because toilets emanate negative energy.  Hang a wind chime that is made of an earth material, such as terra cotta or procelain, or that has five solid clay rods.  This will keep your business and career success from going down the drain.  Always close the lid when flushing the toilet.

Cars:  Choose an automobile that matches your element.  If you are a wood person, choose blue or green. A fire person should choose a shade of red. Metal-element people should select white, grey, silver or gold metallic finishes, and earth folks should pick out beige or tan.  Water-element car owners should  select blue, teal or black.

Dining room: Keep a bowl or an arrangement of fruit on your dining room table to represent continuous sustenance to your family. Put images of food and fruit to represent the abundance and sustenance that you want to attract to your table and your home.  Refrain from hanging too many pictures of birds and other feathered creatures in your dining room, as this will create an imbalance in yang energy. Place persimmons to symbolize joy and festivity. Don't leave cleaning supplies in the dining room.  They symbolize the cleaning out of one's income, good health, nutrition and prosperity.

Elephants: Use a kneeling ceramic elephant on your altar.  The elephant symbolizes longevity, power, strength, wisdom, and high moral standards and is one of Buddhism's seven sacred treasures.  Place pairs of standing or kneeling elephants as guardians flanking the doors of your home on either the outside or inside.

uncle tom's flowers

Flowers:  Decorate your daughter's bedroom with fresh peonies to attract good men to her life, but don't keep pictures of peonies in your home after all the single women have married.  Don't have pictures or vases of peonies in your bedroom if you are already married.  This flower will encourage your partner to stray or seek love interest outside your home. Do use jasmine, which represents women and sweetness.  Narcissus, plum blossoms, hyacinths and orchids or great for enhancing relationships.Chrysanthemums symbolize longevity, dependability and the desire for a long duration of anything wonderful, such as a marriage or career. Pair chrysanthemums with plum blossoms to symbolize an easy life from birth to retirement.  Group them with nine quails to symbolilze harmony and peace for the next nine generations of family. Combine a single lotus blossom with a bud to represent the ideal partnership.  The lotus flower is the ultimate symbol of Buddhism and represents purity, joy and perfection.  Because its exquisite blossoms grow from the mud at the bottom of ditches, lakes and ponds, it exemplifies the possibility that perfection can come from inpurity.  Don't decorate your home, especially your bedroom, with dried flowers, branches, grasses, or potpourri.  These dead objects generate yin energy that can adversely affect your love life.  Do give freshly cut flowers to those who are ill.  This brings them much-needed yang energy.  Replace the old flowers with fresh ones when the blooms wilt or fade. Don't keep an overabundance of flowers or plants in your bedroom as they create lots of yang energy in what needs to be a yin environment to foster good rest.  Three small plants are quite sufficient to produce oxygen and promote health, well-being, harmony and family accord.  Do plant red flowers in the ground or in planters on both sides of a front entrance that faces South.  This provides protection to your family. Do plant flowers on both sides of a straight footpath if it runs directly from your front door to the street.  This strategy will soften the straight line of negative sha energy by slowing it down. Plant or place two tall flowering shrubs on either side of a tree that emanates sha energy directly in line with your front door.  This creates a triangle pointed away from your home and neutralizes the effect of the killing arrow.

aunt diane and uncle bill's garden

Gardens: The most basic law of gardening and life:  you reap what you sow. Plant and nurture seeds of kindness, honesty, compassion and integrity, and that is what you will harvest.  Your garden is a microcosm of the world.  Plan a new view, surprise or delight to be revealed at every step or turn along a garden path. Incorporate curving paths which bring beneficial energy and draw visitors further into your garden. Achieve a balance of yin and yang, light and dark, and soft and hard through the various materials and plants used in your garden.  Your garden should have private and public area, as well as active and meditative ones.  Endeavor to create a garden that looks and feels as natural as possible.  Use colors that are subtle, soothing and harmonious.  Treasure the natural flora and fauna, disturb them as little as possible, and use them to their fullest potential. Share the blessings and abundance of your garden, whether it is in the form of fruits, flowers, herbs or vegetables.  Create mounds or hills if your property is flat, so that it will not have too much yin energy.  Add trees, bushes, walls or hedges to provide balancing yang energy.  Use metal, glass, mirrors, fountains, waterfalls and ponds in the North area of your garden, which is associated with water and is enhanced by metal.  This area also represents business, career, creativity, personal growth, new ideas, inspiration, music, art and intuition. Do not use stones, boulders, clay, brick, ceramics, tile, marble, geodes, or anything else from the earth in the North area of your garden.  Do use stones, clay, brick or ceramics in the North East area which is associated with earth and enhanced by fire - a good place for stone benches or walls, terra cotta decorations, sundials, or a rock garden.  It also represents knowledge, meditation, spiritual and intellectual growth, nature, research and experimentation. Do not use anything wooden in the North East or South West areas of your garden.  Do plant prize specimens of anything you grow for income in the South East, the area for governing wealth. Place fountains, waterfalls, ponds, wooden furniture or steps, decks, trellises and arbors in the East or South East areas, which are associated with wood and enhanced by water.  The East represents family, health, peace, growth, rebirth, harmony; the South East represents prosperity, abundance, communication and perseverance.   Burn your leaves in the South area of your garden.  Do not allow any form of fire, including a barbecue grill or candles, in the West or North West area of your garden. Do put a compost pile, children's garden or playground with metal equipment in the West area of your garden.  This area represents children, fame, creativity, harvest and socializing.  It is a good site for sunbathing, convalescing and entertaining.

Special thanks for the photo shares - family members with the green thumbs. xo