LAMORINDA WEEKLY | Feng Shui


The front entrance door should ideally always be visible from the street and the door color should pop. Photos Mandala Feng Shui

So many of you have asked me specific questions about the location of your homes, and whether they're in an auspicious or favorable position, as well as what specifically to avoid when considering a home purchase, so let's take a deeper dive with this theme.

Healthy Feng Shui includes a lot of common sense characteristics as well as the "Qi" or energy of all structures. Auspicious Feng Shui structure locations include those on wide streets that meander near water, those with ample natural light, homes that are located above the road and that sit squarely in the middle of an even lot, and have a curvy path to a well-appointed home front entrance door. Inauspicious locations include neighborhoods where the surrounding Qi is industrial, draining, dirty, noisy and chaotic. Narrow dead-end cul de sac roads can choke Qi, and homes that are located below the road, have a steep drop-off in back, or face a steep hill in front can drain energetics as well.

Feng Shui aims to attract and maintain good fortune, health and happiness, and it is why so many Chinese cities are purposely cited adjacent to moving water and mountains to the back, if possible. The strength of the "Landform Feng Shui" has its roots in rural China and even earlier, in the indigenous Tibetan Bon peoples, using the seasons in their nomadic lifestyles and building monasteries and the communities around them in strategic, often lofty and difficult to reach places. Even the Minoans of Crete knew that the sea should be in front and the mountains in the back and the Minoans are also credited with having created some of the earliest bathrooms, with long-lasting slate tiles for floors.

Please don't worry if you already live in a home with difficult Feng Shui, because the art of FengShui alone can "adjust" even the most challenging Qi. Having said that, it is still recommended to begin with beneficial Feng Shui so that fewer Feng Shui "adjustments" or "cures" are required, to immediately correct and then to maintain balance over time.

Any "feelings" or "vibes" we get from a structure should not be overlooked. This should also include the neighborhood and street that leads to the actual property. Is it hard to find the home or are the streets that lead to the structure narrow? There's not much one can do about those concerns after you purchase a home, but you can create a soothing Feng Shui environment by applying effective time-tested remedies. This can be used for interior fixes of things like the front door aligned with the back door, the kitchen stove visible from the front door, or the bathroom located in the center of the home, for example.

As we move from outer (yang) factors influencing the Qi that comes to your door, the Qi that affects us the most is inside the home (yin).

Always start by overlaying the Bagua over your home and land lot. (Stand in the front yard, looking into the yard. The far right Bagua area is always the Relationships/Marriage area). We can overlay the Bagua over a home, a yard, your office desk, even Ford Motor Company overlayed the Baugua on their cars.

To give you an example of focusing on one Bagua area, a few years ago, a Canyon Ranch Tucson colleague was interested in having a partnership after many years of going solo. When I visited her lovely adobe home, I found that she had numerous broken clay pots in the Relationship yard area.

After clearing the broken pots we next placed two new large clay pots (Earth) with healthy red (Fire) geraniums symbolizing fiery, blooming, and grounded partnerships. It was only a matter of months before she met someone special and moved to Phoenix to make it official. We continue to meet annually to assess new goals for the coming year and the couple remains intact.

If you pay attention to your environment you will experience the true restorative properties that home is meant to create and sleeping well at night will be a blessing . but that topic is for another time!