some more feng shui reading — done

My quest continues, to improve my health, my life, my surroundings. I have recently been making some changes around the house, utilizing the age-old practice of feng shui to improve our surroundings. Feng shui must be big in the British Isles, because three out of five of these books on this list were written by Brits. I'm not sure if that means anything, but it is interesting that most of the books that I am picking up to research the subject turn out to be either written by, or published, in Britain. Here are the latest from my reading list.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui, Third Edition, by Stephen L. Field, Ph.D. 

There was altogether too much math in this book. I found myself doing all sorts of calculations to try and determine what my Personal Trigram is, and what the most (and least) auspicious directions would be in my house. Once I got to the Four Pillars of Destiny I gave up. The emphasis is squarely on improving one's luck and fortune, rather than a harmonious living space, which is more what I'm after. The luck, I believe, will come, once I am feeling happier and more at peace in my home. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui also tries to debunk, in a very snobbish way, some common feng shui "cures" which can be found in just about every other book that I have consulted, such as mirrors used to fix problem areas in the home. According to this book, only the five phases (fire, earth, metal, water, wood) can be used to remedy and enhance feng shui. So with all that math and very little return I am filing this book as a big flop. 

The Feng Shui Handbook: How To Create A Healthier Living & Working Environment (Henry Holt Reference Book), by Master Lam Kam Chuen 

This is a nicely illustrated, general guide to feng shui principles. It includes a good history of feng shui, and has some sample room layouts and cures for common problems. The focus here may be more on the exterior of homes, and would come in handy if one was purchasing a new home and was wondering if its position was auspicious — how it relates to nearby hills, water, and other influences. A nice book to dip your toe into feng shui, but not one to consult if you are looking for some real, practical things to do inside your current home. 

Feng Shui for Your Home: An Illustrated Guide to Creating a Harmonious, Happy and Prosperous Living Environment, by Sarah Surety 

Another nicely illustrated book that offers both feng shui basics and some real-life feng shui cures. The author talks about cleansing a space, which I did recently, as well as other elements to introduce into your home to increase prosperity, such as plants, mirrors, and light. It is an easy, user-friendly read, and one that I might go back to often to consult, if I was going to rearrange some furniture in a bedroom and wanted some tips on where to best position the bed, for example. 

Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui: Free Yourself from Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Clutter Forever, by Karen Kingston 

This is a nice little book that makes the connection between clean house, clear mind. I like how the author covers not only the real day-to-day clutter that we all accumulate and should regularly clear out, like paperwork, old clothes, magazines, etc., but also focuses on how that clutter, whether it is your own, or a partner or family member's, affects your health and energy. A quick and easy read, but one that will make you think a little bit about what you hold onto. Hopefully you will decide that you don't need to be featured on the next episode of Hoarders after reading this book. 

Feng Shui In A Weekend: Transform Your Life and Home in a Weekend or Less, by Simon Brown 

This is a very user-friendly, how-to sort of book, with bright, bold graphics and lots of photos. It includes loads of tips and projects — there are actually many weekend projects to choose from. The author doesn't intend the reader to be able to completely rearrange their home in one weekend, but they could implement many of these cures over time. Like Clear Your Clutter, I liked that the emphasis was as much on taking care of your personal well-being as that of your surroundings. One thing feeds off the other, and the greater goal is to achieve harmony in all aspects of one's life. This is another book that I could find myself going back to for suggestions on quick fixes, such as what colors to paint my daughter's room to help her study, or ways to enhance a bathroom or the wealth area of my home.

I'm not completely done on my feng shui project yet, but I have to say that just a few of the changes I have made around the house since I started, such as reclaiming a space and introducing more plants and changing the flow of our main living space seem to already have made an impact. I feel like our home is more beautiful, more peaceful. There is alway room for improvement, of course, but I really do feel like I'm on the right track. Wish me luck as I continue my journey.

this house is clean

Yesterday I did a cleansing in our home — I lit a white sage smudge stick and went through every room in the house, smoking away any bad vibes and clearing the air for good times and feelings. At the end of the ritual I put cups of sea salt in the four corners.

It's been a difficult year, and there are still stressors in our lives, but lately I have been feeling a lightening of spirit, and I wanted to extend that to hearth and home. After I performed the ritual I couldn't help giggling to myself, as this scene from a favorite film popped into my head.

making some changes with feng shui

I am definitely on a quest this year, to improve my health, my life, my surroundings. I have been making some changes around the house, trying to eliminate clutter and make our environment more eco-friendly as well as aesthetically pleasing. Our home life is still in a bit of disarray — this is a months-long project — but I am hopeful that by mid-Spring I will finally get my home as I want it, which will have all sorts of great effects on our lives. In the meantime, small changes can still make a difference.

I have always been interested in feng shui (pronounced fung shway), and have been doing a lot of research, taking out just about every book on the topic from our local library as well as making charts of our home — how it is and how I want it to be.

Feng shui, which in Chinese means "wind water," is a system of orienting your home in the most beneficial manner, to best utilize qi, or vital energy. There are various schools (form and compass) and types of feng shui which can be used to best utilize the flow of energy inside and outside of your home or office or wherever you would like to apply these principles. Whether you believe that feng shui can improve your luck or not, it is undeniable that streamlining one's life and trying to eliminate clutter cannot help but benefit how you interact and experience your home environment.

All the systems, whether one uses a compass or not, place a grid overlay, or a bagua map, over one's home. The grid is divided into sections which represent the eight aspirations: fame, relationships/marriage, children/creativity, helpful people/travel, career, inner knowledge, family/ancestors/health, and wealth/blessings.

The bagua compass layout

The first book I checked out, 101 Feng Shui Tips for Your Home (Feng Shui Series), by Richard Webster, was a good place to start. Webster introduces the basic concepts of feng shui, as well as offering tips for "cures" — fixing areas of your home that may not be optimally positioned, such as a bathroom in your wealth area, which in feng shui theory might result in all of your money going down the drain. Webster goes through an example house, room by room, pointing out potential problems and solutions for achieving the best flow of qi. The author also applies feng shui concepts to not just the layout of the whole house, but individual rooms as well. One of his quotes about that never-ending challenge, clutter, really resonated with me:

"... If you were one of those people who cannot let anything go because 'it might be useful one day', you're sending out a message that you do not trust the world to supply everything you need. Instead of becoming more secure, the opposite starts to happen and you become more insecure."

I made a map based on his suggestions, utilizing compass directions, which I found easy to use, as living near the coast of Florida makes finding N-S-E-W directions pretty easy to do.

A bagua compass overlay on a sample home layout

Another book, Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life: How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect, and Happiness by Karen Rauch Carter, is definitely designed to make feng shui fun. Carter has a lively, entertaining style and good tips, but she organizes the bagua by the position of the front door of the house, never taking compass directions into account, so it wasn't a book that I could really use as a guide in my home, since I have already decided to go by the compass method. Carter doesn't even acknowledge that there is another way to orient the bagua, and there is not much of a historical discussion of feng shui, in case one might be interested in the practice's 4000 year-old origins. There was an interesting quote right at the beginning of the book, where she asked a physicist named Barry Gordon to explain feng shui from a scientific perspective:

"... Everything is contained in consciousness, which has no boundaries. So the placement of your bed has meaning in relation to the rest of your experience. ... When your bed is moved with intention, the belief and emotion dimensions also move. ... Every thing, even the sticky front door that doesn't open all the way, has meaning. Every thing, every action, is intentional, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious. Feng Shui brings the unconscious in our environment back into consciousness."

I like that.

I did pay attention to the chapter she included with her ideas for improving the center of the home, as the center is always the center, no matter how you spin the grid.

The bagua as a grid, with Knowledge/Wisdom, Career, and Travel/Helpful People always aligned with the wall that has the home's front door

The third book I checked out was Spirit of the Home: How to Make Your Home a Sanctuary by Jane Alexander. This was not solely a feng shui book, but one about honoring exactly what the title says — house spirits. Alexander uses a variety of techniques and belief systems to talk about getting to the heart of one's home:

Carl Jung's four personality types - sensation, intuition, thinking, feeling - as ways to decide how to design your home spaces 

Exercises to work on your "soul home" - imagining your childhood home - something I have done before as a memory exercise

Like most books on feng shui, Alexander considers clutter the enemy, and includes plenty of tips for unloading unwanted or no longer used books, clothing, gadgets, etc. She also talks about space clearing rituals, using Native American smudging techniques. About midway through the book she finally gets to feng shui concepts, and also incorporates color and aroma therapies.

I still have a pile of other books on this topic to get through. I'm not really looking for the definitive feng shui bible, but rather trying to gather as many tips and approaches as I can on the topic to incorporate in my own home, my own way. It's an interesting path to be on.

the oven works!

When I got here it semed as if nothing worked—the oven wouldn't turn on, the washer leaked every time we hit the spin/rinse cycle. It was very frustrating and a bit daunting to have to deal with these domestic inconveniences on top of everything else that was on my plate.

But the washer just had a loose hose in the back, luckily an easy fix,  and the display on the oven is busted, but the oven works fine (and I'm not about to pay $595.00+ to be able to see the clock work.)

Appearances, as they say, can be deceiving, and it's best to take a breath and try again.

Today muffins, tomorrow eggplant parmesan?

in the land of the lorax

Still feeling a little surreal. My stuff is supposed to arrive next week. Still trying to make room. Baby steps . . .

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our first Florida fourth

It was raining big time, but they still manged to put on a good boom-boom display . . .

stuff, stuff, everything and stuff

The boxes haven't even arrived yet. Or, I should say, the THREE crates full of my stuff and I'm already freaking out. Where to put it all? I know it will all work out, but when we arrived yesterday, there wasn't a drawer or closet that wasn't already jam-packed full of my mom's stuff. There was no obvious place for our stuff to go. I was able this morning to organize things a bit and make some room in said drawers and closets. But I have to tread lightly, which isn't exactly what I'm known best for.

I don't want to throw it all out, her stuff or ours. I don't even know if I want to throw any of it out (yet), but I do want all of the stuff to be placed in a more logical, less space-consuming manner. I'm a Virgo, so I thrive on this sh*t, even when it drives me nuts.

I'm going to be busy. For quite a while.

But let the Master tell you how I'm feeling . . .