15 January 2020 - As we look forward to ushering in the Chinese New Year later this month, we thought it would be a good opportunity to examine the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui. Rooted in practicality, feng shui influences many Hong Kong property owners in how they design or decorate a home. For others, it’s an important consideration for buying or leasing a property. . Regardless of how you view feng shui, here are a few tips on how it can improve and benefit your home for the coming Year of the Rat.
Over 3,000 years ago the ancient Chinese created a rigorous system designed to harmonize people with their surrounding environments and the forces of energy. It was referred to as feng shui (meaning wind and water). Part art, part science… this set of geomancy principles details the ways in which we can best balance the energies, or chi, in and around certain areas of the home to improve our physical and emotional state.
Feng Shui is based on the idea that our homes can serve as a mirror to our energy which ultimately reflects on our physical well-being as well as our feelings. While people often associate feng shui with esoteric ideas like the way wealth may or may not flow to you depending on how your front door is aligned or misaligned, many feng shui prescriptions are actually based on solid logical and sensible ideas. For example, the way a bed is placed in a room in relation to how the sun’s rays enter in the morning will definitely affect your sleep patterns and your well-being. And, say, moving a chair or bed away from electrical wiring or major electrical circuitry embedded in a wall can certainly aid in your overall physical well-being by keeping electro-magnetic waves away from you as much as possible.
The five basic elements underpinning feng shui are: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, each of which offers a distinctive energy quality. There are quite a few details associated with these elements and how they can affect your home, so broadening your knowledge about these would definitely be helpful.
The Feng Shui masters insist that how objects are oriented in a room will aid or hinder both the overall flow of energy and your own personal energy level. Get your surroundings in order and you’ll begin to experience positive flows of energy, which can help many aspects of your life.
Head Northwest this year!
The “Northwest” direction (extremely auspicious)
For 2020, the ‘northwest’ direction will be particularly auspicious. A proper northwest orientation will also aid in greater financial prosperity and increase your chances of a promotion and career advancement. To this end, make sure the northwest area of your home is kept clean and tidy. Moreover, if feasible, open a door or window toward the northwest and orient chairs and your bed similarly. A red or purple blanket placed near at the entrance of your home will help bolster the overall force.
Nice Northeast Nuance
The “Northeast” direction (highly auspicious)
The lucky star will fly northeast in 2020 to enrich the relationships between people, including lovers, friends and colleagues, especially for unmarried persons in love. To help boost the love relationship, place non-white aquatic flowers at the NE area of the home. If you are married, you need to avoid this feng shui layout and lower the chance of extramarital affairs by placing flowers in mud.
Beware the beast from the East
The “East” direction (extremely ominous)
This is the star associated with disaster, misfortune, disputes, accidental injury and bleeding, the most inauspicious among all the nine stars. If your main door, window, seat, bed or stove is in the eastern part of your home, it will adversely affect your health and luck in the coming year. Also, do not place any red or yellow items, or glass, in eastern areas of the home. To counter, try laying a grey or white carpet near your front door, bedroom or kitchen located to the east.
Stay Clear of the Scary South
The “South” direction (highly ominous)
This is the star associated with illness, pain and accidents that flies south, causing disaster and family illness, especially to women. To counter, place a black crystal or “metal” element item like a five-emperor coin, copper pi xiu creature, or copper gourd with strong positive energy just south of a room to absorb the evil and balance out the negative effects
Here are some more solid tips to help put your home in a healthier feng shui state.
Cut the Clutter
A basic tenet of feng shui states that Chi (energy) stagnates whenever a room is filled with clutter. The worst culprits for hindering positive energy, and your life, are messy bedroom closets, overflowing drawers, papers and books stacked everywhere, and piles of clothes. Free up the energy in the room by sorting, removing, or donating articles of used clothing and organize, organize organize. In the kitchen never, let dirty dishes pile up in the sink or have trash overflow in the rubbish bin. Sit down and chart out a declutter list for each room to keep your energy flow on the right track.
Unblock Chi Through Furniture Repositioning
Look at the furniture layout in each room of your home and move large pieces that block the natural pathways of energy. Avoid overstuffing rooms with furniture, leave enough free space so that the chi energy can move freely about the entire room. Experts say that even repositioning your furniture just a little, can free up a great deal of energy. One feng shui master suggests that you move furniture just 18 inches from its existing place to force the room’s energy into a new spaces and this can instantly help to re-energize a room…. and your life.
Make an Enchanting Entrance
Make sure the area outside your front door is clean and tidy in order to create an easy and accessible invitation to enter. Do the same for all the entryways throughout your home. Perhaps a candle placed on the floor, or a wind chime overhead, these will help usher positive energy into a room.
Repair Leaky Faucets and Toilets
We’ve all had to face this financial dilemma before: leaky faucets or toilets that run water constantly. This piece of feng shui advice falls into the highly practical category. Go ahead and spend a few bucks to fix or replace anything not working properly in your bathroom for the simple reason that if you don’t, you’ll be stuck with a constant outflow of income and resources.
Use Mirrors to Optimize Natural Illumination
Natural light coming into a room make us feel more joyful and positive. That’s why the feng shui experts suggest the strategic placement of mirrors in the home. Properly set mirrors are a great help when you want to expand the feeling of space in a room and bring in more natural light. But be careful and make sure the thing being reflected forms a pleasant view and not some pile of clutter that hasn’t been tidied up.
Reharmonize your Kitchen layout
Many modern kitchens are arranged to have two work stations situated back-to-back, such as a sink and stove tops. This is considered a feng shui faux pas because when you have fire right across from water, the water symbolically extinguishes the fire. To solve this conundrum, we suggest a triangular kitchen layout comprising the refrigerator, stove and sink. If a complete redesign of the kitchen proves impractical, you can simply place a wood element between the sink and stove. The reason is that water will feed the wood, and the wood will subsequently feed the fire. The element of wood in this instance acts as a mitigating barrier between the two opposing forces. Interestingly, in the realm of feng shui, wood is symbolically expressed as the color green, so any green item can substitute for an actual piece of wood.
We at OKAY.com wish you a warm “Gung Hei Fat Choi” and good feng shui for the year ahead!
