RantingWomen.com Women’s Blog

If you’re not familiar with Feng Shui, you might want to look into it. I learned about it a few years ago, after purchasing Sacred Space, by Denise Linn. The premise of Feng Shui is simple… our homes and surroundings carry an energy, and we can harness that energy to create better lives for ourselves.

To give you an intro, just think about this: Have you ever walked into a room where two people were sitting together, but you could “feel” some kind of disharmony - like an argument - “hanging in the air?” It may not be scientific, but it’s practical and true to realize that energy does have its own tangibility, and our homes absorb everything that happens inside them… is your home holding energy that’s bad for you?

If you can go along with the basic principal, then you can begin to turn the energy patterns in your home or office to your advantage. There are many books about feng shui, but for my purposes, I just use a few of them, and the rest falls in place when my environment “feels right.”

For instance, in my office, which is very small, we have a little corner that’s just for hanging out, feeling good. We have two wicker chairs, a plant or two, and a fish tank there. It’s where we go to “chill out” in the middle of a crazy day, shaking off some of the ringing phones, chaos and frustration of life at work. My staff has no set break times. Anyone can go clear their heads whenever they need to. Everyone is more productive after a short break in the “happy zone,” and this feng shui, although not by the book, helps us keep a productive and happy office atmosphere.

We’re a bit playful about feng shui. We don’t do it by the book, but it works for us. When business is slow, April and I readjust the fountain water level, shake salt on the phone to cleanse it of poor results from last week, light candles we designate for different purposes… we totally make it up, but just our own energy intending these things makes it begin to happen.

At home, I use feng shui to guide me in the arrangement of furniture in each room. The room where I work and my kids study has elements of earth, air, fire and water - a fountain, candles, wind chimes, and many plants. This helps center us, and when any of us begin to lose our energy for the project at hand, someone will say “time to do some feng shui,” and we make a quick sweep, cleansing the room to renew the energy.

You can do a few simple things to re-charge the energy of any room:
1. Burn sage
2. Sprinkle salt around, then think about the salt absorbing all the bad energy. Clean up and dispose of the sale (outside)
3. Use bells or drums to create sound energy patterns - fast for added vigor, or calm, peaceful sounds for concentration

Once you’ve cleansed a room, you can then begin again, reassigning the new energy in the room to any purpose. Read about it, but don’t over complicate it. Just be instinctive, tune the energies in your home until they seem right to you… just pay attention to how you feel, and you will be utilizing feng shui to further your productivity and happiness in your own way…

Anne Pierson, Editor

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