Easy Feng Shui Remedies for Your Home
If you have artwork of horses in your home, make sure they’re not positioned as if they’re running out your front door, or chi will run out too!
The green walls and ceramic platter above the stove add Earth element to calm the Fire of the kitchen. A mirror behind the storage canisters, the food they contain, and their associated prosperity, adds luck.
Like other plants with heart-shaped or round leaves, the succulent called jade plant (Crassula ovata) generates prosperity luck when placed in a Wood element location, and its rounded leaves are good for blocking cutting chi. It’s also known as the wealth plant because its leaves resemble pieces of the valuable gemstone.
FIRE AND WATER: PROBLEM BATHROOMS, KITCHENS, AND APPLIANCES
Homeowners are usually stuck with someone else’s decisions about the placement of bathrooms, kitchens, and major appliances. But you should do your best to harmoniously balance Fire and Water in those areas because they’re present in their purest forms and their conflict unsettles the energy of the whole house. Think of what happens, for example, when you put a spoon of cold water into a red-hot skillet. Now think of what happens when you put a spoon of hot water into the same skillet. Just as Chinese medicine seeks to weaken the elements that contribute to an illness rather than obliterate a patient’s symptoms, so Feng Shui approaches elemental conflicts.
Fire rules the kitchen and can be calmed with Earth. If a kitchen’s Water objects (sink, dishwasher, refrigerator) are next to Fire objects (stove, microwave, toaster), separate them with Metal: a container or a metal bulletin board attached to the side of the refrigerator. Add a potted plant or something green because Wood weakens Water. Put away any cutting implements, too.
Water dominates bathrooms and should be calmed with Wood or a stronger antagonist, Earth. If a bathroom opens directly into the kitchen, always keep the door closed and install a mirror on the outside of the door. And if by some chance a toilet lies on the opposite side of a wall it shares in common with the stove in an adjoining kitchen, attach a mirror to the wall behind the stove, the mirrored side against the wall, to block the conflict of Fire and Water. If you apply the bugua to an entire floor of your home, you may see that the kitchen Fire or bathroom Water element conflicts with the guas in which the rooms lie. For example, a kitchen may lie in the Life’s Path gua, which is Water element.
MORE BATHROOM TIPS
Bathrooms can create real Feng Shui problems. Because chi acts like water and literally escapes through open drains, keep sinks and tubs stoppered or covered with a strainer. Keep toilet covers down (especially during flushing!) and bathroom doors closed. Some practitioners also position substantial rocks underneath the toilet tank and attach a small, round mirror to the ceiling directly above the center of the toilet to deflect unhealthy chi back to the source.
Windowless bathrooms need a major injection of yang energy. If your home has a worst-case bathroom because it’s located in the very center of your home and will therefore act like a giant drain sucking away chi, either move to a new house or install mirror panels on all of the bathroom walls, ceiling and door to seal in bad energies.
