Feng Shui

Stagnant Water and Jami's Forgetfulness! (part I)
By Jami Lin
Feng Shui Expert and Licensed Interior Designer

Even Feng Shui practitioners sometimes forget to be conscious about their Feng Shui when busy with day-to-day activities. I had a beautiful fountain in the north to inspire flowing career opportunities. When it clogged, sputtered, and soaked everything within a two-meter radius, it was turned off and a mental note insured that it would be promptly adjusted. Of course, within seconds, it promptly flowed out of my mind....

A few weeks later I sat down on the adjacent bench and was eye-to-eye with the stagnant water. "No wonder why everything seemed to be double work, taking twice as long, or at a standstill. I'm glad it was only a few weeks!"

We need to regularly pay attention to our Feng Shui and to the symbolic representations of the objects we place in our environments. As with the most important and primary Feng Shui premise, everything in life is always changing, as you change-and hopefully you are, your Feng Shui may also need to change. With so much attention to traditional Feng Shui cures and their significance, such as in my fountain example, remember that everything in your environment has an effect on you. And Feng Shui symbols are found in everyday items that we create ourselves, personally select and purchase, that are given to us, and/or that just somehow accumulates. Regardless of how items show up in your home, they need to have beneficial representations and be appropriate to your current needs and desires.

Consider the following ways that items have materialized in your home, their symbolic representation, and how they may be effecting you. Depending on the conscious or unconscious meaning the item has for YOU will determine its influence. After reading these few examples, periodically walk through your home and "assess the story" of your objects to determine its benefit or if it has become unsupportive and perhaps detrimental clutter.

"I made it myself." Items that you make yourself are one of the most powerful symbols in Feng Shui as they contain personal-creation energy, your very heart and soul is in the item. In this consultation, notice how the symbol and its location was effecting this very talented artist and author.

At this stage of life, Rachel's greatest life desire was to be recognized for her writing, teaching, and artistic contributions. However, hanging in the entry vestibule of her home was a self-portrait that she painted while in college over twenty years ago. In addition to the fact that the painting held the personal-chi of a specific time in her life, symbols in the entry of any environment are very significant because it is the room of first impression. Not only did the painting influence the way she unconsciously saw herself, but also because it was seen by all who enter, it influenced her impression of how the world saw her. To make the "young, just starting out" symbol even less beneficial to current desires, the painting was positioned on the south or Fame wall. As a person who continually develops her personal chi (a very important aspect of Feng Shui that we'll talk about in a later article) as soon as I mentioned the painting and its location, Rachel identified its effect and said, "It is time to get rid of it, that is not who I am anymore, and my life as a college student will not help to be acknowledged or receive fame for my adult work."

"Pay attention to the symbols that you grow out of." It doesn't matter how old you are to potentially grow out of some of the symbols that surround you.

I don't know how many consultations that I have done where adolescents still have their room full of stuffed animals. Sure, they can keep a favorite or two (I've got my 20, er, 30-year-old teddy in the west to keep creativity and spontaneity alive!), but all those childlike eyes keep young adults from seeing grown-up responsibility. Additionally, often there are so many of them collected over the years that they become more clutter-like, leaving no room for independence, new ideas and opportunities.