As Published in PREMIER A HOMEOWNER’S GUIDE August, 2010

The key to making any home delicious enough to attract a buyer’s offer is to infuse it with a large dose of yang chi (vibrant energy) both inside and out. The goal is to hook the potential buyer immediately by invigorating the home with shimmering, welcoming energy that mesmerizes and inspires the sale.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS GO A LONG WAY.
Remove all clutter from the driveway. (This includes the trash cans if they are placed in view). Clear a pathway up to the front door. Place bright sweet smelling flowers on either side of the front door in pots and keep the front garden perfectly
pruned and tended to. This front space of every home is called the bright hall and it represents luck and success. All dead energy here must be scrupulously removed. Fresh paint, on the gate, a bright new welcome mat, squeaky clean windows all create the aura of a vibrant home well cared for and loved.

BRING IN PLENTY OF SUNLIGHT
throughout the entire home. Take down dingy drapes. Tie the clean perfectly fresh curtains back to reveal the graceful energy of the cosmos. Use the morning sunlight to enervate the home and fill it with light. If your entrance is small, paint one wall a bright different color using taste and panache. Make sure there is one room close to the entrance where the buyer can experience a wonderful positive energy. Remove excess furniture and do not overdo things. Quiet elegant simplicity goes a long way. A couple of unique art pieces, statues, or bowls embellish any space and make it richer and hopefully unforgettable. Make the house look twice as big by removing half of the normal furniture. Place the bed in the master bedroom against the main wall and keep the room fresh, crisp, and smelling sweet. Before the open house, use a singing bowl or ring metal bells in every room to awaken the sleeping energy. Go around the windows, doors, bedrooms, and bath to clear way negative vibes or illness that may have settled. This habit of space clearing is powerful and potent and should be repeated before every showing.

NOTHING SAYS STABILITY
like a gorgeous well oiled, perfectly sized sturdy front door. Feng shui philosophy pays enormous attention to the front door, the mouth of chi, as it is the entrance, the major attraction that sets the stage for all the players to come inside. It is a good idea to change the main door handles so that the serious perspective buyer opens the door and connects to the home with his/her own fresh energy. Re-fresh your door with a new coat of paint. Oil it so there are no squeaks and remove anything (plants, shoes, tennis rackets, etc.) that might be blocking the incoming path of energy. Stand inside the door looking out with your compass in hand and determine the facing direction of your front door. Energize your main door. If your door faces South, use a bright light shining downwards towards the door. If your door faces North, place a 6 rod wind chime there. If your door faces East or Southeast, place a water feature near it. If your door faces West or Northwest, place golden rocks near the door. If your door faces Northeast or Southwest, place crystals, lights and a chandelier there to attract good fortune.

KEEP A LIGHT TURNED ON
in the SOUTH corner room that greets the visitor. Lights are wonderful feng shui enhancers. Flower lights, uplights, sconces and lamps all work their wonders. Also, light up the corner diagonal to the entrance door. This light beckons the buyer in and has a powerful pull and attraction. Hang a six rod metal wind chime here as well. If you have them, place one, eight or nine horses (statues or pictures work perfectly) in the SOUTH of the entire home. With a compass, locate the SOUTH location and place your symbolic horses there to activate robust and auspicious energy.

PLACE A GLASS GLOBE
or large smooth crystal ball in the center of the first room that visitors see. This creates powerful earth energy that will help to facilitate an easy smooth transaction enabling the sale to go through like clockwork.

CLEAR THE HOME OF PERSONAL MEMENTOS
like photographs. Hide private items and release new welcoming energy so that a buyer can feel comfortable and cozy taking up the space. Depersonalize the space and allow it to be released to someone new. Sometimes a conscious intent (either spoken aloud or whispered quietly) works wonders. Make up your own or use a favorite of mine, “Today I gracefully and gladly relinquish my desires, memories, attachments to this home and offer them up to the Universe so that I can move on with my life” .“Today I gracefully and gladly relinquish my desires, memories, attachments to this home and offer them up to the Universe so that I can move on with my life”

Try these simple and easy feng shui practices and watch what happens. You will be amazed how positive, quick and easy swelling your home will be. Beguile your buyers with warm welcoming chi and remember to relax, have fun and let the enhanced power of the Universe work its wonders.

Find a large array of practical feng shui products, books, cures, and goodies at my shop. We are located inside Newport Avenue Antique Center, Booth 168, 4864 Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, 92107. For further information call me: (619)298-8889 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (619)298-8889      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

my feng shui shop

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Energy is our most precious personal gift from the Universe. We all know when we meet good energy people and we instantly recognize the happy home where laughter, love and success reign supreme. Here are some surefire practical ways to zap energy stealers and change them into healthy positive energizers that will nourish and sustain our lives.

1. NOURISH INNER SPIRITUAL ENERGY

relax and meditate

Take charge and tap into your inner spiritual power. Discipline your mind to think positively and practice using your inner voice to maintain that healthy dose of optimism that surrounds you like a mantel of protection. Every day discard poverty programming. Keep negative people at arm’s length. Visualize your own success and take just five minutes out of your day to dispel negativity by sitting quietly to meditate. Passively pay attention to your own breath and let each new inhalation bring refreshed energy into your body. This powerful daily practice keeps the mind fresh and the body free from disease. Activate your creativity to tap into your inner power. Sleep enough, take time to dream, sing out loud and remind yourself to be generous to those who need your attention.

2. ENERGIZE YOUR HOME ENVIRONMENT

mouth of chi

Re-energize, update and fire- up your living space every year before Feb 4th. Use a compass and know your correct room directions. Place the important elemental cures in the proper corners and rooms. Zap yearly afflicted areas (robbery star, illness star, three killings, five yellow etc) and learn flying star techniques to energize the corners in the home where positive chi resides. Incorporate the Eight Aspiration theory to enhance each of the eight directions and eight types of good fortune that reside therein. Learn the correct colors, symbols, and auspicious objects that refresh the chi. Zone in and develop a keen awareness to your surroundings and the impact they have on your energy. Move your furniture around to prevent stale blockages. Pay attention to the front door. Paint, fix the squeaks and leaks and make sure that there are no blockages to incoming chi. Open all the doors and the windows every New Moon to bring in that graceful yin energy that nourishes and refreshes.

3. FIRE UP YOUR LIFE

celebrate yang energy

Create personal charisma and take charge of your appearance. Throw out old soiled clothes. Pay attention to your physical body and keep it clean, well groomed and smelling fresh. Wear nice clothes and be ready to receive the good fortune that the Universe can send you. Wear clothes that suit you, make-up that enhances your appearance and jewelry that brings energy into your face. Display only auspicious happy pictures and place lucky enhancers on your dressing table. If your life is stagnant, jump- start it and throw a party. Plentiful food, friendly laughter, and supportive loving friends all bring yang energy into the home. Learn how to activate mentor luck, generate recognition and move your career forward by incorporating feng shui symbols placed in the right corners. Leap out of your old comfort zone and dance into that new place you would love to be. Have courage, display hope and don’t be afraid to laugh out loud.

4. DISPEL ENERGY BLOCKAGES

clear clutter

Clear clutter wherever you can in your home. A home laden with clutter is a home that annihilates energy. It is as simple as that. Chi gets drowned out and turns unhealthy in stale environments that are bursting with old furniture, mold, dust, bad memories and unhealthy fighting. Energy needs room to gather and disperse and clutter gets in the way. Get rid of old pictures, love letters, sorry mates that only brought you grief. Mercilessly go through your past memories and relationships and consciously make the unhappy ones disappear. Celebrate only those times filled with special people that made you feel alive. Go through every closet, every room, every cupboard and clean, throw away and refresh every space. Give away old clothes, throw out broken pottery, jewelry and shoes. Add a fresh coat of paint to brighten and refresh the walls. Engage in space clearing on a regular basis. Burn sandalwood incense to dispel illness, negativity and fighting. Ring metal bells and learn healing mantras. Use singing bowls to go around every window and door. Pay special attention to the bedroom where blockages build up. It is amazing how powerful these practices are if you incorporate them into your daily routine, you will see wonderful results immediately.

5. HEIGHTEN AWARENESS

avoid beams

Attune your senses to your environment, give your space your full awareness and learn to see with feng shui eyes. Learn how to use protective elements creatively to neutralize harmful buildings or structures that may face your home. Understand how to use yin water to quiet nasty neighbors. Protect yourself from protruding corners that may hit your bed while you sleep with creative use of fabric or mirrors that wrap around the offender. Do not sleep under heavy beams in your bedroom as their pressing down energy has the potential to cause disease. Place lamps with very bright lights pointing at the beams to soften the power of the overhead structures or the downward slanting ceilings. Dispel yin energy from antique furniture brought into the home by rinsing it with salt, incense and fresh air. Disarm all energy blocks outside the door. Clear a pathway for the chi to enter. Invite yang energy into the home and avoid too much yin but be sensitive to your own personal needs to find harmony. Above all, be alert to negative people as malicious energy can be debilitating. Remember you are in charge of who enters your home and your life.

6. PREPARE FOR LOVE

prepare for love

If you are looking for love and marriage, feng shui techniques to the rescue. Choosing Mr. RIGHT is your decision as your own heaven luck, intuition and judgments make those decisions, but feng shui CAN bring lots of suitors for your perusal. Adorn your PEACH BLOSSOM DIRECTION WITH THE PROPER ELEMENTS AND SYMBOLS. Discover your personal love direction and sleep with your head pointed to that direction. Activate the southwest of your bedroom, office and living room (if you are female). If the toilet is in the southwest of the home, use another one if you can. Close ensuite toilet doors if they are in your bedroom. Place pairs of crystals, ceramic pots, scholar stones – earth energy in the southwest corners. Kindle the earth symbols with fire energy – lights-. Make sure your bed is big enough for two people and try NOT to sleep on a divided mattress on a bed jammed against the wall where chi is blocked. Remove reflective mirrors and never sleep under heavy beams. Keep computers out of the bedroom. Place double happiness signs, the lover’s knot, lotus flowers and happy pictures of lovers to remind the Universal energy that you are free and in the mood. Get started and learn to let go and surrender to your heart. Be sure to remember to have fun on your journey to renewed energy.

One of the most important concepts emphasized in feng shui is the energetic principle of yin and yang. Energy is all around us and to capture positive chi called sheng chi and avoid hurtful energy called sha chi is the basis for feng shui practice. Meditation and breathing techniques, macrobiotic healing, chi gong exercises, Chinese herbs and medical diagnosis, Ayurvedic medicine all incorporate this concept of energy to heal and raise the life force. This Taoist theory is the root and source of life and death. Darkness and light, fire and water, expansion and contraction, heaven and earth all reflect the mysterious and interconnected yin and yang of existence. When we feng shui our homes, gardens and work places, it is necessary to remember that these energies operate on a subtle continuum. The qualities of yin and yang intertwine in a graceful dance and their harmonic energies create a healthy home where each member can feel safe enough to be healthy, happy and creative.

Yin qualities are characterized by the shady side of the mountain slope, dark colder foods and colors, contraction, female characteristics, rest, quiet, night time, spirituality, inward & downward direction, inhibition, entities that move more slowly. Yang encompasses the light, fiery, energetic male energy, bright, excitement, upper, movement, outward motion, strength, anger, summer hot energy. Yin and yang are interdependent and each contains the essence of the other. They are both continuously transforming and one cannot exist without the other. Nothing is completely yin or totally yang but instead co-exist on a continuum. Day becomes night and then night becomes day. External action taken to its extreme transforms into quietude and from the depths of stillness, movement emerges.

A common feng shui misconception when it comes to creating balance in the home is the idea that there must be EQUAL amounts of yin and yang everywhere. This is incorrect – balance is achieved when HARMONY is created and this harmony is different for different homes in different rooms for different people. To provide a deeper understanding, I will use myself, my home and my family to reveal the subtleties of yin and yang. I am a very active, fast moving, thin, warm female. My birth or BaZi chart shows a strong preponderance of YANG energy. Thus, for me, soft lights, cool colors, the water’s edge,

WIND/WATER

My office is both whimsical and serious with plenty of water to nourish the wood energy I was born with. Yang rules here but yin is present. My kitchen is a busy active place where the yang wallpaper, floors, colors and furniture augment the happy, lively bustle of friends and family.

MY GARDEN

My husband is my strong, steady mountain (yin) and I am his bubbling active stream (yang). Like so many relationships that have lasted over time (thirty years and counting), our personalities and values are well matched and complimentary to each other. His quiet, subtle, introspective softer yin personality balances my excited reactive yang intensity. We like to believe that our daughters have received the best of both of us.

My oldest daughter, born with a preponderance of yin energy, is tall, soft and introspective. When she was growing up in our home, she needed more yang around her to balance her tendency to be introverted and a bit afraid (yin). She could not handle loud noise or loud voices as these frightened her. We cradled this child and protected her as she was delicate and sensitive (more yin). I realized early on that the yang colors (red, orange, purple) suited her, brought out her personality and made up for the lacking fire in her birth chart. I tried to guide her not to wear so much black (yin water) as it really dragged down her spirits and drowned the fire that was already lacking. This daughter’s bedroom needed to be different in colors, décor and arrangement than for my younger daughter who was born with a different constitution, different personality and needs than her older sister.

I encourage each of us to be our own feng shui teacher first and foremost. Instead of passively following someone else’s esoteric advice, it is wise to actively pay attention to the subtle needs and personalities of those around us. It is productive to study the energy and usages of different rooms in our homes so that the colors and furnishings enhance each individual who resides therein. It is important to constantly reassess over time how we feel in our homes and make the necessary energetic modifications. I remember when one feng shui “master” came to my home and commented that my living room was too dark, too yin. He advised us to paint all the gorgeous mahogany wood work stark white.

COZY CORNER

Everything in life including feng shui is relative. My antique furniture is my daughter’s clutter. Her music is my “noise”. My north entrance is my neighbor’s south facing. Harmony thrives in homes where rules are bendable and flexible. There are many instances where a feng shui consult is important and necessary but a feng shui consult that disregards human uniqueness is not going to create the soft cozy home we all crave. Understanding the powerful dance of yin and yang can be an enormous step towards creating that glorious feeling of peace and harmony that inspires each of us to bring our deepest dreams and wishes into fruition. I encourage you to start right now. Be prepared to tune in and use your “inner” eye. The results will astound you.

But that was just the beginning for me. I knew that I loved my life. I adored my children and my husband. I had been so active, so happy, so together and here I was unable to enjoy one minute of my existence. I knew that it was up to me to figure a way out of my life destroying predicament. Because I have always been iconoclastic, a bit different, a ballet dancer, English teacher, yoga student devoted to learning about other cultures, I knew that my way out would come from my personal decision to fight back in a different way. And I did. We left the medical establishment, stopped taking their tests and my husband and I merged our intellects, our passions and our trust in each other to jump into the wisdom of other cultures.

We had the great good fortune to study energy and food with Michio Kushi and macrobiotics. The gift of yoga, meditation and the power of prana were presented to me by my beloved teachers Katy and Behramji Guard. Together they unlocked so many of life’s mysteries of the mind and its relation to the breath. My husband and I studied with Dr. Vasant Lad and Ayurveda with its interest in the power of food, meditation and herbs. We met a magnificent oriental medicine physician named Dr. Matt Van Benschoten and I started taking Chinese herbs four times a day which by the way I still take to this day. His way of diagnosing illness, his genius in regards to the body has blown my mind for the past twenty years. But most of all, when I realized that I got sick right after I moved into my beautiful home, I was led into a deep and rich study of feng shui which ultimately has changed my life for the better.

I am very personally moved by the power of feng shui. For me, it is not an intellectual exercise, a religion or a set of superstitions, but instead a pathway to health and a deep understanding of chi. My studies have given me the gift of information I needed to get out of my dilemma. I read every book on the subject and studied the wisdom of several teachers who have enhanced my life long study of energy- both seen and unseen.

Today I enjoy a normal and full life filled two beautiful children, a deeply fulfilled marriage, good health, a contemporary feng shui website, a shop filled with feng shui goodies, and a life commitment to the study and practice of feng shui as a consultant and teacher. I recount my personal story because it has overtones and lessons for us all. I refused to give in, to accept my fate of being a sick person, a weak person, an unhappy person. I mention this all because it is so keenly tied in with feng shui theory of LUCK which has marvelous meaning for each of us in our modern life.

There are three kinds of luck according to feng shui theory. The first called Heaven Luck cannot be changed. The moment, the hour, the day, the month the year we take our first breath assigns us to personal karma, fate that we cannot fight against. The second kind of luck called Mankind Luck consists of our unique thoughts, our desires, our personal actions in this world; the way we live our lives. This is up to us. We can mold it, change it, alter it and connect to others in positive and creative ways. The third kind of luck Earth Luck has to do with the practice of feng shui, creating our environment in healthy ways, protecting ourselves against negative energy, enhancing good energy, creating homes and work places that encourage good health and vibrant auspicious luck. Thus, if we look closely, it is easy to understand that two thirds of our lives are within our hands to mold, to shape, within our power to develop, to change. This is very encouraging the way I see it. Perhaps our fate hangs over us but in the here and now, we can all commit ourselves to living the best life, the safest life, the happiest life, the most abundant life every day of every year.

I adore studying the concepts of feng shui. I find the theories exciting and useful. I am mesmerized by the rich significance of feng shui symbols. I am enchanted by feng shui interior design. I love working with clients helping them to create happy homes where balance reigns sublime. In my actual practice and experience, I have never looked at feng shui as an old fashioned Chinese mythology from a foreign culture. It has never been for me a series of out dated formulae that have no relevance to modern life. Over years of applying feng shui principles to real people in real homes and offices, it has never ceased to amaze me how valid, correct and potent the results of feng shui can be. The wisdom of its subtleties and nuances have encouraged a workable, creative, positive paradigm for improving my life, all life.

I encourage you to follow along with me through the days and months and hopefully years of this “blob” or blog, or whatever you may want to call it so that I can help you understand, uncover and simplify many feng shui principles so that we all can apply them. I am excited by the prospect of continued writing and sharing about a subject so dear to my heart and I encourage your feedback, your comments and your questions. I am committed to answering them all as best I can. It is fitting on this first day of spring and renewal of nature to lift our crystal glass to learning, to balance, to life.

Feng Shui Fabulous at Del Mar Fair Booth #4368

Drop by and see us at the Del Mar Fair Booth # 4368. The fair starts June 12 to July 2009 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. See you there!!