Living Energies of your home By Michael Warden Most people have experienced walking into a house or a building and instantly liking the way it feels, or instantly disliking it. Probably many people have also experienced how this response is not simply a matter of decor or style, since a negative feeling may persist despite attempts to improve the house. In the case of the 'feel good' building, it may feel good in spite of the style and decor not being to your usual taste, or even being a little delapidated. And how about people for whom life is suddenly going really well, or really badly? Have you ever heard anybody say '"It's been ever since I moved into that house"? Well, Feng Shui is about taking the guesswork out of these responses and experiences, and about increasing the extent of the positive responses. Your house is a living pool of an energy known to the Chinese as 'chi', which gets absorbed into your body all the time you are in the house. If one starts from the view that Chi is what keeps you alive, and determines the state of your mental, emotional and physical health (which is exactly the view that traditional Chinese medicines, including acupuncture and herbal medicine start from) it is easy to see that your life can be profoundly affected by your house. The quality of chi in any building is determined by host of complex factors, including the location of the house, the direction it faces, the direction which the front and back doors face, colours, and shape or form. Since directional influences and colour have been introduced in previous articles, the emphasis for now is on shape, or form. Chi is affected by the way it moves, and the way it moves is affected by the shapes it flows over and around. The Chinese say 'chi follows form', which means that the quality of chi is affected by the way it moves, and the way it moves is affected by the shapes it flows over and around. We can follow the chi on its journey into your house and consider how this happens at each stage. Imagine first of all, chi rising up from the Earth and moving around according to the undulations of the landscape (this may be unconventional to a Western mind, but if you think of rising Earth chi at the same time you think of plants growing, maybe it won't seem quite so strange!). Its circulation will also be affected by movement, such as rivers and roads, and by gradients, down which chi will naturally flow. In the course of all this, the chi will flow over and around many shapes, and each of these will affect the way it moves, just as the shape of a watercourse will affect the way the water moves. Some shapes will give rise to movements which will make the chi more life enhancing, and some will cause it to become sha (destructive) chi. Different shaped hills and buildings for instance will have different effects on the chi, and telegraph poles for instance often (but not always) create sha chi. Chi enters the house both by rising up through the soil beneath the house and via windows and doors when they are opened Now the chi is coming into the house, both by rising up through the soil beneath the house and via windows and doors when they are opened. Windows also let in sunlight, which is another form of chi, whose life giving effects are obvious. However, it is doors whose shape size and position is the more critical to Feng Shui. The front door must be proportion to the size of the house, otherwise not enough chi will come in. (As an aside, an to illustrate again the layers of detail in Feng Shui, there is also various systems of measurements, certain dimensions have a more positive effect on chi than others). Once inside, interior walls and doors play a big part in determining how the chi will move about the house. A detailed analysis of this, combined with the directional influences given by the Feng Shui compass or Lo Pan, and the influence of the five element energies of fire, earth, metal, water and will determine where the chi is supportive and unsupportive in each room, and in the house as a whole. Generally, a house should be light and airy, and kept free of clutter - good generalisations which most books and articles usually mention - it is so that the chi (and you!) can circulate easily. Even the way that the interior doors are hung will affect the way the chi circulates in a room. For 'yin' rooms (bathrooms, toilets, bedrooms), the door should be hung so that it hides the room when you are entering. For 'yang' rooms (kitchen, dining room, living room, study), it should be hung so that it reveals the room .   Beams always get a bad press in Feng Shui... Beams always get a bad press in Feng Shui. The reason is that they cause a depression in the chi, which will subtly affect your breathing and your long-term physical and mental health. However, they are generally not a problem if you don't put your desk, your favourite armchair or your bed beneath them, and they are not a problem if you sleep under them on an occasional basis, for instance in a guest bedroom. Built in wardrobes which include overhead storage above the bedhead have the same effect. (I know that this one will affect many readers; if you really can't remove the overhead part of the structure, use drapes of fabric in a gentle curve from the front edge of the cupboards to behind the headboard of the bed. This will certainly soften the effect. It is preferable though, not to have any storage cupboards or shelves above your head at all.   Yes, the toilet really does affect the chi! How could I write about the chi in your house without mentioning the toilet? Yes, it really does affect the chi. The reason is that chi has a particularly strong affinity to water (as already mentioned in relation to rivers). Toilets are therefore one of the principle places where chi leaves the house, as the water leaves. So if your toilet is positioned where the good chi is, then it will be detrimental, and if it can't be moved, you will at least need to keep the lid closed and the door closed, and put some plants in there as they will encourage the chi upward. However, it may that your toilet is just at the place where the negative chi is, in which case it is very well placed. In many houses the positioning of the toilet is neutral. Determining which is the case is not as simple as looking at which of eight compass directions it is located in. It will differ for each house.   All of the negative influences of form upon chi can be countered by good use of Feng Shui All of the negative influences of form upon chi can be countered by good use of Feng Shui. Sha chi from a telegraph pole or tree near the front door can be absorbed by water in the form of a small fountain, or averted by building a porch with the door facing a different direction (don't forget that changing the direction will change the quality of the chi!). Beams can be covered by elegant false ceilings of fabric. Doors can be re-hung. Imbalances of fire, earth, metal, water and wood chi can be corrected using a shape which lends the chi a quality of the balancing element - square for earth, pointed for fire, upright for wood, round for metal and undulating for water. (It can also be balanced using colour). And as always, detailed readings from the Lo Pan will determine exactly which aspects of your life will be affected by the various influences.   Experience is invariably more convincing than intellectual argument.... At the end of all this, you might want to ask "Isn't this whole idea of chi a bit nebulous?" Well, yes it can be, in the same way that trying to define what life is can be. Experience is invariably more convincing than intellectual argument. Feng Shui practitioners sometimes demonstrate or confirm that there is sha chi at a particular place by standing sombody well away from the sha with one arm up, parallel to the ground, and trying to push it down. The exercise is then repeated standing in front of the sha, and people are frequently amazed to find that in the second test they have virtually no resistance at all. Usually the difference is not subtle - in one spot the arm stays strong and firm, and in the other there is virtually no resistance at all. The effects of chi can be that instantaneous. If you are the kind of person who doesn't worry too much what passers by may think, you might even want to go out with a friend and see if you can find a telegraph pole which is causing sha chi, and experience it for yourself!