Happy Chinese New Year!

February 1st is the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year festival. And 2022 is the year of the Yang Water Tiger, meaning this will be a very active year. 2022 will take on the characteristics of this Chinese Zodiac Animal.

People born in the year of the Water Tiger are admired for their strength, daring, and courage in fighting evil. They are smart, humorous, and good at socializing. Water Tigers are adaptable, open-minded, and more in touch with their emotions. They tend to be lucky with money.

Year of the Water Tiger 2022 Trends for You

2021 was the Year of the Metal Ox, meaning slow and steady progress. Sometimes so slow it felt like no progress at all.

2022 is an energetic year, a time for making big changes, risk-taking, and adventure. The Water element brings out intense emotions. Use the wisdom of the Water element to understand the deeper source of emotions, both yours and others. 

After two years of pandemic restrictions, this may be the year to fly with your dreams, finding enthusiasm for ourselves and others again, combined with generosity and a desire for social progress. It is important to guide your big decisions and big emotions by tapping into both your wise intuitional self and your rational logical self. And, keep your ego in check.

Using the inherent energy of this year, actively pursue interests and goals. Projects completed this year will have a lasting impact. Projects begun this year aiming toward the future will have extra support this year.

The forward momentum of the year will not be without delays. Use the Water aspect of this year’s Tiger to go with the flow when progress is stalled, and go deeper seeking to understand their underlying causes.

Year of the Water Tiger 2022 Trends Summary

Stay focused and active in achieving your goals, while seeking a deeper understanding of the people and events around you this year.

2022 may feel like a roller coaster ride with many ups and downs. Tighten your seat belt, by the end of the year you will see overall gains.

Mercury Moves Forward

Good News: Mercury, the ruler of communications and electronics, will be going direct on Thursday, Feb 3, 2022.  That means the delays, breakdowns, and miscommunications that have made the last three weeks difficult, will resolve and allow forward motion.

Thich Nhat Han

Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Han died last week at the age of 95. He generously shared his wisdom with us in the West.  Here is a quote from one of his books in honor of him.   

“The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.” 

– Thich Nhat Han, Living Buddha, Living Christ.

Gung Hoy Fat Choy!!!

I will be teaching an in-person class for Arlington Community Education,

this Wednesday, Feb 3, 2022 on

Hygge and Interior Psychology: How to Have Fun This Winter.

Click here to learn more

To learn more about Nurturing Spaces Feng Shui click here!

Chinese New Year Intentions for 2021

The Chinese/Lunar New Year is an excellent time to refresh or revise (update) your Feng Shui intentions. Intentions are the “secret sauce” of Feng Shui. They help you clarify for yourself what kind of good luck you want to bring into your home or office, and your life.

Feng Shui intentions are specific to particular areas of the ba-gua; the feng shui template of life energy areas:

1.   Analyze your space for the best orientation of the ba-gua template.
2.   Identify the three or four aspects of your life you want to energize or support, right now. Choose the part of the ba-gua each wish/intention matches.
3.   Place a cure in the area of your space that aligns with the gua you are energizing. (Please note: The various charms, coins, jewelry, and figurines sold online as Feng Shui cures have no special power. I would rather see you choose an appropriate cure from what you already own that makes you happy.)
4.   Ritually attach your intention to your chosen cure.

For example, Feng Shui intentions to start a new love relationship or strengthen a current one:

1.   Identify the area in your space that coincides with the Romance/Marriage/Partnership area of the ba-gua.
2.  Place your romance cure in that area of your space.
3.  Think of your intentions for romance in your life.

You can do the same specific cures and intentions for Wealth, Health, Career, or any of the nine guas in your space.

Take some time to explore what you really want. Jot notes in a journal, go for walks to let your imagination soar.

If refreshing your feng shui intentions this week doesn’t work for you, no problem. You can start thinking about them now. Do them when you’re ready and have the quiet to focus.  

Important: Before you refresh or revise your intentions, declutter and clean that space. Why? Clutter blocks beneficial Chi; your cures will be less effective in a dirty or cluttered space.

See More about Feng Shui Intentions, Romance, Cures, and the Ba-Gua

Wealth and Energy

Make Your Bedroom a Sensual Retreat

Bedrooms, Romance, Yin and Yang

Valentine’s Day is for Everyone

Myth of the One Best Cure

Ba-Gua

Trends for 2021, Year of the Metal Ox

The Ox is the diligent worker of the ba-gua. Continue work on projects you started last year. You will have success with them this year. Slow and steady wins the race. The Metal element in Traditional Chinese Medicine influences the lungs. With coronavirus still around, it is important to protect your lungs: mask-up and follow COVID precautions.

If you are interested in a personal consultation to create a Feng Shui environment to support your intentions, contact Linda here.

Whether you have turkey on your Thanksgiving table or not,
I wish you the Happiest Thanksgiving!

All my best, Linda

Save the date!

Upcoming Feng Shui, and Hygge for cozy home life presentations in January 2019.
Start your New Year with new energy.

Click here to see more.

Favorite Feng Shui Cures

My favorite Feng Shui cures are artwork and personal treasures. Why? When something gives you pure joy it lifts your personal Chi.

When I am working with a client and see a photo, painting/print, or memento on display in their home, I ask them about it. Often I see their faces light up when they tell me where they got it, who gave it to them, what it reminds them of. Their glowing faces are evidence that their personal Chi is rising. This tells me the object is a powerful cure.

Personal Treasures as Feng Shui Cures

When an object has:
– Positive memories associated with it, that gives rise to
– Positive energy embedded in the object, which gives
– Positive Chi energy in the space, which
– Supports your personal Chi energy.

These objects will also remind you, consciously or unconsciously, of the people, places and events you love the most. They lift and empower your Chi better than any Feng Shui cures you can buy online.

Another benefit of using personal treasures as Feng Shui cures is they help your home be an expression of you. You feel more at home.

I moved this year, and one of the last things I did was to hang up my paintings and art prints. Even though I know this intellectually, is was so nice to experience the feeling of my favorite things making my new place feel like home.

Look for your Own Personal Feng Shui Cures

Look around your own home at what you have as decoration. Do you really love it? If not is there something tucked away that you do love that you would be happier with? Find it and prop it against the wall or, if it is a memento, place it on a shelf. How does it look there? Most importantly, how does it feel to you? If you smile when you look at it, lifts your spirits, or just “feels right,” you may have found new powerful Feng Shui cures for your home.

Clutter Caution

You do not need to, nor should you, display everything that brings you joy. This is called clutter. Clutter creates negative energy.

If you want to learn more, look at:
No More Anonymous Art

If you would like a personal Feng Shui consultation, please contact me

Images by Annie Spratt and Mitchell Hollander, both Unsplash

In Feng Shui, before you can attract beneficial Chi to a specific area of your home (wealth, health, romance) you need to draw Chi to your front door. Your front door is the “mouth of Chi”, where Chi enters to nourish and energize your home and your self.

A classic Feng Shui cure is a red front door. How does a red door work? It captures attention, it has energy (in this case color energy), and in traditional Chinese culture the color red is thought to bring luck.

How to draw Chi to your front door so it can enter and energize your home?

Something that catches the eye will also catch Chi. The best Feng Shui cures are objects with their own energy: plants, and personal treasures; and things that enhance the energy of a space: mirrors, stained glass or crystals in sunlight. This creates many options for enhancing your front door.

“Where the eye goes, so goes Chi.”

1. Color

Red is traditional, but any bold color will work. (The “Good Taste Lady” in me suggests the bold door color compliment the basic color of your house.)
Consider: Purple, Cobalt Blue, Sunny Yellow, or Bright Green.

 
 
 

2. Plants

Planters, potted plants or a walkway bordered with greenery or living colors. Healthy plants have chi and will attract Chi to themselves and to your front door.

3. Bold Decoration

Add a stylish mailbox instead of your standard, utilitarian one. Find a mailbox with bold color or intriguing hardware.

Use large graphic house numbers.
Working with a client, who was a graphic designer, we came up with the idea of painting his house number on the extetior wall next to his front door in a very large font in a color that complimented his house. This not only attracted Chi, but added zing to the modest exterior of his ranch house.

4. Lighting

Your house needs more than a single 40 watt bulb above the front door. I’m not suggesting you spotllght your entry, but a couple of energy efficient light fixtures near your front door will make your home more welcoming for visitors and Chi.
 
 
 
 
 
 

5. Good Maintenance

All of the above assume you give your house good maintenance. Enhancement will be useless if you have a broken step, stuck front door or non-functioning door bell. It would be like putting lipstick on a pig: It won’t attract Chi and the pig will be mad.

Note: While some of these photos show several cures, more is not necessarily better. One good cure is more powerful than several weak cures.

What is the first and easiest thing you can do to create Front Door Magic for your own home? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

Click here to read about “Porches for Pleasure”

Wealth Bagua

 
 
“The more he does for others
The more he possesses,
The more he gives to others
The more he has.”
-Tao Te Ching, 64, Wilhelm

(Please note: I read “he” as gender neutral.)
 
 
 
 
Reading this I think about the Helpful People/Travel aspect of the Bagua. Usually this is interpreted as the mentors and benefactors in your life. People who help you. How is Wealth connected to the Helpful People?

Energy Flow for Wealth Bagua

Opposite areas on the Bagua are energetically connected:

• Helpful People is energetically connected to Wealth/Blessings
• Career is energetically connected to Fame/Reputation/Recognition
• Knowledge/Inner Wisdom is energetically connected to Marriage/Partnership
• Health/Family/Heritage is energetically connected to Children/Creativity.

This energy flows back and forth.

You usually think of energizing a particular area of the Bagua in your home to bring Chi energy to that aspect of your home and your life. Doing so brings Good Fortune in the form of energy, luck or opportunity into that part of your life. Energizing the Helpful People area brings people into your life that guide you to wealth, or the opportunities to create or earn money.

Wealth Bagua Energy Goes Both Ways

You can activate the Helpful People gua to support you in being a helpful person to others. You can be a helpful person either through direct action or through giving of your wealth and blessings…

And in the giving, discover how much you really have.

Need help figuring out how the bagua works in your home?
Want Feng Shui solutions that work for your taste and lifestyle?
Contact Linda today

Learn how Feng Shui supports you during life transitions or to gain a new perspective on what your purpose is.

Feng Shui anxiety is the worry that you are not doing Feng Shui perfectly. If you worry that if they make a Feng Shui mistake bad things will happen, I want to tell you Feng Shui doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way. Learn the Five Components of Fortune and overcome Feng Shui Anxiety.

Feng Shui is only one of five factors that influence your success and happiness in life, according to Su Shi (an eminent 11th century Chinese minister, poet and essayist who experienced honor, prosperity, loss and restoration). Feng Shui, good or bad or used improperly, is not the sole determinant of your luck and life. You have choices, many ways to influence your life and happiness.

Professor Lin Yun, my first Feng Shui teacher, taught us the five components that influence your life are:
Destiny,
Luck,
Feng Shui,
Karma and
Education.
The first two – Destiny and Luck – are believed to be un-changeable, while the last three – Feng Shui, Karma and Education – are changeable.

Learn How to Overcome Feng Shui Anxiety and Work with the Five Components.

Learn how the two “un-changeable” factors aren’t as “unchangeable” as thought.

Destiny – Yuanfen – Connections with others in your life
Luck – Yùnqì – Opportunities and how you use them
Feng Shui – Harmony and balance with Chi, nature and self
Karma –Yīnguǒ – Law of cause and effect
Education – Su Zhi – Cultivating a well-rounded moral self

Destiny – “Fateful Connections”

Destiny or Fate is similar to Jung’s synchronicity: when you encounter someone and feel an immediate connection.

Yuanfen or “fateful coincidence” is when people are “placed in your life.” They may be family members, friends, lovers, business associates. Yuanfen is based on karmic connections you had with someone in a past life. Recognizing you have things in common is recognizing your yuanfen connection. You are destined to influence their life, and they are destined to influence your life.

You may not have a choice in who you are destined to be connected with, but you do have choices in what you do with and for that person. You may have no choice who your relatives are, but you can choose to treat them with decency and respect, and figure out what you need to learn from them in this lifetime.

Luck – Blessings and Challenges

The dictionary defines luck as “believing that whatever happens, either good or bad, to a person in the course of events is due to chance, fate or fortune.”

Luck in the Five Components are periods of good luck and periods of bad luck. This is related to astrology. Some people try to influence luck with charms, colors, numbers or compass direction positions.

Although a minor influence in Chinese thinking, Buddhism teaches whatever happens does so because of cause or causes and not because of luck, chance or fate. The Buddha teaches us that it is far more important to develop our hearts and minds and be wise in the actions that are the causes of your life.

Sometimes people focus on luck believing it will bring them happiness in the form of wealth and fame. Happiness is true prosperity. It does not come from luck, but from living a life of honesty, kindness, understanding, patience, forgiveness, generosity and loyalty.

Feng Shui – Harmony for Personal Empowerment

Feng Shui is the the first “changeable” component of the five.

I approach Feng Shui as the key to creating homes and other spaces that are in harmony with the principles of Nature and the Universe: Chi, Yin/Yang, and the Five Elements. Use Nature as your gateway to understanding these principles.

Harmony with Nature is harmony with Chi,
Harmony with Chi is harmony with Life and the Universe.
Harmony with Life and the Universe is the source of Empowerment.

With Feng Shui support and Chi energy you are more able to act on your wishes, dreams and goals.

Karma – “What Goes Around Comes Around”

You may think of karma as the rewards or punishments for what you did, or didn’t do, in a past life.

The Chinese word for karma is yinguo. The word “yin” means “reason” or “cause,” while “guo” means “result” or “effect.” Karma as the law of cause and effect. If you believe in reincarnation, then it can be deeds from past lives effecting you in this life. Or you can simply think of karma as the law of cause and effect in the here and now. “What goes around, comes around.” No need to believe in past lives, no need to wait for a future lifetime.

More simply, karma is the acknowledgement that what you do (good or bad, wise or foolish) has consequences for you, now. You have choices.

“According to the seed that’s sown,
So is the fruit you reap there from,
Doer of good will gather good,
Doer of evil, evil reaps,
Down is the seed and thou shalt taste
The fruit thereof.”
– The Samyutta Nikaya

Education – A “Quality” Education

Education has been esteemed in China for thousands of years. It was how you worked your way up the Imperial hierarchy. Today advanced college degrees are respected in the Chinese business world.

The education that is most esteemed is Su Zhi Jaaya – a “quality education,” meaning a well-rounded and moral education that gives you the knowledge and wisdom to make the right decisions baed on critical thinking, problem solving and analytical skills.

With a well-rounded education you make wise decisions that will bring benefit to your self and others, now and for the long-term.

Summary of the Five Components to Your Success in Life

If you struggle with Feng Shui Anxiety, “did I do it right?’, rest assured Feng Shui works in harmony with the other Components of Life.

Destiny places people in your life with strong connections to you. The kind of relationship you have with these people is your choice. Flourish together. Learn from them – even difficult lessons from difficult people – which will benefit you in the long run.

Luck may give you periods of blessing and periods of challenges. Developing deeper qualities of honesty, kindness and understanding will support you during both.

Feng Shui gives you ways to enhance the Chi of your space and your personal Chi. You choose to do this or not. You choose how you want to use the energy and opportunities that Chi brings to you.

Karma is the law of cause and effect. Simple acts of kindness will come back to you.

Education is the knowledge that guides you to smart decisions. Moral education is the wisdom that guides you to a life of true happiness.

My wish for you is the happiness that comes from a life of wisdom and kindness.

If you would like a Feng Shui consultation to help you harmonize and empower the Chi in your home and your life, contact me.. If you are struggling with feng shui anxiety, contact me I will show you how to work with feng shui and the five components to success in life.