The philosophy behind Feng Shui Part I

I promised an article about Feng Shui so here it is.

First of all Feng Shui taks about nature, about how cycles outside affect/influence cycles within.

We look to nature and cannot help but admire its harmonic rhythm, how trees bloom without anyone telling them - "Hey! It's time to bloom!", how crops reach their peak towards the end of summer, how in fall the trees start to shed their leafs and welcome winter which is like a cold, tough mother who dresses her love in ice and strives through cold to hold life and make it blossom again in spring.

By looking at nature we can also see what happens when the balance is shaken - catastrophes, floods, fires and the entire beautiful cycle described above becomes like a fight regarding which season to take stage first with no regards to the bigger picture.

In my opinion, Feng Shui looks at nature and helps to map the cycle of nature to different areas in life. Everything we have in our house/office represent something that at a subcounscious level influences us. I believe it is better to understand our subcounscious and bring it to surface in a structured, safe way, than to let it manifest itself in unexpected ways that might also cause unbalance in your wishes, actions, thoughts, words.

I will not tell you to follow the exact Feng Shui instructions in a manual, my advise is to understand the elements of nature and how they interact with each other and create balance.

It all starts with FIRE, energy in action, flaming. From the flames and ashes you find the manifestation of EARTH, something tangible. From EARTH, in time, emerges METAL which starts to hold WATER. WATER together with EARTH then nurtures WOOD. And this you could say is the first sub-cycle.

With METAL you cut the WOOD and can use it to make some more FIRE, which in turn makes EARTH again. This is the second sub-cycle which brings us back to the beginning of the first sub-cycle and the two, together, form the big cycle of nature.

There are also a few more interactions between the elemets which are also important:

WATER extinguishes FIRE

FIRE melts METAL

EARTH dams WATER

So when you have a lot of FIRE you need WATER to extinguish it.

When you have too much METAL, you look into bringing WOOD to make some FIRE that will melt METAL. When there is too much WATER, you create grounding (EARTH). When you have too much EARTH you bring WATER and METAL to hold the WATER and then create some WOOD. When there is too much WOOD, you bring METAL to cut it.

All the time make sure the whole bigger cycle is in balance.

What Feng Shui says is to apply this to all areas of life in a practical, physical manner so you have your conscious and subconscious mind in harmony and working towards the same goals.

The areas of life described by Feng Shui and their placements are:

Career - in the North area

Wisdom and Education - in the North-East

Family - in the East

Wealth and Properity - in the South-East

Fame and Reputation - in the South

Love and Marriage - in the South-West

Children and Creativity - in the West

Mentors, Friends, Relationships in the North-West

The placement of these areas, in my opinion, is just like a structure, it is more in a way like saying North should inspire you in your Career, should remind you of your career goals, in the East you have Family and should remind you of how you see a harmonious family, and so on. I believe it helps us to not forget important things.

These are just practices to help you stay in touch with your subconscious. You might find yourself bringing into your decorations some things that you were not aware of and that could influence you in a good or bad way and seeing them in front might bring you some really a-ha moments. But always go with the flow, you can clean after, you can change it later. It is better to bring it into awareness than for them to remain hidden. Nothing remains broken or unbalanced, everything can be adjusted.

Feng-shui helps by bringing some structure and light into subcounscious action. Follow the principles and the main ideas, but build your own way.

I will tell you more about it and go through each of these areas in my next article and explain how each one should be looked at. Keep an eye out on my blog because there will be some very interesting and insightfull information.

And enjoy nature!