Where Energy Flows

I have two tall beeswax candles in my bedroom which is also in the Health area of my home. They are a lovely golden color, they give off positive ions, and they smell ever so slightly sweet.

They are really bugging me and I need to take them down.

But I haven’t.

You see, I am leaving them there because they:
1. fill up an empty wall well
2. are the perfect Health enhancer (Earth color and Fire that supports Earth Energy)
3. were really expensive
4. give off positive ions

They are bugging me because I convinced myself I needed them, and that once I had them I would feel good. So these poor, innocent candles now represent stuff that I think I need in order to make myself feel better. Stuff isn’t the answer of course. The answer is learning how to feel better without buying anything. This isn’t all that easily done – it takes lots of practice, time, patience, and love.

I am worth it though gosh darn-it!

The candles stay for now. I do like the way they smell. I also like how you have to work at shaping beeswax candles as they burn. You have to keep pushing down the wax, yet without causing an overflow.

I find this extremely symbolic of inner strength and health. You have to keep at it, pay attention and stay in the flow. Just remember not to push too hard and too fast because you might cause an overflow.

© Copyright Elise Rebmann, 2008. All rights reserved.

Traditionally in feng shui the career area is about what you do for a living, but it can also refer to your passions in life. In recent years it has become popular to talk about passions as if they were everyday common sense sort of things – as if we all could concisely describe our passions and were actively living them. 

In teaching Soul Coaching classes, I find that one of the reasons people have difficulty manifesting goals and dreams – using the law in of attraction in their lives — is because they do not know precisely what they are. The Career Area is as much about exploring passions as it is about helping your career to flourish.

It is interesting to note that the trigram for the career area translates to Deep Water. It means the process of going deeply inside to find the quintessential nature that is you. This is deeper than passions (or another way to put it is what lies underneath your passions). Most of us actually have more than one passion, with each representing a different phase or time in your life. Some of these naturally fade out out and then return with renewed interest. So you can say that the Career area is also about change, or alchemy. If you look at the nature of water, this is very fitting because water changes shape radically, from cloud to fog, mist, rain, snow and ice; from fresh to salt water, yet underneath water is quintessentially water. Similarly with passions, if you look closely enough, you will discover there is a common thread that runs throughout your life in these passions, one which relates to your values and inner purpose. This will connect you to the quintessential nature that is you, and will tell you what you need to feel whole. 

Working with the Career Area is an opportunity to transform your life from ’settling’ to choosing your life. Working with a life coach is often very beneficial in exploring these questions. As a Certified Soul Coach as well as being a Feng Shui Master, I have combined the two modalities into some unique offerings. You can read more about this at Feng Shui Coaching.

Traditional Feng Shui Enhancements to Activate the Career Area

Locate the Career Area of your home. (Click here to see the bagua map). To enhance your career or explore your passions in life, use some of these feng shui enhancements in the Career area your home:

Locate the Career Area of your home. To enhance your career or explore your passions in life, use some of these feng shui enhancements in the Career area your home: 

 The colour for this area is black or very dark shades of other colours

• Add items related to the element of water such as fountains and water features.
• Use images and symbols of water - oceans, lakes, or waterfalls.
• Mirrors represent the element of water.
• Include objects which remind you of your career such as diplomas and awards.
• Put items that represent your passions in your life.
• Add items that represent your journey, inner search for meaning or wholeness in your life.
• Since fire puts out water, anything related to the element of fire should be reduced or eliminated. This include symbols of fire: images of the sun or sunsets, candles, fireplaces, sun colours (red, orange) and triangular shapes. Electrical appliances are also the in the fire element family, so consider removing any extraneous electrical gadgets.

© Deborah Redfern, 2008. All rights reserved.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to stand in your own personal power.  We, as a society, are concerned about appearing conceited and/or selfish.  We hesitate to step on toes and worry about hurting other’s feelings.  Yet, sometimes we must stand up and be strong for the universe to help.

Case in point – I have had a long, painful, mysterious illness this year.  For the first 3 months, I was dealing with an over-worked primary care physician and an extremely difficult specialist.  The specialist made me feel like I was really bothering him when I was explaining my symptoms.  He interrupted me, he stopped me from speaking, he was a general pain in the behind to deal with.  Of course, he had no idea what was wrong and sent me away several times with a “let’s see if it gets better on its own” diagnosis.  When I called and told him my symptoms had returned, he said my blood work was back to normal so I shouldn’t be ill.  At first, I was looking at this as an opportunity to stand up to him – and tell him how he was making me feel.  I asked around and generally heard that he is an excellent doctor with a poor bedside manner.  So, I thought, I can handle him – I do need a good doctor.  The last straw involved me being very sick again and him chastising me for missing an appointment when I had asked his staff to re-schedule me if I needed to be seen again.   It was extremely frustrating and I had enough.

It was as if God were holding my hand.

I found myself sitting in my primary care doctor’s office telling the nurse I refused to go back to him and I needed a different referral to a different doctor.  They were hesitant, but obliged.  I made an appointment – I was seen – I had more tests – and finally…a correct diagnosis.  I was sent to a more specialized specialist…probably the best in the country for the procedure I needed….and within 2 weeks I was recovering from the first of 3 surgeries.  I had my final follow-up visit yesterday where I was given a 99.9% chance of never having any trouble like this again.  I feel great – I am healed!

I had to stand up and say no.  I had to be worth it…and once I told the universe I was worth it…..I was put on the perfect path.

On the Bagua, Inner Knowing and Health are close together….like they are holding hands.  It is so important for us to know ourselves, trust our guts, and stand in our power.  While it isn’t always easy to balance our fears and our strengths, my experience has been that guidance is there when you reach for it.  Yet you must raise your hand up, if you want God to hold it.

© Elise Rebman, 2008. All rights reserved.

I suppose one tends to think that a feng shui practitioner would be completely clutter-free. Well, surprise! Almost all of us have clutter to some degree. I admire homes which have that ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ look, but that’s not me. I do try my best to keep things in order, realizing at the same time that having things around probably feeds my creativity. 

One room in my house periodically gets completely out of control though — our tiny storage room. When we moved in, it was difficult to imagine filling it. We saw the empty space and thought ‘meditation room’ or even an office space (vetoed because it was really too small). There also needed to be a place for the cat litter box and this was the best location for it.

Once the litter box went in there the space wasn’t long filling up but it was organized at least. Soon however, it became the ”I’ll just put this here for now” room. By the time I couldn’t stand it anymore I had created a narrow aisle on one side, in which to get to the litter box.

It took a few days to get it completely cleared out and reorganized. Right now it is clear and the energy is good. At the same time I know that this room will always suffer from the ‘let’s put this here just for now and get it out of the way’ syndrome.

It is good feng shui to keep on top of what we are keeping and deal with accumulation before it grows to the ‘can’t stand it’ level, but at the same time we do need areas in our home that are utilitarian and functional — the place where the litter box goes, to store the recycling, or to keep the Christmas decorations — or whatever.  

I believe the best feng shui strategy it to acknowledge that we need storage rooms and that they will get messy from time to time, and to allow it. We can compensate for whatever bagua map gua these areas fall into into by enhancing that area in other rooms — and to schedule periodic clean ups in that storage room to keep the energy moving.

(c) Deborah Redfern, 2008. All rights reserved. 

Working with the bagua in feng shui is a fascinating and multi layered process. One way to get to know the nine areas of the bagua more deeply and make them personal for your own home and life is to make a collage bagua.

To do this start with a piece of posterboard. It can be any size you choose. You can either draw an octagon on it to represent the traditional shape of the bagua or you can create a rectangular bagua to represent the shape of most modern homes. Either way divide the poster into nine areas. If working with a rectangle you can do this by visualizing a tick tack toe board.

Starting at the bottom center area and going clockwise you will have a space for each area as follows: Career/Life Path, Self Knowledge & Cultivation, Family & Ancestors, Wealth & Abundance, Fame & Reputation, Relationships, Creativity & Children, Helpful People & Travel. In the center is Health.

As with any collage there are many ways you can go about this. One way I’ve found fun and insightful is to go on a hunt for images that represent the ultimate meaning of each area of the bagua for me. For example if you are someone who loves books and learning new things from them, you could use images of books in your Self Knowledge and Cultivation gua. Or if you are someone who is determined to turn over a new leaf with your diet and start eating more healthy food, your health gua could be collaged with lots of veggies.

Each area of the bagua has a corresponding range of colors so you can play with this as well. You can use different color papers as backgrounds for each gua and then layer your symbolic images on top of the corresponding color.

And as always when you are surfing your magazines and other sources for images stay open to what catches your eye. This is how the multiple layers of the bagua will reveal themselves to you and how you will begin to learn more about yourself and your home. Remember: feel with your eyes and give your left brain a break.

© Donna Thompson, 2008. All rights reserved.

I’ve written on the Helpful People area of the bagua  a fair bit, since it is one of my favourites. It is interesting because while most of the bagua trigrams are a mixture of yin and yang energy, Helpful People is all yang, which means it is very strong, action-oriented , male energy. 

It is a big force in our lives. Some people think the Law of Attraction is the same as the Helpful People area. I believe Helpful People is one aspect of the Law of Attraction — the creative part, what some call synchronicity, when the desires we put out in the universe begin to be answered.  The trigram for Helpful People means Creative Heaven. Help often comes in creative ways such as:  

• that meaningful dream you had
• those times when you just ‘know’ what is going to happen
• when signs show up in your life (the appearance of animals or objects that have special meaning to you)

Help (or signs) can also in the shape of other people who become heavenly helpers when they show up at precisely the right time in your life offering help or guidance, or put you in touch with the right people at the right time. Some believe this is an angel, or an angel acting through a person.

Synchronicity is also part of the Helpful People area. Syn is the Greek word for together and Chronos means time. Synchronicity is when seemingly random and unrelated events occur together in a way that has special significance to you. Synchronicity can happen at the everyday mundane level or through amazing and spectacular ‘coincidences’. We could fill a post just on spectacular coincidences. My personal favourite was the hawk that showed up in my garden the morning of a vision quest. Hawk is big medicine for me, being one of my totem animals. 

It is important to note that many people are not comfortable with the idea of being guided by an intelligent force outside themselves — a force whose job is to provide help, because the ‘help’ often cannot be explained rationally, and feeling in control is much more comfortable and familiar. But are we ever really in control? Think of often plans turn out differently than we thought they would.

Helpful People area also shows that we can let go of the need to micro-manage all parts of our lives and instead have faith that all is unfolding as it is meant to. The real gift of Helpful People, as I see it, is the opportunity for inner growth as we open the door to the flow of creativity in our lives.   

Ideas for Cultivating more Helpful People energy in your Life.

• Record your dreams. Sometimes dreams come from mental processing of the days’ events, but sometimes they have deeper meanings. Recording your dreams is an effective way to tap into inner messages, but you need to be prepared by having a notebook and pen close to your bed. Write down the dream as soon as you wake up.
• Experiment in dreamtime. Write a question you would like clarity on in your dream notebook before going to sleep and the next morning record the answers that come to you while you are sleeping.
• Create an altar. An altar is a place set aside in your home or office dedicated to receiving guidance and giving thanks. An altar does not have to be religious, nor need it be a shrine. It can simply be a collection of objects that help you focus your attention in a special way. For more ideas, see my post “How To Create a Home Altar“.
• To invite more guidance and synchronicity in your life, locate the Helpful People area of your home and choose some of these feng shui enhancements in the Helpful People and Travel area. You can also use these enhancements for an altar in the Helpful People area of any room in your home.· Colours for the area are black, grey and white· Candles· Scent: incense, lavender or juniper essential oil (or your favourite essential oil), resins – I like frankincense and copal – or herbs such as sweet grass

  · Objects of nature: stones, crystals, flowers, plants, seeds, nuts acorns, pine cones, shells, feathers, salt, corn, wine, water, wood

  · Your written prayers, affirmations or blessings

  · Religious objects depicting the image of Buddha, Jesus Mary, Angels or Goddesses

  · Other objects that have a spiritual or sacred meaning to you

  · Photographs of yourself and/or other people in your life.

   

© Deborah Redfern, 2008. All rights reserved.

In Feng Shui one of the nine areas of the bagua is called Creativity and Children. Although all areas are equally important and interdependent for me personally this is probably my favorite area of life for I’m all about creativity. More and more as I look around these days it seems to me that the biggest thing that ails us silly humans is that we have become so disconnected from our essential creative natures.A great way to link back up with your creativity and energize this part of your life is by spending some time making a collage. Gather up some old magazines, a pair of scissors, paper and some glue. I like rubber cement. For paper you can use card stock, poster board, mat board or even plain copy paper.

With all your materials in front of you set an intention for what you would like to create. It can be a general intention such as, “I’d like to make a collage that represents creativity to me.” Some other great topics to collage on include going in search of lost parts of your soul and help from your Spirit Guides. There are infinite topics to collage and I’ll be discussing new ones here each time I blog to give you ideas.

Once your intention is set you can dive into the magazines. I like to flip through them quickly and rip out any images that say, “Yum!” to me. I do this quite fast so that my left brain doesn’t have time to analyze why I like certain images. I work by feeling with my eyes, not by thinking with my mind. To me my collage time is a sacred feast for my eyes and imagination. Collage is like a party for your right brain.

After I’ve gathered a small stack of 5-10 different images I then take a look to see if there are any themes emerging. Often the theme is a color. There will be several images either all the same color or complementary colors that are just crying out to be together in a collage.

Next I begin trimming away any excess around the image that I don’t want to be included in my collage such as words from advertisements. Then I place them on my paper surface and begin sliding them around to see where they might want to live. Often I start with a larger background scene and then layer smaller images on top of it.

It’s always fascinating to me with each collage I make that the more I can surrender to the wisdom of the images I choose, the more they guide me. They come together in mysterious ways like pieces of a puzzle to form a soul snapshot that I somehow misplaced. The more you can understand yourself on a soul level, the more balance you can bring into your home and life. Try it and see for yourself!