Your Home's True Feng Shui Element
Ever paint your front door or made some other changes to your home or office on the advise specifically given in a book or web site on Feng Shui? Then you waited and waited in expectation like a kid for Santa, praying he’d deliver the gift of auspicious chi. However you got the Grinch instead and he brought you a sack full of bad luck? If so, you’re not alone. So many times I’ve heard this scenario from people who are inquiring about my services. They know Feng Shui works. After all, they reason, everything did change dramatically after either painting the door, or room, or adding the addition from advise in a book, but the changes were bad - not good. They just don’t know what went wrong. Hopefully in my blogs I will be able to clear up a lot of erroneous beliefs and fallacies on the Ancient Art of Placement and get the chi flowing in a better direction in your life in the process.
We’re going to start with the beginning articles dedicated to a weekly series of treatises covering what most sites have excluded in proper depth- the front of the house. As a Feng Shui Master, I am continually amazed at the lack of emphasis placed on picking the right color for the exterior of one’s home. There are hundreds of sites claiming to help you pick the best color for the front door. However, little or any correct info on starting out with the right color to begin with on the house itself. A Feng Shui friendly exterior’s aim is to entice the auspicious chi to enter the building.
This week we’ll learn how your buildings shape is the key factor in knowing what element it is and what the Five Elements are. Next week we’ll learn how the surroundings and your next-door neighbors’ houses impact the color choice too.
If you’re thinking right now that the cost of painting the entire house is beyond your current budget or that your townhouse rules would prohibit it, don’t worry. Once you learn to correctly evaluate the exterior, you can make corrective color cures without having to paint the entire outside of the house. We will spend one week going into corrective measures for houses that cannot be painted. Of course, if you are planning on painting or purchasing a new home, you will be able to make the very best Feng Shui choice.
After picking the most auspicious house color, we will advance in the weeks to come on learning the most fortunate colors for your home’s driveway, bottom trim, shutters, front door, garage door, window boxes, roof, and then proceed on to lucky landscaping tips.
What determines the building’s element is the Five Elements. The Five Elements are: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Each of them are represented by it’s own color, shape, texture, pattern, and compositional materials. When you master the elements, you can create a truly harmonious Feng Shui space. Each element helps create and support another element. Conversely, each element can drain or destroy an element. The two cycles of life are called the Creative Cycle and the Destructive Cycle.
The Creative Cycle is as follows: Fire creates Earth (ash), Earth creates Metal (minerals), Metal creates Water (when cold water is in a metal container it condenses on the outside), Water creates Wood (trees need water to grow), and Wood creates Fire.
The Destructive Cycle is as follows: Wood growing in the ground upheavals Earth, Earth dams and constricts Water, Water extinguishes Fire, Fire melts Metal, and Metal chops Wood.
If a cycle is Constructive or Destructive, it does not denote positive or negative energy as in our Western viewpoint. Instead to the Eastern mind, it is simply the cycle of life and recycling of energies.
To truly master the concepts of Feng Shui, you must become like a child and let your imagination take control.
WOOD BUILDINGS: If you look at a tree, you will see that it is tall and upright. Therefore, tall, straight buildings, columnar structures, and even soaring skyscrapers made of stone and cement are all considered wood buildings.
FIRE HOMES: Flames are pointy. Steeply- pointed roofs, spires, and similar sharp roofed structures represent fire element buildings.
EARTH HOMES: The ground is flat. Consequently, earth element buildings are square, boxy, with flat roofs.
METAL HOMES: Metal’s shape is round like a coin. Buildings, which have domed or rounded roofs or are circular in shape, are metal.
WATER HOMES: Water has no shape and every shape. Buildings that have bizarre, complex shapes that are more rounded than angular are water.
Now that you can correctly analyze the type of house you have, you know what element it is. Next week we will study your home’s surroundings and your neighbor’s homes and discover the impact it will have in your correct color choice.