My husband and I are blessed to have a wonderful daughter who works for Google and writes a column for the Huffington Post about being twenty-something in NYC. Her most recent column is about Home – what it means to her right now and what it meant to her growing up. It’s a nice piece, and it got me thinking about Home from my perspective. Age has its advantages – you get to see life from the back end. Suddenly instead of asking questions – as she is – I have answers from life experience. And also, I have a feng shui perspective – not merely defining home, but knowing a good feng shui home can give you an advantage – a lift in life.
So what I’ve learned after all these years, is that Home is a place where you are comforted, protected, and where you feel energetic – with positive qi energy that enhances your life. This is what feng shui is all about. This is Home.
The Black Hat Sect feng shui tradition says you can intuitively feel if a place is right, if you are properly in tune with yourself. You can check the bagua – the Chinese template – with your intuition, and most likely you will be correct in your analysis.
Or you can check your comfort level with the Compass School tradition – that is, you can take a compass reading of your home, find the yin (negative) and yang (positive) of your house, and check when the house was built. With proper calculations you will discover the house rhythms and see how compatible they are with those who reside in the house.
You can further discover Home by looking at your property, and the positioning of your home and garden. By using the Land Form feng shui tradition you will see if you are maximizing the land to your advantage.
With a balance of the sun and moon and its influences, and positioning of landscape and interior design, there is still one more important component to establishing Home…and that is the positioning of those you love and depend on, — your family and loved ones.
If they are in the relative vicinity of your neighborhood they might enhance your home, or, if they happen to be poison arrows, perhaps the distance from them is important. Again, it’s a matter of positioning in the city, or county or area.
When I think of Home I am reminded of the first house I grew up in, in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles where I established who I am. And then I think of the Homes I ascertained in the Bay Area when I was just starting out, in life after college, a young hunter searching for my dreams. And then, fast-forward to the present — the best Home, the one I’m living in now – where my husband and I built our dream, brought up our daughter, and are now able to enjoy the fruits of our labors.
This is the period of renewal – its Spring, the element of Wood, and the suggestion that anything is possible. We are entering the Yang period of light. I think of Home the same way I think of spring – new opportunities, comfort and fresh energy. It’s truly the Joy of Feng Shui.
In gratitude, Janet Mitsui Brown, www.thejoyoffengshui.com
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