If you haven’t found it yet, feng shui, the ancient art of energy flow, will help you find your personal Fountain of Youth as you embark on your journey of consciousness across the waters of time. Your ability to flow in the world will keep you from feeling stuck, stuck in your work, stuck in clutter, stuck in attachments, and stuck with blockages of any kind.
Feng shui is concerned with the correlation between person and place, the body and your home, the interior and exterior environment. In this intimate correlation, the water element regulates all aspects of flow and movement. Considering that “feng” means wind and “shui” means water, it’s important to understand that both words indicate movement and both are catalysts for change. Feng shui hates anything stale, stagnant, or stuck. Symbolic feng shui equates water with money, so cash registers at the entrance of restaurants are expected to create healthy cash flow. Water is usually the element associated with the entrances, which is where we find fountains and often fu dogs as guardians for protection.
In TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), the kidneys are the gateways to all other organs. They are the officials who carry out the energetic work and protect the passage of the vital essence. They clean and purify the blood and are responsible for fluidity and lubrication. The adrenal glands, just above, are in charge of energy management, and the bladder, just below, is the storage unit that controls adaptability. These are components that are useful for comparison and offer helpful guidelines for creating healthy qi in our homes. Clearing out overloaded closets and cupboards will create space for healthy flow, openness, and opportunity.
If we put on feng shui glasses and walk through our interiors or gardens, we want to think about the harmonious flow of energy. We want to be on a smooth path like a slowly meandering river. Nothing should hinder our movement, nothing should get in the way, and we should not stumble or bump into anything or find any kind of sha qi to disturb our vision.
In this tour of our space, we hope to find focal points that we can associate with the various sectors of the bagua and their specific life references. If we have a wall facing us at the entrance, for example, we might symbolically expand our vision with the vanishing point perspective of a landscape painting, or we might find meaning in a seascape that has our ship coming in, bringing wealth and prosperity. . We should have a spacious area at our entrance, something that feng shui calls “the shining room”, where beneficial energy can accumulate and flow in all directions. And there should never be things behind the door that prevent it from opening fully.
As we navigate further into our space, we look for narrow passages where we can feel cramped and our energy flow confined. Hanging a mirror would broaden our perception, reflect light and perhaps a pleasant sight. If we find ourselves speeding or rushing forward, we may be in a hallway that is too long and too straight and is therefore considered unfavorable feng shui.
In this watery quest for the fountain of youth, we might have discovered that feng shui always desires balance, and since the kidneys are ruled by both yin and yang, it is imperative that neither be deficient or excessive. Knowing what to emphasize and what to minimize is crucial to honoring the role of the kidneys. They are at the base of our structure, responsible for bone and marrow health, and they like to be warm.
Germination, embryonic development and growth must be nurtured in a warm and fluid environment. Perhaps we find our fountain of youth in the vital essence and energy source of the kidneys so that our life is fluid, full of things, relationships, events and prosperity and not stagnant in attachments and unsatisfactory results. Feng shui is a moving pattern with continual opportunities to discover its secrets as we move through the tides of the cycle of the five elements.