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| Interior Design |
 Feng Shui - Age
Old Wisdom for TodayBy Glenn Smith - freelance writer There’s a saying in the real estate business…"Location, location, location." Where you choose to settle will have a lot of bearing on how happy your home will be or how successful your business will become. Just modern-day common sense? Chinese culture has strongly believed in the importance of location and surroundings in determining your fortune for over a thousand years. Feng Shui is the Chinese art of detecting the positive energies in the earth to ensure that all things are in harmony with their surroundings. Where your house or office is located, the number of your address, how your furniture is arranged, what your location looks out on - all these factors and more have a great influence on your fortune and happiness, according to the age-old wisdom of Feng Shui. According to the Feng Shui wisdom, a house on the south or east side of a mountain is good - both house and vegetation will prosper under the sun’s rays. A house built near the meeting of streams or rivers will prosper (look at Fort Calgary - built where the Bow and Elbow Rivers connect - Feng Shui would have considered this the perfect place to start a successful city!). Mirrors hung in the house will deflect evil spirits and draw in positive forces. Reflective mirrors on the outside of buildings such as mirrored office towers, are said to have bad Feng Shui because positive energy is reflected away and cannot enter. Colour is an important aspect of Feng Shui. To the Chinese, one’s destiny can be shaded by the colour of one’s house, clothes, and office. Red is the most auspicious colour, holding connotations of happiness, warmth and strength. Shrines, clothes and gift envelopes are particularly special if they are red. Deep red and purple indicate deep respect. Green is the colour of tranquility, freshness and spring growth - a sign of healthy earth energy. Yellow, the colour of the sun and brightness, signifies longevity. White is feared - the deepest colour of mourning. Black is bad luck, dark happenings and the loss of light. Good things to remember if one wants to paint one’s house with good Feng Shui in mind! Numerology is another important aspect of Feng Shui. Chinese people will consider the number value of a house as an important omen before they decide to move in. The number 13 is considered an extremely fortunate number, while 4 is considered very unlucky. As a result, people avoid office locations and hotel rooms that contain the number 4, in the same way westerners avoid 13.The number 6 is said to bring wealth. 8 is considered the luckiest number. In 1987, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman paid $640,000 to obtain a license plate number composed entirely of eights. Whether it be the day one buys a house, or which address number is on the door, numerological value cannot be underestimated in Feng Shui. When moving into a house or office, the Feng Shui aware person will consider who lived there before. If the former tenant prospered, so much the better. If bad things happened - death, divorce, etc. - the vibrations of these events may affect the new occupant. Houses which are considered haunted, and homes where death, tragedy or crime have taken place, will fetch a very low price because of their bad Feng Shui. Prime real estate and beautiful old houses in crowded Hong Kong lie uninhabited because of ghosts or bad Feng Shui. Some say Bruce Lee’s death occurred because he lived in an unlucky house. Feng Shui is highly regarded in Chinese culture today. In Hong Kong, it is practiced in one form or another by most people. Feng Shui experts are hired to balance the elements of interior space and furniture in a home or office to maximize the energy balance for visual and cosmic harmony. Home owners use consultants to increase their general health and home security - entrepreneurs use it to increase the good fortune of their business. It is a crucial aspect in the design of a home, a store, or even multi-million dollar complexes in Hong Kong. Feng Shui consultants have sprung up here in Calgary. Perhaps you might consider their advice - it just may improve your fortune! Glenn Smith is a freelance writer. Glenn may be reached at mikeglenn76@yahoo.com |