Feng Shui articles, features, information and free advice

FENG SHUI

WHAT IS IT

Feng Shui is the study of how humans intaract with their environment. More specifically feng shui is all about creating an atmosphere in buildings in which the people who use them can best succeed. Feng shui is based on the premise that human beings contain and are surrounded by a subtle field of electro magnetic energy known as chi in China. This can be photographed using Kirilian Photography and looks like a multi coloured gas flame around any living creature. In humans the colour and shape changes depending on emotional responses, so this energy can be said to contain some of a person's emotional energy.

In China this energy is called chi and chi is widely used in most traditional oriental humanistic pursuits; including acupuncture, chi gong, shiatsu, reiki, martial arts and feng shui. The idea in feng shui is that each building has its own atmospheric chi and that this energy will influence the chi energy field around the human body. Once a person interacts with the energy of a building he or she will begin to feel different.

HOW DOES IT WORK

The principle behind feng shui is that your own chi carries your thoughts and emotions around and through your body and that if something changes your chi you will find that you feel and think differently. Each building has its own atmosphere and this energy will influence your own chi energy field. For example you will feel different standing in a large empty cathedral and sitting in a small crowded cafe.

The aim of modern feng shui is to create buildings in which people will be able to best succeed in that environment. Therefore the only question a feng shui consultant will be interested in is how will people who use the space feel whilst they are there and what kind of human feelings will best help each person succeed.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

When using feng shui it is helpful to know what you want from life, what you could change about yourself to achieve it more easily and then how you can set up your home or work space so that you feel better able to make those changes. For example if you wanted to get a promotion but felt you needed to be more outgoing and expressive to achieve that you would need to set up the spaces you spent most time so that the atmosphere brought out those aspects of your character more. In this feng shui example bright colours, mirrors, plants, up lighting and sunshine would help.

In addition to looking at the way people react with their buildings feng shui examines the relationship between buildings and theIr environment. The way a building is exposed to sunlight is a prime factor as the sun's solar radiation alters the atmosphere in different parts of a building. The local terrain, water, earth's magnetic field, earth energies and nearby buildings will all contribute to defining how a new building can best harmonise with its environment and harness this to improve the internal feng shui atmosphere.

FENG SHUI AT WORK

To give people the best opportunity to fulfil their potential it is important to look at the kind of work that is done and think through what atmosphere would encourage the kind of emotions that bring success. For example someone who is dealing with complaints will need to be patient, sensitive, diplomatic and understanding. So here a softer feng shui work environment with pastel colours and curved forms would be ideal.

Office environments can be set up so that people feel empowered and best able to master the work required. Most important in this situation is the seating position relative to the room. Feng shui principles suggest staff would sit facing into the room in a way that he or she can see the door to the office and any windows. This means most of what is happening in an office is going on in front of the person and he or she can feel protect from behind by a wall.

POLLUTION, EMF AND NOISE

Potentially toxic fumes given of by the synthetic surface materials and paints often pollute the modern office. In addition the electronic equipment, computers, fax machines, copiers, tend to emit electro magnetic fields and this makes it harder to maintain good health and concentration from a feng shui perspective. One way to combat office pollution is to fill the space with plants. Healthy plants will clean the air and reduce the influence of the electrical equipment. In addition plants have excellent properties for reducing sound.

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MY FENG SHUI JOURNEY

When I left school I trained as an engineer and worked in the automotive industry on safety systems. The interesting thing I soon learnt was that none of the concepts really worked. Whilst it might be possible to prove them in laboratory conditions, in the real world there were always too many variables and a lot of it came down to trial and error.

This was good preparation for my feng shui studies as I was better able to work with the principles of feng shui like yin and yang and the five elements. My science background helped me understand that any concept will only work some of the time and even then is only an approximation. For this reason I always knew none of the concepts used in feng shui and healing would work all the time and that there would be plenty of gaps or times when there would be too many variables to take into account for them to be accurate.

For me it is essential to mix any idea with sufficient real life experience to know what works and what doesn't. It is this experience that makes someone a feng shui master, consultant, teacher or expert.

MY FIRST CONTACT WITH FENG SHUI

I learnt about feng shui when I studied macrobiotics with Michio Kushi. He used nine ki astrology a lot so I had an early introduction to the magic square and the idea of nine energies with their associated elements and trigrams. From this I gained a basic understanding of feng shui, although it was very much integrated into other ideas and the understanding of chi energy in terms of healing.

Later I ran the first big feng shui courses in the UK for William Spear and this led on to inviting Takashi Yoshikawa to give regular classes in London. I went on several consultations with him and he helped me refine and develop my feng shui practice over a few years. Since I have mainly learnt through my own practice of feng shui and by comparing notes with other feng shui practitioners.

HOW MY FENG SHUI PRACTICE DEVELOPED

At first I worked with many people on the feng shui of their homes but as time went by I became increasingly involved with applying feng shui to offices, shop and restaurants. This helped shape my development of feng shui as I had to work in different ways. For example working with The Body Shop I collaborated with the main designer on setting up feng shui test shops, first in a warehouse, and then at various sites in London. The success of each design was measured in terms of how much sales increased. Once The Body Shop were happy with the results the feng shui design was rolled out to the eight hundred UK shops. This meant the design had to be universal and suitable for any shop regardless of which way the shop faced, its shape or where the entrance was.

My normal compass method of feng shui had to be developed into a more flexible relationship between people and the shops atmosphere, letting go of outside influence.

My biggest single feng shui project was working with British Airways on their headquarters for over three thousand staff. BA had very clear feng shui objectives and I needed to ensure that my feng shui recommendations fulfilled their aims. Here I really needed to feel and imagine what it would be like to work in building that was still on paper. It was amazing to witness the building grow and slowly gain its unique atmosphere. I still visit from time to time and even after nearly ten years it is still far ahead of other newer offices in terms of being the ultimate feng shui work place.

More recently I have been working on a number of feng shui airport projects in Turin, Venice, Paris and Cape Verde. This was particularly interesting in terms of feng shui as for passengers using an airport the experience is one of a process. Passengers enter at one side go through a variety of experiences and come out the other side. This helped me develop the idea of buildings being an emotional experience and allowed me to get experience in bringing feng shui into the design process in a way that we could imagine how we would like passengers to feel at different points along that feng shui journey and design that into the airport.

This is something new for airport design and in a small way quite revolutionary.

WHAT I MOST ENJOY ABOUT FENG SHUI NOW

When I discovered feng shui I saw the opportunity combine my healing work with my earlier design experience. To me the buildings themselves are not particularly interesting but it is how people interact with them that fascinates me. For me feng shui is all about people not buildings. I like to visit as many buildings as possible to see how I feel emotionally and observe my thought patterns in that environment. It is amazing how different homes feel when I visit and how the inhabitants react to their environment and how this can impact someone's life.

Similarly public buildings have a huge impact on society, local residents and visitors. One building can change peoples' impression of a whole city. I am convinced part of the answer to why certain buildings make such a difference is found in feng shui principles. Using buildings is an emotive experience and it is those emotions that make a building special, memorable and eventually a talking point.

MY BACK STORY

Before feng shui I was aware of the development of Buddhist thinking in India, the journey into China and the development of the Tao, and onto Japan in the form of Zen. Many of these collective ideas became the foundation for George Ohsawa's development of macrobiotics.

My studies with Michio Kushi were very broad based. He liked to explore chi in all its forms and permutations, looking at it from the widest universal viewpoint and then zooming into the most detailed analysis of a food. I already knew William Spear well as we used to work together in the macrobiotic community in America so this gave me an open, broad based entry into feng shui.

Both Michio and William emphasised using intuition and at the beginning the feng shui principles were very simple - mainly chi, yin and yang along with the five elements and trigrams. Plenty of room was left for interpretation. As I could already see and feel chi and had plenty of experience in sensing chi people's bodies it was relatively easy to grasp the ideas of how a building might influence a person's chi flow.

One interesting aspect of Oriental thinking is that the same principles can have so many different applications. Yin and yang and the five elements can be applied to astrology, feng shui, people, the seasons, times of day, food, exercise, meditation, martial arts, colours and so on. Once you really understand the principle it is not too hard to learn how to apply it to a new discipline, such as feng shui.

In some ways this multi direction approach made it easier for me to get plenty of real life experience with the theories. Through shiatsu I could feel chi in people and gain experience in the way chi flow influences our emotions. Through macrobiotics I could play with the chi of different foods and try it out on myself and friends to see what effect, for example a special tea would have on our energy and emotions.

So when I came into feng shui I could already feel the energy of a space and relate this to how people might feel there. It was only a few years later when I studied the feng shui concepts in more depth I became aware of the complexity and sophistication of feng shui.

I enjoy my feng shui work primarily because I like working with people. I would like to think I approach my work with an open mind, keeping myself free from judgements, assumptions and trying to impose my theories on other people.

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THE REALITY OF FENG SHUI

Are the concepts we use in feng shui real? Every now and then I like to look at what I am doing and strip it down to its bare essentials so that I can clear out anything that is unnecessary. When I do this I work on the assumption that the only thing that is real is how I feel - my thoughts and emotions.

This is my reality. Your reality is your thoughts and feelings. No-one can argue with it. Next we have what I like to call observational reality. We can watch the sun rise and set, look at the moon, feel the rain, listen to the thunder.

However no two people can ever experience the same thing at the same time as we cannot both be in the same place at the same time. In this sense we are alone. No-one else can experience the world exactly as I do. Each will have his or her own unique perception of the world. Human nature drives us to try and explain the universe we live in. As such we develop concepts to make sense of it.

However I think it is essential to remember these concepts are simply different peoples ideas and not reality itself. I cannot think of any concept that accurately explains reality in every permutation. Even simple maths cannot do it. Two plus two equals four, except try it with drops of water and you get one. We can measure light as a wave or particles moving in almost straight lines. Quantum physics is based on probabilities not certainties.

Personally I do not believe concepts we use in feng shui accurately reflect reality. Yin and yang, five elements, trigrams as so on are all different people's attempts to explain the way chi moves. A greater risk is layering concepts so that if you feel one of the base concepts is suspect all those above become irrelevant. Chi itself is different as with practice this is something you can feel and see. When I sense chi with my hands it makes up part of my own observational reality. However I still accept my experience of chi will be different from others.

WHY USE FENG SHUI CONCEPTS?

So why bother with feng shui concepts at all? For me concepts in general help me learn about other people's thoughts and understanding of a subject, they help me discuss issues about feng shui in more depth, they give a body of knowledge cohesion and structure. Most importantly the concepts I use alter my perception of the world I live in.

My study of the feng shui concepts has radically altered my perception of the way humans interact with their environment and I have been able to confirm much of this through my own personal reality. In addition doing feng shui solely on the basis of the feeling of chi at the time would mean decisions are made based on a snap shot experience of how chi is moving at that moment.

Chi will change its flow at different times of day, for different phases of the moon, in another season or with different people in the home. From a purely scientific perspective simple being in someone's home means I have altered the chi and am affecting my feng shui reading of what is happening there. For this reason I need some kind of objective structured view to give my feng shui work greater consistency.

To me it does not matter that the concepts are not real, it allows me greater flexibility, more room to think and a greater appreciation of my observational reality. I believe too great an attachment to feng shui concepts mean practitioners can no longer really connect with the world around them. Concepts create a reality filter that matches what really happens and how this compares to the concepts we holds dear.

When observational reality throws up something that does not match our concepts there is the risk that we favour our pet theory and ignore reality. If this happens a person can edge into a world of delusions. I believe this happens with a lot of subjects including feng shui.

MASTER YOUR METHOD

Reliance on any one concept is unnecessary, I believe feng shui consultants get just as good results regardless of the system of feng shui they employ, even though some feng shui interpretations can be contradictory.

Personally I think there is a large element of intuition based on experience, observational reality, people skills and common sense. I remember studying shiatsu with Shizuko Yamamoto. The classes were very repetitive and her method very simple. After a while I found that I could start to feel the difference between a tense and loose back. A few hundred treatments later I could feel chi. Later I began to feel the direction chi flowed, whether it was dense or thin, fast or slow, constrained or expanding and so on.

This only happened because through Shizuko's guidance I always used the same system. I had a reference point I could make comparisons with. If I kept changing my system I would be confused. The same works in feng shui. Be consistent and you will master your method through practice and experience.

EMPOWERMENT OR ENSLAVEMENT

There are two types of feng shui. Helping people improve their environment so they can do more in life (homes) and designing a specific atmosphere into a building so that a variety people using it can feel better whilst they are there (offices, shops, restaurants, airports).

In the first scenario (healing feng shui) I am only really interested in the people. In this situation it is essential to have a clearly defined relationship with my feng shui client. It would be very easy to abuse the relationship and try to enslave the feng shui client to one particular form of feng shui and to me as his or her practitioner.

My understanding of feng shui is that a person living in a home will take in the atmosphere or chi and this will influence the way he or she feels. I do not believe changing the chi in a home will make any direct difference to anybodies wealth, relationships or career. However, it will help someone feel different, perhaps more confident, assertive, positive, relaxed, and out of this they could cultivate better relationships, get a promotion, find ways to earn more money.

The importance of this is that the person or client is in control. They are making things happen in their life and feng shui is merely helping the process, making it easier to feel the way they need to feel to succeed. This approach is very different from the idea the feng shui cures will bring in more money or the ideal lover, it empowers the person rather than risking enslaving them to another person's ideology. In this respect feng shui is simply a tool to harness the forces of nature in a way that encourages certain emotional responses in humans.

CHANGING CHI

With my chosen mind set I find it difficult to recommend feng shui cures that do not obviously change chi flow. I am confident that for example painting a room a different colour subjects the space to different frequencies of light waves and that as these light waves pass through my outer chi field it stimulates my chi differently and out of this I will feel different. Lighting also changes the frequencies bouncing around a room and is a great mood changer.

I know from experience that different surfaces change the way chi flows across them. A marble floor feels very different from wood or then again carpet. Then we go onto what I call external influences of our inner chi. These are materials we find in our body that will communicate with the chi deep inside as they radiate a similar frequency of chi. These are water, salt and iron. These are less obvious and rely on a greater level of faith but intuitively and intellectually makes sense to me. If we are surrounded by healthy water its chi will have a positive influence on the water chi in our bodies.

I am a great advocate of indoor plants as they bring more living chi to an otherwise artificial space and I am convinced humans feel better when surrounded by natural materials - wood, cotton, stone, clay, metal. I also see the sense in being surrounded by positive imagery and how seeing a picture that induces positive emotions helps self generate a different internal chi in a similar way that moving into a different atmosphere might. However as the type of imagery that will do this is personal it requires my client to be in control of the process.

NON CULTRAL

All these chi changing tools work anywhere in any culture. There is nothing to make anyone feel self conscious or that they might be using remedies based on another culture's superstitions.

CONCLUSION

I have developed my own thinking about feng shui that at this point in time works for me. I do not expect anyone else to agree or for it to work for them, however I would encourage everyone involved in feng shui to deeply think through what feng shui really means to them without any attachments to any concepts or fear of thinking the unthinkable. Clear out any ideas that you are not sure about and fill the vacuum with whatever you honestly feel confident with. If we can be open and expect the unexpected our connection with the world around us becomes stronger.

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FENG SHUI APPLIED TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND AIRPORTS

The secret to applying feng shui to the design of any public building is to decide how you would like people to feel in each part of the building and then design in the kind of atmosphere to encourage the people using that space to feel teh way you intended.

For me there are a few essential design aids

1 Make sure the building has a feature that becomes a talking point around the world. This gets the building free publicity and makes it more of an attraction.

2 Think of the process of moving through a large building such as an airport as a story. From kerbside to airside it needs an exciting beginning, interesting middle and satisfying ending. Similarly arriving passengers should be treated to the same kind of journey.

3 Match the atmosphere of each part of the buidling with the way you would like people to feel by using colours, materials and form.

To demonstrate this I will use the example of an airport.

DEPARTING PASSENGERS

Entering an airport terminal marks the beginning of you journey and here the atmosphere of the airport can reflect some the excitement and anticipation of what lies ahead. Many modern airports capture this with high ceilings, hard surfaces, bright lights and large open spaces.

All this encourages faster chi flow with the result that peoples own emotional energy picks up. In feng shui terms the energy of the space becomes more yang with the result that people also become more yang emotionally.

Check in desks are places where passengers will make their first connection with a representative of the airline they are to fly with. Here the emphasis should be on making this interaction as positive as possible.

Sometimes the check in desk actually works against this by being too high and imposing. To make it easier to interact the counter should be as inconspicuous as possible and if practical allow for some communication through body language. Reflective materials and hard edges contribute to the feeling that there is barrier between the staff and their passengers.

Colourful, bright, busy retail areas often accentuate the up, yang feeling and can help maintain a feeling of exhilaration. This works well when everything works smoothly but is not a relaxing environment if passengers are subjected to delays. In this situation a more yin, peaceful atmosphere would make it easier to relax and be patient.

Large airports have the problem of getting people to their boarding gates. Here from a feng shui perspective the situation is made worse by asking passengers to walk along long monotonous corridors. This actually makes the walk seem longer than it really is.

Here it is helpful to consider the different senses - touch, sound, visual, smell and taste - to see how a variety of sensual experiences can be created to make the journey more varied and interesting. For example different textures of floor covering change the touch sensation underfoot, different colours and imagery create a visual distraction, walking through areas playing different genres of music would be stimulating

All these examples combine to make the passenger feel he or she is making greater progress. Signage can also be employed to inform passengers on how far they are from their gate.

Departure lounges are commonly laid out as long straight lines of seating making it harder for families and groups to communicate. This is the place passengers want to unwind and relax before their flight. The linear structured layout makes the atmosphere of the room more yang and less relaxing.

Here a variety of seating options would make for a space where the passenger can find the seating that suits him or her best and make the area a better space to wait and relax. This could include breakfast style bars and stools, individual chairs, low seats and benches.

ARRIVING PASSENGERS

In my opinion the greatest lost opportunity to make an impression is when leaving the aircraft and walking through the arrivals process. Immigration, baggage claim and customs areas are often the least inspiring parts of any airport and yet are the travellers first introduction a new city and possibly new country.

It is rare to find anything that really signs the passenger to where they are. The criticism that arriving at one airport is like another and that globalisation has washed away cultural differences has made air travel less exciting and once the stimulus is taken away mundane corridors, bland immigrations posts, industrial style baggage claim halls and empty white customs room combine to make the passengers first experience of the terminal underwhelming and flat.

In these situation when things go wrong, lost baggage or delays, the customers response will be less forgiving. From a feng shui perspective the journey from airside to kerbside should be one that includes feelings of inspiration, excitement, interest, anticipation, enthusiasm and a sense of arrival.

For some it is a sense of coming home, for others a sense of beginning a new adventure. Following this emotional process the corridors could suggest the excitement to come so that arriving in the immigration hall is a cultural explosion of visual stimuli. Here expanding into a large high vaulted space would encourage passengers energy field to expand providing relief after being cramped in the confines of the aircraft and corridors.

Baggage claim halls can be a low point in the terminal experience. As people may be obliged to spend twenty minutes here why not make it pleasurable experience. Often these spaces have low ceilings and with people crowding around the belts becomes a cramped stressful experience. When people are exposed to compressed, intense chi they perceive it as stress and feel uncomfortable. Creating more entertaining area here where passengers can relax, have a drink, read the local newspapers, change money, get information, plan routes whilst they wait to be called for their baggage would make it easier for passengers to enjoy more positive emotions.

Natural light and views of the outside improve the atmosphere of these spaces and makes the overall feel more welcoming. Being able to see the process of baggage karts arriving from the aircraft and being loaded onto belts can also be reassuring as well as an interesting distraction for waiting passengers. Being able to see from the baggage hall to the arrivals hall means meeters and greeters and arriving passengers can make visual contact with each other. This takes some of the anxiety out of making the connection with people and opens up the atmosphere of the baggage hall making it feel less confined.

CREATING A LANDMARK

All public buildings need something special, the unusual feature that becomes a talking point, a focal point that makes the building memorable. In feng shui natural elements would be used to make this impression. Water features, flags in the wind, colourful banners, plants, works of art, blocks of colour are all part of the palette for making buildings special.

SIMON BROWN'S AIRPORT EXPERIENCE

Simon's work with airport terminals includes Turino Airport and Airports throughout the Cape Verde islands, Tocumen Airport. He is currently working on projects for the Marco Polo airport Venice and Charles De Gaulle Paris. Simon Brown has given presentations at the Passenger Terminal Expo 2005 Koln-Messe and Paris Passenger Terminal Expo 2006.

For more information on Simon's feng shui airport work visist Airports Development Team International

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