Here is a fun blog I found when I was researching feng shui. Feng shui is a Chinese phrase meaning "wind and water," but, generally speaking, it is the art of placement. Elizabeth Chamberlin is a green interior designer and her blog, titled "The Upside of Downsizing" has a lot of nice videos on the site and tips for greening your environment along with using the ancient art of feng shui.
For most of my life, I have been what you could call a chronic furniture re-arranger. When people tease me about it or ask me why, all I can say is that the energy suddenly didn't feel right and I had to move things about. What I was probably feeling is what the Chinese call "chi" which is another word for life force. Karen Kingston is possibly the queen of feng shui. I have her book called Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui. In the book, she teaches you how to do space clearing, which is basically clearing out old, stuck energy. Why do that? Clearing spaces and arranging objects in your home (and outside environment) actually can support you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Did you know that the root word for clutter is "to clot?" I can really relate to this. I feel down when there is clutter everywhere, especially in closets and halls. I feel like I can't move forward, literally and metaphorically.
Yesterday I spent the entire morning in Liberty's room cleaning up his messes. He loves to take things apart and throw them over his shoulder in one giant pile. He reminds me of the rat Templeton in Charlotte's Web, if you remember him. I have watched him swipe a little jar of face cream or my toothbrush and run back in his room and throw it on the heap! He just loves to have a pile of some objects near him. And then he takes from the pile as he plays with things and throws it over his shoulder again, and the pile moves to the other side of the room.
So, yesterday, I was able to put things on shelves and some things in bins and hide them in his closet so he can only play with a few things at a time. (This summer was a free-for-all where I lost my control and he played with everything he owned all at once).
The difference in his room was astounding after I got through with it. Don't laugh but I had some beautiful quartz crystals from long ago that I buried in the earth about a week ago to cleanse and charge them. I put a new one in Lib's room on top of a shelf and prayed some prayers into it. Crystals amplify thought, so I thought, why not enhance this renewed energy in the room?
Lib came home and instead of being agitated that most of his things were gone, he played quietly in his room and started first with his jar of plastic dinosaurs and bugs. Then he moved happily to some playing cards and his matchbox cars which were in bins. You could tell he felt good. He smiled at me and hugged me. Wow, no whining or crying over missing toys!
I recently went to Elizabeth Chamberlain's site and watched some of her videos for the art of placement in various rooms of the house. For instance, she says, and this is well-known "fact" in feng shui, that you should always keep your toilet lid down and fix any leaking water faucets because it is symbolic of your money going down the drain (or toilet)! There is a feng shui grid that you can place over the outline of your house (referred to as the "bagua") that tells you what room falls in what category. For instance, it just so happens that our bedroom falls into the money part of the grid. I looked around and there were clothes stacked on the dressers, papers that had not been filed in the file cabinet, and generally, nothing was well-placed. So, I got rid of the clutter and in front of the mirror I put a nice jade plant (also known as a money plant). Mirrors are powerful magnifiers so I made sure that there was no clutter in front of the mirror, or bills. Don't want more of those. About three days later, I got two unexpected checks in the mail from our insurance company. They actually paid for chelation and some other drugs that I did not expect them to pay for at all! It was a nice unexpected $100!
Now, I don't know if it was due to all of the feng shui "fixes" that I did, but I do know that a ritual such as feng shui does help to anchor your intentions and focus your energy. It's no wonder that ritual is the biggest part of religious and spiritual practices all over the world. This is the main basis for all ritual.
At any rate, my main point is that environment does play a big part in our overall health. I have been told this repeatedly by Liberty's DAN doctors and practitioners. We do have computers and wireless in the house which is supposed to not be so good with all of the electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) they emit that interfere with brainwaves. My recent DAN told me that watching too much TV or the computer screen could possibly trigger more seizures in my son. Hearing this only frustrates me more. We live in a world full of EMFs - our new technology's unwanted side-effect. Karen Kingston says to get an atomizer and fill it with water and lavender oil and spray down toward electronics and floor frequently, and that this will somehow help deflect these waves. I don't know if that is true or not, but I like the smell of lavender and I love that particular ritual, so I am definitely going to try it. And, I will also just limit how much time we have the computer and tv on around Lib. My doctor also told me that a cordless phone is awful to have in the house and that I should use just a regular plug-in phone.
I think it's nice to know that there are things that you can do around your home to not only make it a soft place to fall, but also to create a kind of sacred space that supports all who live there in mind, body and soul. I have always looked at life in terms of energy, so feng shui makes so much sense to me.
In my grid of my house, the "children" part of the house falls in the kitchen, where happily, I have the correct color scheme, according to the chart. I put a happy, smiling picture of my boy on the refrigerator there.
I have a hanging pot of flowering portulaca or moss rose hanging just outside of the office window and a hummingbird feeder beside it. No one had to tell me how to place these things. Just that placement alone has brought me so much joy. I have never had the pleasure of watching hummingbirds so close by. Sometimes they stop and look in the window. The ginger plants are blooming right beneath the feeders, so I know it must be a wonderful heady pit-stop for them.
I am interested in hearing your experiences with feng shui, if you have ever tried it, or do your own brand of the art of placement in your environment.
On a bigger scale, PBS is planning to air Ken Burns new series on the history of the National Parks. Can you imagine what life would have been like if we did not have these beautiful places exempt from building? It airs September 27. It took six years to make the film. You can go to the site and watch a trailer from the series. It looks fantastic!
For most of my life, I have been what you could call a chronic furniture re-arranger. When people tease me about it or ask me why, all I can say is that the energy suddenly didn't feel right and I had to move things about. What I was probably feeling is what the Chinese call "chi" which is another word for life force. Karen Kingston is possibly the queen of feng shui. I have her book called Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui. In the book, she teaches you how to do space clearing, which is basically clearing out old, stuck energy. Why do that? Clearing spaces and arranging objects in your home (and outside environment) actually can support you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Did you know that the root word for clutter is "to clot?" I can really relate to this. I feel down when there is clutter everywhere, especially in closets and halls. I feel like I can't move forward, literally and metaphorically.
Yesterday I spent the entire morning in Liberty's room cleaning up his messes. He loves to take things apart and throw them over his shoulder in one giant pile. He reminds me of the rat Templeton in Charlotte's Web, if you remember him. I have watched him swipe a little jar of face cream or my toothbrush and run back in his room and throw it on the heap! He just loves to have a pile of some objects near him. And then he takes from the pile as he plays with things and throws it over his shoulder again, and the pile moves to the other side of the room.
So, yesterday, I was able to put things on shelves and some things in bins and hide them in his closet so he can only play with a few things at a time. (This summer was a free-for-all where I lost my control and he played with everything he owned all at once).
The difference in his room was astounding after I got through with it. Don't laugh but I had some beautiful quartz crystals from long ago that I buried in the earth about a week ago to cleanse and charge them. I put a new one in Lib's room on top of a shelf and prayed some prayers into it. Crystals amplify thought, so I thought, why not enhance this renewed energy in the room?
Lib came home and instead of being agitated that most of his things were gone, he played quietly in his room and started first with his jar of plastic dinosaurs and bugs. Then he moved happily to some playing cards and his matchbox cars which were in bins. You could tell he felt good. He smiled at me and hugged me. Wow, no whining or crying over missing toys!
I recently went to Elizabeth Chamberlain's site and watched some of her videos for the art of placement in various rooms of the house. For instance, she says, and this is well-known "fact" in feng shui, that you should always keep your toilet lid down and fix any leaking water faucets because it is symbolic of your money going down the drain (or toilet)! There is a feng shui grid that you can place over the outline of your house (referred to as the "bagua") that tells you what room falls in what category. For instance, it just so happens that our bedroom falls into the money part of the grid. I looked around and there were clothes stacked on the dressers, papers that had not been filed in the file cabinet, and generally, nothing was well-placed. So, I got rid of the clutter and in front of the mirror I put a nice jade plant (also known as a money plant). Mirrors are powerful magnifiers so I made sure that there was no clutter in front of the mirror, or bills. Don't want more of those. About three days later, I got two unexpected checks in the mail from our insurance company. They actually paid for chelation and some other drugs that I did not expect them to pay for at all! It was a nice unexpected $100!
Now, I don't know if it was due to all of the feng shui "fixes" that I did, but I do know that a ritual such as feng shui does help to anchor your intentions and focus your energy. It's no wonder that ritual is the biggest part of religious and spiritual practices all over the world. This is the main basis for all ritual.
At any rate, my main point is that environment does play a big part in our overall health. I have been told this repeatedly by Liberty's DAN doctors and practitioners. We do have computers and wireless in the house which is supposed to not be so good with all of the electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) they emit that interfere with brainwaves. My recent DAN told me that watching too much TV or the computer screen could possibly trigger more seizures in my son. Hearing this only frustrates me more. We live in a world full of EMFs - our new technology's unwanted side-effect. Karen Kingston says to get an atomizer and fill it with water and lavender oil and spray down toward electronics and floor frequently, and that this will somehow help deflect these waves. I don't know if that is true or not, but I like the smell of lavender and I love that particular ritual, so I am definitely going to try it. And, I will also just limit how much time we have the computer and tv on around Lib. My doctor also told me that a cordless phone is awful to have in the house and that I should use just a regular plug-in phone.
I think it's nice to know that there are things that you can do around your home to not only make it a soft place to fall, but also to create a kind of sacred space that supports all who live there in mind, body and soul. I have always looked at life in terms of energy, so feng shui makes so much sense to me.
In my grid of my house, the "children" part of the house falls in the kitchen, where happily, I have the correct color scheme, according to the chart. I put a happy, smiling picture of my boy on the refrigerator there.
I have a hanging pot of flowering portulaca or moss rose hanging just outside of the office window and a hummingbird feeder beside it. No one had to tell me how to place these things. Just that placement alone has brought me so much joy. I have never had the pleasure of watching hummingbirds so close by. Sometimes they stop and look in the window. The ginger plants are blooming right beneath the feeders, so I know it must be a wonderful heady pit-stop for them.
I am interested in hearing your experiences with feng shui, if you have ever tried it, or do your own brand of the art of placement in your environment.
On a bigger scale, PBS is planning to air Ken Burns new series on the history of the National Parks. Can you imagine what life would have been like if we did not have these beautiful places exempt from building? It airs September 27. It took six years to make the film. You can go to the site and watch a trailer from the series. It looks fantastic!
4 comments:
Two of my aunts always, always rearranged their furniture. Thanks for explaining why you do it.
xo
I buy every word/suggestion! Thanks for this!
BTW, love the look of your blog!
Thanks, Carrie. I had to even re-arrange the blog!
I have always been intrigued by feng shui, but I am design challenged. I am going to try and improve the "self" portion of my house - I watched the video. I will let you know how it goes.
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