Rosewicket Wicca Coven

(Almost makes you want to say CHEESE Feng Shui Basics, huh?)

Alright, so there are many points in Feng Shui that it is centered around. I will start off with the most basic...yes, that happens to be 'Chi'.

Chi is a universal force. This is the source of Chinese magic that healers and fortune tellers use, which is why it never drains a practitioner to use Eastern magic (as often times, if you use a healing spell to heal someone, you may feel tired because your energy is drained). Chi is everywhere and in everything, it is an abstract force that is the 'all'. It is enegry in every form.

The purpose of Feng Shui is to make sure that Chi flows through a room well. If you are gifted in Empathy, you can probably sense when the flow of energy in a room is disrupted due to emotion, which can be brought on my outbursts of a person or stress caused because the Chi does not flow smoothly. Sometimes Chi can flow too slowly, and cause lazieness or depression to radiate from the space. If Chi flows too quickly, it can 'slam' into things and spiral outward, causing stress and anger. When Chi is in balance, it is at a perfect state between the fast and slow, lazy or upbeat, thus creating happiness.

To better understand how to direct the flow of Chi, we need to look at the concepts of Yin & Yang.

Yin & Yang are each one half of Chi, though they are very general qualities. They each make up the unverse, and bond in their polarity. In the Yin/Yang symbol, they are so balanced that they create total peace and harmony. It is an ideal for humans to reach yin-yang balance in as much of their lives as they can.

YIN generally represents the following:

Darkness, the moon, the north, the night, stillness, sadness, quiet, sleep, intuition, meditation, passiveness, feminine characteristics, the negative, soft, receptive, valleys, water, clouds, plants, inanimate objects, even numbers, the water and the earth.

YANG generally represents:

Light, the sun, the south, daytime, action, movement, hard textures, giving, mountains, people, animals, odd numbers, happiness, motivation, life, masculine characteristics, fire, thunder and heaven.

Much like the God and the Goddess, their polarity creates perfect harmony.

In terms of design, Yin and Yang are also apparent in colours, shapes, textures, and qualities. This is how you can apply equal parts of Feng Shui to your room.

Yin is present in borken lines, as it represents earthly energy,

While Yang is a solid line, representing heavenly energy.

Other qualities include Yin = dark or cool colours, and Yang = light or warm colours.

Horizontal shapes and lines represent Yin, and Verticle corresponds to Yang.

Hard textures for Yang, soft texture for Yin.

Ideally a room would have a balance of these qualities to allow yin and yang to balance, making Chi flow in accordance to a balance of their properties. It also allows for visual excitment and overall harmony.

Next: The Chinese Elements and How they play into Feng Shui

I am going to show you a diagram of the chinese elements...

It looks a little familliare, huh?

NOTE: Unlike in western pentagrams, these elements can be rotated and it does not matter which element is at the top. However, the elements should be in the same order.

Yes, the Pentacle.

But do not confuse the Chinese Pentacle with the Western one.

You will notice two things missing:

There is NO Spirit Element

There is NO Air element.

I western philosophy, we usually think that air is a form of energy, and spirit is completly independent. However, contrary to western belief, Ancient Chinese dissagreed with this. Air is considered space. Chi inhabits all space. Therefor, air is energy that is Chi spread thin through otherwise 'empty' space, and there is no other barrier of substance to block the Chi in the air.

Which is why Earth is a much more in depth concept here.

We think of earth as plants, soil, or basically any non liquid or gas substance, that is not in a state of combustion.

However, by chinese philosophy, earth is much more in depth then what it is not. There are different kinds of earth, and they each have their own energies. Which is why "earth" is divided into the following elements:

Metal

Soil (also called Earth)

And Wood (trees, plants, ect)

While this is hard to grasp for Witches who think of earth as a whole, it makes sense when you think about it. There are different minerals in metals then are in soil and plant life. They each have different properties. Scientifically, metals can bond metallicly, and soil and wood are made of complex co-valent bonds. Soil can also be composed of Ionic bonds, such as salts and other minerals, which can be dissolved in water, where as plant are chemically bonded such that they do not dissolve in water.

Now that we have gotten past the major differences in elements, look back at the pentagram.

Notice the star is in of cycles of destruction.

Notice the circle is in cycles of support.

This goes back to the yin/yang idea that energy always flows in cycles.

..::Cycle of Destruction::.. *

Fire destroys metal - metal destroys wood - wood destroys earth - earth destroys water - water destroys fire.

* Destroys is not always the proper term, as you could say 'Earth absorbes Water' instead of 'Earth destroys water'.

..::Cycle of Support::..

Fire supports soil - soil supports metal - metal supports water - water supports wood - wood supports fire

You couls also say 'fuels' or 'aids in creation of' instead of supports.

You get the idea.

Notice if you follow the circle around backwards it becomes 'fire is supported by wood - wood is supported by water' etc, etc. This is not the same cycle of destruction (as seen above). Rather, both shapes are 'recepies' for how energy interacts.

Another tidbit on the cycles of destruction and support:

FIRE is supported by wood, beneficial to soil, melts metal, and is doused by water.

SOIL is enriched by fire, beneficial to metal, exhausts water, nd is pludered by wood.

METAL is assisted by earth, enables water, obstructs wood, and is checked by fire.

WATER is enables by metal, feeds wood, douses fire, and is blocked by earth.

WOOD is fed by water, feeds fire depletes earth, and is deminished by metal.

It might take you some abstract thinking to get these down. For example, I first heard this and thought "How does fire help earth?" My answer is that ashes are often part of the soil, as are other compounds. Certain seeds break open in fire, and so on. "How is metal assisted by earth?" well, chemically, soil is composed of metals and salt. Table salt, for example, SoduimChloride, is found in dirt, and Soduim is pure metal. I would go over all of these, but it is a rather long list. If you get stuck on any, ask here or PM me.

..::Characteritics of Elements::..

You could write entire books on this...and really, I think someone should, as there is WAY more common resources about Western elements. Be open minded and keep your interpretations out in the open. I have only the basics here in short lists. I encourage you to make your own.

FIRE - Mascluine, Yang, bright, projective, South, early summer, morning, Red, expansion, Inspiration.

SOIL - balanced betwen Masculine and femenine, Center, Late summer, Afternoon, Ywlloe, Stability, practicality.

METAL - Masculine, Yin, West, fall, evening, white, maturity, managerial,

WATER - Femenine, Yin, North, Winter, Night, Black, Renewal, Intellectual.

WOOD - Femenine, Yang, East, Spring, Sunrise, Green, Growth, Analytical

(This list is copyright The Dragon Oracle)

That is all for the elments, though I encourage you to do your own soul searching for these.

Now, for how they fit into your space itself...

In Feng Shui, ones uses a compas, such as this:

This would be a modern, more simplified version of the compass, sometimes called a bagua or pa kua. Traditionally, these were much more detailed, but this will work for our purposes, as it is used modern day.

Traditionally, one would line the compass up so that they could see what parts of the room need improvement.  square or rectangular rooms are idea for this, to ensure no corners of the room are missing. However, we will go over uneven rooms later.

Start by finding the room you want to change. Take note of how the elements in that room make you feel and what you would like to change. Then you may take whatever version of the compass that you decide to use, and determine (Either by drawing it out on a floor plan or by simply placing the compass in the center of the room) Which rooms belong to which elements, or is you so choose then you may want to find what corners of the room belong to which directions.

You can also do this for your entire house, if you choose, because not only would it be redundant to have every south corner in every room of your house look the same, but the rooms should also emphasize the direction that they are in with respect to the entire house.

Next Post: How to apply yin-yang and elemental qualities to your room...

You already know what lines have effect on Yin and Yang energies, but there are also forms, shapes, and colors that can influence Chi.

For example…

Different shapes represent the elements. For this reason, your house might have a fire or metal elemental structure. You may find that with general shapes like houses, an element might be more common in areas with similar architecture.

Earth is a square shape, because it promotes stability and even spaces.

Wood is long and rectangular, with a sense of dependability such as wood branches.

Water has an irregular shape that promotes change and harmony.

Metal structures are usually round, circular or crescent, which attract wealth.

Fire is long and triangular, like the shape of flames and helps attract bursts of change and active energy.

Keep these in mind while evaluating the shapes of ornaments and furniture in your rooms.

Dircetions are very important, and in Feng Shui they each have their own guardian animal.

SOUTH - Red Pheonix

WEST - White Tiger

NORTH - Black Turtle

EAST - Blue Dragon

Using the correspondences given, try to incorperate the qualities listed on the compass into the corners of your room.

If you find that because your room is not square or rectangular, say if it is "L" shaped, then you will have to add extra colours or symbols of that direction to your room. In this case, say my closet protrudes out from the west wall and I am missing a corner for metal. The space that is blocked by the closet send out "poison arrows" of bad energy. To combat this, I might but more gray colours or silver decorations in that end of the room.

I just want to say Chi, your a genious.

Why thank you....I try...

Hopefully I'll get to add some more Feng Shui Topics Today.

Your very creative with those signatures of yours. Pretty nifty. You should go into advertising. No joke.

I had actually been considering the field for a while... I really enjoy paiting and design, so I though for the first few years of making a living I could live in Seattle and make some money designing clothing and other merchanise for some of the local bands and musicians there.