How to choose a house or flat with Feng Shui… Part one

Moving to a new place is a great opportunity to benefit from a new Feng Shui setup. With careful examination, you can find a suitable place that will sustain you for months or years to come.

There are three different layers we must look at:

1. The external environment of the place
2. The internal setup
3. The compatibility of the place with the people moving in
.
I am giving you in this article a few pointers to help you select or discard a place. This is a starting point if you really want to push your luck and fate to the next stage, and an in-depth consultation is necessary.

External environment.

Many people today see Feng Shui as interior design; while actually the origins of the techniques and their most important aspects are the impact of the external environment on a place (house or business). Therefore it is neither logical nor efficient to focus on internal environment before we check what the surroundings send to the place.

Many natural or man-made structures can send a strong energy towards your premises. Such energy is called Sha Qi. It is not necessarily bad, as it can be converted, but if you don’t do anything it will affect the quality of the Qi in the building and potentially bring some problems, usually health-related.

Such structures are:

• Incoming roads
• Electric poles
• Nearby train tracks
• Elevated highways
• Sharp building angles
• Circular buildings

To give you an example, a building that would face a T-junction and be in front of the main road is automatically hit by the Sha Qi of the cars using the road. If this energy hits the main door, the problem is stronger. If the main road hit a block of flats, the whole row of flats that are on top of the “hitting point” are actually affected!

With a Feng Shui consultation we can actually convert such a strong Qi.

Surprisingly enough such Sha Qi can be good for some business: it all depends of which Qi is incoming!
Nearby trees can be of a concern as well. How can a tree, so natural, be a problem in Feng Shui? It is not because it emits Sha Qi. Rather, it is because the proximity of a tree can cast a large shadow on the building: therefore the quality of the Qi is weakened – it becomes damp, stagnant, or too Yin.

There are many different forms of ShaQi. Another one is the Wind Qi created by the narrow gap between two buildings. The Qi circulating in between the building is fastened to the point where it becomes too strong for a building that would sit in front of such gap.

Natural structures such as a large body of water, hills and mountains also have to be checked thoroughly. The shape, distance and orientation will bring a different outcome to the building. It is not thorough to automatically assume that mountain at the back and river at the front is a good Feng Shui configuration. If the mountain is a “broken mountain” for example it is not sending a good quality of Qi to your house. A broken mountain is very rocky, with sparse vegetation, and seems to fall apart at some places. Such a mountain already has a weak Qi which is not supportive anymore.

Likewise, a river can be good, but it depends of the incoming and exiting direction of the water, how it embraces the building, and if you benefit from the Water Element in your chart!

Remember that Feng Shui was created by observing the landscape and their impact on human life. Therefore, good Feng Shui starts with a supportive natural environment, first and foremost.

The building itself

When looking at the external structure of the building, different aspects must be considered. The first one is the embrace of the landscape: does it provide the Four Celestial Animals formation? If not, some surrounding buildings may bring such support.

The Celestial Animals

The Celestial Animals or Si Shou are the ideal Feng Shui formation looked after for any site. They speak about the shapes and heights of the surroundings of the considered site. They are:

• The Green Dragon
• The White Tiger
• The Black Tortoise
• The Red Phoenix
• The yellow snake

The Green Dragon is on the left side of a house. It is traditionally associated with the wood of the East direction. This side should be slightly higher than the right side of the house, the White Tiger. It relates to reputation, fame and to the male head of the family.

The White Tiger is on the right side of the house. It is traditionally associated with the West direction and with the metal Element. It should be higher than the house, but not dwarfing, and slightly lower than the Dragon side. The Tiger relates to money matter and to women in the household. Lacking a Tiger side is a sure way to experience money problems.

The Black Tortoise refers to the back of a house. It is linked to the North and the Water Element. It should be high and solid but not too close to the house –a distant hill or mountain was considered a good tortoise in old times. A lack of Tortoise can leads to instability in the house.

The Red Phoenix designs a formation that should be in front of the house, and is traditionally associated with the Fire Element and the South direction. A small distant hill for example was considered to be a good Phoenix formation. Of all the animals formations this one is the less “essential”; however if the Chi arrives too fast in front of the house it is necessary to slow it down.

The Yellow Dragon or Snake represents the centre of the house, and is traditionally associated with the earth Element. Classical Feng Shui practice recommends to have an empty centre in the house to let the Chi circulates – hence the old Chinese architecture with an empty courtyard in the middle.

When referring to the left/right side to determine the Animals formations, this is done with the main façade at your back. So if you are standing outside, with the main façade behind you, and what you have on your left is the Dragon side, and on the right the Tiger side.

The main façade is not necessarily where the main door is, it is the “yangest” side of the building.

Next time we will look at the main entrance and at the internal setup of a building. Here we have just scratched the surface in term of Feng Shui selection of a new home!