*** Winterizing With Feng Shui: What To Do When Winter Interferes with Your Flow

Living in northern climates necessitates a shift in mindset in terms of Feng Shui. When the temperatures and the snow start to fall, it’s important to consider how this changes your environment and how you need to make corresponding changes in how your Feng Shui is carried out. Doorways get piled with boots and jackets. Mittens and scarves might get strewn around. You can’t use your screened-in porch.

Specifically selected and carefully positioned plants are buried by the white stuff. The pond freezes over; the sidewalks are buried. What happens to your Feng Shui?

Those of us who live in the parts of the world where the seasons dramatically change, we have to learn to live with different considerations and patterns for a few months of every year.

Here are some things to think about for your winter-time Feng Shui:

1. Unless you’ve installed a heater, fountains, ponds and birdbaths will need to be disassembled and stored for the winter. All of these add the element of water to an area; water implies flow or movement and are great antidotes to stagnation. To replicate that concept, placing a flag or a wind-sock or something that moves in the spot where the water fixture was can continue your intention for flow.
2. Flowers placed in planters for a specific Feng Shui purpose will need substitutes for the winter. If you’ve planted pink flowers by your front door to enhance your opportunities for attracting a partner, they aren’t as effective when they’re frozen in ice. Tree-tops in planters can replace the flowers that were originally there; adding small lights to the tree-tops will enhance them even more, keeping your partnership intention alive and shining.
3. Keep the sidewalk shoveled to the front door. This is important regardless of whether you use the door regularly or not. The front door is where good luck enters so having it be accessible is important. Seeing snow piled on the front sidewalk is an unspoken message about keeping opportunities away. If it’s shoveled and swept clear, not only would you attract some positive energy but also you may be inclined to go in through that door more often.
4. Provide extra storage for the boots, mittens, hats, etc. that are part of winter fashion. Nothing disrupts the flow of energy more than piles of wet clothes lying on the floor. An extra hall-tree to hang those jackets or scarves will assure that the path remains open and clear. Decorative baskets could be used for mittens and gloves to keep them from littering the entry.
5. Screened-in porches become dormant during the winter for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, keep them looking attractive and inviting and not as though it has become a storage area. Hang a wind-sock or chime in the porch to keep the energy flowing. Silk plants can also add an element of “life” so that the porch doesn’t feel completely deprived of energy.
6. During the course of the long winters we have here in the north, the shovel becomes a commonly-used item, along with sand or de-icing salt. That said, those winter-related implements should not be the first thing you see when you enter your home. Keep them tucked away so that visitors coming in don’t feel like they might need to pitch in and shovel.

Even though these winter Feng Shui adjustments are in place temporarily, you want to put them in place with as much intention and care as you would if they were going to be permanent. When spring arrives, you can return to your original adjustments knowing that your Feng Shui intentions were held in place throughout the cold winter months—never missing a beat