Shapes and sightlines

The relationship of shapes to The Five Energies. The energietic qualities of shapes can have a marked effect on the lives of the people who live and work inside them. For example, your experience of sitting in a round room is very different to the feeling you have when seated in a square room. Similarly, you react ot a room with a high curved ceiling in one way and in another way to a room with a sloping roof. The effect of shapes -  not only on your feelings but on the general direction of your life - is part of the storehouse of Feng Shui wisdom. One example of this effect is connected with roofs. But The shape of a building or a plot of land has significance as well. The contours affect the relationship of the enclosed space with the energy of the space that surrounds it. Some shapes attract energy to certain points in the structure, others repel it. Using this principle, it is possible to determine the most suitable points to locate yourself within the space. The incoming energy may be helpful or harmful to you - this depends on many factors; but the general principle in Feng Shui is that it is better to avoid you be subjected to the sustained impact of negative influences.

A clear sightline

A house needs a clear sighline, just as a person needs to be able to see straight a head without obstruction. A level roof corresponds to a person whose cap is straight. Having a sloping roof over your head is like having the visor of your cap pulled down over your eyes. In Feng Shui, the family that lives in a house with a sloping roof will never advance, and a nation whose people live under such roofs will become inward-looking and stagnant.

An L-shaped house
Energy converges on a L-shaped house. If the front door is there, accidents will happen and many other things will go wrong. If you are looking at flats in a block shaped like this, your best bet is to choose one at either of the ends, shown in a lighter tone, for away from the converging arrows.

Concave and convex curves
A curved surface that is concave acts like a receiver. It draws energy toward itself. If you were to build a house on land with this shape, the safest locations would be at the two ends, with the entrance facing in toward the middle. An outward, convex curve deflects the energy: even those beams that strike the middle fail to penetrate. Any location inside such a space is relatively protected.

Mid-town Feng Shui

You live in the middle of a bustling city, You are on the seventh floor of a nine-floor building. Immediately behind your building rises a 16-floor apartment block. To your left is another building, just slightly taller that the one you live in. To the right is a low arcade with small shops. There is a wide street in front of your apartment building and the town houses on the other side of the street are set back from the pavement with a large forecourt. There may be something about your own particular apartment that you don't like, but you feel some sense of attachment to the overall location itself. It's no surprise: it conforms exactly to the prime requirements of the model of the cave and the river (strong support at the back and open space in front). It also conforms exactly to the model of The Five Animals: the solid tortoise in the rear, a rising dragon on the left, a lower, active tiger on the right, and space for your phoenix to fly ahead in front.

Supports and pressures

Exerting pressures

Buildings exert different pressures on each other. A taller building plays the role of the tortoise in the Five Animals, giving weight, support, and protection to the one in front.

A child between two bullies

The little apartment building in the middle of these two tall buildings it like a small child between two bullies. The taller structures support the sides of the little one, but their main effect is literally to suck energy away from it and to exert converging downward pressure.

High-pressure energy

Any home which is directly opposite a small gap between two buildings, whether they are tall like this or little semi-detached houses, will be exposed to a constant stream of high pressure energy, said in Feng Shui to act on that home like a chopping knife.

Supportive but oppressive

If a building at the rear is clearly taller than the one in front, it is regarded as supportive, like the tortoise. But if it is just tall enough to peep over the top of the building in front, it is said to be like a person peering over your shoulder and its effect is oppressive. This building also suffers from being exposed to the knife-like pressure from the sharp corner of the office block opposite.

Certain places, certain effects

The location of your home is decisive in creating a harmonious life. The energy that affects your home may come from inconceivably distant places within our galaxy or elsewhere in the universe. Ordinarily this is not easy to ascertain and the special training of a Feng Shui expert is required. But it is possible to work with this principle in making your own assessment of possible locations for your home. For example, instead of simply wondering if you are moving into a "nice neighbourhood" or thinking solely about the convenience to transportation or local food shops, you can try to sense the broader feel fo the locality and the quality of its energy. Individuals have varying sensitivities to this, but it is by no means rare. You can use the basic information in this book as a guide. What are the contours of the land and the configuration of the roads - is the house in one of the positions you are warned against? Where is the nearest open body of water, such as a pond, public swimming pool, or reservoir? Is it toward the back of the house or far in front? What is there in the nearby environment that you think could disturb the tranquility of your home and particularly affect peaceful sleep?
You should also consider the human environment. A Feng Shui expert would never recommend that you occupy a home that is opposite or next door to places that regularly have a disturbed atmosphere or are associated with trouble, crime, or violent individuals. You probaby wouldn't want to live there in any case, but the Feng Shui advice is to avoid homes opposite or adjacent to bars, brothels, and police stations. You should also avoid living opposite or next to buildings with the shape associated with the Fire element.

Disturbing influences
A streetlamp outside your home sets up an energy field that disturbs the space in front of your dwelling. This is easily understandable at night when the glare of the lamp is steadily beaming down. But, to the Feng Shui expert, the lamp post and its constant electrical field are disturbing influences throughout the day and night. Living under power lines takes this problem to the extreme. It should be avoided at all costs as recent health studies on people suffering from leukeia and other cancers in such locations have shown.

Water, the difficult

In the eight trigrams of the I Ching, water is associated with difficulty. Its energies are deep and dark. It is sometimes said to convey the feeling of an abyss. It is a very powerful force: it absorbs and stores energy. Its behaviour is far from predictable. It cuts across other energetic forces just as it washes away the trail of an animal that plunges from the land into a stream.

Therefore the advice of a Feng Shui parctitioner is always to be very careful about locations that involve water. To begin with, do not live in a house that has a body of water at its back. The effect of the water energy can be disturbing in a number of ways, producing health problems and sexual disorders, and it can affect the dwelling by seeping into the foundations and causing it to sink.

Using the template of The Five Animals, you can immediately understand the advice against water at the back. The place of maximum solidity should be toward the rear of the house. Any body of water to the rear weakens that all important quality of strength and support.

Advice on water

The Feng Shui advice on water is as true in the urban environment as it is in the countryside. The back gardens of homes may adjoin public parks, with streams or pools, or may open on to canals. The advice is the same: the only advisable place for a body of water is to the front of your dwelling.

Facing a stream

The house on the near side of the stream is well positioned. But if the water were stagnant (as in a disused canal) or too close to the front of the house, its energy would not bode well for the home. The house on the far side of the stream is not in a safe position. The house is a target for the "bow" of the stream as it flows past. It has no protection against sudden overflow and is excluded from the protective circulation from which the house on the opposite side benefits.

Energy convergence

The Taj Mahal is one of the world's greatest pieces of architectural poetry. The design is beautifully balanced and the arrangement of the central building and its candle-like towers are perfectly suited to a tomb. However, the long reflecting pond and the two pathways create a powerful line of energy converging on the very heart of the main building. To the Feng Shui expert this would affect the health and stability of the ruler who built it, as well as his long-term political power - which did indeed begin to dwindle after the Taj was completed.

Sient power

The obelisk of the Washington Monument towers above the central institutions of the United States. Its spear-like power emanates in all directions, affecting the Capital buliding of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. Like a mighty sword raised in the air, it is a constant, silent presence: those who live and work within its reach will often find themselves subject to internal disturbance and their ability to make decisions blocked.

Angular energy

Like the polished blade of a meat cleaver, the new Bank of China building rises above the Hong Kong skyline. All those in offices nearby sought the advice of Feng Shui experts for protection against the angular energy of this structure. It is a spectacular expression of power - perfectly positioned with the mountains to the rear and the harbour to the front - giving the impression of a rocket ready for lift off.

Roundabouts and cul-de-sacs

Circular living

some people live in circular settings, sometimes around a road interchange, some times in specially designed housing complexes. These may look attractive, but to the eye of the Feng Shui practitioner they both pose problems.

In the case of the roundabout, the energy spins, creating a vortex. Bands of energy shoot off at high velocity and bombard the houses. This subjects the households to constant disturbance. From the safety point of view, collisions and accidents, such as brake failures, can result in automobiles following the spinning energy lines and ploughing into houses on the margin.

Enclave living

A quiet dead-end street or a designer enclave like this may look like just the place for some peace and quiet. But imagine the energy entering the open end of the street and finding nowhere to go. It literally piles up like stagnant water at one end of a pond or like multiple vehicles ramming into each other on a blocked freeway. The families that live closest to the dead end will probably find comparable effects in their lives: a sense of having nowhere to go, or of having no future. It is unlikely that they will have a vibrant social life or that their businesses will thrive. The impact of the colliding and stagnating energy may also lead to disturbances in their family lives.

Three Fire buildings dominate these pages, each in a different cultural setting, each serving a different purpose, and yet all striking in their intensity and power.

Fire shapes
The irregular triangles of the Sydney Opera House lick the sky like flames. Seen from this angle, the whole structure has the quality of a craft with full sails: when the energy of the Wind and Water move together in certain directions, this ingenious structure draws that power to itself and to the city that surrounds it. Small wonder that Sydney will host the Olympics of the millennium!

Fire color
St. Basil's, with its world-famous domes, rises above the Kremlin in Moscow. It is a striking example of a Fire building -  triangular in shape and predominantly red. It conveys tremendous power. If its energy acts as your mother, the protection it affords is immense. But if that energy is turned against you, you face a mighty enemy.

Fire structure
This pyramid at the Louvre in Paris was designed by the Chinese architect responsible for the Bank of China in Hong Kong. It is a superb Fire structure, drawing down intense energy from the heavens - and making this site a prodigious attraction for visitors. It is perfectly banlanced with the Water structure of the Louvre.

Locating the target

Your home is your base. In Feng Shui, the energy patterns that affect your home are some of the most important influences on your entire life. The most important influences on your entire life. The first consideration is the exact location of your home. Most people's are located right beside or very near a road or street, and since thoroughfares are major conduits of energy the relationship of the road to your home is of prime importance. To understand how this work, think of your home as if it were a potential target. If the road is curved, as in the drawing on the right, the road is positioned like the bow of an archer opposite the two blue houses. This is the side of the curve that you should avoid. You can see how energy moving in either direction along the roadway (and that includes the traffic) can tend to skid off the curve and impact on the two blue houses. The blue houses are sitting targets; the yellow one is safe.

Curved energy flow

This energy flow is rather like a river. If either end of the curve is higher than the other, the water flowing downward will normally stay confined between the banks. But if there is heavy rainfall or the river is swollen the first houses to be affected will be those directly in the line of the forward-moving water, or energy. Again, the blue houses will be in trouble.

Right-angled curve and U shape

The energy comes to a right-angled curve in the road. If is it moving slowly, it will turn the corner and bypass the blue house. If it is agitated or uncontrolled, it will miss the turning and carry straight on, hitting the blue house. The curve is like a band of warmth: the yellow house nicely embraced: the blue house excluded. If the house is located at the end of a complete U in the road, the two powerful energy lines are catapulted on to the target of the blue house and form a point like the tip of a knife.

A speeding automobile

Using the target principle explained on this page, take a good look at this drawing. Imagine that the energy flow takes the form of a speeding automobile in the night. All three of these houses could be in danger depending on which direction the car is heading. Think about and try to assess the most likely risks that each house will face.

Where you live and work

These are based on an understanding of the Fundamental Forces introduced in Part One. These Natural Harmonies have three main aspects. First is the harmony that should exist between each person and their immediate environment - their homes and offices, shops and other places of work. Second is the harmony that should exist between that immediate environment and its broader surroundings - the location and vicinity of where people's homes and places of work are situated.

Third, there is the larger harmony that should exist among all the energetic forces that converge on a person in any particular environment, even form far distant energy sources within the galaxies.

Certain underlying perceptions are common to the nine aspects of Feng Shui and influence all the practical day-to-day suggestions.

Understanding your world

The Feng Shui way of looking at the world, gives you a set of conceptual tools that can be applied in very practical ways. It begins with the most important aspect of your life: the place where you live. To a Feng Shui practitioner, the first thing to consider is the impact of the actural location - is your home in a safe place, somewhere that you can relax, somewhere in which the energy patterns are conducive to the life you are leading?

If then examines the essential aspects of your home, room by room. The starting point for this tour of your home is your bedroom, because you spend up to one-third of your life there. Next come the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. There is a brief look at the Feng Shui principles that apply to your garden, before moving on to examine the work environment outside your home.

The illustraitons of buildings and their interiors are deliberately generalized. For example, only the key positions of a few houses are shown, rather than all the dwellings on a street. Every effort has been made to depict a variety of living styles, since the advice is meant to be applied in a wide range of situations and by people living on different comtinents and with very different resources at their disposal. The important things to grasp are the underlying principles so that you can apply these to you own living arrangements.

Feng Shui for business

Today, in cities ranging from Canton to Singapore and from San Francisco to Paris, more and more senior executives are calling in a Feng Shui expert to advise them on major business deals.

One American businessman living in London recently surprised his associates by flying a Feng Shui master in from Hong Kong for a weekend to inspect a possible property. He decided not to buy once the site had been given the thumbs down by the Chinese expert.

The location of your business (on a busy thoroughfare, or a quiet back street) will affect who comes to your office or shop and what volume of trade you do. But that is not all. Other factors are equally important. These include the relationship to other buildings (facing sharp corners or taller buildings, and proximity to fountains are problems that a Feng Shui expert will spot), the internal arrangement (long corridors open at both ends or incorrectly placed mirrors can be detrimental to business), and the color scheme (certain colors create a subtle sense of discomfort among customer and staff).

Feng Shui experts and architects

Sometimes a Feng Shui expert will recommend a series of architectural changes to create a more harmonious configuration of energy in a major building. This is common in Hong Kong, Where property developers call in a Feng Shui master first. They want to know if the location is suitable before investing, and which direction the building should face for maximum security of return on their venture. After that, they may require the architects to work closely with the Feng Shui master and to submit their designs to him. There may be a final inspection and a yearly review, since the energy in the emvironment can shift.

Executives who consult Feng Shui experts argue that it makes good commercial sense, even if they themselves don't understand all the inner workings of the art. After all, they say, they have made a major investment and if spending a little more to receive this type of advice reduces the risk of failure, why not do it?

The commercial difference

For example, in an increasingly competitive world many commercial centers spend huge sums on redecorating their plazas, office areas, and shops. The services and products they offer may be of high quality yet they fail to attract business in sufficient volume. A competitor in another location, offering a comparable service or product, may spend far less on decor and bring in many more clients and customers. Often failure is blamed on poor marketing strategies, the overall financial climate, and inadequate management. All those reasons may be valid. But if the whole picture is examined through the eyes of a Feng Shui expert, the result may be a little startling. It could be that there are hidden faults created by the actual energetic patterns of the buildings and their interiors.

If your business is struggling it may be in a black spot of stagnant energy in the midst of a busy area. The front door may be positioned in a way that fails to protect the building against noxious energies. Customers and clients may feel uncomfortable inside the premises. The staff may have a similar subtle feeling. Feng Shui masters sometimes speak of "angry energy" and if you have it circulating in your property, everyone will react against it harming sales and creating disputes. Sometimes the arrangement of doorways can be harmful to many aspects of what goes on in a building. If there is a clear runway from the front door to the rear door (or an open arcade) money will tend to flow out from the building just as if there was a gaping hole in your pocket.

On the other hand, the application of Feng Shui principles by an experienced practitioner can pay handsome dividends, ensureing and invisible balance of energies, colors, shapes, and directions that create just the right working atmosphere -  in which both customer and staff are happy to do business.

The dawn of time

The historical origins of Feng Shui stretch back to an era of human civilization that precedes all written records. It is like a great river whose source can be traced back by following the winding of its many streams and tributaries.
At the fountainhead of all Feng Shui practice lies the theory of Yin and Yang. The concept of the two fundamental forces existed in the oral culture of China, pre-dating all written works of natural science and medical theory and therefore stretching back well over 7000 years. In the opening chapter of the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, which cates back to between 2690 and 2590 BCE and is the earliest medical text known to humanity, the court physician tells the Emperor:
"In ancient times those people who understood the Tao patterned themselves upon the Yin and the Yang and they lived in harmony with the arts of divination."
As Taoism developed over the centuries, the importance of Yin and Yang theory in all areas of intellectual, artistic, and scientific inquiry became immense. The theory lay at the heart of most observations and reflections on life, just as it contimues to do in the art of Feng Shui to this day.
The I Ching also has an extraordinarily long history. Some accounts attribute its origins to the work of legendary figures in Chinese culture. Other scholars hold the view that the fundamental principles were established in the seventh and eight century BCE, with the book in its contemporary form being produced at the end of the Chou dynasty in the third century CE. Confucius himself, born in 522 BCE, devoted his latter years to an extensive study of the I Ching and wrote an exhaustive commentary on it.

The theory of The Five Energies is sometimes said to stretch back to the time of Tsou Yen, who is often described as the founder of Chinese scientific thought. In The Historical Record, which dates back to the first century CE, Tsou Yen is described as presenting the essential ideas of the system of The Five Energies, although the concepts may well have been in circulation long before that. The Historical Record says of Tsou Yen:

"He examined deeply the waxing and waning  of Yin and Yang, and wrote essays of more than 100,000 words about the patterns the produced.....He began with the orgin of Heaven and Earth and made notations of the constant changes of The Five Energies, arranging them until each fitted into a pattern and was confirmed by historical events.

Dwelling on the earth

Form the very earliest days people have sought to dwell in ways that would enable them to survive nature's powerful eruptions - floods, earthquakes, and epidemics. From patient observation of life on the planet emerged a body of theory and practice that has led through the centuries to the development of many sciences. The principle of Feng Shui have also been refined in accordance with century upon century of careful observation.

The Feng Shui diamond

One day a young man, who was happily married and the father of two small children, said to his wife. "This is now the third year that I have been passed over for promotion at work, and everyone looks at me as if I'm a failure."

"But yor're not a failure," his wife said to him. "You have a good background, a degree, all the training you need, and you're working in a fast moving company. Your turn for promotion will come in good time."

But promotion didn't come and the young man felt secretly obsessed with the idea that his life was stagnating. He confessed his fears to an old college friend, who jokingly remarked: "Maybe you need some Feng Shui."

The casual jibe bit deep and the young man began tracking down what he could find on the subject - some magazine articles and two books in a local bookshop. Being a computer specialist himself, he also found the Feng Shui network on the internet. Without telling his wife what he was doing, he began to make suggestions for reorganizaing their home.

"I'm not too happy about that pond in the back garden," he announced one morning at breakfast. And a couple of weeks later he told her: "I think I'll rip out all those rocks from the rock garden we have out front."

Naturally his wife was more than a bit perplexed since they had both put a lot of effort into the landscaping around their home, but the young man was intent and set about the changes, all the while keeping his thoughts to himself.

Three months later, he returned from work one day with the good news that his boss had asked him about his career plans. There was going to be a structural reorganization in the company and they were looking for experienced staff to take on new responsibilities. "Change is in the air." said the young man to himself.
A week afterward, however, he began to notice a subtle change in the atmosphere at work. He was a man to whom people were naturally drawn, but now he sensed a slight coldness and started to find it harder and harder to get his hands on information he needed. His boss, too, notices the change: "Is there something wrong that we need to talk about?" she asked him in her perceptive way. The young man had no answer.
For the first time he had deep misgivings about dabbling in Feng Shui. "Maybe I've been like the sorcerer's apprentice," he muttered to himself, "and I've unleashed something I can't control."
She sat down beside him, asked what had got into his mind, and by dint of persistent questioning extracted a confession. "I'll ask my cousin, Jean, what to do," she told him. "Her new husband comes from the Far East and she told me had an uncle who knew all about this sort of thing."
"Very difficult to practise Feng Shui perfectly from book," said the uncle, once he had been persuaded  by his new niece to come over to the couple's house, "It is something you study for years." He continued: "Feng Shui is like a diamond. When you cut a jewel, you must pay attention to all the facets. They are like little mirrors, reflecting the light of the diamond. They also reflect the light of each other. If you want to bring out the brilliance of the stone, all the cuts must be harmonious."
"So was what I did wrong?" asked the worried young man.
"No," said the uncle, "a diamond is still a diamond. But it one cut is not so well made, then it affects the light coming from the rest of the facets. Nothing you did was wrong. You just need some help to complete the work on your diamond!"

Then, much to the amazement of the young couple, the uncle reached into his little bag and drew out a beautiful Lo Pan, the Feng Shui compass. Only a master is fully trained in the art of the Lo Pan. Under the careful eye of this remarkable gentleman, they went through the whole house, examining it room by room.
"You should reposition the television and the stereo system in your living room and take down that painted mask you have on display over your fireplace. You'd be better off without all those houseplants in the bedroom. Take the mirror off the wall and put it on the inside of your clothes cupboard door. Get a side table for your bed and put your reading light on it, instead of having it on the headrest of your bed."
"Finally," said the uncle, "I suggest you change the color of your front door and sleep with your head at the other end of your bed. Are you willing to do these things?"
The couple, rather overawed by the suggestions, nodded: "We'll do it."
"But not till I return," said the uncle. "You must do all this work on the correct day at the correct time. That is very important. Without the correct timing, your diamond will be like a stone in the dark. When I come back I will also bring a small crystal that I will place in your front room."
It was not the sort of advice that the couple expected and they harboured the fear that if they made these changes, their friends would quietly shun them for being superstitious.
"I thought that at first, myself," cousin Jean told them, "and I had real trouble accepting what my husband started to tell me about all this sort of thing. But really, now I see it as a kind of cultural problem. Everyone is looking at the same world and deling with the same realities, it's just the way of seeing that is so different."
The couple decided to go ahead with the changes (and, incidentally, they were right to take the pond out of the back garden). And, as the uncle assured them, it was only a matter of weeks before things picked up.

"We feel so different in the mornings," they told Jean. "It's as though we have slept so much better and we've been having fewer arguments with the kids. Going to work seems less of a burden and the atmosphere has really improved. And now it seems like major new responsibilities -  and more money are definitely on the cards."
"I feel as though we should pay your uncle," said the young man. "I read that Feng Shui men command very large fees."
"They do," said Jean. "In fact the advice you got from my uncle was probably priceless. But I asked him if he would do me a favour, now that I've married into his family... On the other hand, if you'd like to show respect for his culture, you can make a heart-felt offering as a sign of your gratitude and put it in a little red envelope for him."

Finding your spot

The importance of Wind and Water applies not only to the location of large centers of human habitation. Your home and your office are habitations also and you find yourself naturally concerned about the environments in which you spend so much of your lifetime. When you choose a house or apartment you worry about the price you will pay, the cost of living in the area, and the convenience of the location. But you also want to know about the neighbourhood. You are concerned about the atmosphere of the locality: you want to know how quiet it is, whether it is safe, whether the air is oppressive. You want to know what effect living there will have on you.
In order to answer this question, the Feng Shui practitioner takes many aspects into account. It is not just a question of whether you like the house or apartment. The various Feng Shui principles are used. What is the balance of Yin and Yang? How deos the alignment of the home fit with the sequence of trigrams in the I Ching? Is it an appropriate location in view of the magnetic and other forces and the relevant cycles of time? Does the overall configuration of the home and neighbouring buildings correspond to the map of The Five Animals?
No location is permanently good or bad. To say that would violate the fundamental fact of change in the universe. All the converging -  and changing forces have to be taken into account. What is an appropriate location for a family home for one cycle of 20 years may be most unsuitable in the next. An auspicious location for one family may be singularly catastrophic for anothe. Feng Shui, like any science, explores all aspects of the situation, develops general laws, and then examines how to apply these in specific circumstances.
Moving to the countryside

You want to move to the countryside. You find a charming little house with wide open fields stretching in all directions to the rear. However, the house has on open area of its own in front: the main road runs right by the front door. You hesitate about buying it possible the traffic will be noisy at night. You are also reacting intuitively to the fact that the location of the house violates Feng Shui principles. It is completely unprotected at the rear and has no open space in front. Unconsciously perhaps, you feel there is something vulnerable about the location.
Effects of a high-rise tower

If someone seeks planning permission to build a high-rise tower across the street from your house, you naturally object. It will block your view, cut off your access to sunlight and air, and lower the value of your home. From the Feng Shui point of view, putting the tower in front of your home would be the equivalent of blocking off the entrance of your cave and turning it around to face inward to the mountain. Your natural sense of order is turned topsy turvy and you feel you are about to be suffocated, because your biological need for air (Wind) as you face forward will be obstructed.

Caves and cities

The places where we spend our lives are part of our existence. Where we are is part of what determines who we are. Our locations have a profound influence on us. We, in turn, transform them. Every time we find a home, move to a new office, or choose a place to sit in a crowded room, we make a decision and have to live with its consequences. Our location influences what happens to us at any moment, just as surely as standing under a tree in a thunderstorm increases the chances of our being struck by lightning.

Protection at the back, water in front
From caves in the mountains to great capitals of commerce, humanity has selected sites that offered physical protection to the rear and access to waterways in the front. Hong Kong is poised between the South China Sea and the Central Mountains of China, New York between the Chilterns and the River Thames. All these cities are great contemporary centers of communication and finance.

From what we know of the earliest human habitation, there is much in the experience of cave dwellers that remains true today. Living and sleeping in the open is hazardous and offers no protection against the elements. Camping under trees or living in a hole in the ground offers little shelter and can be fatal in storms. A cave offers more protection, and acts like a shell or backbone, preventing access from the rear. We remain vulnerable at the front, however, but can erect a barrier in front of our living area. To have a secure outdoor area for communal activities would also be important and we need access to drinking water if we are to remain alive. Either we need to live by a stream or a river or the area must be suitable for digging wells. Living near a river has another advantage: it acts as an added line of defence, just as medieval moats were used to defend castles.

We can see the concept of "wind" and "water" emerging from this description of the fundamental needs of a good location. The water is in front. But where is the wind? It stirs the air between the water and the cave entrance. The movement of the river freshens the air and there is a cleanness and vigour in the wind as it brushes the hillsides or mountain slopes.

Today, of course, very few people dwell in caves or are camped by the sides of rivers, But the fundamental experience of people trying to find good locations for human habitation remain in our collective memory. They have influenced the location of cities and the sites of ancestral homes. They are used to this day by Feng Shui practitioners when advising people on houses and offices even in metropolitan cities.

Interior arrangements

A young working couple with one child bys a small house, conveniently located within easy reach of both the husband's and wife's places of work. On the ground floor is a large sitting room that opens on to a back garden. It can also be used as a dining area. There are two bedrooms, one for the parents and a smaller one for the child. To the right of the front door is a bathroom. At the rear, near the glass doors opening on to the garden, is a small kitchen, Stairs to the upper floor are on the left of the front door as you enter.

Soon after the couple moves in, the wife receives an important promotion at workk that she has been seeking for some time. A year later she is delighted when her doctor tells her she is pregnant with her second child. It has been a good year for the family's finances as well. But the family is about to grow and they decide that they need a larger home and put the property up for sale.

the house is attractive and id bought by a second couple, also with a young child. They have very different ideas about the way they want their home to look. They redecorate the interior, taking the opportunity to buy themselves new furniture. Unfortunately, within a year and a half of moving in, the husband injures himself at work and is laid off. Money becomes a constant source of argument at home. To make matters worse things start to go and later the plumbing. All these mishaps come along one after the other; there does not appear to be any connection between them.

If the second couple were to call in a Feng Shui expert, he would be very interested in the story of the differing fortunes of the two families. He might conclude that the energy originally concentrated in the area of the house had been positive, but that over time the energetic configuration had changed. Or the might conclude that the energy had remained constant but that the second couple was not living in harmony with it. If the were to examine the home, he would be very interested in the way in which the second couple redecorated it and arranged their new furniture.

FIRST COUPLE

How the couples used the space

The two drawings show the ways in which both families used the space in the same house. Each of the changes introduced by the second family, seen through the eyes of the Feng Shui expert, caused a problem. The first couple had a large floor-to-ceiling bookcase creating a decorative partition to separate off the sitting area from the entrance, and placed their sofa against the wall, opposite the television. The second couple liked looking straight out to the garden and put their new sofa and chairs in the middle of the open space with the back toward the front door. This meant that their major sitting area was exposed to a direct current from the front door through to the garden and that they positioned themselves in the middle of this, with no support at their backs.

The second couple liked the open-pain layout they had created. They kept the door of the kitchen permanently open and, except when in use, left the door of the small bathroom ajar, This meant that the central area of the home was constantly exposed to odors and energies from which it had previously been protected, since the first couple kept these doors closed.

There are two other differences. The second couple put the beds in both bedrooms opposite the doors so that they and their child could easily see out into the main area. This also exposed both beds to the direct currents of energy entering the rooms through the doorways, and particularly in the case of the child, to the current passing straight through to the window over the head of the bed. In the bedrooms arranged by the second couple, the mirror on the dressing table and the wall mirror in the child's room face the beds; the mirrors did not face the beds when the first family lived there.

All these differences could affect the harmomy of the home, the lives of the people in it, and the energetic forces around the home. If the Feng Shui expert had met the second couple at the house he would have immediately noticed that their new furniture was metallic and that they had painted the interior light grey. It was a very cold internal environment. The fortunate first couple had deep red coverings on the furniture in the sitting area and a soft rose tint on the walls.

SECOND COUPLE

Energy flow in the bedroom

Your bedroom is a field of energy. Even objects that appear to be still are in motion. Thus your bedroom, like any place on the planet, is constituted of internal vibrations from the condensed energy of matter and the movement of energetic waves through space. Both these manifestations of energy influence each other and affect anyone in the room.

Think of your bedroom as being like a stream. The walls, ceiling, floor, and furniture are the living banks of the stream. The space is the water that fills the stream. The current is the energetic force that moves through the stream, interacting with the living energy of the banks of the stream. For example, if you place your bed under a protruding beam in the ceiling, as in the illustration below, the energy of the beam will influence the pattern of the invisible energy that is constantly moving in the room. It creates an invisible downward deflection of pressure on to your torso while you sleep. The pressure on your chest will inhibit your breathing, which is one of the fundamental "Wind" movements of your body.

Overhead beam

Night after night, the overhead beam sets up a constant disturbance of your breath as you lie beneath it, This subtle influence will have a sustained impact on your sleep and therefore disturb your resting mind. Your longterm health will be affected. Try to find a way to move your bed so that it is clear of the beam.

A series of beams

Some homes have a series of beams across the bedroom ceiling. This creates a multiple ripple effect in the descending energy patterns and can create considerable disturbance in the "silent winds" of the room. The downward pressure from each beam is like a series of hammer blows. If your bed is underneath, they rain down on your in constantly on by one. A flat ceiling is definitely preferable so consider using anothe room for your bedroom.

A pointed or sloping roof

In a room under a roof like this, the internal streams of energy bounce around like balls on a billiard table. This type of room can have a stimulating effect for breif periods so can be used as a child's playroom. But as a bedroom you would be trying to sleep in a constant, random fluctuation of energetic forces. Nor is it a room which you should use for sustained though or for meditation. The room would be better used as a loft for storage.

The movement of energy

Energy moves. That is its inherent nature. Whether the Feng Shui practitioner is observing the forces of Ying and Yang, the modulations of the I Ching, the cycles of The Five Energies, or the behaviour of energy in your home, all is in motion. Ordinarily our senses perceive the most obvious forms of motion - traffic passing by in the street or the cool rush of the wind against the skin. We are less conscious of the subtle movements of energy as it passes invisibly through the space of an open room or the vibration of the patterns of energy in the walls and furnishings.

Subtle movements of energy are unfolding all the time. We are immersed in them and experience them, whether awake or asleep. We feel uneasy, restless, or impatient when we sit in one corner of a room. We change chairs to sit in another corner; for some reason we find it more refreshing or more tranquil. We go to someone's home, perhaps for a party; instinctively we avoid standing by an open doorway and seek another part of the room. Countless moments like this in our everyday lives arise from our inherent awareness of the energies in our environment.

Invisitble designs

Our experience of the movement of energy varies. Suppose we are in a warm room and it is cold outside. We open a window on one side of the room and open the door on the other side. The cold air surges straight through. We can literally feel it and breathe it. But we cannot see it. It is an invisible design that weaves its way through the space of our room.

It could be misleading to think of all energetic patterns simply as wind rushing through. If we take the analogy with the wind too far, then, when we think we feel nothing happening in the air, we may tend to assume that there are no energy movements going on.

In most circumstances, the natural tendency of energy is to circulate in a series of curves, sometimes sweeping around a room in a single wave, sometimes more forcefully spinning through the space.

Circulating energy
As energy enters this room, it fills the entire doorway. It moves through the room, making a lazy circle around the whole area before moving on. A person sitting in the path of the entering energy will feel a subtle sense of disturbance and will probably not be at ease. On the other hand, a person sitting in the corner that is foremost in the drawing may sense that the area is somehow lifeless, since the current of energy by passes them.

Revolving energies

As energies enter the room they may start to revolve before passing through.

Rotating energy
A strong field of energy may rotate around the room like a spinning top.

The Five Animals

Human beings are always seeking harmony on a physical and psychological level. To bring our lives and environment into harmony Feng Shui practitioners rely on several distinctive mental maps in order to interpret daily events. These serve as the underlying assumptions used to determine even such commonplace affairs as the arrangement of furniture in the home.

As with Yin and Yang, the eight trigrams, and The Five Energies, Fengshui principles can be depicted and used almost like a navigational map - with one crucial difference. On the Feng Shui map the location of the human being at any moment determines the directions and relationships of the rest of the surrounding world.

One of the most common maps is known simply as "The Five Animals". At first glance it appears to have a mythical quality, but you can use it as a template to help you understand and assess a remarkable range of phenomena from the physical layout of a dwelling, through to the dynamics of teamwork, or the functioning of dynamic forces in the human personality.

The Feng Shui starting point is the direction in which the speaker is facing. On the template an alert snake occupies the center, facing forward. A dragon is on its left (the Chinese call their left side their "dragon side"), a tiger on the right, a phoenix in front, and a tortoise behind.

Originally, each animal had certain attributes. The tortoise was in the relative position North. Its color black, its season Winter, its element Water. The dragon was to the East; its color green, its season Spring, its element Wood. The phoenix was to the South, associated with red, Summer, and Fire. The tiger's attributes were the West, white, Fall, and Metal. At the center was the snake, yellowy brown, the color of Earth, and the pivot around which the seasons turned.

The phoenix
A mythical bird that never dies, the phoenix flies far ahead to the front, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environment and the events unfolding within it. The phoenix, with its great beauty, creates intense excitement and deathless inspiration.

The dragon
The dragon is a creature unseen in the natural world. Like the phoenix, it is far-sighted and possesses a spiritual quality. The dragon receives the information gathered by the bird, reflects upon it, and makes important decisions. Although it soars above the ground, the dragon is typically depicted resting in the clouds, a figure of stability. It has amazing power and symbolizes the wisdom aspect of the mind.

The tiger
Evoking physical strength and violence, the tiger can both defend and attack. It is essential for survival, but must be carefully controlled. Ready to spring forward on our right side, it is always ready to detect the presence of any threat. But it also represents the danger of violence within our nature.

The tortoise
Equipped with and immensely strong shell, the tortoise is characterized by stability. It conveys a sense of great security. Its proper position is at the back, where, like a shell, it provides security, longevity, and freedom from the fear of attack from the rear.

The snake
Coiled at the center, alert, stable, and ready to act in a flash, the snake is protected by the four outlying creatures, but is also able to direct them. Like the general of an army, it receives imformation from all directions and is able to draw on the special qualities of the forces at its command to take timely and wise action.