In a tiny office

You get a tiny officd of your own. There is a door and a window and on one wall there is shelving. You need to arrange your desk and desk chair, a visitor's chair, and a filing cabinet. That's all you have room for. You can only think of five realistic options, but which one is best?

Eposed position

The energy pathway from the door to the window will pass directly across your chair. The effect will be to make you feel uncomfortable if you spend long periods in that position, probably without realizing why. This will be made all the worse by the fact that your back is exposed and you cannot see who is entering the room. You will feel even more constricted by facing the wall.

More vulnerable

The energy pathway is the same, but now you have put your back to the door. You can see out of the window, so it is less claustrophobic, but your back is even more exposed and vulnerable and the back of your neck and head are directly in the current between the door and the window.

An improvement

You have a better sense of who is coming into the room, which is also more welcoming to visitors. But you are still cut off by the wall in front of your desk, your back is unsupported, and you are sitting in the current between the door and the window.

Out of the current

In this arrangement you have moved out of the way of the current between the door and the window and you have a clear line of sight to the door. Your back is relatively supported, although part of it is exposed to the window. You should draw the blinds across that part of the window. The position of your visitors is not satisfactory, but this is a temporary location for them.

Better backing

The visitor's position is still a problem, but in this arrangement, your back is in a good position, you have space in front, can see the door and you sit out of the energy current. Make sure the wall shelves do not extend over your head.

Out in the open

Some offices still consist of an army of desk, lined up in formation on a wide open parade square, with everyone forced to work under the constant pressure of overhead strip lighting. This is not an office that is likely to promote the health of its employee, create an environment for clear thinking, or win genuine respect for the management.

If you are given a desk in the middle of the floor, your back will be on an open "corridor" along which people are passing. Your back will be vulnerable to bumps and your nervous systme will always be on the alert. With desks in front and on either side, chances are that both your creativity and your concentration will suffer.

If this is your only chance for a job, you may have to accept it. But for your own sake, don't plan on staying there for long!

If possible, don't work in an office that has a bathroom/toilet opening directly on to the main work area, either. This arrangement stems from office managers wanting to keep an eye on staff spending long periods in the bathroom/toilet. This kind of attitude is still around: it is bad for staff morale and a very poor arrangement from the Feng Shui point of view.

Water is always a problem in the world of Feng Shui. It is better to have a completely separate area for anything involving water since it can have such a potent effect on the surroundings. If you want to have a sink in your work area or a place for making tea and coffee, the best advice is to consult a Feng Shui expert before installing the facilities.

A photocopier sets up a considerable disturbance in the energy field and, particularly if it is a large one and in use a great deal of the time, should be put in a room of its own or in an area separate from normal offices and desks.

Applying Feng Shui to an office workstation

The problem of the open-plan office has been recognized to some extent, and people are being offered workstations with some privacy. Supposing you are lucky enough to get a space beside the window. Your space is marked out with partitions. You have to fit in a desk and desk chair, a visitor's chair, a filing cabinet, and a computer stand. Think of the partitions as walls and the entry space as the door (except you could change the door position) - assume the flow of energy will be basically the same as in a normal room. Use The Five Animals template and the information to determine the best location for the various items.

Desks and doors

Many people work in offices where there are several desks, either in rows or facing each other. This almost invariably means that some of the positions are more favourable than others.

In line with the door

The two desks in line with the door could hardly be in a worse position. A Feng Shui practitioner would warn you that the people sitting in those positions are not likely to stay in their jobs for long. More likely than not, they will leave your employment although they may not be consciously aware that the reason is related to the poor location of their work areas.

A favorable far corner

The only two people in this room with favorable work spaces are the two at the far corner opposite the door. The two in line with the door will have the same problem as in the preceding arrangement, and the person with a desk along the wall beside the door will always have a sense of insecurity, since it is not possible to see the door from the desk.

Back to the window

In the office, regardless of whether other people share it or not, the person who has a desk with their back to the window is violating the basic instructions of The Five Animal template. If, instead of a window, they are sitting with their back to a mirror, they will be constantly subjected to reverberating energy.

Perpetual target

Here the door opens directly opposite the desk at the far end of the room and the persom acts as a perpetual target for energy slicing through the room. The desks on either side of the room are spared that, and all have the support of a wall at their backs.

Where you work

The location of your shop, office, or factory is juse as important to its success - and to the wellbeing of the people who work there - as the location of your home is to you and your family.

Some of the same principles apply. For example, the patterns of the flow of energy can affect a commercial location just as they do a domestic setting. So you would be unwise to choose a site where your business was likely to be exposed to potentially harmful energy or to road accidents and floods!

There are different considerations when it comes to shops, offices, and factories. The whole point of opening a shop is that you want people to come in to buy your products or services. So it follows naturally that it should be located where there is easy access and, preferably, where there are a lot of passersby. Typically, you will find banks, clothing stores, and all sorts of other such establishments on the corners of busy intersections and grouped together in particular areas to attract as many potential customers as possible. In that way, the guiding principle is different to the tranquility you would seek when looking for a private residence.

The location of an office, on the other hand, should be determined by relatively easy access. But it should not be exposed to the same level of hustle and bustle that you would expect outside the entrance of a shop. In other words, offices should be in a "quiet corner" of a busy area. Often, this means a side street adjacent to a major intersection or on the upper floors of a building above the shops at street level.

Most factories need space, room to expand and, usually, some open ground for off-site storage and transport requirements. They are noisy places and many produce fumes and waste. Not surprisingly, most zoning regulations separate factories from residential areas. They should have space of their own, where they have a minimal impact on others.

Disturbed energy

The energy at this downtown intersection will be very disturbed, particularly if the streets have two-way traffic. There will also be a lot of pedestrian traffice. Most of us are exposed to short periods of disturbed energy every day. That is not a problem, as long as we are moving around ourselves or just dropping in. This location would be most unsuitable for a house, for example, but would be ideal for a shop that aims to attract casual passersby: a clothes store, a sports shop, an outlet for theatre tickets, a bank, or a travel agent.

Even to this day, in determining locations of modern businesses or assessing the appropriate arrangement of furniture in the home, Feng Shui masters use the traditional implement of their art - the Lo Pan. This is the specialized compass of Feng Shui, fashioned by experts and meant to be used only by those authorized to do so. The design of the Lo Pan varies, but all have certain common features. There is a small metal needle at the center, used to locate the Magnetic North Pole. Two intersecting threads cross the entire board of the Lo Pan and by turning the outer rings of the board these threads can be used as coordinates to bring the board into alignment with the center are numerous concentric rings containing essential information on conjunctions of energy, planetary movements, magnetic correlations, and the Chinese calendar.

Garden energies

Energy flows through and around gardens just as it does in other environments. affecting those in them and near by. Shapes affect that flow. If you construct a conservatory/green house, it changes the shape of your home. The ideal Feng Shui home is a complete rectangle, so if you add a conservatory/green house to one side or to the back, and thereby change the shape of your home into a slightly lopsided figure, you are going against Feng Shui principles. If at all possible, try to construct the conservatory/greenhouse so that it extends fully along one side of a complete rectangle. Or, if your house is already shaped like an L or a U, then you can construct the conservatory/greenhouse to fill those vacant spaces and complete the rectangle of your dwelling.

Up, down, infront, and behind

In one sense your home has clearly defined boundaries. You rent or own a property that is legally determined and usually marked out by walls between dwellings, or fences between plots of land. Much of the art of Feng Shui is concerned with harmonious arrangements within those boundaries. But the art also goes beyond those limits because, your home is part of many, far larger, configurations of energy. So you would be well advised to pay careful attention to the energetic influences that surround your home in all directions.

If you are looking at properties, find out what's underneath, above, in front, and behind them. Property deeds or local authority records will indicate the previous use of the land before the present building was built. Try to find somewhere that has had a history of good land use. Then look skyward. Living under the flight path of airplanes is definitely not recommended - as anyone who lives under one knows (even though the conscious mind has a way of blocking out that awareness over time). See if you are in the pathway or shadow of tall buildings in front or to the sides or under electricity supply lines: avoid such locations. Is there any space in front of you or are you jammed into a narrow street? And out the back - are there commuter rail lines. city train lines, canals, or highway fly-overs? All these create perpetual disturbance, not only to the physical fabric of homes, but to the health and wellbeing of all who live close to them.

Plotting your garden

If you have a garden, it is a significant element of your living environment and deserves to be treated with the proper respect. It is not just an extension of your house: it is a space in its own right. If you are thinking about how to design your garden or choosing a home with a garden, you can apply The Five Animals. The tortoise side of your garden, whether it is a front or back garden, is determined by the wall of your house. The phoenix aspect of the garden is the end of the plot farthest away from the home. Thus, the back wall of the house faces the larger part of the garden at the rear. So that wall is the tortoise side of both the house and the garden.

Different levels

Some gardens are built on a slope. And if your are planning a garden, you may want to landscape a slope in it. There are three appropriate arrangements. A level garden, with no slope, is always suitable. Or you can slightly raise the level of the garden behind your house, giving strength to the tortoise side of your home. If you wish to have a contour in the garden itself, the hightest point shoule be on the dragon side of the plot (the left side as you look into the garden from your home).

The power of trees

Trees are extremely powerful fields of energy, some of nature's most powerful transformers. They have had a special place in the Chinese cultural tradition for centuries. The positoning of trees is therefore of great importance. As a general principle, they should not be too close to your house, but are best placed on the dragon side and toward the phoenix aspect (the far end).

Water in your garden

The positioning of water around your house is of great importance in Feng Shui, following the principles of the I Ching. The inset plot shows how to determine where to place ponds or other bodies of water: they should always be in the front two quadrants and never to the rear.

Shrub energy

Low-level shrubs and flowers beds are best placed on the tiger side of your garden (on the right-hand side as you face the garden from your home). Their low-lying, intense energy is most appropriate in this position. Try to keep the far end of the garden somewhat clear - so that the phoenix aspect is not entirely blocked.

Bathroom design

The family that fitted out this bathroom consulted a Feng Shui practitioner before ordering the plumbing and the fittings. The position of the door in relation to the toilet, and the way in which the door opens has been carefully designed, so that anyone using the toilet has an additional sense of privacy. The same applies to anyone sitting in the bath tub. The relative location of the bath tub and toilet has been worked out so that, although they are in the same room, they are not immediately next to each other. The position of the hand basin takes into account the presense of the mirror: it is not facing the doorway or the window and therefore the tendency for mirrors to bounce energy backward and forward and disturb the environment is minimized.

The use of a roller blind on the bathroom window adjusts the flow of energy in the room and note that the window is not directly opposite the door, nor does it overlook or open behind the basin, toilet, or bath tub.

Unfortunately, whether you are renting or buying a home or are designing a new one, you will find that very little attention is paid to a good layout for the bathroom. It is either thought of as a mere utility room, or else efforts are made to dress it up almost as if to disguise its purpose. In the human body it would be as if the eliminative needs of the body were completely ignored. A recent development has been the incorporation of the bathroom into the bedroom area, as en suite facilities, which are now increasingly being installed in homes.

Bathroom/toilet: using the human model

The functions of releasing and eliminating waste material from the body are essential life processes. Like the other vital functions of a human being they have particular organs and mechanisms. Following this same principle, the location of the bathroom/toilet in your home is just as important as that of any of the other rooms and has a bearing on your living arrangements. In this way, your home can be understood as a model of the human body and its functions -  and arranged accordingly.

In some countries, the bathroom/toilet is in a separate room to the bath; in other countries all such facilities are put together in the same room. For the purposes of Feng Shui, both are considered to have broadly the same purpose and so in this book they are examined as one unit.

Next to the kitchen

The bathroom/toilet should not be next to the kitchen. If you have no choice, be sure to keep the door closed at all times. In many countries this layout is illegal for reasons of hygiene. Such prohibition in law is in line with good Feng Shui practice.

Facing the front door

The bathroom/toilet should not face the door due to energy movement problems.

The appropriate arrangement

Think of this house as a human body. The kitchen (stomach) falls in the sphere of the front door (mouth). The bathroom/toilet (organs of elimination) is toward the rear. This is the natural arrangement.

To be avoided

In this house the natural order is reversed: the bathroom/toilet falls in the sphere of the front door and the kitchen is to the rear. Although this configuration is common, it is best avoided.

At the center of the house

If you draw intersecting lines between the corners of this home you will find that the bathroom/toilet is exactly in the center. This places the excretory function at the center of the "body" of the house. The advice from a Feng Shui expert is: don't move into this house; or close up the central bathroom/toilet and don't use it; or move the bathroom/toilet elsewhere.

Kitchen positions

Food is treated with great care in Chinese culture. It is sometimes referred to as a form of "post-natal Chi" - meaning that once we are born, food supplies us with the vital energy of the universe. How food is prepared and where it is prepared is all part of the process of sustaining our life force. If that process is disturbed, the energy of the food will be affected and the disturbance transmitted to all those who eat it.

As with the other rooms of the house, therefore, the position of your kitchen is extremely important. The kitchen entrance should not be directly opposite your front door, in order to protect it from any incoming harmful energies. The heat of cooking and the materials, such as grease, that it releases into the atmosphere should not be allowed to penetrate the rest of your home. So make sure that your kitchen doesn't open on to your living room or bedroom; if it does, keep the doors closed whenever cooking is in progerss.

Uneasy cooking

When you stand at the oven/stove the door is directly behind you. If it is open, your tortoise side is unprotected, which contributes to a sense of unease when you should be calm.

Exposed back

Here, too, your back is in a direct line to an open door, whether you are at the oven/stove or sink. Neither position is free from tension. The only thing you can do is close the door.

Stove by a window

The oven/stove is directly in front of the window. In Feng Shui this is a problem because the oven/stove is the modern hearth of the home and is a significant force. Its tortoise side should be protected and hence its back should be not be against a window.

A good layout

This is a good layout for your kitchen. It has none of the problems associated with the other plans. If your kitchen is arranged appropriately, your food, your health, and your family will prosper.

Your living room: taking your seat

When you arrange your living room, the key aspect to consider is the position of the main sitting area. In the Feng Shui tradition this is the place where the head or heads of the household normally sit when using the room. In many homes the sofa or settee is placed here or it could be the position for your favourite chair.

A common mistake is to leave too much space between the sofa and the wall, thus leaving you vulnerable from the rear.

If the door opens behind you - or if there is a window right behind you - this problem is made all the worse.

Similarly, it is not wise to place the sofa so that you are seated with the door to one side.

Positioning the sofa so that it is directly opposite the door should be avoided, since you will be exposed to a stream of energy entering the room which is directed at you like a beam.

The best location

The best position for the sofa is toward the corner away from the both the door and the window. Here you can sit comfortably with your back to the wall, without disturbance from the doorway, and command the entire room. The sofa need not be touching both walls of the corner, as long as the back of the sofa is against one of the walls.

Lights and colors

Light is energy in one of its most obvious forms. What we perceive as color is, of course, light as well. Its power is incalculable, yet most of us take it almost for granted. You need only reflect on the mystery of the dawn and the slow pageant of the sunset to understand how completely light and color transform the entire world, our perceptions of it, and our own lives. In the same way, light and color in our homes are an integral part of the quality of life we have there -  and a major factor in influencing the interplay of Yin and Yang. Change the colors of the walls or doors. put in new lights and your home is changed. So the Feng Shui practitioner takes lighting very seriously indeed, and also warns against inappropriate lights and colors.

Overhead lighting

An overhead lights sends a powerful shower of energy streaming down over the bed. Feng Shui experts would advise you to avoid this arrangement, especially if the light is positioned over the head of the bed. Even when the light is switched off, the electrical circuitry is in place, subtly affecting the energy movements in the area and most particularly, underneath.

Downlighting

Positioning two lights over the bed so that they shine down over the heads of the people using it may be convenient for reading, but from the Feng Shui point of view it is regarded as potentially harmful for health. Reading lights should be placed beside the bed.

Soft tones

These are ideal for your bedroom - warm pink tints and pale peach shades. You find these toward the reddish end of the spectrum and also in the off-white tints such as eggshell, magnolia, beige, and light tan. Very pale purples, light magentas, and violets are also suitable in the bedroom as long as they create a soft, relaxing effect. Strong reds, wine colors, and orange tones are too overpowering and not suitable for indoor, domestic use.

Yellow and strong earth colors

These work very well in the kitchen and are a perfect correspondence in The Five Energy system, but are not appropriate for use in your bedroom, living room, or bathroom.

Pure, brilliant white

This is not recommended for domestic walls, but cream colors, warm off-white tints, and beige tones are suitable in almost any room. The warmer tints are best suited to your bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Cooler shades may be used in your bathroom and other utility rooms.

The blue end of the spectrum

This is not recommended for use as a room color in Feng Shui. Dark blues, the colors of deep water, are particularly avoided. The use of very light blues in the living room is somethings acceptable, but the cumulative effect tends to make people withdrawn and introspective.

Light greens

These are cool colors, relaxing and easy on the eyes. You can use them in your bedroom and also in your sitting room and bathroom. Dark green tones, however, are too heavy and are not generally recommended for the home.

This is very general advice and should not be taken as a set of fixed rules. Indeed, if you engage a Feng Shui expert to assist you in arranging your home, you may be given very different instructions - follow that specialist advice, since it will be adapted to your particular circumstances and the conditions prevailing at that time.

Headaches and disturbances

Many people wake up from a night's sleep and feel awful. Often they complain about having a headache, or they may feel as if they had a headache during the night. They can't put their finger on it, but they know that they have had a disturbed night's sleep.

There may be many, many reasons for this - it is not all down to the location of their home or the arrangement of rooms and furniture. So simply rearranging things will not necessarily solve the problem. On the other hand, you can have a look around your bedroom to see if there are any possible reasons that could contribute to poor sleep.

Storage drawers

Under-the-bed storage drawers are convenient, and a good solution. These should be used for utility goods such as bedding, towels, and blankets. A low storage chest at the foot of your bed is fine, too.

Built-in storage

All-in-one storage arrangements for the bedroom often provide behind-the-bed storage, complete with wall mirror. The mirror is unsuitable and although the head of the bed is against something solid, you should try to keep the immediate area behind you free of objects and ornaments. To be tranquil, the space should be clear. Incidentally, have you spotted the problem of the window with no curtains opposite the side of the bed?

Enclosed head space

If you were to look straight down into this room so that you had a bird's eye view, you would be unable to see the heads of the sleeping occupants, because the entire head area of the bed is enclosed in the storage cupboard area. While it is good to have the solidity on the "tortoise side", the overhanging cupboards create a constant downward pressure, just like an overhead beam.

Solving the overhang problem

If you have overhanging bookshelves, on solution, apart from moving your bed, is to use the whole wall for shelving and finish it off part way down with a large storage area with sliding doors. This would avoid the problem of putting your head under the shelves.

Your bedroom style

Getting the right mix of features and materials in your bedroom is important. In deciding how to arrange any room, how to decorate it, and what to put in it, the main purpose of the room is the most important consideration.

The overall style of your bedroom, therefore, needs to reflect the importance of this area as one in which your whole being (body and mind) comes for repose. This is an indispensable aspect of the perpetual process of Yin and Yang, and if you do not respect it, an essential aspect of the balance of your life will go out of kilter.

Tombstone headboard

It doesn't take much imagination to see that the headboard of bed resembles a tombstone. Such similarities would immediately strike the eye of the Feng Shui expert and you would be advised to select a different style.

Plants in the bedroom

During the day, plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. So plants and flowers around a sickbed make sense in the daytime. But at night the pattern of gas exchange is reversed and they compete with us for oxygen. Don't fill your bedroom with plants and, if you're ill, remove the gifts of greenery overnight.

Uppredictable energy

From the Feng Shui point of view, bed frames shoule be made of warm materials, not metal which is cold and has unpredictable energetic qualities. Nor is the bedroom a religious sanctuary, so according to Feng Shui principles it should not be used as a place of worship. If you have nowhere else to put items of religious significance, the best arrangement is to keep them in a little cabinet that you can keep closed.

Mirror power

A common mistake is to think of a mirror as an inert object, a useful tool, like a screwdriver. But mirrors are constantly at work, not only when we pass them and look at them. They intensify the image of anything that they reflect. Think about what happens when you shine an electric torch or flashlight into a mirror at night. The light that bounces back to you is far more blinding that the naked beam of the small bulb.

So the first rule is never place a mirror directly opposite the door of your bedroom. It will bounce the imcoming energy straight back at the door, where it will set up permanent disturbance patterns at the entrance to your bedroom and prevent smooth circulation inside the room.

High-intensity bounce-back

Mirrors positioned opposite windows will have the same bounce-back effect as those opposite door, leading to a constant, narrow band of disturbance between the window and the mirror.

A mirror positioned so that you can see the bed from the door will have the same effect as if the door were directly opposite the bed, but remember that the energy bounced off the mirror will be of higher intensity.

Perpetual disturbance

Avoid placing a mirror opposite your bed. Remember that it acts as a constant energy reflector and will be sending that stream of intensified power into the space over and around your bed, day and night. It will be a perpetual cause of disturbance while you sleep.

Ideally, you should place your mirror on the inside of a cupboard door. If you are staying in a strange room, use a scarf to cover an unwanted mirror.

Windows and beds

One of the main factors theat determines how energy circulates in your bedroom is the alignment of the windows and the door. It is very important, therefore, to take the relative positions of the windows and door into account in deciding where to place your bed. You want to avoid sleeping in the equivalent of an "energy draft" and, at the same time, you don't wnat to be in too stagnant an area of the room. Pulling the curtains or blinds over the windows when you are using your bed is a simple solution if the location of the windows is a problem.

Energy passes through

The energy enters through the door and will pass straight out the other side through the floor-to-ceiling window. The bed is in a poor position in relation to the door.

Constant current
As energy enters the room, it travels over to the windows and therefore creates a constant current over the bed.

Bed in a good location
The bed is not next to the windows, so it is less affected by energy currents passing through them.

Under a window
The head of the bed is directly under a window. If the blind is left open, then the tortoise side is unsupported. If the blind is pulled down, then the window is covered and this becomes a suitable position for the bed.

A good position
The bed has been placed in the most sensible position in relation to the windows on the two walls and the door.

What are the problems here?
You now have enough informaiton at your disposal to be able to determine the problems associated with the position of this bed. You should take into account the relationship to the door, to the overhead beam, and the overhead window.