Feng Shui the Witch Way

Feng Shui the Witch Way
by Freya Ray

We pagans are an eclectic bunch, right? Here is my particular witchy perversion of some of the fundamentals of feng shui. Basically, feng shui gives us a neatly categorized system that we can use to manipulate our outer reality. It's one big metaphor. The layout of our space corresponds to the layout of our lives, and changing one can affect the other. Creating a love altar is powerful. Creating it in the love corner of the house magnifies its effect.

Before we start, let's do a little self-inventory, just to prove to you that this whole thing has some relevance for you. Draw a square/rectangle that represents the floor plan of your house (the outer perimeter). If your house is not a rectangle, draw it as one anyway. By which I mean, if there's a chunk taken out, creating an "L" shape, draw the lines out until they complete the rectangle. Then you have a "missing" part of your ba gua. Ba gua literally means octagon, and believe it or not that's where we're heading with this rectangle concept. On the other hand, if one room is pushed out slightly, it might be "extra" stuff, and the overall line of that wall excludes it. With me so far?

Next mark the eight corners of your rectangle. Just checking to see if you're paying attention! I mean, the four corners, and the center of each wall. Now, either in your mind or by doing a walkabout, evaluate the current status of each of those eight sections. Describe them briefly on your piece of paper, using words like: neat, messy, cluttered, sparse, chaotic, dusty, clean, attractive, full, useful, empty, sacred, neglected. Really do this, as I think you'll be impressed by what you find in the next section.

(Pause.) You back? Let's see what your metaphor reveals to you. Here's the function of each of the eight corners. The ba gua is laid out over your house, as if you were standing at the front door looking in. In the center of the wall where your front door is located is career. The corner to your right is travel and helpful people. The middle of the right wall is children and new ideas. The back right corner is love and marriage. The middle of the back wall is fame. (In feng shui "fame" is the face or image you present to the world, rather than "I've got to be a rock star.") The back left corner is abundance and money. The middle of the left wall is health and family. The corner to your left is self-knowledge.

For example, let's say you described your back right corner as cluttered and dusty. Take a look at your love life. Is that an accurate description? Do you feel surrounded by ghosts of relationships or issues past and not sure how to clear that crap out of your romantic life? Well, the easiest place to start is by clearing that crap out of your love corner, and building an appropriate altar there.

Go through each corner and see how your assessment describes that area of your life. Then prioritize. Life is easier to handle if we do one thing at a time. Before you launch a plan to do up each corner, start with the one that feels most pressing to you. It could be the most neglected space physically, or the one that's weighing most heavily on your mind psychically. I should probably confess here that generally, in house after house, the back left and back right corners get more than their equal share of attention in my life. But hey, we all want to get paid and laid, right?

Clutter is the enemy of good feng shui. Feng shui deals a lot with chi, which is good energy, and sha, or bad energy. Sha is harsh, and travels in straight lines. Having your house directly at the end of a busy street is bad, as all that rapid, harsh energy blasts right at your house. Chi, on the other hand, travels in curves and spirals. Sounds a bit witchy, doesn't it? The overall idea is to entice chi to visit the areas of your life that need more energy. Actually, the ultimate goal is to get chi circulating freely throughout your entire life, but we're going to start with one area first.

Chi cannot worm its way into a stack of magazines, or inside boxes, and is overtly repelled by dirt and dust. Chi is quite finicky, in fact, and must be seduced by open spaces and shiny objects. Lure good energy back into a neglected area of your life by creating a space anyone would want to visit.

Step one is to clear out the area. Do this thoroughly. If you've got a situation in your personal life, why not just pull everything out of there? It will be worth it, I promise. Pull all the stuff off the piece of furniture, perhaps move the furniture. Clear a few feet in all directions. Now clean it. Dust, vacuum, smudge, clean the windows, wipe the baseboards, get the cobwebs.

Sit back and take a deep breath. See how you feel. Let's say you're working with your love corner. Do you feel like there's a greater sense of possibility now? Do you feel the beginnings of new hope wafting through you, bourne on a breeze of freely circulating chi?

Bring into your mind what you'd like to create in your love life (or with your children, travel plans, career, etc.) This vision might be crystal clear in five minutes, or you may spend a few days on this part of the process. But wait to start creating again in that area until you have an idea of your goal. Clarity is intent's best friend, and no altar is going to be of any use without clear and focused intent.

Once you have a plan, it's time to create a space that will support that plan rather than hinder it. In areas of your life that are more acceptable already, you may decide to leave random things there. Like, if you feel pretty good about your general state of self-knowledge, and that's where the CDs and stereo live, you might just dust it off and call it good. But the area you're working on now is your biggest issue, and you might as well get obsessive about using this metaphor to turn it around.

Only put things back in the corner that support and represent your vision. You are creating an altar or shrine to revitalize a neglected or unsuccessful part of your life. Start with a decision about furniture. What would best represent your intention? For the wealth corner, you might decide on a heavy glass-fronted cabinet with decorative pieces inside it, or an immense aquarium. For the love corner, a handcrafted table with elegant lines to support a more traditional altar arrangement. If you've got three children and they're all experiencing different issues in their lives, you might hang three small shelves on the wall, each dedicated to one child.

Get creative, and remember to think metaphorically. If you've got money issues, the money corner is not the place you want to put the table with the trick leg that has to be propped up just so in order to remain standing. Do not allow a plant you placed in the health corner to die of neglect or creeping crud.

If the corner you're concerned about is one that's missing, you've got a couple of options. If you can, do something outside that extends the energy of the house out to that missing section. You could put a concrete bench or a lamppost to mark the corner, or plant flowers to draw energy there. If you don't have that option, you can use mirrors to draw energy in from outside. If you've got these kinds of special issues, there is a library of books on feng shui available at your favorite metaphysical bookstore, or you could find a consultant to assist you.

The furniture's in place, now it's time to decorate. Carefully select items that feel like they represent your intention. Now is when you get to work with color. Here are the color correspondences:

• Career: black
• Travel and helpful people: black, gray, white
• Children and new ideas: white
• Love: red, pink, white
• Fame: red
• Wealth: red, blue, purple
• Health and family: green
• Self-knowledge: green, black
  

This is just one way of doing the colors, and actually, the way I define the corners is just one way of doing that too. Feng shui is an ancient art and science, and there are lots of different opinions, just as you can ask three different pagans what the east represents and get three different answers. Use this information as a launching point and do more research if you're moved to, but most importantly use your intuition as the final judge.

I mentioned shiny pretty things earlier. Chi likes mirrors, electrical things including lamps, fresh flowers, fish, plants, sparkly crystal balls, candles, incense, crystals, pictures, fountains and offerings. Many of the standard altar items are consistent with feng shui recommendations.

Let's design a sample love altar. In the back right corner of the house, you've placed a polished rosewood table under a sparkling clean window. On the other wall, you've hung a rose-colored glass mirror, a collage representing what you seek to create in your love life, or a picture in rose tones that speaks to you of love. Perhaps a Renaissance couple surrounded by angels, or a stylized nude couple staring into each other's eyes.

Under that, you arrange an attractive altar on the table. You put fresh flowers in the clear glass vase every week, always in red, white and pink shades. Two large white pillar candles stand near each other, speaking to the twin flames of your love. Or two red ones, speaking to the passion you intend to ignite. A scroll bound with red ribbon contains a clear, concise description of the relationship you seek to create. A small photo of your still-in-love grandparents on their fiftieth anniversary lives in a silver frame. Rose quartz, an incense burner, a small cross-stitch of a picket fence with cute little flowers in front of it and the first gift your husband ever gave you complete the arrangement.

As you arrange things on the altar, keep your intention clear in your mind. This is a powerful process because it anchors your intention into physical form. Affirm your intention as you create, again as you pass the altar, again as you light or blow out candles or incense, again as you dust, again as you rearrange and refresh. You must keep the energy moving there - setting it up once and walking away will only bring temporary change. For a truly uplifting metaphor you must continue to support its vibrancy. The most powerful chi in your home is your own, so you must entice yourself there as well.

Watch out for others who might damage your metaphors. For example, feng shui says that in a house with many more windows than doors, the children will tend to be uncontrollable. The cure for that is to place bells on the front door. Don't ask why, it's an ancient magical system. As a teenager, my family moved to a house with many floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the house. My mother hung bells on the front door because she liked the sound, never having heard of feng shui. I took those bells off the door and hid them over and over and over. Our power struggle was clearly manifested around that particular psychic alarm system, which I resented fiercely.

Without knowing why she's doing it, your unemployed wife might keep stacking old papers in the career corner. Your roommate who can't quit spending money to save her soul might swipe the candles off the wealth altar to put on the dining table. Or the child who hates going on family trips might keep setting coaster-less drinks down on the travel altar. They are reacting to your attempts to change the energetic balance of your lives. You can negotiate with them, asking them to respect the newly cleared place. Or, see if you can't get them to articulate their fears about the issue. "Okay, Mommy and Daddy like to go on trips, very much. Is there any way we can make this fun for all of us? Or perhaps you'd like to stay with Aunt Jackie?" Your family will make their areas of resistance known clearly, if you watch their actions with metaphorical eyes.

Have fun with it. And expect a miracle or two.

Freya Ray is a professional psychic, shaman, write, and teacher. In readings she accesses the Akashic records and the client's Guides, bringing her clients the most useful information available for life's challenges and adventures. Her writing has appeared in the Sedona Journal of Emergence, the New Times, the Awareness Journal and the Magical Journal. She can be reached for comment or for psychic readings by phone at (206) 276-4290 or freya_ray@yahoo.com For full information on her practice and a writings archive, check out http://www.freyaray.com