A garden can benefit from feng shui and even help change the energy in your home. A properly arranged garden can be a place to be uplifted and energized, and also soothed and relaxed.

Balance is necessary, but is easy to accomplish by using various plants, flowers, and decorations.
The best place to have an entrance to your garden is facing South. The garden will get the maximum amount of sun exposure. You should also use an arch or open space instead of a closed gate.

There aren’t any specific plants you are supposed to use, but you should maintain a good balance between colors. Since hotter and brighter colors increase your energy, you should have them separated from your cooler and mellower colors which will relax you.

One of the hardest things to do in a garden is avoid clutter, but this is a must in feng shui. When you first plant, everything is pretty small and your garden may look a little barren. This is just fine. You want to make sure that each plant has its own space so you don’t end up with a cluttered jungle.

It’s easy and fun to incorporate the five feng shui elements into your garden. A bird bath can cover water, some lights or torches are fire, and for earth, clay pots and small boulders work wonders.

As far as paths in your garden go, you should avoid straight paths and instead opt for curvy, leisurely paths made from rounded tiles. Avoid edges whenever possible in your paths.

In feng shui, the kitchen is a symbol of wealth and abundance.The kitchen is the most important area of your home. It is responsible for nourishing your entire family and keeping everyone happy and healthy.

The optimal place for your kitchen is the center of your home. If the kitchen is located near the front or back door, the positive energy can escape.

Food gives us our energy and enables us to remain healthy. To keep this food energy positive and healing, the food has to be cooked in an organized kitchen that maintains a good balance of Chi. By having a well balanced and energized kitchen, the cook becomes more energized and the entire family benefits.

The best tips for the kitchen are pretty basic and should go hand in hand with the rest of your home very easily. Lighting is an important part of feng shui and in the kitchen, there should be an abundance of natural light if available and if not, full spectrum lighting is recommended. The air should flow nicely and the kitchen should give off a very welcoming energy.

A great way to add positive energy to your kitchen is by using plants and flowers. When placed on your kitchen table, they are not only beautiful to look at, but they increase the positive energy level greatly. You should use plants and flowers that are yellowish in color, because yellow is a great digestive aid in feng shui.

Like the rest of the house, clutter should be kept as minimal as possible. Since this is the very heart of the home, keep it as happy and warm as possible.

Education has always been very important in China and feng shui cures have always been used to help children learn. We here in the Western world are placing more emphasis on education. And it’s the Western part of your living space that is connected to the well being of your children.

Regardless of where you live, if you are interested in improving your life through the art of feng shui when it comes to education, try implementing the following:

When the energy is focused positively, it can improve every aspect of your children’s lives and one of the most important parts is education.

The Western feng shui element is Metal which prefers the colors white and gray. Earth complements metal sousing yellows or sandy colors are beneficial. You should avoid anything fire related as fire melts metal.

The use of your children’s artwork in the area is a great idea. When placed in white or metal frames, the increase in positive energy will soar.

There are many other things you can do to help increase your children’s ability to learn successfully. By placing a map or a globe between the North and West areas of your child’s room, they will draw in energy that can expand thinking abilities and encourage long term goals.

Avoiding clutter is a large part of feng shui and it should be cleared out before rearranging the room.This has many practical applications if the Western area of your home is used as a place of study.

By having a positive environment surrounded by artwork that your children are proud of, it can be a great and peaceful place to do homework or study for tests. It is a more “distraction free” area than a bedroom where there are toys, television, games, or siblings.

A great deal of our lives is spent at work so it can be very beneficial to have a positively energized work environment. If your office has been properly set up to take advantage of the energies of feng shui, you can get a higher rate of productivity as well as improve relations with coworkers and management. You might even find you enjoy going to work.

Seating is very important in feng shui. If you are sitting facing a wall, this is a symbol of a barrier to improvement. Some steps to take to improve your Chi in this situation are to hang up a picture of scenery on the wall. A painting of a mountain or phoenix is recommended, but they shouldn’t have water anywhere in the picture. Feng shui recommends that your back be to the wall. If your back is to a door, this is considered very bad luck.

Clutter should be avoided whenever possible. By keeping your desk clear and tidy, you can become much more efficient and there will be much more positive energy in your workspace.

If you sit at your desk and have sharp edges pointing toward you, this is the worst thing possible. If it’s the edge of a wall, try to move to a different location. If sharp edges of office equipment or anything else and it can be moved, by all means - keep every edge or corner pointing anywhere but at you. Edges send harmful sharp chi in your direction and nothing good comes from that.

Did you know there are health benefits to feng shui? Feng shui has long been heralded for its ability to increase people’s energy levels and give them a much healthier life. This may sound unusual to some people, but really think about it.

Feng shui calls for a clutter-free, well lit area with good air circulation. That by itself can do wonders, but when applied with various feng shui techniques, it can make amazing improvements in your state of mind.
Nobody likes living in a mess and that can affect you mentally. To maintain a space that is beneficial to your health, there are only three basic needs that have to be met.

Fresh air is very important in the modern world. Thousands of years ago there weren’t factories and cars all over that seriously diminish air quality. Even in your home there are many pollutants - from things like your stove, refrigerator, and animals.

The easiest way to help eliminate some of these pollutants and to add something beautiful to your home is to get some air purifying plants. Many types of small palm and fern are renowned for their ability to suck in toxic substances that are in the air. In addition, they put out oxygen which is always a good thing.

Lighting is very important also. Light is one of the most powerful forms of energy in the universe. Many of us don’t get enough sunlight exposure on a daily basis. Feng shui encourages the use of natural light whenever possible, but in areas where that isn’t an option full spectrum lighting is recommended.

The last basic need is to stay free of clutter. Get rid of stuff you don’t really need and don’t be a packrat. By starting with these three basics, you can learn more and start applying feng shui cures to your home and life.

In feng shui, the master or main bedroom is the most important bedroom of the entire house. Everything from the harmony of the house to the finances of the house can be influenced by the master bedroom.

There are four major factors you should consider about feng shui in the bedroom:

• The shape of the bedroom
• Location of the bed
• What area of the house your bedroom is located
• What is used for decoration

These all play a pivotal role in the flow of energy in the house.

The shape of the bedroom is very important in feng shui. A rectangular or square room is the best. If your bedroom is oddly shaped, you can use a room divider to help it maintain a more rectangular shape.

The bed shouldn’t face a door or any ‘protruding’ edges of any kind. These are both symbols of negative energy and can be impossible to correct without moving the bed.

You should also avoid having any overhead beams above the bed or windows behind the headboard. Mirrors facing the bed also negatively affect the Chi of the area.

The ideal location for the master bedroom is in the Northwest of the house. This might not always be possible, however the next best choice is the Southwest. These two areas represent the Patriarch and Matriarch respectably.

Decorations are important but you don’t want to over do it. Depending on what your goals are, you can configure and energize the bedroom for romance, marriage, or relationships. You should avoid energizing the bedroom for luck in wealth.

Feng shui has one main goal: Increase positive energy by creating a place of balance and harmony. This is achieved by using the five elements of feng shui. The elements all work with each other and have their own characteristics. When balancing the energy in any space, these five elements are used to enhance positive energy as well as counteract negative energy.

Wood is connected to the color green. To increase the wood energy in an area, live plants are used and not dead wood that is in chairs and other furniture. In addition to adding wood energy, the plants filter the air and increase oxygen making the atmosphere of your space more healthy. Wood’s home is in the East of your space.

Fire is connected to reds, oranges, and purples. Fire is anything that uses electricity or produces heat.Televisions and lamps are good examples. A lamp that has a red lampshade can greatly increase the fire energy of an area. Fire’s home is the South.

Earth is connected to tans, browns, and beige. Brickwork and anything that uses rocks is part of the earth element. Clay pots, tiles, and ceramics also increase the earth energy. Earth is the Northeast.

Metal is connected to whites and golds. So much is made of metal, you can pretty much pick and choose what to use to increase your metal energy. A statue or even a bed frame will work great. Metal is located in the West.

Water is connected to blues and blacks. Representing the winter, water is commonly used in more passive ways due to it’s wet nature. Used improperly, water can disturb all the energy in your space. Using aquariums, fountains, or pools are the easiest ways to increase water energy. Water is in the North.

Would you like to learn more about feng shui? Feng shui is really growing in popularity and the demand for feng shui practitioners is higher than ever. Many people dabble in feng shui using tips from the Internet or from television but the best way to learn feng shui is from a feng shui school.

There are tons of feng shui schools, and the odds are, there is one in your town or close by. But if that isn’t an option, online feng shui schools are a great alternative and might even be more convenient for many people.

Traditional classes are preferred by many people when it comes to feng shui, because they have a more “hands on” approach than an online school. The problem is, feng shui may not be offered everywhere and online may be your only option. Before you enroll in any class, make sure the teacher is certified and has a good reputation.

At a feng shui school you will learn all kinds of things you might otherwise never know about. Feng shui is very old and you will learn all about the history of feng shui, yin and yang, the five elements, and how all of this interacts with the universe and your environment.

Many people start off doing feng shui as a hobby and become very impressed by the effects it has on every aspect of their lives. If you have dabbled in feng shui or are just curious about it, check around for opportunities. Many cities have adult education centers where you can take classes for feng shui at a reasonable cost and some even offer night classes.

Feng shui is a term that means “wind-water”. There are many versions of Feng shui that you can learn from and all kinds of classes whether online or in a traditional classroom.

The basis of Feng shui is that it allows you to achieve harmony with your surroundings and the environment. This is achieved through arranging your space, planning your agriculture, and more commonly, arranging the furniture and decorations of your home.

Feng shui has been practiced for over 4000 years in China, but only in the last couple decades has it really taken off in the rest of the world. The belief is that everything has energy and everything in your home or office can either help you accomplish your goals or even hinder them.

Feng shui teaches you to understand the energy that is in everything - from your body to pretty much anything that exists. By understanding this energy, you gain the insight to arrange your home or office to help you reach any goal that you set, by increasing the good energy and eliminating the bad energy.

Feng shui uses two main tools. There is the Ba-Gua and the compass. The Ba-Gua is a map that contains the symbols of the I Ching upon which feng shui originated.

The Ba-Gua consists of 8 specialized areas, what they represent, and the color scheme that is best suited to them. This is to increase the flow of good energy throughout the entire area.

Feng shui is known to improve a person’s life in many ways. This is what makes it so popular. The promise of well being, increasing your chance to meet your goals, and improving your overall health is something everyone wants.

This article is one of a series of articles. Watch for more postings on the topic of Feng Shui.