Agents of Change

In feng shui, fire, earth, metal, water, and wood are frequently described as elements or types of energy or chi. But there's another description that I've read before but which resonated strongly with me this evening while reading through some basic info on Taoist concepts: the five agents of change. To change the energy in our lives, in our living spaces, we introduce one or more of these agents of change that correspond with whatever it is we need more or less of. I know it's simply another way of saying feng shui elements, but it has a nice, proactive ring about it, don't you think?

10,000 Ways

Six months? Yes, it's been six long months since I've updated this blog. I won't bore you with all the details but it's all good now.

While I'd love to add some tutorials or other good practical pieces, for now I'm just going to throw out some food for thought of the more esoteric variety. I've been catching up on some reading. A passage in an Introduction to Taoism by Elizabeth Reninger caught my eye. Emphasis added.

Along with its institutional practices -- the rituals, ceremonies and festivals enacted within temples and monasteries -- and the internal alchemy practices of its yogis and yoginis, the Taoist traditions have also produced a number of divination systems, including Yijing (I-ching), feng-shui, and astrology; a rich artistic heritage, e.g. poetry, painting, calligraphy and music; as well as an entire medical system. Not surprising, then, that there are at least 10,000 ways of “being a Taoist”! Yet within them all one can find aspects of the Taoist world-view – a deep respect for the natural world, a sensitivity to and celebration of its patterns of change, and an intuitive opening to the unspeakable Tao.

So, my thought for the day, to corrupt a common cliche: What's good for the Tao is good for the Feng Shui. There is no single right way to do feng shui. Don't be timid about doing feng shui your own way. :-)

Free Online Feng Shui Classes

Want to learn more about Feng Shui by attending a virtual seminar or taking a virtual class, and do it for free? Try out all these free courses on Feng Shui offered at various Web sites. I've done each course myself and I'll tell you a little bit about what to expect. These are primarily introductory classes although the free lessons at Geomancy.net do go fairly deep into the subject compared to the other free classes.

There are two lesson-by-lesson courses, two online seminars or multi-media presentations, and one audio class. Try them all. They're free.

American Feng Shui Institute You'll need to sign up and receive a link by email to access their Free Intro Seminar -- course on Traditional Feng Shui. It consists of a slide show presentation and audio (Multimedia format). Twenty-three minutes in length if you listen straight through, or stop and replay each section at your own pace. There's also a standard text-based version that you simply read online -- no sound or slide show. I recommend doing the multimedia version first then going back to the standard version to help reinforce the seminar content. Additionally, the standard version includes a short self-test to see how much you think you know about traditional Feng Shui.

The seminar talks about some things that feng shui is not (i.e. it dismisses certain contemporary feng shui practices), gives a good overview of some of the basic theories, and answers some common questions about feng shui. This is not an in-depth course but if you are new to feng shui or are only familiar with contemporary or Western feng shui, this Free Introductory Feng Shui Semimar provides an easy-to-understand overview.

Geomancy.net Cecil Lee's free Fun with Feng Shui course has three modules: Principles, Shapes and Form, and Eight Types of Houses. Don't let the Fun in the title fool you, there's a lot of information packed into those pages. The first module in this free course is a series of pages with sometimes amusing images that introduce the Luo Shu Square, Nine Periods of Feng Shui Time Cycle, Yin & Yang, Five Elements, the Chinese Calendar, the Eight Trigrams, and Chi. While it's not in-depth, it is informative. The second module delves into the origins of Feng Shui, the Four Symbolic Animal Spirits, choosing a site and type of building, Water Feng Shui, and Roads. It also includes lots of diagrams of unfavorable and favorable room arrangements and placements. The last module helps you analyze your home using the Eight House Theory. Following Module 3 there are several advanced topics including The Flying Star Theory, The Geomancy Compass, and colors. All-in-all, the course is a nice step-by-step, usually easy to follow series of lessons in Feng Shui.

The text of the introductory page tells you to "Click on Next Page to Free first course: Module 1: Principles of Feng Shui" but there is no clickable link. It's easy to miss but scroll back up to the top of the page and over to the right in the dark gray band there are yellow Prev-Next buttons. Click those to navigate. It takes two clicks to get to the first module... or just go here to start the Fun with Feng Shui course. You can also use the folder style Site Navigation links in the left column. Bookmark this one.

Feng Shui for Us Monica P. Castaneda offers a series of nine lessons (series of articles) on Feng Shui in her Free Online Classroom. She teaches a contemporary version of Feng Shui that uses 9 life areas or aspirations and a fixed position bagua map. Some of the lessons have a lot of ecommerce content (things for sale) although purchases are not required -- it's just a touch too prominent for my taste in a few places. Features of this class include weekly assignments for each life area ("Feng Shui Journeys") and "decluttering prescriptions" for different types of clutter or organizational challenges.

The Feng Shui Journeys consist of tasks such as placing objects in certain locations, decluttering, cleaning, making lists, and reading. There are several multi-week journeys tied to the 9 life areas. Read them online or sign up for emails that will time the journeys to the seasons. The decluttering lesson relates each type of clutter to a life area and gives a specific approach to dealing with each type of clutter. Other lessons cover the bedroom, using water to attract money, creating a wealth poster, and using a gratitude bowl. The email component would be good for those who want to break the course down into small segments but need a reminder to return to the course each day or each week. Interested? Go to Monica P. Castaneda's Free Online Classroom.

Feng Shui Diva Robyn Bentley Feng Shui for Children's Room is a free audio class aimed at parents. Robyn Bentley tells us there are no bad children, just bad behavior. She talks about negative stimulation in the home. She talks about the benefits of facing the bed in each of the child's good directions. To determine their good and bad directions would require further reading and study that's beyond the scope of the audio so I'd recommend determining those directions before listening to the class. Robyn gives some examples of types of behavior problems and how feng shui changes at home improved each situation.

She addresses the need for a compass, bed placement, and what to do when best directions conflict with other room features (windows, door, proximity to a next door bathroom, etc.) Other topics covered include methods of dealing with children's clutter (with a 'hairy swimmer' analogy), exposure to EMF, using certain things like happy family photos to create a sense of security, and taming the use of negative images by older children. Robyn talks briefly about colors for children's rooms. Scroll down on the page to find the description for Robyn's Free Audio Class or go direct to the mp3 file on Feng Shui for Children's Room.

Rising Dragon Feng Shui In this free course on Feng Shui Essentials from Angela Ang you'll have to click your way through several pages of Feng Shui discussion and peppy, bubbly talk. Angela comes across as quite friendly and energtic. I think it would be great to hear her in person or listen to an audio presentation but her chattiness can be a little tiresome to read through at times. If you get bogged down, click on the picture of Angela for some Feng Shui humor.

For the most part the course is a discussion of magnetic forces and the science of Feng Shui from a Chinese, traditional Feng Shui perspective. The course is divided into Secrets of Heaven and Earth - Revealed in Clear English, Where Feng Shui Matters to You, and Everything Else You Need to Know. Its aim appears to be to get the reader excited about the possibilities of Feng Shui and preparing you to explore further but it's not a tutorial and doesn't really teach how to use Feng Shui. Angela offers another free course on the history and symbolism of Chinese coins. Explore Feng Shui Essentials.

Do you know of other free Feng Shui classes online? Tell us about them. Are they worthwhile or worth skipping?

Organization Saves the Solar System

Being organized in and of itself isn't necessarily a principle of feng shui but it is often a side effect. Before totally rearranging a room for better feng shui, we generally clean up first and get rid of things we don't need and find new places for things we do need. Cleaning often leads to more efficient use of space and finding better ways to store items.

I'm not the most organized person in the world but when I reorganized my storage shed earlier this year I made an effort to organize and label all the boxes. That organization paid off today. It was a small thing but it meant a lot to me. It meant I was on the right track.

My husband was about to head to the store to get "something to make a model of the solar system" for his 8 year old son's science project. Now I knew that among all the boxes and boxes of my own school supplies (I homeschool my daughters) I had a set of styrofoam balls that were all sized for just that purpose. Last year, I might have hesitated saying anything knowing that it would probably have taken me a full day to lay my hands on that package. Today, it took all of 10 minutes thanks to the labeled storage containers -- with all the school and craft supplies grouped together -- in my nice neat storage shed. My storage shed that I had cleaned up as part of my renewed resolve to improve the organization, appearance, and feng shui of my home. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with myself.

What Others Are Saying About Feng Shui and Getting Organized

Most of the feng shui and getting organized advice is centered on cleaning and clearing the clutter.

• Feng Shui and the Organized Baby
  At About.com Feng Shui Rodika Tchi describes how organizing her baby's stuff in a part of the home office helped a work at home mom and organizing the baby's stuff in the parent's bedroom helped everyone sleep better.
  
  
• Feng Shui and Office Organization
  Ergo In Demand has suggestions for organizing and arranging your office more efficiently using feng shui - with a before and after picture.
  
  
• Feng Shui Tips to Help You Get More Organized
  Marie Diamond says "Get more organized and clear the path ahead ... you’ll be amazed at how many new gifts will appear in your life!"

Getting organized certainly has its benefits, whether or not you connect it with good feng shui.

10-Minute Clutter Control: Easy Feng Shui Tips for Getting Organized

The Clutterbusters Are Out to Get You

It might surprise you (or maybe not) to hear that there are some feng shui practitioners who believe that the concept of clutter^* and its relationship to feng shui is a bunch of rubbish. It may well be that clutter in and of itself was never a part of traditional or authentic feng shui as originally practiced in China. Ah, some of you may be breathing a sigh of relief. You can stop worrying about the junk under the bed and get back to painting the front door red, hanging another wind chime, and deciding which way to turn your bed. But wait. Don't you want to know why clutter and feng shui aren't the soulmates you've been (mis)led to believe?

Is clearing the clutter a bunch of hooey with no relationship whatsoever to feng shui? Are all the feng shui practitioners out there who advocate clutter clearing nothing but a bunch of charlatans?

• According to Cate Bramble in The truth about clutter, clutter is a female problem. Women are gullible. Some notable quotes: "Clutter as applied to feng shui is an American invention." and "The faux feng shui concept of First Impressions is nothing more than the aesthetic prejudice of an American subculture." and "Remember, most men think 'clutter' and the obsession with housecleaning is just plain nuts. Many like a 'clean house,' but what is their standard of 'clean' ? It is typically not the same as a woman's."

  On the whole I found this particular article inflammatory and offensive in its presentation (maybe it was all the bold type). My gut reaction aside, what the author is saying is that the concept of clutter and its relationship to feng shui is a relatively recent (primarily American) invention and is not a part of authentic feng shui as practiced in China. She supports her position with a lot of facts and quotes.

  About the author: Cate Bramble maintains the Feng Shui Ultimate Resource Web site and is the author of the Architect's Guide to Feng Shui. You can read an interview at Feng Shui Times.

• In Clutter is Natural at Fast Feng Shui, Stephanie Roberts writes that unlike our ancestors, now more than ever before "we shop and shop and buy more things for our homes (and our cars, and our cell phones) until we're drowning in stuff. And then we shop for things to help us manage the other things and get them organized and neatly stored. Usually all that results from this is an over-abundance of misused, unused, or wrong-sized containers that metastasize into their own variety of clutter."

  Even though Ms. Roberts does advocate clutter clearing in her books and articles on feng shui, one can infer from the "Clutter is Natural" article that back when the Chinese began formulating the major tenets of feng shui, clutter was not a major issue. I can accept that. Society as a whole didn't have the same kind of packrat problems of today. It's quite common for current generations to think of the past as a simpler time -- fewer possessions, less clutter. It is quite likely that clutter wasn't really a consideration in classic feng shui practice. Does that mean it doesn't have a place in today's feng shui?

  About the author: Stephanie Roberts of Fast Feng Shui and Clutter-Free Forever has written several books, including The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui and Fast Feng Shui: 9 Simple Principles for Transforming Your Life by Energizing Your Home. She practices "the principles of contemporary western feng shui."

• The Feng Shui Institute offers many courses on feng shui. If clutter is a key concept of feng shui you'd expect it to show up in the course descriptions, right? Read through the course outline for their distance learning class and you'll find that the course covers history, yin and yang, the five elements, the eight trigrams, Chinese astrology, Form School, Compass School, East/West Groups, Qi, the Importance of Water, the choice of a site, architectural balance, and symbolism (including basic cures, crystals, mirrors, etc.). They have workshops on compass school, I Ching and Divination, Earth Acupuncture, 9 Star Ki, Flying Star Feng Shui, Four Pillars, and use of the luo pan.

  The detailed outlines show that the courses cover a wide range of feng shui topics but you'll find that nothing in any of the outlines suggest that clutter is an important enough aspect of traditional feng shui to even merit a sub-heading.

  About the Institute: The Feng Shui Institute promotes traditional Chinese feng shui offering accreditation through distance learning courses, workshops, and CDs.

Old vs. New

There aren't too many feng shui sites coming out and proclaiming loudly that clutter has nothing to do with feng shui -- most just go about their business and offer their own point of view without bashing what others are doing. But it would be reasonable to come to the conclusion from reading the material above that it's not a part of traditional or original Chinese feng shui. Does that make you want to throw in the towel and declare all newer, contemporary forms of feng shui invalid? Maybe us Westerners are just a messier bunch and clutter is getting in the way of us putting up more mirrors and crystals so that's why Western feng shui practitioners want us to get rid of all that excess junk.

Is someone advocating traditional Eastern styles of feng shui but also calling for a little clutter clearing also a quack? Lillian Too, founder of World of Feng Shui has written many books based on traditional feng shui, as well as Lillian Too's 168 Feng Shui Ways to Declutter Your Home. Some practitioners schooled in both old and new schools of feng shui include clutter clearing as part of their practice. The prevalence of the clutter is bad feng shui mindset may well have prompted some of them to follow suit even though it's not part of traditional Chinese feng shui practice.

Then again, if clutter wasn't a problem in China back when feng shui was born, does that mean we're supposed to just ignore it? Many things didn't exist back then that we have to contend with these days -- air pollution, noise pollution, faster-paced lifestyles. Feng shui is about our environment, our living space. Even if we define clutter as simply "having more stuff in our living space than we have room for" it is part of our environment. For that reason, why shouldn't it be something that we can use feng shui concepts to fix.

If clearing the clutter makes you feel good, if you see improvements in your life by getting organized or clearing the dust bunnies, then whether or not the concept of clutter was a part of traditional feng shui or not shouldn't really matter. But hey, that's just my opinion. What do you think? Should Americans hang up their Black Hats and dump their baguas, toss out their color-coded file folders, unpack all their knick-knacks, and disregard their own history and culture?

View All Posts labeled Clutter for ways to deal with clutter.

^*Maybe clutter isn't quite the right word to use. Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus suggests this collection of terms that mean the same or similiar: "ataxia, chaos, confusion, derangement, disorder, hodgepodge, huddle, jumble, litter, medley, mess, muddle, mélange, rummage, scramble, shuffle, tumble, untidiness." Notice that dirty and unclean are missing from the list. We can keep our clutter without messing with our feng shui and without feeling dirty. Oh yeah!