WHILE MOST OF us vaguely know Feng Shui has something to do with rearranging furniture, we might be a bit fuzzy on the specifics.
More than just making sure your sofa is angled towards your television in the right way, the Chinese earth science purports to work with the energy in a person’s house and to have a far reaching impact on their lives.
However, while some feel the practice is of great benefit, others have dismissed it as a pseudo science.
To find out a bit more about what it entails, TheJournal.ie spoke to Dervilla Griffin from Feng Shui Matters in Cork.
So Feng Shui is just basically making your furniture look like it’s in the right place? What’s so special about that?
Well Feng Shui is really an earth science. It is based on calculations of when your home was built and where it sits on the landscape. So say if your house was built fifty years ago and you went to the house and you took a reading with your Lo-Pan compass – you will get a reading for exactly how it is fitting and how it is facing. And then you’ve got to allow for a shift in the Earth’s circumference. It normally changes about a degree every ten years.
So you can learn a lot of information from looking at a house, how it is sitting and the year it was built.
Ok. That’s a bit complicated. But basically you’re saying it is about energy?
Absolutely! It’s an earth science. And you know yourself if you get a good bottle of wine in a certain year it will have certain characteristics or traits to it. Depending where you get it – you might say [a certain wine] is very good for a Cabernet Sauvignon because it has certain characteristics.
And it is the same with a house. A house will capture certain energies and it will depend whether that will suit someone going to move there or it might suit somebody differently. Just because a house is Feng Shui it doesn’t mean that it will suit everybody.
Is moving things around in rooms a bit part of Feng Shui? Or is that a misconception?
I mean some Feng Shui consultants are interior designers and they’ll walk around and they’ll look at the space and they’ll move things around and they’ll start giving advice out. But they’re not doing the mathematical formula – so they’re not doing the scientific aspect of it. And Feng Shui is an earth science, so to do proper Feng Shui – you really need to understand energy fields, and how they are going to affect people.
Ok, so what exactly is involved in the mathematical formula?
Prior to arrival I would have everyone’s date of birth. I would have checked the house out on Google Earth and I would have allowed for magnetic declination depending on when the house was built. So I’d have done about three or four hours work before arriving.
And then when I call to the home, I’ll take photographs of the home inside and outside around the landscape. Then I would do readings. Compass readings both inside and outside and all over the bedrooms.
And then I’ll come home and within 20-25 hours I’ll have finished my report for my clients, tell them exactly what’s needed inside the house. Telling them where people will get sick, what to do to bring back positive vibrations and what changes need to be made.
How much does all of this cost?
Depends on the size of the house. Say you were looking at a one bedroom or two bedroom of around 800 sq. ft., around €650 would be the minimum cost and then depending where it is there would be travel costs on top of that. Some houses can be a lot bigger. A house that was around 3,000 sq. ft., that would work out at around €1,500. So it depends on the square footage. Because then I’ll know how many hours are going to be involved in it.
(Pictured: probably bad Feng Shui)
What basic advice do you have for people who want to improve the energy in their home?
Less clutter – that’s a bonus. When clutter accumulates, the energy will stagnate. When you’ve got a lot of negative energy and you’ve got a lot of clutter around it, that is going to bring your own frequency down and you’re always going to be drawn to it. It is very important that it is not just about moving furniture around – it is about understanding the energy within the building first.
Dervilla Griffin’s tips on getting Feng Shui right in your home
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say