EMPTINESS, ORDER AND CLEANLINESS IN FENG SHUI
Before any serious feng shui correction, look first for cleanliness, order, clarity and a proper sense of emptiness. Rushing to hang mirrors, figurines, charms or crystals over a cluttered space only amplifies the underlying chaos.
A common mistake is to hurry and place mirrors, figurines, charms, crystals or other objects meaning to “cure” a space, with no proper groundwork. Doing so, without first clearing the space, can heighten the latent chaos and amplify unbalanced or negative aspects. Imagine you want a good harvest and you fertilise a field full of weeds: as you water them, they grow all the stronger, choking the good seed you had sown. That is why the first step in any major feng shui correction is to remove clutter, dirt and unbalanced symbols from the space.
Suppose someone looks over your house and advises you to put a mirror in a certain area because it lacks depth, or to draw in something that is missing. So far, so good — but in the rush and inattention, it is overlooked that opposite the mirror hangs a picture of little beauty or unfortunate shapes. What is the result? Of course, it amplifies a negative feature in the house and so makes the original space, and its feng shui, worse.
The call for cleanliness, order and prior emptiness is like the advice of some Chi Kung masters, who recommend an orderly life and a proper diet before undertaking certain practices. The movement of energy, or Qi, is safer when it runs through a healthy space or body. It is our responsibility to attend to these things before making changes through feng shui. All of the above holds for the many objects that some feng shui schools recommend in spaces already saturated with disorder and clutter. Emptiness, cleanliness, beauty and natural order are always the best preparation for feng shui corrections and “cures”.
THE POWER OF ORDER AND CLARITY
A young woman, keen on feng shui, asked us for a study of her home. She had some health problems and a relationship that had just ended. On visiting, she told us she had read a book about the power of candles to solve certain problems, and had filled many corners of the house with candles to reach her personal goals — among them, winning back her former partner. The feeling of the house was strange and murky; we were also surprised to see many stones in different rooms, and when we asked where they came from, she told us she had brought them — no more and no less — from some Roman catacombs near her home town. The candles and the stones together had created an extremely cold, yin Qi.
Our first advice, before anything else, was to remove all the candles, the catacomb stones and some masks she owned. We also suggested doing away with unnecessary objects and gifts that lacked beauty and that she kept only to please others, and we increased the light and brightened the colours with yin connotations. Within a few weeks our client's health had improved considerably and, to her surprise, she was reconciled with her partner. The excess of yin was put right by adding light and clarity, through cleanliness and a fitting emptying of her objects.
We always tell our students, and those who attend the feng shui courses, that before applying feng shui cures they should pay close attention to cleanliness and to the need to clear certain objects, so as not to reinforce an unbalanced Qi. Using mirrors, candles, stones, crystals, figurines and other elements to enhance a space always requires a proper foundation. Just as it is unwise to empower a person who lacks common sense, it is unwise to pour energy into a space that is neither clean nor balanced.
Before seeking solutions through feng shui, it is very important to clean, clear and tidy thoroughly — always working from the more physical to the more subtle. Sometimes we look to the heavens when we have not even sorted out the practical, earthly side of our energy. That would be like calling on the angels to come and tidy the storeroom, or to bring light where a bulb is simply missing.
STOREROOMS AND STAGNANT OBJECTS
Hoarding useless junk has a bad name in feng shui. A storeroom, it is said, brings sluggishness and confusion wherever it is. If you use the technique of dividing a space into nine areas with a given symbolism, or another system of reading, then wherever the storeroom lies it will add confusion and chaos to that area. It should be looked at from an overall perspective. Some people give it a symbolic meaning according to the level where the junk appears: in the basement it points to disorder such as forgotten memories or experiences in the subconscious; in the attic, to disorder or an excess of mental information; outside the home, to things about ourselves we would rather not see clearly. In any case, a place full of disorder really reflects a “certain chaos” in our lives — which it is very good to set flowing again.
Once the clearing is done properly, such storerooms should disappear. Even so, a place for keeping tools and rarely used objects can look something like a storeroom; in that case, use order and a proper arrangement by shelves, drawers and so on. A tidy “semi-storeroom” reads far more positively than one turned upside down.
Storerooms are also linked, in terms of health, with a build-up of tension in various parts of the body, sluggish digestion and the like. Many people, as they clear their homes of clutter and useless objects, report symptoms such as more regular trips to the bathroom, unexpected calls from people, positive solutions to problems that had been stuck for a long time, and so on.
FREE UP MORE ENERGY
There is one thing everyone who attends the courses reports when they clear and order their space: as they work on the outer clutter in their home or workplace, a part of them becomes more ordered too, and a sense of clarity and vitality emerges. It is like untying a mass of knots, or cutting away many energetic threads that lead to things which give us nothing in return. If you think of clutter as carrying a backpack full of stones, then it is only natural that, on cutting these energetic ties, we gain an extra dose of energy and vitality.
You can explore this theme at greater length in the book “Feng Shui para todos”.
Related: Feng Shui and Decoration · The Principles of Feng Shui · Mirrors in Feng Shui. To learn to apply feng shui step by step, see our professional Feng Shui course.
