Rearranging Furniture to Please Spirits in Ancient Art of <i> Feng Shui</i>

Wind and water, two of the most respected earthly elements in Chinese culture, are also the driving force behind one of the oldest traditions in China-- feng shui .

Feng shui-- literally, wind and water--is the Chinese practice of creating a harmonious environment by attracting good spirits and warding off evil ones.

Here’s one definition of feng shui : Wisdom and action in relation to place. Call it psychology for the home.

Feng shui (pronounced “fung-shway”) is based on the belief that good and bad spirits can be controlled by the appropriate placement of furniture, using certain color schemes or the building’s actual structure.

To create the necessary harmony, feng shui experts first study a person’s “ ch’i “ and the ch’i of the environment before applying the proper cures. Ch’i , in the most simple terms, is the energy consuming a person and the surroundings.

“It’s not only spirit, soul, mind, breath. It’s everything. Ch’i includes mind, aura, soul, spirit, life force,” according to Lin Yun, a feng shui teacher and leader of Tibetan Black Sect Buddhism.

The practice of feng shui , dating back thousands of years in China and still a common practice, is gaining a stronger hold in the United States.

More and more people are discovering the usefulness of feng shui , said Steven Post, one of Yun’s students and co-founder of Geomancy Education Organization in San Francisco.

“Many of the methods we use are involved with modern psychology,” Post said. “A lot of what we do is logical and straightforward.”

Take the simple position of a bed. A bed facing away from the door can make a person feel less in control in that room because the person is defenseless when the ch’i enters.

Likewise, if the bed is placed in line with the door, lying in the direct path of the powerful ch’i could be overwhelming.

After analyzing the room’s ch’i , the position of other objects and the occupant’s ch’i , placing the bed just so can create the desired balance.

Sound a bit superstitious?

“Absolutely,” Post said. “It absolutely is superstition.”

But he quickly added, “Anyone who engages in the subject will conclude that there is validity. The real test is the empirical test. (People) find that it leads to benefits and improvement.”

One of Yun’s clients, Alice Wong, added a mirror in her restaurant on the left side of the cash register and wind chimes in the entrance to bring in the vital force.

“Wind chimes--the clear crystal sound--wakes everything up. It’s just to bring up the ch’i ,” Wong said.

“You just can’t totally depend on it. It helps but . . . you have to work very hard yourself, and with a little bit of this it will help you,” said Wong, who manages one of three family restaurants.

San Francisco architect Donald MacDonald said he has designed buildings tailored to feng shui specifications.

“The thing about it is, it’s folklore based on practicality,” he said.

One feng shui belief is that it’s bad luck to have a house directly at the end of a road because the bad spirits flow uninterrupted into the dwelling. One way to deflect the potentially bad current is to build a fence or wall in front of the house.

But as MacDonald points out, on a more practical level, “if some guy loses control of his car, he goes right into your house,” and the wall would protect the home.

Interior design teacher Brian Pao explained that living things, such as a plant or an aquarium, often enhance a room.

When analyzing a room, Pao first defines the room in terms of areas.

Upon entering the room, the upper left area is the wealth area, the lower right is the helpful area, while the lower left is knowledge and self-cultivation.

“Often what I do is . . . analyze what’s going on in individual rooms to see if it’s cluttered or blocked in some way,” Pao said.

Financial problems may be attributed to garbage or clutter in the wealth area, he said. Potential cures include an aquarium with an aerator, a plant, wind chimes or mirrors.

“You don’t always get the desired results,” he said. “You may get more stress, but that may be necessary for those kinds of changes.”