Question: Is feng shui a religion? Do I have to be a Buddhist or something?

Answer: No. Feng Shui is the art of placement. Some of the concepts are based on Chinese spiritual traditions, but today–especially in western culture–Feng Shui is used primarily for arranging furnishings and choosing pleasing colors.

Think of it this way: Your kids can study karate without getting involved in Asian spirituality. You can use yoga for fitness, period.

Likewise, Feng Shui can be used for decorating your home or office, and that’s all.

You can be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Agnostic, or Atheist, and there will be no conflicts with anything that I teach about Feng Shui. Just skip over anything that sounds a little too weird or mystical.

Instead, focus on Feng Shui as a way to declutter your home, and create an environment that supports your dreams as well as your daily routines.

Question: I put flowers in my romance corner, and nobody’s asked me out yet. (Or, I’ve put a fish tank in my money corner, but I’m still unemployed.) What’s wrong?

Answer: Sometimes, Feng Shui can seem to work miracles. At other times, the results take longer. Did you see the Jim Carrey movie, “Bruce Almighty”? That showed why everyone can’t win the lottery at once. Life doesn’t work that way.

Also, while a single change can sometimes “work magic” in your life, you may need to look at the bigger picture. See the next question and answer, for an example.

Question: I want Feng Shui to help me with my final exams, so I’m “energizing” my Knowledge area. But, what about the clutter in the rest of my apartment? Where do I start?

Answer: Good for you! Energizing your Knowledge area (the left side of your room or home, as soon as you walk in the door) is a good idea, but you’re right to ask about the clutter. One of the biggest problems that I see when people use Feng Shui like this is that they do too much in one area, and neglect the rest.

I’ve written an article, Feng Shui and Clutter, to give you some ideas. If you’re working with massive amounts of clutter, my best advice is to start small, take things slowly, and–as soon as you start feeling overwhelmed–stop and take a good long break.

Some people start with an easy area… maybe they’re going to alphabetize the spices in their kitchen cabinet. Maybe they’re going to go through the pens and pencils in their desk (or junk drawer), to see which actually work and which need to be thrown out.

Others prefer the time approach: They’ll set a timer for 15 minutes. That’s all they’re committing to, in terms of decluttering that day. If they’re having fun, they’ll keep going. If not, well, that’s 15 minutes put to good use. If you spend 15 minutes of decluttering each day, that’s nearly two hours each week. It may take you a month to go through your entire home, but you will get there!

And then there is the logical approach, which borrows from Feng Shui philosophies: Start at the door that most people use to enter your home. Clean around the door. Then clean whatever you see next. And then whatever’s after that. Pretty quickly, people will see a clean, clutter-free home when they walk in the door. For many people, this is incentive to tackle the rest of the clutter… the areas that visitors don’t always see.

No matter which approach you use, getting the clutter out is the only way you’ll get long-lasting results with Feng Shui.

Take 15 minutes (or a small project) right now, and you’ll feel vastly better when you’ve finished it.

NATURAL LIGHTING, NATURAL DARKNESS

During sunny days where natural light streams in through windows, doors, and skylights, the light takes care of itself. Be sure that your windows are clean, and shrubs are trimmed so that light can enter your home easily. In most homes and offices, when people turn out the lights at night, darkness has its turn as well. Be certain that your curtains, window shades, and blinds work well and are kept clean.

But, what if your home is dark most of the time because it faces north, or if a mountain or a tall building casts a shadow on your home? Or, what if you’re in an area with “midnight sun” and night is very brief for several months each year?

Where you can’t adjust light and darkness with windows and curtains or shades, alternatives are necessary.

Mirrors are often overlooked as a way to bring light to a dark corner or an inside room. Whether the mirror reflects natural light, a candle, or artificial light, this can be the simplest, least expensive solution.

LIGHTS, LAMPS, AND OTHER MODERN ALTERNATIVES

Artificial lighting is limited only by your imagination. In addition to overhead lights, standing lamps, and table lamps, you will find freestanding spotlights and track lighting in intriguing designs. Neon lights can brighten a dark area and provide a whimsical message.

Visit a lighting store and discover the ways that fiber optics are used to create sculptures based in a pedestal or suspended as a mobile; if you place one of these in a corner that is naturally dark, the contrast can accent the art nicely.

CANDLES FOR NATURAL LIGHT

If you’re going to use candles, it’s smart to use them throughout the room. The contrast between bright electric lamps and–for example–a few little votive candles creates imbalance.

It’s okay to use one or more low-wattage bulbs in a room where you’re displaying candles, but keep the light as even as possible throughout each room.

Candles work best when the wick is kept trimmed to about 1/4 inch. Otherwise, the candle may smoke and burn too quickly, and the flame will flicker. Always wait for the candle to cool before trimming the wick; candle wicks usually need to be trimmed once for every five hours of use.

CANDLES CAN DO MORE THAN PROVIDE LIGHT

Also, Feng Shui guidelines recommend using an abundance of candles in certain areas but not others.

For example, candles are helpful in your Fame/Reputation area; in Black Hat Sect Feng Shui, that’s the area at the back center of the home, office, or room.

In fact, you’ll do well with candles in the center of any room (Health area), and all along the back wall as you look into the room through the doorway.

However, symbols of fire–including candles–aren’t supportive of your Creativity (and Children) area, which is the middle of the right wall as you look into the home, office, or room.

If you’re going to use candles in that area, choose white candlesticks or holders, or offset the fire element with symbols of water including clear glass (including cast glass candle holders), a fish tank, a poster of a landscape featuring water, or a mirror.

(In your creativity area, a mirror should not be framed; look for an unframed mirror with beveled edges, if possible.)

THERE IS A TIME AND PLACE FOR DARKNESS, TOO

For darkness, be sure to draw the curtains or close the blinds at night, if exterior lights (such as streetlamps or neon lights) shine into your home or office. Likewise, if a room seems “too bright” on sunny days, restore a sense of comfort and balance by drawing the curtains until the room looks right to you.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS FOR HARMONIOUS LIVING

By balancing light and darkness in your environment, you will achieve a better sense of harmony and design, and improve your Feng Shui as well.

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Feng Shui and romance:

Q. People talk about the “love corner,” “romance corner” or “marriage corner” in Feng Shui. Where is it?

A. It depends upon which kind of Feng Shui you’re using. For most beginners, I recommend the easiest kind, Black Hat Sect (BHS) Feng Shui, which was developed especially for people in the U.S.A. and Canada, the U.K., and other western countries.

If you’re using BHS Feng Shui, your “romance corner” (also called the “love,” “partnership,” “marriage” or even the “sex” corner) is at the far right corner when you’re entering your home through the door that most people use.

If you put an imaginary clock face over the floor plan of your home, and you’re standing at about 6 o’clock when you’re coming in the door, the “romance corner” would be around 2 o’clock. It’s that back right corner or area of your home.

If you’re using Intuitive Feng Shui, your “romance area” is probably your bedroom. If you’re using Compass School Feng Shui, it’s the area that is in the southwest part of your home.

(You can use Feng Shui on your entire home, your office, or just one room. The areas and corner designations remain the same whether it’s a big space or a small one.)

Q. I’ve decorated my entire bedroom, which is in my romance corner, with reds. I’ve lit lots of red candles in there, too. I’m still alone on Saturday nights. What’s wrong?

A. Well, in Feng Shui terms, it’s important to keep balance. With all that red, you’ve overdone it. Balance the red with white and pink, and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, remove all but two of your candles, and add some items that are blue and some that are black. This should resolve the Feng Shui problems, and–hopefully–help you to meet Mr. (or Ms.) Right!

But, keep in mind that you’ve gone so far overboard with those fire elements (red = fire), it may take a little while before equilibrium returns to your life, too. I recommend that you make a few changes, and then wait for a couple of weeks.

If nothing happens, make a few more changes, and wait again. And so on.

(Of course, don’t be waiting at home. Get out and meet people!  Feng Shui can seem to work magic in some people’s lives, but don’t expect it to bring True Love literally to your doorstep without any other help from you.)

Q. In the “romance area” of my home, I have floor-to-ceiling windows and a big fireplace. Some people tell me that this is great, and I certainly have a lot of dates, but… nobody stays in my life for long. What can I do?

A. In Feng Shui, your romance area is energized by symbols of fire and earth. This means red, sunlight, and fire, among other things.

(When you need to add romance to your life, we start with the fire-related colors and elements.)

Your fireplace more than meets this requirement. By adding those big windows, you’re bringing in too much sunlight.

(See the previous question, above, about having too much fire energy–in that case, the color red–in your romance area.)

Those huge windows are also symbols of things “flying out the window.” Get some shades or curtains on those windows, quickly. Covering them halfway is enough.

I’d also remove anything that is red or pink from the room, and replace each one with something blue or black. Both of those colors symbolize water, and it will offset the overload of fire elements in your romance area.

See what happens. If your love life comes to a complete halt, replace some red and pink items, a little at a time, until harmony and balance are restored.

Q. This is too much. I can’t make any sense of it. Tell me something that’s easy to do. I’m tired of sitting at home and feeling so alone.

A. If you want to boost your love life with Feng Shui in one easy step, go get some pink silk flowers and a small vase to display them in.

If you get them at the dollar store, that’s fine for starters; you can get fancy with this later, if it seems to help.

Roses or something similar are ideal; don’t choose “droopy” flowers.

Stand in the doorway of your bedroom, looking into the room. You should display your silk flowers around the far right corner of your bedroom.

That’s it. Really. Try it and see if it helps. It may take a week or so, but I’ve seen this work in hours.

And, oh yes, be sure that you’re getting out of the house at least once a week, in a setting where you can meet new people.

• wood
• fire
• earth
• metal
• water

They provide visual balance to every room in your home or office. However, you don’t need the actual element in every room; you can substitute a symbol for some of them. Each element is represented by a color and certain shapes.

SYMBOLS OF EACH ELEMENT

Wood is generally represented by green. Its shape is like a tree trunk, upright and column-like.

Red, red-orange, and pointed objects symbolize fire.

Earth is related to the colors yellow and brown, as well as square and flat objects.

In addition to actual metals, you can represent this element with white and light grey colors, and round objects.

Finally, the color black symbolizes water, along with free-form shapes.

WHEN TO USE EACH ELEMENT

In Feng Shui, many–but not all–areas of your home or office are assigned an element.

• Family/Stability = Wood
• Fame/Reputation = Fire
• Health = Earth
• Creativity/Children = Metal
• Career = Water

So, using the bagua–the design grid that Feng Shui is based on–you would favor each element in its assigned area.

For example, if you’re using the popular Black Hat Sect (BHS) approach to Feng Shui, your front door is in your Career area. It’s not unusual for people to place a fountain at the entrance to their home to add the water element.

Likewise, when you walk in your front door, many older homes feature a fireplace directly ahead of you. This is ideal for the center of that far wall, which–in BHS Feng Shui–is the area of Fame and Reputation.

WHAT EACH ELEMENT DOES

In addition to an element’s connection to an area, each element has its own energy or theme.

• WOOD – rooted, growing, steady, bends to survive storms
• FIRE – attention-getting, soaring, hot
• EARTH – solid foundation, productive, stabilizing
• METAL – moldable but firm, a symbol of wealth and power
• WATER – life-giving, flowing, restful, sparkling

So, if your career needs a bit more direction, be sure to add more symbols of water. If that’s not enough, you might add more metal elements around the entrance to your home. Metal is a symbol of affluence, and it also directs water (in pipes, for example) which is your Career power element.

BALANCE IS VITAL

When you are decorating with Feng Shui, each area should have a balance of these five elements, with emphasis on its most important element.

If a room or area doesn’t have its own element, use logic.

For example, in your Money/Wealth area–the back left corner of your home or office–lean towards metal and water, and perhaps a little wood.

But mostly, keep balance in mind. If your living room has white walls and white or light carpeting, offset that with red and orange fire elements.

The same could be said for a bathroom with white walls and furnishings, and the obvious metal hardware. In that almost wholly metal room, include the color red to “warm up” the room a bit.

SUMMARY

Like everything else in Feng Shui, the elements should be kept in balance. Favor one element in its assigned area, but generally make sure that each area of your home or office includes some representative of each element.

Each area of the grid is equal in size, and features a different theme, including colors and other design elements.

In most schools of feng shui, this grid is called a bagua, or a Lo Shu chart.

The bagua is placed over the floor plan of the house, and its outside edges align with the outer walls.

An irregularly shaped house may have areas that protrude outside the grid or seem to have a “missing” area, but we try to match the grid and the outer walls as closely as possible.

The grid is identical in most forms of feng shui. What changes is its orientation.

In Black Hat Sect feng shui (BHS feng shui), the bagua is orientated so that the main entrance of the house (or the room) is on the Career side of the grid.

(The Career area is usually indicated by black and white, or silver.)

On the grid at the left, the front door–or the door that people usually use–would be at the bottom edge.

Each color on the grid signifies a different design theme.

For example, the back left corner of a home or room is its “money corner.” That’s indicated with purple on the bagua grid; purple is a color long associated with royalty and wealth. The back right corner, in pink on the bagua, has a theme of relationships, romance, and marriage.

So, if you’ve heard people say they’ve used feng shui to enhance their money corner, that’s what they’ve been talking about: They applied feng shui design principles to that back left corner of their home, bedroom, or office.

Although the popular Compass School of feng shui uses the same bagua (spelled “pakua” in these traditional schools), it is more clearly based on Lo Shu “magic squares.”

According to legend, these squares are based on the design on a turtle’s shell, and have been used by the Chinese for over three thousand years.

In the illustration above, I used a Compass School pakua grid, or Lo Shu color key. Like the bagua, the colors indicate design themes when you overlay the grid on any floor plan.

(Turn the grid so that it matches the directions of your house: North should be at the north wall or corner of your house, and so on.)

In both Black Hat and Compass School styles of feng shui, the areas feature the exact same design themes. The only difference is the orientation.

In Black Hat feng shui, the “money area” is at the back left corner of the house. In Compass School feng shui, that area is still indicated by purple, but it is at the southeast corner of the building.

In most articles among these Bella Online pages, we will use the simpler Black Hat style of feng shui. However, these design concepts apply equally well to corresponding areas in Compass School feng shui.

Here is a quick overview of the areas used in feng shui design.

At left, you’ll see a chart of the colors from the grid. The list follows the colors clockwise around the grid, concluding with yellow at the center. Compare this with the bagua and Lo Shu; the colors match areas on those grids.

Using Black Hat feng shui orientation on the floorplan of a home, the front door will be in the Knowledge, Career, or Helpful People area. Blue indicates the Knowledge area in your home; the Career area is black or silver; and the Helpful People section is generally gray, silver, or tan.

The center of your home is the Health area, indicated by the color yellow. At the middle right, white indicates the area of Children, sometimes called the Creativity side. Opposite it, at middle left, green marks the Family area, also called Stability.

Across the back wall, you’ll see–from left to right–purple for Money and Prosperous Living, red for Fame and Reputation, and finally pink for Romance and Marriage.

In other articles, we’ll discuss each area in greater detail. You’ll learn how to energize each corner for better interior design, and perhaps more wide-reaching benefits.

Where you place your home in relation to directions, the land that it’s on and the structures around it, is deliberate in Feng Shui. Likewise, how you decorate your home–inside and out–is also deliberate. This includes the layout of the room, the design of each room, and even down to something as small as the arrangement of your desk can (and perhaps should) be deliberate.

Many elements of your daily life will be more successful if you plan ahead as well. This is also part of Feng Shui.

Feng Shui means, literally, “wind and water.” This refers to the flow of elements through your environment. That environment includes your daily schedule.

START YOUR DAY WITH CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF

First of all, as soon as you open your eyes, do a quick reality check. Did you wake up happy or cross? Most people wake up happy; it’s only as they start thinking about recent or expected events that they become cross. To maintain a happy outlook, it’s vital to separate who you are–the person who woke up happy–from the circumstances and events that aren’t a good fit for that happy person.

Having recognized your true core mood upon waking up, it’s important to decide how you want the day to flow, independent of others’ input.

As author Suzan Hilton says in The Feng Shui of Abundance, “Consider what would be uplifting, expansive, creative… the positive things and experiences you would like to result from your interactions.”

Start by setting one general goal, and one specific one for your day.

CHOOSE ACHIEVABLE GOALS

Let’s say that your greatest concern is money right now. A general goal would be, “I’m going to move in the direction of increasing my income and living within that income.” A specific goal might be, “Today, I’m going to spend under $10 for lunch,” if you’re accustomed to eating out with friends. And then, do that.

Aristotle said, “Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.”

FIRST, FOCUS ON ONE AREA OF YOUR LIFE

Keep your first specific goals reasonable and within your routine sphere of control. An unreasonable money goal would be, “Today, I’ll win the lottery,” or, “Today, there will be no unexpected expenses.” If you’re concerned about fitness, the day’s general goal might be, “I’ll exercise more and drink more water today.” If you usually take the elevator to your office (and if your doctor approves), your specific goal could include, “Today, I’ll walk up one flight of stairs and take the elevator from there.”

If you’re focusing on romance, your general goal for the day could state, “I’ll say hello to more people today, because friendliness is attractive and makes it easier to meet others.” Your specific goal might be, “I’m going to pause at [potential date]’s office and make a couple of minutes’ light conversation right before lunch today.”

Confucius said, “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” This might mean breaking down the goals into smaller, more achievable targets, and extending the date when you plan to reach your larger goal.

REMINDERS HELP

Consider writing your goals on an index card, and place it where you’ll see it. If it’s a spending goal, tuck the card prominently inside your wallet. If it’s a romance goal, place it on or sticking out of your desk calendar. Andrew Carnegie said, “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”

In many cases, your general goal will be the same for several days in a row. If you can, write that goal on a few cards and put one on your mirror, one on the refrigerator, and tape one to your car dashboard.

REACH HIGHER

As you become more confident about your ability to set and meet goals, you can increase your challenges gradually. This could mean setting steeper goals, or more of them. Always keep “the big picture” in mind. Pamela Vaull Starr said, “Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”

PAVE THE ROAD TO YOUR BETTER FUTURE

You may also set more goals, perhaps smaller, more frequent ones. From the advice of Abraham-Hicks: “Our futures are individually paved by the steady stream of thoughts we set forth. We are literally creating our future life as we direct our thoughts of this moment into the future.” As you set additional daily goals, start small. Intend what will happen in the next 15 minutes. Keep it within your reach. If you’re driving somewhere, your goal might be, “I’m going to arrive safely and happily at my destination, and see at least one interesting thing along the way.”

KEEP THE BIGGER PICTURE IN MIND

Keep your goals light, fun, and happy. Your general goals should be more about feelings than about the specifics that achieve them. Woodrow Wilson said, “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

SUMMARY

By setting deliberate, achievable goals for your environment and your daily life, you create a setting in which there are opportunities for more luck and serendipity. Feng Shui is about flow, and by gently steering the flow–or creating a happy context for your life–luck will flow into your life as well.

Starting at the left side of your home or office, as you walk in the door you usually use — not necessarily your front door — these are the areas to examine.

The front left side of your home or office is the Knowledge area. Choose blue, black, or green as the predominant color.

At the middle left side of the building, you’re in your Family and Security area. Green is a favorite choice here, since it is the symbol of growing things. Keep lots of healthy plants here for extra luck.

The back left corner is your Money corner. Think of Mardi Gras colors: Green, purple, and gold. Red — especially maroon — can also boost your wealth and financial stability. Keep white to a minimum in this area.

Straight ahead, at the center of the back wall of your home or office, you’re in the Fame and Reputation area. Red is the very best here, but lean towards a good fire engine red, with accents of yellow or orange. Avoid black in this area.

At the far right corner of your home or office, you’re in Romance and Partnerships. Think pink, red, and white… Valentine’s Day colors. It doesn’t have to be a “girly” corner. (See my article, Feng Shui for Romance for more tips on this area.)

Continuing around your home or office, the middle right side of the building is the Creativity and Children area. Here, favor all shades of white and cream. Soft tans, pale yellows or greys can be nice accents in this area, too. The only color to avoid is anything red or red-orange.

At the front right corner, Travel and Helpful People are featured. Choose black, white, and grey as your decorating colors, and add small colorful accents representing vacation destinations, your heroes, or symbols of your spirituality.

At the front center of your home or office–where your doorway probably is–you’re in your Career and Opportunities area. Black is ideal here, with silver metallic accents. Avoid yellow in your decorations, but any other color is attractive with this neutral color scheme, when you’re adding symbols of success.

Finally, the center of your room or building reflects Health and general well being. Yellow and earth tones add a sense of light and stability to this area. Avoid keeping plants in this area, unless you have a skylight or the center of your home is unusually bright and sunny. The color green and anything wooden can exert a negative influence, otherwise.

Color is fun to use, and Feng Shui encourages you to display a wide variety of shades and tones in your surroundings. By organizing your decor and color schemes according to Feng Shui guidelines, you’ll have an attractive home with a variety of appealing focal points.

People use Feng Shui principles to decide where to build a house. They also use it to choose room colors, and where to place a sofa.

In Chinese, the word “feng” means wind, and the word “shui” means water. Both wind and water should flow gently in nature; too much or too little of either can be disastrous.

Likewise, your home and office should feel in balance.

For example, your home should not feel too bright or too dark, but–as Goldilocks said–”just right.” Feng Shui helps you to design and decorate your surroundings so that they work for you.

To accomplish this, we study the visual cues around us–large and small–and their effects.

Feng Shui can be a detailed study, but it does not have to be difficult. You can learn and apply basic Feng Shui decorating tricks in ten minutes. The results can be surprising.

IS FENG SHUI A RELIGION?

Feng Shui can seem “like magic” when a home feels dramatically more comfortable, but it’s not mystical.

Many Feng Shui concepts were sparked by Buddhism. But, today–especially in the West–it is not tied to any religious beliefs. It’s primarily a set of guidelines for choosing what goes in each room of your home or office. These includes color suggestions, whether a metal bookcase will look better than a wooden one, and so on.

Feng Shui is more art than science. Feng Shui is not a religion, and it’s too practical and hands-on to be called a philosophy.

IS THERE MORE THAN ONE KIND OF FENG SHUI?

There are many Feng Shui styles, usually called schools of design. All of them share a common belief in the importance of balance and harmony in your environment.

Although the Chinese organized these design principles, these concepts are not unique to China. They were observed, collected and refined over thousands of years because–like gravity–they work everywhere.

Seeing how Feng Shui recommends placing your bed or sofa, you may think, “I remember my grandmother doing that, too!”

To some degree, most people are already practicing Feng Shui.

FENG SHUI IS COMMON SENSE

Most people experience a sense of relief when they begin to apply Feng Shui. It may seem familiar to you. It’s routine to hear someone announce happily, “I always felt that we needed a picture there,” or something similar. You have an instinctive sense of how your environment should look and feel. Feng Shui helps you to connect with that innate sense of what goes where.

Feng Shui increases your awareness of what’s around you. It improves your sense of energy–called chi (pronounced “chee”) in Feng Shui–and restores a sense of flow and harmony to your life. To accomplish this, there are a few basic design principles at the foundation of all Feng Shui.

FENG SHUI IS SIMPLE

These principles evolve around colors, furnishings, and décor in your home or office. Feng Shui starts with the simplest visual cue, such as clutter. Later, it addresses the sense of balance and flow in each room.

Many people study Feng Shui to redecorate their homes, when something “doesn’t feel right” about a room or hallway. Feng Shui provides clear and simple decorating rules.

Others study Feng Shui hoping for a little magic in their lives. Maybe they’ve heard that a fish tank in a certain corner of the home will bring them more money. Or, perhaps a friend found love when she put flowers in a particular area of her bedroom.

FENG SHUI IS FUN

No matter what sparks your interest in Feng Shui, rest assured that it is a simple and fun way to make your home or office look great and feel comfortable. If minor decorating changes work “magic” to improve your life, that’s even better.

But, above all, Feng Shui makes your environment work for you. Feng Shui highlights small changes, and the differences that they make in how your home or office feels.

Over the thousands of years that Feng Shui has been practiced, different schools of design have emerged. Each school is important, and many of them work together. The basic principles of Feng Shui are the same, no matter which school you prefer.

The following is a very simple overview of Feng Shui schools.

Intuitive Feng Shui*

Intuitive Feng Shui is the newest and trendiest “school.” But, it is more of an approach to Feng Shui than an actual school.

Most people who practice intuitive Feng Shui have a traditional foundation. But, the practitioner also relies on intuition for guidance when an area of a home or business needs to be fine-tuned.

For example, he or she might say, “Traditionally, this area should feature the color red, but my instinct tells me that yellow and orange are more appropriate. Let’s give that a try.”

Black Hat Sect Feng Shui

Commonly called “Black Hat Feng Shui,” or “BHS Feng Shui,” this is one of the most popular forms of Feng Shui, especially in the USA. Developer Thomas Lin Yun combined traditional Feng Shui with concepts borrowed from Buddhism and Taoism. He simplified the design guidelines, and discovered immediate success when he applied them.

The Black Hat school uses a traditional nine-section grid to assign design principles within a home or office. Instead of using compass directions, BHS Feng Shui starts with the location of the main door to a room or building, and organizes design elements relative to that.

Compass School

Also called “Traditional School,” the Compass School is thousands of years old. It uses the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching and other important tools to determine the innate flow of energy in a home or office.

As the name suggests, the Compass School relies on compass directions–and calculations using 24 subdirections–to determine the best design concepts for each area of a room or a building.

Within Compass School, there are several areas of advanced study, including Eight Mansions and Flying Stars, which study the placement of buildings and how energy affects people in them. These schools use Chinese astrology and other resources to discover each person’s lucky direction. Some families use this to assign bedrooms to children, so that they spend most of their time in their personal lucky area. In an office, this might help you place your desk so that you have good fortune in business.

Form School

Form School is one of the oldest styles of Feng Shui. This school observes the physical landscape and its relationship to the buildings in it. In traditional China, the landscape was treated with great respect. Stories were created to describe lakes, mountains, and other features of the environment. Some landscape elements–and the four major compass directions–were described as animals. The west is a white tiger; the east is a green dragon. The north is a black turtle, and the south is a red phoenix.

When choosing a place for a new home, someone might use Form School guidelines and look for “dragon points” where the grass seems to be especially green and vibrant. This indicates stronger positive energy, and a good place for a home.

These are the primary schools of Feng Shui; there are many others that specialize in a particular aspect of Feng Shui. Each school has its own merits. Generally, it’s smart for beginners to choose either Compass School or Black Hat Feng Shui, and learn the basics before making decisions about interior design.

*Although a Connecticut practitioner has claimed a service mark for the name “Intuitive Feng Shui,” many of us who talk about the popular intuitive approach to Feng Shui are not referring to his specific training program. In this article and others, we are talking about an innate–perhaps intuitive–awareness of the environment and how specific elements work together.