The Building Whisperer

Feng Shui is all about a person’s ‘Earth’ luck and the study of how the environment affects us. However, popular feng shui so often talks about the arrangement of furniture and feng shui ornaments in the home that we forget classical feng shui covers a much broader spectrum. How often have we thought about the landscape of our environment beyond the walls of our home and how it may affect our lives? What about the immediate environment of our home — the garden? In ancient China, traditional feng shui began as a method for selecting propitious burial sites of rulers to ensure the fortune of their descendents. These ancient feng shui sages were masters in understanding the effect of conformation, shape, size, height, appearance, texture, andcolour of the land. Through the ages, these feng shui masters’ expertise was employed to select ideal settlements, townships, and cities for dynasties.

As feng shui became accessible to common people in townships with limited land space, feng shui masters turned their focus to the positioning of a property and its interior. This is increasingly true in our modern society of apartment living, where today’s masters are focusing their attention on interior space. But for those of us who live in a landed property and have a garden, we can make feng shui relevant to the space regardless of the garden’s size.

THE GARDEN ENVIRONMENT
The layout of your garden has critical implications on the feng shui of your home — the location of the swimming pool or the pond, the alignment of your waterfall or stream, the positioning of sculptures, lighting or landscape boulders are all environmental factors that can bring you fortune or misfortune.

Classical feng shui employed in modern times can transform your garden into a landscape of mountains and rivers. A boulder can constitute a mountain, a path or open drain can represent a river, but most important of all, a pond or water feature can be your golden goose.

But be cautious. Inappropriate location of a water or mountain feature, or even how your drain flows or your garden path meanders can cause immense problems to the household.

Depending on how your house is positioned with respect to compass directions, the different schools of classical feng shui have their own specific stipulation for the location of mountains or water. In choosing a boulder to represent a mountain, it is important to also consider its shape, for this can either add to or detract from the auspicious energy it has been chosen to convey. In aligning your garden pathway or waterfall, the direction of how the water enters or exits your pond determines whether you will be enriched or suffer misfortune.

For instance, according to San He school of feng shui, if your house and door faces NW (293 -307 degrees) and you have water entering from the SE, SW, W or N (as in the flow of water in your drain) or if your waterfall flows into your pond from this direction, your luck will grow and bring you success. But if you have water entering from the E, members of your household may experience Peach Blossom (inappropriate) romance.

You will experience good fortune if you placed a ‘mountain’ such as a boulder in the SW, N, or SE. However, if you placed a sculpture that may be quite artistic but happens to be an imposing metal piece with sharp edges in the N, this may cause accidents, or serious injury. So it can get quite complex, even within the same school of feng shui.

When the same example above is assessed according to the San Yuan school of feng shui, it is inauspicious to have water entering from the West as this may cause blood-related disasters or mental illness.

When considering using the Xuan Kong Fei Xing Flying Star system of feng shui, it is auspicious to place a water feature such as a fountain or a pond directly in the front garden but inauspicious to place such features in the N part of your property. It is very auspicious to place a mountain feature in the NW part of your property and the shape should be flat or round to symbolise the element earth and metal respectively, to further enhance the auspicious earth energy and water money luck that reside in this area. This is only relevant for new homes or those that have undergone signifi cant renovations in the past two years.

So different schools of feng shui will have their ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ and it is important to know each one of them so that one does not inadvertently violate another.

INADVERTENT LOCATION OF FEATURES IN A GARDEN CAN CAUSE MISFORTUNE

Among the most common problematic features are swimming pools, ponds and fountains. Water is the most effective of the five elements. It can bring immense good fortune and cause immense misfortune. I have a client whose overall feng shui was very good and whose business was making very good money, but his swimming pool was located in a position of ‘leaking wealth’. He had a lot of unforseen expenses that left him with little profit. After implementing corrective action, he was better able to retain his earnings. Another case was a wealthy businessman who had installed a magnificent fountain in his front garden that spouted water in an inauspicious direction, and his business immediately declined. Upon removal of the fountain, his business reverted. Yet another client had a huge ‘crying water’ formation that spelt melancholy business for years.

As feng shui is about the effect of the environment on our luck, it stands to reason that a garden, constituting a good part of our natural environment, can provide a major influence on the luck of the occupants in a property. Unfortunately, it is too often ignored because many practitioners are not aware of its importance or how to do the feng shui of a garden. Not only is it worthwhile to have good feng shui for your house, but a well feng shui-landscaped garden that incorporates some of the most powerful systems of feng shui such as Water Dragon, Eight Dragon Doorway or Water Longevity formations can bring immense wealth to the occupants of
a property.

The location of a swimming pool is critical to the feng shui of a property