Chapter 10
Ah … spring! Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and finally you can open your garage door to the rest of the world. But instead of the sweet smell of roses, you catch a foul whiff of a season’s worth of funk. After a long winter, you are sure to find a number of good reasons why spring is the season of the year that is famous for cleaning. It’s time to clear the air with good feng shui!
As soon as the ice of winter begins to melt and the first buds of spring appear, it’s easy to want to spend more of your time outside. Even if you’re busy doing a spring cleaning inside your home, the ultimate goal is to work your way back again into the great outdoors for some peace, fun, and relaxation.
But before you can relax and enjoy the pleasures of a well-manicured yard, you must remove the remnants of winter: broken limbs, dead trees and shrubs, beds of leaves, and the first sure signs of seasonal change weeds. Dead foliage should especially be removed as soon as possible, since anything dead can create negative chi in your surroundings. Despite the fact that spring is a time of rejuvenation and rebirth, allowing dead foliage to compost all over your yard is not a positive move in feng shui terms. Instead, you should designate one area toward the back edge of your yard as “Compost Central,” and allow the “reincarnation” process to occur in a less-cluttered, more mindful manner.
Do your best to start early in the spring with a definitive plan of attack. List every detail of your yard, garden, and even garage or shed spring cleanup plan, and get busy as soon as the weather changes. Simply put—don’t let the weeds win!
We already know that inside clutter can be the result of an inability to deal with the past. The meaning of outside clutter is exactly the same; in many cases, for good or ill, the yard or the garage is the final resting place of all the things we cannot yet part with.
There are several reasons behind clutter buildup. First, as a society, we suffer from excess: We have way too much, and have access to way too much more. One trip to a Home Depot or Lowe’s superstore will answer the question of why some people have so many lawn ornaments, overdone trellises, and rock gardens littering their yards. Done simply and well, these same adornments can beautify a yard—but unfortunately, some people don’t seem to know where to stop with their purchases. Perhaps they have a poverty consciousness—that is, they may be so afraid of being poor that they clutter their yards with an excess of everything from dressed-up plastic geese to colorful flags and park benches.
But another underlying cause of “junk-in-the-yard” syndrome may be a feeling of being overwhelmed by life in general. Often, when our lives feel completely out of control—with too much happening and not enough time or money to deal with matters of clutter—we tend to let things go in hopes that somehow, someday, they’ll take care of themselves. If this sounds like you, you might do well to practice meditation or yoga, so that you can gain the clarity you need to make better decisions. Hang in there—you can win the upper hand in the battle against clutter!
Aside from removing physical clutter from the land around your home, you can also remove the clutter of years of trauma. Your land has a history that belongs to it from the beginning of time. But time can take its toll on all living things, including the ground beneath your feet.
You can become one with your property by walking all around it, and then being still and listening to its story. For instance, did Indians once roam the land? One family asked for a land healing ceremony after it was discovered that a small tribe of Indians was murdered on a path that went straight through their property. Every family that had lived in the home since the time it was built on the property experienced trauma in the form of death, divorce, and financial disaster, and this family didn’t want to be next. By hiring a professional feng shui consultant who was also experienced in land healings, they were able to bring peace to the land after centuries of residual trauma—and this helped to clear the land of its own emotional clutter. The family has since experienced improvements in many areas of life as a result.
How can you do a land healing yourself? You begin by recognizing that your property may have been the site of many negative and unsettling events (including shifts in sediment). Then proceed to walk around the yard, blessing it and offering peace with flower essences (like magnolia or lavender) or crystals (such as quartz and granite) strategically placed along the meridians (dividing lines) of your yard. Flower essences and healing crystals are said by feng shui practitioners to raise the vibrational energy level of the land.
After you place these along the meridians, walk them and clear the negative chi by clapping your hands or ringing a bell. It needn’t be a grandiose show for your neighbors’ amusement—this is subtle and serious work, and it is an important element in good feng shui practices for the land all around you. If you’re out in a public place and intuitively sense that land has experienced trauma or a disturbance of some kind, you may also conduct an on-the-spot emotional clutter removal for the land as a way of improving your experience or the enjoyment of others.
You can locate “Land Healers” through feng shui consultants, metaphysical bookstores, advertisements, or even the Internet, but be sure to check out any credentials or references.
Whether your garden is a plethora of green and reflective water, as in Monet’s Waterlilies; a meditation gardenwith an altar; or an outdoor oasis filled with colorful flora and fauna, know that your garden can and will support you in all of your life’s endeavors. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, gardens are essential to your well-being. Here, you are literally planting your seeds of the future!
In feng shui, a healthy garden means, quite simply, a healthy life. Untidy gardens with rampant flowers and weeds or foliage can drain the healthy chi that surrounds your house, not to mention your own personal chi on the day when you finally do find the time to tend the garden!
One of the nice things about visiting China is seeing the beautiful simplicity of its gardens. For the Chinese, less is always more. Chinese gardens accent simplicity and usually include one tree or bush, or focus on one type of flower at a time. There are not layers and layers full of impeccably landscaped floral arrangements!
Here are some tips to keep your garden crisp and clean—the feng shui way:
Remember to clear garden clutter regularly—prune, weed, clear, rake, and water on a weekly basis. Overgrown gardens contain oppressive energy.
Your garden and its surroundings communicate a message to others and create a particular feeling in others, too. How many times do you hear, “Wow, is it nice and peaceful here!” That’s what others should be saying to you about your garden.
Space for You to Grow, Too: When creating your clutter-free garden, don’t forget to create space for yourself. You want to be able to enjoy all that healthy, flowing chi in your yard!
Gardens can be self-contained spaces offering a plethora of organic pleasures, but they can also be home to small structures like greenhouses, sheds, or cottages.
Greenhouses come naturally equipped with their own light, so that’s not an issue. But size and location are definitely important. A greenhouse should be in proportion to the landscape; it should never be so large as to overwhelm it, nor too small to perform its intended duty. Of course, a greenhouse should always be located near a water source.
Make your garden a peaceful, meditative retreat. Put in a small pond with a park bench next to it, or a gazebo with built-in seats. Garden stones and lighting balance out the elements, making your retreat a perfect yin-yang spot.
Sheds are perfect places to store outdoor furniture in the wintertime, or lawn accessories and tools in the summer. Just keep your shed in a good location several feet from your house—if it’s too close, you’ll worry about the yard work you haven’t gotten to yet, but if it’s too far away, well … out of sight, out of mind.
A small cottage or studio in your yard can be a wonderful escape from the rest of the world: a place for reading, journaling, meditating, or just plain relaxing. As with the shed, find a good location that’s not too close by (you’ll feel guilty when you’re not able to relax) or too far away (it will always seem like you are struggling to break free from your regular routine). I used a studio at my previous home as a home office, and it was the perfect way to keep work and home life separate.
The choice of which kind of structure to include in your backyard is entirely yours, just be sure to position any poison arrows (sharp edges of the structure) away from your house so that you don’t send any negative chi back toward your home. That would defeat the purpose of a peacefully intended freestanding structure.
Kids can have an outdoor structure like a tree house or a playhouse, which will raise the levels of the fun “fire” element in your yard. Just be sure to keep the toys from piling up—and keep them clean!
Keep your garage clean and well swept in order to maximize the flow of chi in this extra addition to your home. Don’t try to make it an extension of your basement or attic—this is a place of storage for useful items such as tools and seasonal furniture, not a dumping ground for everything from ratty old toys and broken furniture to tires, file cabinets, and obsolete computer equipment.
We all know someone who keeps so much old, useless junk in their garage that they can’t even think of parking their car inside. The hard truth of the matter is, you can probably get rid of more than half of what’s currently in your garage and still manage to live a full, happy, and well-adjusted life.
Your garage can be a place for repairing things—for giving new life to old items. Don’t let it become a morgue for all of your experiments that didn’t work. Remember, in feng shui practice, it’s not how much you have, but how well you keep it that counts.
So what about those useful items that you intend to keep now, and use from time to time? Storage bins can help organize these helpful items you consciously choose to store in your garage. Buy the plastic bins with the lids to minimize any chance of mildew, and be sure to label each bin with its general contents to make it easy to locate necessary items when you need them.
Broken items represent death and negative, oppressive energy. All broken items that are beyond repair should be thrown away to avoid negative chi. If an item can be repaired but you no longer want it, donate it to charity or sell it at a garage sale.
Having a garage sale is a great (and auspicious) way to begin your journey into the world of feng shui decluttering. By selling off excess clutter of your own and your family, you not only free up your living space, you also fill it with good chi and a few extra dollars.
If you decide to hold a “Good Chi Garage Sale,” be sure to price everything to go. Assign rock-bottom prices so that you are sure to get rid of most of your stuff in one day. Then use the power of feng shui to position your soon-to-be-former belongings to sell, sell, sell!
Group like items together, and then place them on tables that are slanted a little in order to activate the flow of energy around them. We want these items to radiate their energy to bargain hunters—not get lost in a huge pile of stagnant energy that is blocked by tables crammed together!
You will greatly increase the profitability of your Good Chi Garage Sale if you follow the bagua octagon in the placement of the goodies you’re offering for sale. Place your most valuable items for sale on a table in your wealth corner—right near your checkout table.
Once a year, have a “feng shui clearing” garage sale. Get rid of any items you no longer use, like books, kitchen gadgets, CDs, and videos. Donate whatever doesn’t sell to charity.
Place old photo frames in your family corner (on the far left or east side of the bagua, beneath the wealth corner) to attract shoppers who might want these photo frames to house pictures of their loved ones. For added impact, slip in a picture of a family from a magazine.
Books, videos, and old bookshelves should be placed on a table or shelf in the knowledge corner of your “Good Chi” bagua, just below the family section. Line the middle entrance of your driveway with old office furniture, equipment, or accessories, since this is the career corner. It also has the corresponding elements of water and ancestral energy, so things that pertain to those elements can also be included in this area of the garage sale. Along with the career-oriented office stuff, you might also toss in some pool toys (or an old pool itself!), as well as that ugly old lamp that your dear departed relative left you. While it may not go well with your décor, believe me when I say it will find a home somewhere else.
To the right of your “career” entrance is the helpful people corner of your Good Chi Garage Sale bagua. The elements that correspond to this corner are the heavens and travel, so here is where you might display old suitcases, photos, or posters of faraway places. You might also include any religious objects such as statues or icons.
The children’s department of your garage sale should be located in the west corner of this bagua, just up from the helpful people corner. This is where you will offer all the toys your kids no longer play with and the clothes they no longer wear. In most garage sales, these are the items that get sold and resold the most! Since the corresponding element to this area of thebagua is metal, you can also include metal items such as bicycles, candlesticks, and kitchen gadgets.
Old wedding gifts you didn’t use would be a good fit in the marriage corner. This area of the bagua is in the top right, between the children’s area and the fame corner. You can also put pottery and earth-related items in this section, since the corresponding element is earth. Pictures of landscapes can be placed on the ground, leaning on the tables that hold the pottery and other earth-related items. If you are going through a divorce or just coming out of a failed relationship, this would also be a good place to get rid of old gifts and reminders!
The fame corner, which will be dead center in the south corner of your bagua, is the ideal place to sell anything that elevates the attractiveness of the individual (with the potential to bring fame and fortune). Remember those designer jeans you bought just in case you’d lose ten pounds? Hang ‘em up here with an enticing price tag. How about the exercise equipment you bought from those famous thin people on TV? Dust it off and move it to this corner for your garage sale. And don’t forget that the element that corresponds to fame is fire—making this an ideal corner to feature candles, mirrors, and fireplace tools.
All of these tips may make you tired at the thought of having a garage sale. You might think you’re going to a lot of extra trouble to attractively position stuff you are looking to dump anyway. But keep in mind thatyour possessions can serve you even as they depart your company. In other words, let your things bring you good fortune in the form of positive money energy while they are leaving your home to offer new life to another’s home.
Accept the fact that you were not even using many of these items in the first place. Remember that the goal is to give up the things that no longer bring you happiness or represent who you are now, at this moment. Take a deep breath; then let go of this old, stagnant energy!
Of course, not everything will sell at your Good Chi Garage Sale. Whatever doesn’t sell you must remain committed to clearing, so remember to put those items in a small pile and call the Goodwill truck immediately after your sale is over. There should be nothing—seriously, nothing—left once you’re finished with a feng shui clearing like this one.
Now that you’ve rid yourself of all that you do not need, you can concentrate your energy on improving what’s left. Perhaps it’s time to paint the garage, or add a nice window in it that allows the chi to flow in a more positive direction. Or maybe, now that you’ve sold off the things that don’t hold any meaning for you, you finally have the money (and the space) to purchase other, more useful items that will help improve your quality of life on the outside of your house.
Whatever you decide to do, you can congratulate yourself on a job well done—and one that all of your neighbors will happily notice. Sit back in your lawn chair, bask in the sunlight, and breathe in all that positive chi!