Water is critical to life on Earth. It covers over 70% of our planet’s surface and makes up about 60% of the human body. So it’s no surprise that it played important roles in human cultures. Most connected it with its cleansing and life-giving properties, but the ancient Chinese took things a step further. Water is a key part of feng shui, the art of arranging interior spaces to harmonize with the natural world. This quick guide explains water’s place in feng shui and how it’s used to promote positive energy flow.
Feng Shui and the Five Phases
Feng shui incorporates the idea of wuxing. You’ll see it in a lot of traditional Chinese thought, including Taoist principles. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that wuxing translates as “five processes” or “five phases.” Wuxing encompasses cycles of motion or change, instead of static material substances as in ancient Greek thought.
Wuxing’s five elemental phases occur in both creative and destructive cycles. In classical Chinese philosophy, the creative cycle begins with wood fueling fire. Fire produces earth by generating ash. Earth produces metal through geological processes, and metal allows water to condense in vapor form. The cycle begins again when water hydrates wood. The destructive cycle starts with fire melting metal. Metal cuts wood, which in turn breaks up earth by growing through it. Earth can soak up water, which restarts the cycle by quenching fire.
Feng shui uses a map called a bagua to guide the arrangement of interior spaces. The Spruce explains that the bagua divides a space into nine distinct areas, each aligned with one of the five elemental phases. Every area represents an aspect of a person’s life. Creating good energy in those areas requires balance – and that means bringing the right elements into each one.
Water, Wisdom, and Work
Classical Chinese philosophy associates water with the color black and the winter season. You’ll also see it represented with wavy or curvy shapes. Water occupies the Kan area of the bagua – typically the northernmost segment of the map. In most feng shui traditions, this area represents one’s career or life path.
Architect Anjie Cho describes the water phase as flowing and shifting, with connections to wisdom and intuition. Given that it’s in the career area of the bagua, these connotations aren’t surprising. Cho adds that adding more of this element may be helpful if we want to improve social connections and wealth. This also makes sense – social connections may lead to better career prospects, which can help generate more wealth.
Boosting the Water Element in Your Home
Feng shui schools use different approaches to find north. Some use the literal compass direction, while others set the front door as the northern point. Either way, practitioners suggest incorporating the water element in the northern area. Doing so can encourage positive energy flow.
Fortunately, there are tons of ways you can do this. Fountains and aquariums are the most obvious solutions – you’re placing literal water in those spaces. But if these aren’t workable, you can use other things to symbolize the water element. Black, charcoal gray, and navy blue décor objects can work – think vases, art, throw pillows, rugs, or other accessories. Mirrors are another great option thanks to their reflective properties. You could also try artwork with watery imagery. Don’t forget that you can use shapes to bring water into your space. Try objects with wavy, curved, or irregular-shaped patterns and edges.
Water, Water Everywhere
Several cultures believe that there’s a cosmic energy that flows through everything. Feng shui aims to encourage energy flow for better harmony and positive outcomes. As one of five elemental phases, water possesses both creative and destructive energies. With a few simple additions, you can easily introduce and balance this element inside your home.
You may or may not know but feng shui has creation and destructive cycles. Human spirituality often takes its cues from the natural world. Water, for instance, symbolizes purification in many faiths. But even how elements interact with each other can take on metaphysical meanings. Traditional Chinese philosophy speaks of five elemental phases – wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. How these phases interact with each other is a core concept in feng shui.
Five Elemental Phases
Derived from Taoist principles, feng shui seeks to achieve balance with nature. It does this by working with qi, a vital life energy that flows through everything in our universe. The goal of feng shui is to get that energy to move in positive ways, creating harmony within one’s interior spaces.
Chinese cosmology recognizes five elemental phases, collectively called “Wuxing.” Every phase has unique energy based on how its element behaves in the natural world. Fire burns, water reflects light, and so forth. And just like water extinguishes fire, these energies can support or oppose each other. Understanding these interactions is an important key in feng shui design.
The Cycles of Creation
The Spruce explains that the five phases exist in a creative cycle known as “shēng.” Written in Hanzi as “生,” it’s a Chinese verb that means “to give birth.” And that’s exactly what this cycle does. Each element helps generate or nourish another.
How does this cycle work? Well, water nourishes wood by carrying nutrients to each of its cells. Wood feeds fire, providing fuel for heat-generating chemical reactions. Fire creates earth with the ash it leaves behind, full of carbon and minerals like calcium and potassium. Earth gives rise to metal through natural phenomena such as pressure, heat, and weathering. Metal collects water by letting air moisture condense into droplets.
You can use this principle in feng shui to strengthen an element’s influence. Adding more of the element itself is helpful, but you could also include more of the phase that nourishes it. If you’re trying to boost earth, for instance, you can also include more of the earth-generating fire element.
The Destructive Cycles
Chinese cosmology’s elemental phases can also form a destructive cycle. Wandering Dao calls this “kè,” written as “克” in Hanzi and translated as “to restrain” or “to overcome.” In this cycle, each element naturally opposes and weakens another one.
Natural principles also govern this cycle. Water extinguishes fire, decreasing heat and depriving it of oxygen. Fire melts metal, breaking down its solid structure as its particles vibrate faster. Metal can cut wood: The blade concentrates force on a small surface area, generating pressure to break wood’s molecular bonds. Wood emerges from earth, breaking through the soil’s surface. Earth can absorb water or contain it, as shores and riverbanks do.
Since this cycle overcomes and restrains, you can use it to balance out other elemental energies within a space. If you have a fireplace in a “metal” area of your home, for example, you could place more water elements to dampen the fire’s energy impact.
Science Meets the Metaphysical
The art of feng shui is a few thousand years old. Inspired by natural phenomena, its objective is to align physical spaces with unseen energies. Older practices emphasized achieving positive outcomes through auspicious building sites and interior design. Today, practitioners often work with interior spaces after they’re already constructed.
Feng shui uses many concepts from traditional Chinese philosophy. Taoism recognizes five elemental phases: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Just as these elements interact with each other in the natural world, these phases can work in both creative and destructive cycles. Both offer insight into strengthening or minimizing an element’s energy impacts. Understanding these principles is key to accomplishing balance within a physical space.
Unless you’ve delved a bit into feng shui, you may see it more as an interior design art. While it does involve interior design in modern homes and offices, there are spiritual and philosophical ideas behind the practice. But there is probably lots more about this unique art that you may not know. Want to test your knowledge? Check out these cool and fascinating facts about feng shui.
You’re Probably Pronouncing It Wrong
Feng shui is pronounced “fung shway” and comes from two Chinese words: “feng,” which means wind, and “shui,” which translates as water. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, this term first appeared in English around 1797.
Feng shui has taken a while to spread into Western cultures. Some of the first English-language books on the subject date to the early 1970s. Many of these were academic texts — hardly anything like the “feng shui for dummies” type manuals you see today. The first book that’s even close to a feng shui manual was published in 1984: “Feng Shui: Ancient Wisdom for the Most Beneficial Way to Place and Arrange Furniture, Rooms and Buildings” by Sarah Rossbach.
Feng Shui Came From a Poem
While feng shui has major roots in Taoist philosophy, architect Anjie Cho mentions that the concept comes from an ancient Chinese poem. It comes from the Book of Burial, a text by Chinese historian Guo Pu written during the third or fourth century C.E. You can read the full text at Feng Shui Gate, but one excerpt details how qi works with wind and water:
The Classic says: Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.
The ancients collected it to prevent its dissipation, and guided it to assure its retention.
Thus it was called fengshui.
Why Curved Lines Are a Big Deal
If you’ve ever seen a house that uses feng shui principles, you may have noticed lots of curving, flowing lines and shapes. Cho explains why in a Mind Body Green piece by Sarah Regan. Cho mentions a belief from Chinese folklore that evil spirits can only move in straight lines. That’s why meandering paths and flowing border edges are key components of traditional Chinese gardens. You’ll find these elements in the feng shui gardens of Western homes as well.
Curved lines are also ideal in feng shui for another reason: They promote the flow of qi. Appropriately, Blue Lotus Feng Shui nicknames qi as “virtual water.” That life energy should move in a balanced way — not so slow so it gets stagnant, and not so fast that it rushes. Think of it this way: Standing water can gather disease-causing bacteria plus mold and pests such as mosquitoes and rats. And a tsunami hitting landfall at around 40 miles an hour can generate 1,700 pounds of force.
Feng Shui Uses Five Elements, Not Four
You likely know about the four elements — fire, earth, air, and water. These come from classical Greek thought, and we see them reflected in philosophies and arts like Western astrology. But feng shui uses five elements, collectively called “Wuxing”: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. They’re more like elemental states that can nurture or inhibit each other in creative and destructive cycles. They also represent different aspects of qi, the energy that flows through everything and everyone in our universe.
Feng shui has exploded in popularity over the last few decades. While you don’t need a degree in Chinese cultural studies to understand its basics, delving deep into the subject can yield some surprising knowledge. It also shows how much can get lost in translation. Simplifying concepts can help transmit them across languages and cultures, but there’s often much more below the surface.
Mirrors have been around for thousands of years. The oldest man made versions date to around 6,000 B.C.E., constructed from polished black volcanic glass. Modern editions have been with us since their invention in 1835. Besides showing our reflections, mirrors also have scientific, industrial, and decorative uses. But in the Chinese art of feng shui, they take on a completely unique purpose.
How Mirror Is Like Water
Traditional Chinese thought defines qi as essential life energy moving through all of existence. It must flow smoothly, not rush in too quickly or stagnate. Many things can impact its movement, but mirrors are unique in one key way: Qi can bounce off their surfaces just like light.
Feng shui treats mirrors as if they’re water. This isn’t surprising, given that they both have reflective surfaces. But architect and feng shui expert Anjie Cho adds that mirrors embody water’s qualities, encouraging contemplation and the search for wisdom.
Depending on their application, mirrors can also improve or enhance energy focus within a space. With their reflective properties, mirrors are often used to make small adjustments to the flow of qi. Cho mentions that this practice is called xie zi fa, which translates as “method of minor additions.”
Negative Energy in Feng Shui
Qi comes in three different forms: positive, negative, and stagnant. Positive qi is uplifting, while stagnant qi is slow and sluggish. Negative qi can come from sharp angles or pointed objects — a corner or a tree branch, for instance. Feng shui practitioners call it “sha qi,” a type of harmful energy that attacks like poisoned arrows.
In another piece for The Spruce, Cho mentions that negative qi can also originate from building corners or sharp roof lines pointing at your home. These are particularly problematic if they’re aimed at your front door. Some associate negative qi with loss, so poison arrows may play a role in financial, social, relationship, and health problems.
Mirrors as Feng Shui Remedies
In feng shui, mirrors’ shapes and reflective properties can create unique effects. Cho explains that popular mirror styles in feng shui include flat, convex, and concave. Flat mirrors simply reflect, while convex mirrors provide a larger view with a wider angle. Concave mirrors shrink images and flip them vertically, which can be useful when dealing with negative qi. By diverting this “poison arrow” energy, concave mirrors can ward off its harmful effects.
Of course, not just any mirror will do. Cho emphasizes that mirrors used in feng shui must consist of single glass pieces to achieve the best effects. None of the glass should be broken, missing, clouded, or distorted. Mosaic mirrors are not ideal because they lack a unified surface.
A Special Kind of Mirror
While standard mirrors are considered useful in feng shui, one special kind of mirror has made its way from classical usage into modern practice. You may remember that the bagua is an octagon-shaped energy map. It’s superimposed over a physical space to show where certain types of energies lie — fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. All the bagua mirror does is combine this eight-sided map with a simple mirror at its center.
Cho describes the bagua mirror as a protective amulet. Its primary purpose is averting negative qi, but it’s only used on the outside of a building. Moreover, it requires careful placement to achieve its desired effects. Most feng shui experts recommend that only qualified practitioners use bagua mirrors. With incorrect placement, they could push away positive energies or attract negative ones.
A Case of Spiritual Reflection
Mirrors reflect images we can see. Yet feng shui practitioners believe they impact how unseen energies move through our homes. Like any other tool, they must be used wisely to achieve ideal outcomes.
Feng shui is proof that cultural beliefs and practices can survive the test of time. Thousands of years ago, ancient practitioners used star charts, astrolabes, and magnetic compasses. And with feng shui, arranging one’s spaces to achieve harmony is the most important goal. Extensive writings and expertise offer a lot of guidance for using feng shui in 2021. How have its older concepts adapted for modern needs? Some basic feng shui principles can help.
The Bagua: Feng Shui’s Map
Feng shui’s foundations lie heavily in Tao philosophy. “Tao” translates as “the way” or “the path.” One of its fundamental precepts is living in balance with the natural world. There’s an energy force, qi, that flows through all existence. The cycle of elemental states, or Wu Xing, can result in creation or destruction.
Modern feng shui makes use of a bagua – a map divided into nine segments. This map contains the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west – plus the four intermediate directions. Writing for The Spruce, feng shui expert Anjie Cho describes the bagua’s layout:
Kan: career
Gen: knowledge
Zhen: family
Xun: wealth
Li: fame
Kun: partnerships
Dui: children
Qian: helpful people
Tai qi: health
When looking at a bagua, you’ll see each region assigned an element and a color. Colors and elements are linked together in feng shui, so a color can represent a specific element.
Finding North in Feng Shui
With most types of maps, finding north is critical. The bagua is no different. AstroStyle explains that there are several modern feng shui schools. Each one approaches this energy map a little differently. Western schools or Black Sect Tantric Buddhist practitioners always set the front door as north. Even if your front door is west, it becomes north for feng shui purposes.
Then there are the traditional or compass-based schools: They use compass points to place the bagua. If your front door is on the east wall, for instance, traditional practitioners will set it in the map’s eastern region. The career area of a bagua is in its north, but your bathroom could end up at this point with traditional methods.
Mapping Your Home
Once you’ve placed the energy map over your home’s layout, the real work begins. No matter how you line it up, each area on the map shows the best colors and elements for the energies present there. Again, the goal is harmony. But you’ll include more of the dominant element and its colors in designing each area.
Let’s see how this may play out. For this example, we’ll assume that the front door is indeed north. That area corresponds to Kan, connected to the color black and the water element. We want to play these up here. Mirrors represent water in feng shui because they’re reflective. Placing a mirror here may be helpful, but don’t put it facing the front door. Feng shui consultant Rodika Tchi points out that your home’s entryway is the mouth of qi. This is where essential life energy comes in. Feng shui helps that energy enter and flow, so the mirror should not be in its way. Placing black objects here is also a great idea.
Minding the Clutter
If you needed another excuse to declutter your home, now you have it. Feng shui experts add that clutter can slow down the flow of qi. Clever’s Zoë Sessums explains that clutter occupies space, which this energy needs to circulate. Decluttering the entryway area is critical, but you should also pay extra attention to bedrooms and living spaces. Besides allowing energy to flow, it can also clear your mind and remove safety hazards.
Feng shui is an old practice, but it’s incredibly flexible for modern uses. Using the bagua and decluttering your home can allow energy to readily flow – and in feng shui, that leads to better balance and harmony.
Water is critical to life on Earth. It covers over 70% of our planet’s surface and makes up about 60% of the human body. So it’s no surprise that it played important roles in human cultures. Most connected it with its cleansing and life-giving properties, but the ancient Chinese took things a step further. Water is a key part of feng shui, the art of arranging interior spaces to harmonize with the natural world. This quick guide explains water’s place in feng shui and how it’s used to promote positive energy flow.
Feng Shui and the Five Phases
Feng shui incorporates the idea of wuxing. You’ll see it in a lot of traditional Chinese thought, including Taoist principles. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that wuxing translates as “five processes” or “five phases.” Wuxing encompasses cycles of motion or change, instead of static material substances as in ancient Greek thought.
Wuxing’s five elemental phases occur in both creative and destructive cycles. In classical Chinese philosophy, the creative cycle begins with wood fueling fire. Fire produces earth by generating ash. Earth produces metal through geological processes, and metal allows water to condense in vapor form. The cycle begins again when water hydrates wood. The destructive cycle starts with fire melting metal. Metal cuts wood, which in turn breaks up earth by growing through it. Earth can soak up water, which restarts the cycle by quenching fire.
Feng shui uses a map called a bagua to guide the arrangement of interior spaces. The Spruce explains that the bagua divides a space into nine distinct areas, each aligned with one of the five elemental phases. Every area represents an aspect of a person’s life. Creating good energy in those areas requires balance – and that means bringing the right elements into each one.
Water, Wisdom, and Work
Classical Chinese philosophy associates water with the color black and the winter season. You’ll also see it represented with wavy or curvy shapes. Water occupies the Kan area of the bagua – typically the northernmost segment of the map. In most feng shui traditions, this area represents one’s career or life path.
Architect Anjie Cho describes the water phase as flowing and shifting, with connections to wisdom and intuition. Given that it’s in the career area of the bagua, these connotations aren’t surprising. Cho adds that adding more of this element may be helpful if we want to improve social connections and wealth. This also makes sense – social connections may lead to better career prospects, which can help generate more wealth.
Boosting the Water Element in Your Home
Feng shui schools use different approaches to find north. Some use the literal compass direction, while others set the front door as the northern point. Either way, practitioners suggest incorporating the water element in the northern area. Doing so can encourage positive energy flow.
Fortunately, there are tons of ways you can do this. Fountains and aquariums are the most obvious solutions – you’re placing literal water in those spaces. But if these aren’t workable, you can use other things to symbolize the water element. Black, charcoal gray, and navy blue décor objects can work – think vases, art, throw pillows, rugs, or other accessories. Mirrors are another great option thanks to their reflective properties. You could also try artwork with watery imagery. Don’t forget that you can use shapes to bring water into your space. Try objects with wavy, curved, or irregular-shaped patterns and edges.
Water, Water Everywhere
Several cultures believe that there’s a cosmic energy that flows through everything. Feng shui aims to encourage energy flow for better harmony and positive outcomes. As one of five elemental phases, water possesses both creative and destructive energies. With a few simple additions, you can easily introduce and balance this element inside your home.
You may or may not know but feng shui has creation and destructive cycles. Human spirituality often takes its cues from the natural world. Water, for instance, symbolizes purification in many faiths. But even how elements interact with each other can take on metaphysical meanings. Traditional Chinese philosophy speaks of five elemental phases – wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. How these phases interact with each other is a core concept in feng shui.
Five Elemental Phases
Derived from Taoist principles, feng shui seeks to achieve balance with nature. It does this by working with qi, a vital life energy that flows through everything in our universe. The goal of feng shui is to get that energy to move in positive ways, creating harmony within one’s interior spaces.
Chinese cosmology recognizes five elemental phases, collectively called “Wuxing.” Every phase has unique energy based on how its element behaves in the natural world. Fire burns, water reflects light, and so forth. And just like water extinguishes fire, these energies can support or oppose each other. Understanding these interactions is an important key in feng shui design.
The Cycles of Creation
The Spruce explains that the five phases exist in a creative cycle known as “shēng.” Written in Hanzi as “生,” it’s a Chinese verb that means “to give birth.” And that’s exactly what this cycle does. Each element helps generate or nourish another.
How does this cycle work? Well, water nourishes wood by carrying nutrients to each of its cells. Wood feeds fire, providing fuel for heat-generating chemical reactions. Fire creates earth with the ash it leaves behind, full of carbon and minerals like calcium and potassium. Earth gives rise to metal through natural phenomena such as pressure, heat, and weathering. Metal collects water by letting air moisture condense into droplets.
You can use this principle in feng shui to strengthen an element’s influence. Adding more of the element itself is helpful, but you could also include more of the phase that nourishes it. If you’re trying to boost earth, for instance, you can also include more of the earth-generating fire element.
The Destructive Cycles
Chinese cosmology’s elemental phases can also form a destructive cycle. Wandering Dao calls this “kè,” written as “克” in Hanzi and translated as “to restrain” or “to overcome.” In this cycle, each element naturally opposes and weakens another one.
Natural principles also govern this cycle. Water extinguishes fire, decreasing heat and depriving it of oxygen. Fire melts metal, breaking down its solid structure as its particles vibrate faster. Metal can cut wood: The blade concentrates force on a small surface area, generating pressure to break wood’s molecular bonds. Wood emerges from earth, breaking through the soil’s surface. Earth can absorb water or contain it, as shores and riverbanks do.
Since this cycle overcomes and restrains, you can use it to balance out other elemental energies within a space. If you have a fireplace in a “metal” area of your home, for example, you could place more water elements to dampen the fire’s energy impact.
Science Meets the Metaphysical
The art of feng shui is a few thousand years old. Inspired by natural phenomena, its objective is to align physical spaces with unseen energies. Older practices emphasized achieving positive outcomes through auspicious building sites and interior design. Today, practitioners often work with interior spaces after they’re already constructed.
Feng shui uses many concepts from traditional Chinese philosophy. Taoism recognizes five elemental phases: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Just as these elements interact with each other in the natural world, these phases can work in both creative and destructive cycles. Both offer insight into strengthening or minimizing an element’s energy impacts. Understanding these principles is key to accomplishing balance within a physical space.
Unless you’ve delved a bit into feng shui, you may see it more as an interior design art. While it does involve interior design in modern homes and offices, there are spiritual and philosophical ideas behind the practice. But there is probably lots more about this unique art that you may not know. Want to test your knowledge? Check out these cool and fascinating facts about feng shui.
You’re Probably Pronouncing It Wrong
Feng shui is pronounced “fung shway” and comes from two Chinese words: “feng,” which means wind, and “shui,” which translates as water. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, this term first appeared in English around 1797.
Feng shui has taken a while to spread into Western cultures. Some of the first English-language books on the subject date to the early 1970s. Many of these were academic texts — hardly anything like the “feng shui for dummies” type manuals you see today. The first book that’s even close to a feng shui manual was published in 1984: “Feng Shui: Ancient Wisdom for the Most Beneficial Way to Place and Arrange Furniture, Rooms and Buildings” by Sarah Rossbach.
Feng Shui Came From a Poem
While feng shui has major roots in Taoist philosophy, architect Anjie Cho mentions that the concept comes from an ancient Chinese poem. It comes from the Book of Burial, a text by Chinese historian Guo Pu written during the third or fourth century C.E. You can read the full text at Feng Shui Gate, but one excerpt details how qi works with wind and water:
The Classic says: Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.
The ancients collected it to prevent its dissipation, and guided it to assure its retention.
Thus it was called fengshui.
Why Curved Lines Are a Big Deal
If you’ve ever seen a house that uses feng shui principles, you may have noticed lots of curving, flowing lines and shapes. Cho explains why in a Mind Body Green piece by Sarah Regan. Cho mentions a belief from Chinese folklore that evil spirits can only move in straight lines. That’s why meandering paths and flowing border edges are key components of traditional Chinese gardens. You’ll find these elements in the feng shui gardens of Western homes as well.
Curved lines are also ideal in feng shui for another reason: They promote the flow of qi. Appropriately, Blue Lotus Feng Shui nicknames qi as “virtual water.” That life energy should move in a balanced way — not so slow so it gets stagnant, and not so fast that it rushes. Think of it this way: Standing water can gather disease-causing bacteria plus mold and pests such as mosquitoes and rats. And a tsunami hitting landfall at around 40 miles an hour can generate 1,700 pounds of force.
Feng Shui Uses Five Elements, Not Four
You likely know about the four elements — fire, earth, air, and water. These come from classical Greek thought, and we see them reflected in philosophies and arts like Western astrology. But feng shui uses five elements, collectively called “Wuxing”: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. They’re more like elemental states that can nurture or inhibit each other in creative and destructive cycles. They also represent different aspects of qi, the energy that flows through everything and everyone in our universe.
Feng shui has exploded in popularity over the last few decades. While you don’t need a degree in Chinese cultural studies to understand its basics, delving deep into the subject can yield some surprising knowledge. It also shows how much can get lost in translation. Simplifying concepts can help transmit them across languages and cultures, but there’s often much more below the surface.
Mirrors have been around for thousands of years. The oldest man made versions date to around 6,000 B.C.E., constructed from polished black volcanic glass. Modern editions have been with us since their invention in 1835. Besides showing our reflections, mirrors also have scientific, industrial, and decorative uses. But in the Chinese art of feng shui, they take on a completely unique purpose.
How Mirror Is Like Water
Traditional Chinese thought defines qi as essential life energy moving through all of existence. It must flow smoothly, not rush in too quickly or stagnate. Many things can impact its movement, but mirrors are unique in one key way: Qi can bounce off their surfaces just like light.
Feng shui treats mirrors as if they’re water. This isn’t surprising, given that they both have reflective surfaces. But architect and feng shui expert Anjie Cho adds that mirrors embody water’s qualities, encouraging contemplation and the search for wisdom.
Depending on their application, mirrors can also improve or enhance energy focus within a space. With their reflective properties, mirrors are often used to make small adjustments to the flow of qi. Cho mentions that this practice is called xie zi fa, which translates as “method of minor additions.”
Negative Energy in Feng Shui
Qi comes in three different forms: positive, negative, and stagnant. Positive qi is uplifting, while stagnant qi is slow and sluggish. Negative qi can come from sharp angles or pointed objects — a corner or a tree branch, for instance. Feng shui practitioners call it “sha qi,” a type of harmful energy that attacks like poisoned arrows.
In another piece for The Spruce, Cho mentions that negative qi can also originate from building corners or sharp roof lines pointing at your home. These are particularly problematic if they’re aimed at your front door. Some associate negative qi with loss, so poison arrows may play a role in financial, social, relationship, and health problems.
Mirrors as Feng Shui Remedies
In feng shui, mirrors’ shapes and reflective properties can create unique effects. Cho explains that popular mirror styles in feng shui include flat, convex, and concave. Flat mirrors simply reflect, while convex mirrors provide a larger view with a wider angle. Concave mirrors shrink images and flip them vertically, which can be useful when dealing with negative qi. By diverting this “poison arrow” energy, concave mirrors can ward off its harmful effects.
Of course, not just any mirror will do. Cho emphasizes that mirrors used in feng shui must consist of single glass pieces to achieve the best effects. None of the glass should be broken, missing, clouded, or distorted. Mosaic mirrors are not ideal because they lack a unified surface.
A Special Kind of Mirror
While standard mirrors are considered useful in feng shui, one special kind of mirror has made its way from classical usage into modern practice. You may remember that the bagua is an octagon-shaped energy map. It’s superimposed over a physical space to show where certain types of energies lie — fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. All the bagua mirror does is combine this eight-sided map with a simple mirror at its center.
Cho describes the bagua mirror as a protective amulet. Its primary purpose is averting negative qi, but it’s only used on the outside of a building. Moreover, it requires careful placement to achieve its desired effects. Most feng shui experts recommend that only qualified practitioners use bagua mirrors. With incorrect placement, they could push away positive energies or attract negative ones.
A Case of Spiritual Reflection
Mirrors reflect images we can see. Yet feng shui practitioners believe they impact how unseen energies move through our homes. Like any other tool, they must be used wisely to achieve ideal outcomes.
Feng shui is proof that cultural beliefs and practices can survive the test of time. Thousands of years ago, ancient practitioners used star charts, astrolabes, and magnetic compasses. And with feng shui, arranging one’s spaces to achieve harmony is the most important goal. Extensive writings and expertise offer a lot of guidance for using feng shui in 2021. How have its older concepts adapted for modern needs? Some basic feng shui principles can help.
The Bagua: Feng Shui’s Map
Feng shui’s foundations lie heavily in Tao philosophy. “Tao” translates as “the way” or “the path.” One of its fundamental precepts is living in balance with the natural world. There’s an energy force, qi, that flows through all existence. The cycle of elemental states, or Wu Xing, can result in creation or destruction.
Modern feng shui makes use of a bagua – a map divided into nine segments. This map contains the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west – plus the four intermediate directions. Writing for The Spruce, feng shui expert Anjie Cho describes the bagua’s layout:
Kan: career
Gen: knowledge
Zhen: family
Xun: wealth
Li: fame
Kun: partnerships
Dui: children
Qian: helpful people
Tai qi: health
When looking at a bagua, you’ll see each region assigned an element and a color. Colors and elements are linked together in feng shui, so a color can represent a specific element.
Finding North in Feng Shui
With most types of maps, finding north is critical. The bagua is no different. AstroStyle explains that there are several modern feng shui schools. Each one approaches this energy map a little differently. Western schools or Black Sect Tantric Buddhist practitioners always set the front door as north. Even if your front door is west, it becomes north for feng shui purposes.
Then there are the traditional or compass-based schools: They use compass points to place the bagua. If your front door is on the east wall, for instance, traditional practitioners will set it in the map’s eastern region. The career area of a bagua is in its north, but your bathroom could end up at this point with traditional methods.
Mapping Your Home
Once you’ve placed the energy map over your home’s layout, the real work begins. No matter how you line it up, each area on the map shows the best colors and elements for the energies present there. Again, the goal is harmony. But you’ll include more of the dominant element and its colors in designing each area.
Let’s see how this may play out. For this example, we’ll assume that the front door is indeed north. That area corresponds to Kan, connected to the color black and the water element. We want to play these up here. Mirrors represent water in feng shui because they’re reflective. Placing a mirror here may be helpful, but don’t put it facing the front door. Feng shui consultant Rodika Tchi points out that your home’s entryway is the mouth of qi. This is where essential life energy comes in. Feng shui helps that energy enter and flow, so the mirror should not be in its way. Placing black objects here is also a great idea.
Minding the Clutter
If you needed another excuse to declutter your home, now you have it. Feng shui experts add that clutter can slow down the flow of qi. Clever’s Zoë Sessums explains that clutter occupies space, which this energy needs to circulate. Decluttering the entryway area is critical, but you should also pay extra attention to bedrooms and living spaces. Besides allowing energy to flow, it can also clear your mind and remove safety hazards.
Feng shui is an old practice, but it’s incredibly flexible for modern uses. Using the bagua and decluttering your home can allow energy to readily flow – and in feng shui, that leads to better balance and harmony.
