Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Feng Shui Home Design

Feng Shui HomeDesign

By Cheryl Grace

The Feng Shui Bagua Map is one of the key tools in transforming the energy in your environment into a powerhouse of creativity. The Bagua Map has a dual purpose of serving as the treasure map of your home as well as the road map of your life. There are nine areas called guas or trigrams that correlate important aspects of your life with various sections of buildings and properties. The Bagua Map identifies energetic patterns in each area. It’s intended to be used over land, over one’s home, apartment, office, or business location as well as with every room or surface, such as a desk. To use this tool, align the bottom edge of the map to the wall where the front door or entry to the home or building is located.

The Bagua Map has a structural similarity to a tic-tac-toe board, with three columns and three rows, totaling nine guas (zones). The eight squares revolve around the ninth or center square, each representing a different life aspect essential to achieving harmony. The front three squares closest to the front door represent inspiration and motivation, the middle three squares (center of the home) concentrate on health, family and creativity, and in the rear section of the home, from left to right, are the power guas for prosperity, integrity/ legacy, and relationships. Each gua has an association with specific colors, shapes, symbols, and concepts that can be applied to that area to improve and empower the life aspect or situation it represents.

Here’s a quick overview of the nine squares of the Bagua Map. Again, each gua is oriented to the front door of the building or dwelling:

Wealth and Prosperity: The far left rear corner of your home (in relation to your front door) is the power corner for attracting and keeping money. If you’re living from paycheck to paycheck, it will be important to enhance this area. The life lesson is to be grateful for what you have, count your blessings daily, and pay it forward whenever you can with your time, talent and money. If you always give, you’ll always have.

Fame and Reputation: The middle rear square of your home (in relation to your front door) represents how you’re viewed by others and the ways your friends, co-workers, and family support you. If you’re having any issues around being recognized or honored for who you are, it’s time to contemplate how you can enhance this area and turn the situation around. This life aspect also serves to remind us to create and fulfill our lasting legacy.

Love, Marriage and Relationships: The far right rear corner (in relation to your front door) holds the space to create loving relationships. Whether you’re single or in a committed relationship, the goal is to interact with everyone in your life with an open and compassionate heart. We need the values of mutual respect, loyalty, and trust to attract and keep successful relationships. Enhance this gua to magnetically draw in the sweetness of true love.
Health and Family: The middle far left square of your home (in relation to your front door) deals with your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, as well as how family or friends support you during challenging times. We’re reminded that setting healthy boundaries strengthens relationships. Truthful and forthright communication is a key component for building relationships with family and friends that you can rely on. Forgiveness frees you from wishing the past could be changed.

Earth: The center middle square represents being grounded and living in present moment awareness. It’s conscious living every day, being neither tethered to the past nor obsessed with the future. You’re aware of every blessing in your life and are grateful for all you have. The center earth square comes together effortlessly when the other eight Bagua squares or life situations are in harmony.

Creativity and Children: The far right middle square nurtures and supports your creative sides, helping you explore what brings you joy. Just as small children find wonderment in everything they do, you can restore your natural fascination by creating something original or unique. Find a hobby, a part time job, or volunteer for something that shows the childlike side of your personality.

Knowledge and Self-Cultivation: This part of your home represents how you gather and use wisdom effectively through contemplation, meditation and rejuvenation. It is the far left front corner of your home.
Career: The front middle square is linked to your career path and life or soul purpose. Whether you’re looking for a job, have a job, or are retired, you stay purposefully connected to your life path by tapping into your own unique talent and destiny. Work then becomes play.

Helpful People and Travel: The most spiritual area is the front far right area of your home. It symbolizes your connection to the invisible energy that soulfully guides you through life. Mentors, special friends and family, and your spiritual beliefs are all ways to support you in challenging times. Asking for help is the way of Feng Shui.

To apply the Bagua Map, use a floor plan sketch or blueprint of your home or business, with all of the rooms and the main entrance or front door denoted. The
overall shape of the building may be square, rectangle, L-shaped, or any variation of those. If your dwelling is an irregular shape, draw a line to connect all the walls to form a square/rectangle that mirrors the square shape of the Bagua Map. Garages count if they are attached to a house. If your garage is not attached, it has it’s own Bagua Map. Now you can sketch a tic-tac-toe board in the perimeters of the square/rectangle by drawing two vertical lines and two horizontal lines to formulate nine equal squares.

You may find some portions of the Bagua Map are outside of the structure of your dwelling. For example, an L-shaped home may have some guas, such as Love, Marriage, and Relationships, and Creativity and Children, in located in your yard or belonging to another building. No worries! You can still creatively enhance the missing areas with symbolic gestures. Once you label each square according to the nine areas of the Bagua Map, you have the template for transformation.

Cheryl Grace is a professional Feng Shui expert, nationally certified interior refiner, and winner of the 2008-09-10 Natural Choice Award for Favorite Feng Shui Practitioner. For a consultation for your home or business or to contact Cheryl, e-mail ggRedecorating@yahoo.com or call 941-400-3816. Visit www.ggRedecorating.com to shop for contemporary Feng Shui decor and enhancements, or to find a list of Feng Shui seminars taught by Cheryl. For daily Feng Shui tips, follow Cheryl on Twitter and her Blog at www.Twitter.com/FengShuiSimply ; www.Twitter.com/FengShuiGreen; www.FengShuiSimply.blogspot.com

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