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Creating Soothing Environments with Essential Feng
Shui
It is a real act of courage to open your
Feng Shui eyes and take a detailed look at what your
home is saying about you. It usually leads to
extraordinary insights, immediate calls to action, and
deeply empowering inner and outer changes. ~Terah
Kathryn Collins
Feng Shui (fung shway) is a
3,000-year-old Chinese design philosophy that encourages
you to analyze and change your environment for personal
growth and relaxation. As your mind starts to change,
this change is reflected in your environment. You can
also change your environment and adjust your viewpoint
or even bring more success and peace into your life.
Terah Kathryn Collins is an internationally
recognized consultant, speaker and teacher. Her writing
style is highly creative and filled with positive
energy. Her ideas are enlightening and comforting and
they changed how I viewed my environment. Through the
application of her ideas you can improve your
creativity, change your health, bring positive energy
into your home and create a home that reflects who you
are becoming. This is a practical approach with personal
flair. You can personalize the ideas to suit your goals.
There are 125 black-and-white and color photographs to
give you ideas and to explain the text.
After a
quick introduction to this art, Terah Kathryn Collins
introduces "The Bagua Map." This was great fun to draw
(This just looks like a tic-tac-toe board drawn over a
footprint drawing of your home.) and by the time you
have your house mapped out, you can start to map your
office and bedrooms. Then, you can make notes around the
drawings. Additional chapters include:
Yin and
Yang and the Five Elements
Romancing the Home - art,
color, crystals, lighting, living things, mirrors,
nature objects, sound makers, water features and wind
dancers.
The Front Entry and Foyer
The Living
Room
The Dining Room - Nurturing Body, Heart, and
Soul
The Kitchen - Nourishment's Birthplace
The
Family Room
The Home Office
Bedrooms
The
Sancturary
Bathrooms
Laundry Rooms and Garages
Attics, Basements and Other Storage Areas
Hallways and Stairways
Windows and Doors
Cleansings and Blessings - Creative ideas for making
a home yours, especially if you are not the first owner.
This book also explains why you can buy dried
flowers, but presents the idea as a long-term
arrangement instead of a permanent arrangement. There
are also cautions against placing crystals in windows
with direct sunlight and other cautions that can keep
your home safe.
I realized the power of Feng
Shui personally when I moved my desk so I could see the
door and the window. The gift of a wonderful Zen
fountain and the placement of a lamp on the desk also
brought more serenity to my writing experience. It is
amazing how much more relaxed my relationship with my
husband has become just because I moved my desk. Now I
can see him entering our home and even when I'm deep in
a writing trance, I can acknowledge his presence and
Princess Sasha cat now enjoys looking out of the window
while I'm typing. Air can flow more freely into the room
and the scent of flowers from the planter drifts over
the desk as I type. Just one simple example of how Feng
Shui changed my immediate existence. The desk on page
167 was my guide for arranging a more effective writing
space.
This book would make a wonderful house
warming present! Especially with a Zen fountain, plants
or candles.
Personally, I'd recommend making
changes over time. Moving furniture could be the first
step and then you could purchase items over a few months
or years. Even the author explained how she made small
changes at first and planned for changes in the future
when she could afford to buy a new couch, etc.
Half the fun is making changes over time and
seeing wonderful energy start to flow into your life.
The author promotes inner and outer work. She explains
how "you" breathe "the magic" into the changes you make.
When your environment is more positive and nurturing,
you will feel more creative and this can lead to lasting
changes.
If you love to decorate you are going
to love this book! This is my favorite Feng Shui book
because it has ideas that have changed my life.
~TheRebeccaReview.com
Rating:
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The BEST First book to read on Feng Shui
This
is the first book I read about Feng Shui. I found I
really enjoyed Collin's breezy style of writing, but
more than that, after reading 10 other books on feng
shui, I can honestly say this is the best book out there
for the beginner feng shui reader.
Collins goes over all the feng shui basics in this
book - the bagua, enhansements, colors, the five-element
theory (nourishing and destructive cycles), etc. She
then goes on with the theories of each Room beyond the
bagua (such as that bathrooms are watery, etc, and how
to prevent them from being overly watery). I found this
very helpful. I also enjoyed how Collins had
affirmations for each gua and each room. The
affirmations, for example, for the bathroom, involve
letting go of toxic thoughts and emotions.
This book is also full of photos, both black and
white and color, that are really helpful in allowing you
to see what the author means when she gives an example
of good or bad feng shui. The photographs are really
gorgeous, too, and simply make the examples stand out
really well!
After reading this book, I went back and read her
book, "The Western Guide to Feng Shui", but didn't enjoy
it nearly as much. It doesn't has the photographs, the
writing is stilted, and she doesn't go into as much
detail with enhansements and color theory as she does in
this book. If you had to choose which book to start
with, start with "The Western Guide to Feng Shui: Room
by Room"! Simply the best First book to read about Feng
Shui!
Rating:
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Excellent resource for those new to feng
shui
I read several books on feng shui before
this one-mostly slogging through all the history and
technical information that was not at all useful to me.
Then I found Ms. Collins book. She presents just enough
history and technical information to be useful, and
offers many simple and practical ideas which can change
the energy of your home and your life. The pictures were
very helpful in illustrating how a few small changes can
dramatically change the energy of a whole room. I highly
recommend this book.
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