I have read your book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, and I was looking at the pictures of the bagua. I noticed that the areas have differant size:
The areas for money, relationships, visdom and support in life are twice as big as the others. Why is that? Should they be bigger? I've read other books and all the areas have always had the same size.
- H.P., Sweden
Karen's reply:
If you read my second book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, you will find the simplified version of the bagua that you are more familiar with. However the bagua shaped bagua (ie. the octagonal one in my first book) is the most accurate one.
I have Read both of your books. I just find the topic fascinating. We just moved into our brand new house and I was considering painting my room. It is located in the Relationships area so would it be advantageous to paint the room light pink or even better, light green, since I read from other books that green would we ideal for teenage students?
Thank you in advance for answering my question. Your attention is very much appreciated. - W.W., California, USA
Karen's reply:
I don't give this type of advice by email. To give any kind of feng shui advice it is necessary to meet you, understand the direction your life is headed, visit your home, feel the energy of the land, and so on.
There is no magical formula for colour schemes that can just be generally applied. Think how limiting it would be if all teenagers had to have light pink or green bedrooms!
My best advice is therefore to consult with a feng shui practitioner who can give you personalized advice, or if this is beyond your means, the next best thing is to choose your colours intuitively. The great thing about paint is that if the colour really doesn't work, you can always change it.
As a final note, understand that the original purpose of physical decoration was to emphasize colours that already exist around a person in the etheric or astral realms, or to bring in colour frequencies that they need to assist them in their spiritual journey. As so few people now see these energies now, this art has been lost and reduced to the type of formula you mention in your email.
I have a problem placing my apartment's bagua. If I fill in the shape to make it rectangular, the entrance to my apartment is very near the middle of this rectangle. Furthermore, this way, my apartment seems only to contain precious little of the bagua.
Am I doing anything wrong, or is it true, that my apartment does not contain half the bagua?
- Klaus Reble, Denmark
Karen's reply:
The entrance can be located at any place in the bagua, and the missing areas you describe are also very common. If you write in the names of the different areas of the bagua in your rectangle, you will discover which areas of your life have become the most problematic while you have been living in this home.
I had absolutely fabulous results since reading your book. I thought I was 'clutter free', but boy, was I wrong. I have moved onto a 37-foot sailboat with my husband and that necessitated getting rid of everything I was just holding on to. I am however having difficulty applying the areas to a layout of a boat. Do you have any suggestions or advice?
Sincerely, Audrey Schnell
Karen's reply:
The alignment of the bagua of a building is determined by the movement of energies in the space, especially those created by people entering and leaving. If your boat is permanently moored then the way you normally enter the boat becomes your 'front door' and the bagua is aligned to that, exactly the same way as in a house. If you sail the boat then there is no fixed front door and therefore no fixed bagua.
QUESTION 1 I have just recently moved into a double-storey house for the first time and am confused about whether the Bagua should be applied to each floor separately or whether the Bagua is applied according to the layout of the ground floor.
QUESTION 2 Also the first floor has only two rooms and does not cover the entire ground floor. I'm wondering if this then creates missing areas of the Bagua in the first floor that need to be remedied?
QUESTION 3 Finally I am curious as to whether the fact that the house would have two relationship areas, two wealth areas, etc, and does that somehow lessen the energy of the area seeing as it is spread out among different floors and not concentrated in one place?
- C.V., UK
Karen's replies:
QUESTION 1
In Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, I explain: If your home has more than one storey, each floor has its own bagua, and in most buildings the bagua will be aligned in different directions on different storeys. Simply align the lower edge of the bagua diagram in my book with the direction you face as your staircase arrives on that level.
The houses this does not apply to are those where you can hear just about everything happening on one floor even when you are on another floor. In these homes, treat the bagua as being aligned in the same direction as the main floor all the way up the building.
QUESTION 2 If parts of the upper floor are missing it makes it difficult for you to access the higher levels of the aspects of your life that those areas represent (eg. higher levels of relationships, etc). You'll find Feng Shui cures listed in Chapter 19 of my book.
QUESTION 3 The plot of land your home is on has a bagua of its own. Each storey of your home has a bagua of its own. Each room in your home has a bagua of its own. It's baguas within baguas. The most important bagua is the space you spend the most time in.
Urgent advice needed! I am currently 26 years old and still do not have any boyfriend. I have checked the relationship area in my living room and the area is the place where my family keeps many Buddha statues and altar. I am not sure whether is this the reason for my single status now and there is no way which I could shift the Buddha statues out of the area. Is there any remedy which I could use?
- S.Y., Singapore
Karen's reply:
If you were to make a tour of all the Buddhist homes you know and find that everyone who has an altar in the relationships corner of their living room has stayed single all their life, then you would have cause for concern. However you are not going to find this is the case. A spiritual emphasis in the relationships corner can in fact help you to attract a partner with a spiritual focus.
When adjusting the Feng Shui of a home for a particular aspect such as relationships, it is best to enhance that area in the overall bagua of the home and in each individual room. In your case, since you are still living with your parents, the most important area to work with is the relationships corner of your bedroom (the right hand corner furthest away from the door leading into your bedroom). You'll find many suggestions for Feng Shui enhancements in my books.
Also bear in mind that Feng Shui can only do so much. An important part of preparing for a relationship is not to focus outside but to work internally on your relationship with yourself. There are many counsellors who can help you with this and personal development workshops you can attend. When you reach the stage of not needing a relationship because you are happy with yourself, that is when you are most likely to attract the right partner for you.
I decided that, since moving my bin was not an option (and anyway did I really want to transfer the problem to my love and marriage area?!), I would try some corrective Feng Shui.
I tried mirrors, but they looked funny. Then I tried a crystal suspended from the trellis that screens the bin from the garden. Within an hour of my hanging the crystal, my four year old and her friend had made the house look as though someone had emptied a dustbin in every room - I was shocked. Of course I then realized that the crystal reflects and magnifies whatever is within its orbit - in this case the dustbin as well as the garden!
I removed the crystal and replaced it with a small wind chime and some violet-blue pansies in an urn. I have always felt that this particular corner should have blue flowers, so this pleases me whenever I look outside, but I wonder is there something more I should/could do to counteract the dustbin?
- S.B, UK
Karen's reply:
The first thing to look at is whether there is any evidence of the positioning of your dustbin affecting you energetically? If your finances are fine and you feel blessed in your life, then no action is needed. Either there is already some counter-balancing Feng Shui remedy at work which you haven't yet realized or the size of your dustbin in relation to the size of your property is so small as to be inconsequential.
If you feel that some action is necessary and it's totally impossible to move the dustbin, then simply build a nice looking structure to enclose it and place some tubs of flowering plants on top to lift the energy of the area. And make sure your garbage is cleared out regularly.
My wealth corner is in the backyard on a sloping area. I've read about burying a crystal there. Would I use a regular stone crystal or the faceted kind?
- C.G, USA
Karen's reply:
Burying a crystal in the wealth area is a cure I've never heard of or tried. However I can tell you that I have always found it useful to put something in the corner of a sloping area to impede the flow of energy away from the home. A tree, bush, statue or other strong structure above the ground is likely to be more helpful than burying something in the ground.
We have a butler's pantry and dressing room directly above one another in the wealth, prosperity and abundance corner of the bagua. In our garden we are also about to build a shed in the same area. What could this mean for us?
- Carol Walker, UK
Karen's reply:
If the prosperity areas of your home are unexceptional, at best you can expect your finances and fortune blessings to be also unexceptional -- just average, OK, getting by. At worst, you may experience that this aspect of your life stagnates due to the lack of fresh energy circulating in these areas of the bagua.
You will need to do as much as possible to uplift the energy (use attractive colours and storage units, organize your things well, clear out clutter, etc) and then, to further compensate, accent the prosperity areas of all the other rooms of your home with Feng Shui enhancements, such as those I describe in Part 5 of my Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui book.
Another titles I can recommend to help you with this is Feng Shui Made Easy by William Spear.
Finally, it would be better to put your garden shed somewhere else, or else create a magnificent garden around it. You can also hang a bird feeder there to encourage birds (high energy) to come into the space.
I am currently reading Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui and when I came to the section on the bagua was unsure at first if I should include the garage or just the living space. Our house is oddly shaped due to a garage addition added on to the back of the house. The old garage was turned into an office.
- A.L., USA
Karen's reply:
The bagua is explained in a lot more detail in my first book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui.
If the garage is just used for parking the car, there is no need to include it in the bagua of your home. However many people these days, like you, are using their garage as an office, hobby room, junk room or whatever, in which case it definitely needs to be included in the overall bagua of the home.
This can create missing areas in your bagua and therefore in your life. You'll find some cures for this in Part 5 of my book. However, if the garage is being used to store junk, it is always better to clear out the junk and reclaim the space for your car rather than to try to solve the problem with Feng Shui cures!
Which door should I use for bagua purposes? My husband/kids/and I ALWAYS used the side door in the garage to enter the house. Company occasionally uses the front door. I have both your books and think it should be the side door, but want to make absolutely sure! Many thanks.
- D.V., USA
Karen's reply:
The general rule is that if the main front door is still used sometimes then that is the door to align the bagua to. However doing Feng Shui according to general rules can be problematic because there are other factors that may need to be taken into account such as the position of the road in relation to the building, the lie of the land, the location of external structures such as other buildings or trees, the social practices of the country or region, and especially the actual chi of the front door area. This is why I am always reluctant to do Feng Shui from plans.
In some homes there is also what I call a double whammy front door situation - this is where the balance of energy is such that both the front door and the side door are equally matched. Again, this is something that cannot be physically deduced but can be discerned through advanced techniques of etheric sensing. Feng Shui, in this respect, can be likened to the study of medicine - everything is connected so an in-depth knowledge of the workings of the whole body is required in order to be able to accurately diagnose even the simplest thing.
The best advice I can offer you is what I call reverse Feng Shui. Try each alignment and see which one most fits with what you are experiencing. For example, supposing you have a missing area of the bagua that would be a missing wealth area if you take the actual front door as a front door or a missing relationships area if you take the side entrance as your front door. Look to see what has been happening with your finances and relationships in the time you have lived there. The most problematic area will correspond the the missing area of the bagua.
What is Space Clearing?
