A love letter to feng shui

At its core, feng shui is a set of rules that arranges a room to allow for the flow of energy that leaves the room in balance and harmony. In feng shui there are five elements that should always be in equity, as well as the essence of either yin – for passive spaces – and yang – for active spaces. The tradition dates back to Ancient China, but the purpose of feng shui, I believe, has always existed as a personal instinct outside of the guidelines of the practice. Even if you have no perception at all of the rules of feng shui, you always know when something in a room feels out of place. I personally have always been someone that needs to brace myself for changes in my room. While my friends decorated and redecorated their rooms, rearranging all its contents whenever they got bored, I was never able to just do that on a whim. The angle of my bed against the window was meticulously chosen after years of trial and error, ensuring the best quality of sleep I can while letting the sunlight into my room at full force because I refuse to close my blinds. Like a plant, I need light and space to sprawl. My bookshelf is used only to store the things I collect: rocks, shells, and any print media I refuse to let go of. The place I choose to put them when I first bring them home is the place they’ll always stay. So, my books have no room on the shelves, and instead, have grown their own stacks like an archipelago on my bedroom floor.

Principally, feng shui’s energy comes from outside; through windows and doors. The entry of the home is referred to as the mouth, and the passage of energy beyond can be visualized as something of a metabolic process. This energy, then, is sustained through living: eating, breathing, cooking, sleeping. Over the years, sleeping for 11 hours and doing nothing for the rest of the day until you get tired again has somehow become an “unhealthy” or “unproductive” way to live. You’re criticized for having bad habits when, in reality, all you’re doing is ensuring that energy continues to flow through your home. You’re older now, you need somewhere comforting to rest. How else will you be able to do that if you feel profoundly alienated in your own home?

The most daunting part of feng shui, at least for me, is its maintenance. However, I believe that it is well within the guidelines of feng shui to allow your room to develop naturally as you live in the space. When I was younger, when my mom would tell me to clean my room, she’d say that every surface of my room was covered by something – clothes, half-written notes, CDs I meant to reorganize – like some kind of mold. However, in my 20 long years of life, I’ve found that there is no better way to reinforce a room’s metabolic flow than by having a natural growth of stuff. The moments that I tend to remember the most fondly are the couple of minutes of complete peace right before I fall into what I know is about to be a profoundly soul-adjusting nap. In the summer, I’d lay on my floor to stay cool. I simply cannot close my window because doing so would cause a disturbance in the energy of the room, a stark change that I can feel in my stomach. Instead, I’d lay in front of it, waiting for the wind to pass over me, and every time it did I took a deep enough breath to continue to perpetuate it. One summer, I put up a wind chime so I could actually hear the breeze. Sometimes I’d sleep through the rings, and sometimes I’d be pleasantly awoken by the sound. When I did, I’d reach across the room, eyes still closed, and pick out a book from one of my stacks. Or instead, I’d reach for my laptop to play music, or on some occasions to watch Children of the Sea for the umpteenth time. A room with harmonious feng shui should feel as though it has life of its own. You and your space simply exist in each other’s company, feel the same warmth from the sun and the same comfort from being in a space that has grown and developed with you.

Although a room with balanced feng shui is grounding, moving away from somewhere you’ve established can be, at the risk of sounding somewhat dramatic, profoundly devastating. Even going back to visit isn’t the same it used to be. However much it may unnerve you, this, unfortunately, is a part of life. There’s no way to work around it, the truth of the matter is that feng shui, harmony and balance, they all take time. The mistake that many people will make is to rush the process, yearning for some kind of inner peace to emerge from it. But this is fundamentally antagonistic to what feng shui is supposed to be. Calmness is, by its very definition, is brought about by the recess of haste. As much as we may scramble and hope for a moment of rest, it is not something that we can control outright. The perfect space will happen eventually. Home is not something to leave behind but something to build and look forward to, no matter where you go and regardless of what you do. As you continue to live your life, your spaces will change with you, and eventually, they’ll become an extension of you; all of your earthly possessions and napping spots all in one place. In the end, I can’t really say that anything I know about feng shui is truly about feng shui. But what I do know is that space can be an intimidating thing. However, if you happen to feel an energy flowing through a room, wherever you are, sit and bask in it. No one will notice it, but it just might help you rest a bit easier.