Feng Shui: How Plants Create Harmony In the Home and Office
Feng Shui is the art of placing objects in the home or workplace to improve the flow of Chi, or energy.
Feng Shui is not a religion or a rigid set of rules. Feng Shui helps us accept and understand the forces of life in all of Nature, both human nature and physical nature. Feng Shui aims to help us live in harmony by promoting the flow of positive energy and neutralizing or avoiding negative or destructive energy.
Combined with your highest intentions for living harmoniously, Feng Shui can help improve the quality of your life. One way to activate the Chi in your environment is by adding live plants. Placed in central, highly visible locations, plants are pleasing the eye and spirit. Placed in corners, plants can enhance relationships, bring good luck and help you achieve your goals.
Even the Feng Shui neophyte can benefit from applying basic Feng Shui principles to life!
FENG SHUI IN THE HOME
Creating harmony and peace in the family is the greatest intention for your home life. The home is the most important place in the world -- a beautiful home is a loving, nurturing and relaxing haven for the soul
Create a pleasing entrance. Potted plants, a colorful mat and a brightly paioted front door can evoke positivity even before you walk into the house! A wind chime brings the healing breeze to life.
Group pictures of loved ones and sentimental objects with live plants to create a loving vignette.
Remove clutter that can foster negativity and confusion - dead plants, decorative items without personal meaning and any images that can be construed as negative or confusing.
FENG SHUI AT WORK
Enhancing clarity and meeting your goals is the greatest intention for the workplace. Whether you work in a business setting, in the healthcare arena or as a teacher, the addition of plants can help keep you focused on what is most important.
Get organized. An efficient filing system can promote order and reduce confusion, making it easier to focus on your goals.
Clean your desk daily. Purge unnecessary paperwork or file away. A plant, photos of loved ones and a clean blank page for notes stimulates thinking.
Create pleasing public spaces. Shared spaces like lunchrooms and bathrooms should be pleasing escapes from the demands of work. Pleasing soothing wall color, green plants and clean surfaces are the bare minimum for a positive experience. If you work as a team, take turns maintaining this space.
If you work in a cubicle, take care to decorate and add life to your space. A small mirror, potted plant or desktop fountain can energize even the smallest space.
FENG SHUI IN BUSINESS
Productivity and prosperpity are the greatest intentions for the place of business. An environment with plants is energizing and inviting, creating possibility.
To encourage success, place living plants in the wealth and prosperity area, which is located in the Southeast corner of your home and/or business.
Create a wonderful first impression. A wind chime, a collection of beautiful plants, a colorful welcome mat or a cheerful flag by the front door all say "welcome!" to clients and associates.
Remove clutter that can foster negativity and confusion - dead plants, decorative items without personal meaning and any images that can be construed as negative or confusing.
FENG SHUI GIFT GIVING
Promoting positive energy and neutralizing the negative is at the heart of Feng Shui. A gift from the heart is always a beautiful gesture.
Give a gift that is life enhancing and that will add value to the life for the recipient. A quickly chosen or useless gift, even if fancy or expensive, is never appropriate because it will add clutter to the recipients life.
Consider the preferences of the recipient. If they love color then a muted succulent garden will probably not be appealing.
Gifts that are universally appropriate, and promote good energy, include wind chimes, candles, plants and fruit
Giving a gift plant represents the practice of Feng Shui because you are transferring your good intentions - along with the living, energizing force of the plant - to your recipient. They can experience and benefit from the life enhancing pleasures of plants. And as it grows, so does their relationship with the positive.
PLANTS WiTH POSITIVE ENERGY
Almost all living plants are useful in the practice of Feng Shui. Their life-force, intrinsic beauty and health-promoting benefits are always positive, especially when auspiciously placed. However, a few plants are traditional symbols of good luck, and communicate your best intentions for the recipient, especially when given as gifts.
Lucky Bamboo - Imported from Taiwan, Lucky Bamboo comes from original stock and is extremely hardy. They will grow indoors for years with virtually no care, requiring only an inch or two of water. A few drops of diluted fertilizer will cause them to grow rapidly, otherwise they will remain the same size. This lucky charm will keep giving, too: you can break off a stem and re-plant it in water. By changing the water every three days, it will quickly root and can then be passed on to a friend.
Also, according to Asian tradition, a gift of living bamboo brings good fortune. Therefore, your Lucky Bamboo plant, properly deployed, can bring you "double happiness." It is recommended that you place your bamboo on the East side of your house, and/or in the left back corner when facing into the office or living room from the door.
Money Tree - The legend began in Taiwan, with an old, poor, and hard-working farmer who lived in a small valley and was very superstitious. He found a small, unusual plant one day when he went out to the field, and never having seen anything like it before, thought to dig it up and take it home with him. Little did he know how resilient and hard to uproot the tree was. He took a lesson from the tree, deciding to be stubborn, hard working and never give up on the things he strove to work for, and turned into a wealthy entrepreneur.
Often referred to in Asian cultures as the "Bringer of Good Fortune" - especially when given as a gift - the Braided Money Tree makes the perfect addition to any home or office. Appropriate for plant-caring novices and experts alike, this hardy variety of bonsai is not only good looking, but it's also extremely easy to take care of; tolerant of low light conditions and even dryness, it virtually takes care of itself.