The Importance of Bringing Nature into the Home

By Erica Sofrina

This picture is of the creative Thanksgiving table created by my nephew at age 12. It was a sad time, the Thanksgiving after his mom passed away. She had always created wonderful holiday center pieces with her children  and  we were all feeling bereft. I asked my nephew to create the center piece from the wonderful collection of pumpkins and gourds that I had, thinking he would just use these. He went out for half hour and and brought back ferns and nasturtiums, nuts and berries, autumn leaves and  many other fabulous treasures and created the most marvelous arrangement. I saw that her spirit lived through him and that he would teach this to his children and on down the ages she would be remembered. Her creative and wonderful spirit influencing these marvelous creations for generations to come.

The fact is that we need to bring nature into our homes especially when the days get shorter and colder and the weather more inclement. It is is our DNA to respond positively to nature. When stressed , just spending 20 minutes in nature will balance and rejuvenate our energy field. Bringing nature into our homes is a key component of the teachings of Feng Shui (See last week's article on Beating the Holiday Blues with Feng Shui).The goal is to have all of the five elements of fire, earth, metal, water and wood balanced in every room of of our living space.

The elements when closest to their natural state will contain the most vibrant 'chi' or energy. However, there are colors, objects and shapes that represent these elements as well. Some are more subtle and some more obvious. A tall cylindrical shape (reminding us of a tree) represents the wood element, along with medium blues and greens, anything made of wood, plants and trees and pictures of them.

When the elements, or an element is not in balanced in a room it can have a profound affect on us, especially children who are energetically very sensitive.(See my article on Feng Shui for Children's Bedrooms). A bedroom with soft green walls, wooden furniture, floral prints on the walls and and a floral print bedspread will have an abundance of the wood element. When in balance the wood element represents healthy growth. Too much of the wood element, however, will make us feel over expanded and overwhelmed.

This is why that green bedroom you thought would feel so soothing is making you feel agitated. The wood element is out of balance and you are responding energetically to this You can bring it back into balance by removing some of the wood element and bringing in things that represent the element that controls wood, which is metal.

The metal element is represented by white and cream colors, pastels, circular shapes, rocks and stones and metal. Just by changing the floral bedspread to a pastel or cream color that is not a floral print and accessorizing with whites and pastels will begin to bring the room back into elemental balance.

If we find we are staying 'too small' in our lives, our environment will often reflect too little of the wood element. Staying too small is a symptom of too little of the wood element. Perhaps your bedroom is all whites and pastels representing the metal element. This is the element which controls the wood element, which is not serving our needs here because the little bit of the wood element we may have in this room is being overpowered by the metal element. In this instance we might add a floral bedspread, a green chenille throw and pillows on the bed and some floral prints. Just remember to get the right amount of all of the elements, not too much and not too little.

The Feng Shui Five Elements theory can provide invaluable insights as to why our lives are out of balance by looking at the elemental imbalances in our homes. In future articles I will demonstrate how some of my clients teens went from combustible to manageable just by elementally balancing their often 'too fiery' bedrooms.

I encourage you to learn more about these powerful concepts to help make your home into a vibrant and rejuvenating place that feeds your soul and nurtures your spirit!

Beating the Holiday Blues by Bringing Nature into the Home

One of my favorite fall rituals is to fill my trunk with an abundance of the multicolored, unusually shaped pumpkins and gourds that richly grace the Half Moon Bay, N. California coast side where I reside. I especially love the lime- green and tangerine ones with exotic curly handles. I throw in handfuls of dry, crackly autumn-colored corn and drive happily home where I arrange them artfully around a haystack on my front porch.
Inside I arrange a bountiful ‘horn of plenty’ with the smaller multicolored gourds and mini-pumpkins along with the acorns, dry corn and colorful autumn leaves I have collected. This is my celebration into fall. I don’t really feel it has arrived until I greedily scoop up nature and feature it prominently in my home.
The Chinese art of Feng Shui emphasizes the importance of bringing nature into our living space, which is called the Five Elements Theory. This is the part of Feng Shui that I have found the most powerful when working with
my clients, and the part that I most enjoy teaching to my students. I think it must be because this teaching is so intuitive and simple, yet transformational. As human beings we are connected to 100,000 generations of ancestors who lived in the natural world. It is embedded into our DNA to feel a deep sense of balance and well being in nature. Studies have shown that people become depressed, lethargic and unproductive when deprived of it. We don’t need science to prove the joyousness we feel sinking our feet into white sands while watching a magnificent sunset. We experience it healing our soul and nurturing our spirit.
One powerful way to remedy winter blues is to work with balancing the elements that begin to diminish during the fall and winter seasons. In working with the Feng Shui five elements of fire, earth, metal, water and wood, we work with the controlling and the nurturing cycles. When we have too much of an element we control it by bringing in the element that is stronger. An example would be the element of earth, which we would enhance in order to control the element of water. When we have too little of an element we can nurture it with the element that feeds it, such as the element of wood which will strengthen and feed the element of fire.
By bringing into our homes more of the elements of fire (red), wood (green) and earth (gold) during the colder months, we overcome the abundance of the water element and bring them back into balance. Because we are deeply affected by our physical surroundings, our physical bodies come back into balance as well. As a result depression and lethargy often naturally lifts.
It was no surprise to me to discover that our ancestors had been decorating in this same fashion for centuries. As creatures of comfort we will always try to bring our environment into alignment. In so doing they were naturally balancing these seasonal imbalances. My favorite winter ritual is to fill my trunk with large branches from the unclaimed fir trees and berry bushes around my home. I give them their seasonal ‘haircut’ and into my trunk they go. That evening, I put on my favorite holiday music and immerse myself in the creative process of adorning my home with these bountiful earthy treasures. Always preferring to save a Christmas tree, I create my own ‘greener’ recycled version and adorn a tall vase with pine boughs with twinkly white lights, shiny gold balls, strings of red cranberries and my collection of small unique ornaments. I cover the mantle with pungent greens, red poinsettias, strands of magical white lights and shimmering silver and gold ribbons. A cherished Angel holds the place of honor at the center. Every tabletop gets a
unique variation on this theme creating a sense of interest and visual surprise everywhere the eye rests. I encourage you to play, create, feel and experience the objects, textures, smells and magic of nature. Bring it into your homes in abundance during this time and especially emphasize the more earthy, woody and fiery aspects. It will replenish your soul and create a deep sense of joy and well being within you, making the fall and winter a magical cozy and happy time to be in your home.