"Entrancing" Entryways that Call Opportunities to Your Front Door

The ancient Chinese Practice of Feng Shui puts a great deal of emphasis on the entryway to the home. It is considered the “mouth of chi” where all of our opportunities come to us. This may seem like a bit of a stretch to westerners, however, in recently reviewing my old Interior Design textbook from years ago, I saw that it presented some of the exact same concepts as this 3,000 year old practice.
It stated that choosing the right entryway was the most important part of the design of the building and should be chosen after a great deal of study and care.  A poorly designed entryway would hamper the success of the business and/or negatively affect the occupants of the home, which is also a primary Feng Shui teaching.
It went on to say the entry should be strongly differentiated from the immediate surroundings making it easily identifiable from the street, and should make a graceful transition between the street and the inside. If it was not easy to see and people had a hard time finding it, they would arrive grumpy and out of sorts which would negatively impact the occupants.
It talked about how people need 15 feet to adjust from the outer to the inner domains. How the experience of arriving at a front door after enjoying a fragrant and attractive garden was considerably more enjoyable and helped make the transition. If the transition was too abrupt there would be no feeling of arrival and the inside of the home would fail to be an inner sanctum.

What special things do you do in your home or garden for the Fall?

Send me your comments and ideas and pictures of how you decorate for the Fall!

Fall Pumpkins and Feng Shui

Me with my Fairy Godmother, Anne delivering a bounty of pumpkins

I love pumpkins. They combine the earth and fire and wood elements and bring such a nurturing earthy quality into our homes. One of my greatest joys is getting a car load of pumpkins and making beautiful harvest arrangements on my porch and in my home. I also create wonderful pumpkin arrangements for dear friends, my special fall gift to them.  Here are some pics of my fall pumpkin arrangements. Do you have creative ideas for pumpkins?

Your Home is Attracting Your Future!

 By Erica Sofrina

A missing component from the popular book The Secret is the important role our environment plays in manifesting the life we desire.
According to the laws of attraction, every thought radiates a signal and attracts a matching signal. Every object in our homes is a physically manifested thought-form of our conscious and unconscious belief system about what we believe we deserve to be, do and have in life. The single woman who desires a relationship but surrounds herself with single objects and pictures of single women is vibrationally anchoring into her home unconscious affirmations of the opposite future she desires.
Feng Shui is powerful because it teaches us to become conscious of the hidden messages in our physical surroundings that may not be serving us, giving us valuable insights as to why our lives may be headed in the directions they are! It provides valuable tools for getting our lives back on track and teaches that we can literally shift our future by shifting the vibration of our physical environments. As we arrange our space to reflect what we truly want, our lives follow suit. It is simply the law of attraction: like attracts like.
Feng Shui addresses the subtle things in our environment that wear on us over time and bring our chi (energy) down. Examples might be clutter piles, the sharp-edged furniture that can injure, plants dying or limping along, objects from past relationships that bring us down, dis empowering or disturbing art, heavy objects like beams or ceiling fans overhead create a feeling of being unsafe. Beds and key pieces of furniture placed with our backs to the door will also create a feeling of dis empowerment. Highly manufactured products like plastics and synthetics not only pose health issues because of the out-gassing, but will also carry a denser vibration.

Is Your Child Not Sleeping? Feng Shui Tips

At its essence, Feng Shui is a collection of practical, tried and true ideas about how to create living and working environments that support, nurture and guide our lives in a direction that promotes optimum well-being.
If our children are not happy, healthy and thriving, every family member is impacted. Creating a child’s bedroom that supports rest and rejuvenation is a key component of a happy home.
You might be a well-meaning parent who believes in empowering your child to design their own room. Your little girl may have selected bright purple, pink or yellow wall colors with bright pink sheets and a bedspread to match. She filled it with stuffed animals, dolls and wall art depicting Disney animals and people whom she admires. She loves playing in her room during the day but, when night comes, she wants to sleep anywhere else but there.
You may have designed a little boy’s room with bright yellow or blue walls filled with jumping, zooming, flying and crashing action figures. He loves his room, but getting him to sleep at night leaves you exhausted and him in meltdown mode.
Children are ultra sensitive to energy. I have helped numerous clients change their nocturnal monsters into little lambs that can go to bed easily and sleep through the night. The key is to change the balance of Yin and Yang. and create a more restful space conducive to sleep.
Yin and Yang are the balance of activity and rest, or the play of opposites. In a home, Yin energy encourages rest, rejuvenation and relaxation and should be used  in bedrooms, dining rooms, family rooms and living rooms. Yin spaces use more muted colors, ambient lighting, soft and sumptuous fabrics, curved and circular furniture and peaceful artwork.