The history of feng shui in China has been traced back thousands of years. Some say three thousand years, while others claim as much as eight thousand years ago. In many ways, the earliest examples of feng shui are no different than the basic decisions made today about the ideal location for siting a house. If a person could choose any home to live in, they would choose one with a warm southern exposure, up on a hill and with the nicest view possible, perhaps looking out over an ocean or lake.
Of course, not many people get the ideal. So over the years, feng shui guidelines have developed to establish criteria as to what is the best feng shui in various situations. Given a few thousand years of tinkering with the system, many approaches have developed over the generations. Of the four most popular today, there is the School of Land Forms, the various Compass School techniques and the Black Sect Tantric Buddhist School of Feng Shui.
School of Land Forms – The Basic Rules of Good Feng Shui
Though all the schools have value, the School of Land Forms is the most important of all and the only one that the success of all other approaches depends on. Without good Forms, all other approaches are not only less effective, but in some situations, completely useless. It was with this awareness that Land Forms are the subject of Elliot Tanzer’s book, Choose the Best House for You: The Feng Shui Checklist.
The name Land Forms refers to the natural surroundings and how they either strengthen or weaken a location. In ancient days, it would be foolish to build a house next to a river that floods every year or put a wood shack on top of a windy mountain. In other words, the basic rules of good feng shui are common sense rules and these rules are the same in a big city as they were a thousand years ago in a the rural countryside.
Today, the rivers are roadways with traffic instead of water flowing. Some roadways are quiet side streets that flow like a quiet stream. Other roadways are fast rushing highways, like a noisy, fast flowing river. Whether a noisy river or roadway, it is difficult to get a good night’s sleep if your bedroom is located right next to one. One purpose of feng shui is to identify problems and then devise solutions. If moving to a less hectic area is not an option, a feng shui solution might be simply closing windows and playing soothing music.
The Ideal Land Form – the Armchair Position
According to the School of Land Forms, the ideal house site we spoke of is like an Armchair. An armchair has a back to lean against for support, side arm rests that are just high enough to protect on the sides and to add to the feeling of comfort. It might even have a foot stool in front to allow us to put our legs up, as we lean back and relax. In this position, we are comfortable, protected from the rear and can see what’s going on all around us.
Translate this concept to the siting of a home and the home has a mountain behind it, protection on both sides, a view in front to enjoy the open space, and a secure feeling as you can see if danger is coming your way. Of course in a city, this translates as anything high behind and off to each side and a street in front. Anything high can be another structure, some trees or high hedge, wall or fence, or anything else high enough that feels protective. So feng shui is not just about comfort and a good view, it is also about feeling safe and secure.
Two Protections: Our ‘Fight or Flight’ Adrenals and Our Disease Fighting Immune System
If the Land Forms around us don’t make us feel safe and secure, our adrenal ‘fight or flight’ hormone reaction to danger is activated. Whether real, potential or misperceived, all dangers are responded to equally, as the body mobilizes to either fight and confront the danger or run to avoid it.
The physiological responses to make this burst of energy possible begins with accelerated respiration to get more oxygen into the blood, rapid heartbeat and high blood pressure to get that oxygen to the muscles and the many other psychological adjustments that are automatically made to increase the likelihood of survival. At the same time, our other defense mechanism called the immune system, which is used to protect us from bacteria, virus and out of control cancerous cells, weakens as the oxygenated blood leaves the torso and goes to the arms and legs to “fight or flight.”
Under ordinary circumstances, once the danger has passed, the body can again relax and return to normal deep abdominal breathing and blood pressure, proper heart rate and so forth; allowing the oxygenated blood to return to strengthening immune system functions. And, once again we can kick back calmly in our Armchair, ready to handle whatever comes our way.
Hidden Arrows – Hidden Stressors
So the first job of Land Form Feng Shui is to identify the obvious stressors surrounding us, as well as those stressors that are embedded in the environment; which a more primitive part of our brain (the so-called primitive, reptilian, survival-at-all-cost part of the brain), interprets as a cause of concern and as a danger to avoid. You know, that neurotic side that we all have, that no-matter-how-we-explain-things-rationally, it still hunkers down defensively and says, “Yeah that may be true, but what if?” As you may have noticed, some politicians use this “what if?” fear response to get unthinking people to vote for them.
It is also for this unconscious reason, many men will insist on sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the door into the bedroom – “What if there is an emergency? I need to be quick to handle it.” Of course, there are other reasons why a man may choose a different side, such as who needs to be closest to the bathroom or which side of the bed has the best view. However, the male ego’s need to be “warrior’” ready to handle emergencies is a fairly common tendency.
The Command Position
Actually, it doesn’t really matter who sleeps on which side of the bed, as long as the bed is in the Command Position. That is, a wall behind the bed for support and a view of the door from the bed. Then, if anything or anyone came through the door, you can handle it before it, hypothetically, does become a danger. This means that a bed with the entrance into the bedroom directly in front or to either side of the bed (such that, if an imaginary train came through the door, it would run over the torso of the person sleeping in the bed), is not a bed in the Command Position.
If this is the case, the person sleeping in direct line of the doorway is in the line of danger, as if in a river of fasting moving energy. Essentially they sleep all night with one eye metaphorically open in anticipation of danger coming through the door and will rarely get a good, rejuvenating night’s rest. With their “fight or flight” hormones pumping blood to the arms and legs all night, the immune system weakens. They may awaken with hypertension, irritability and an overall nasty temperament; perhaps abusive behavior or feeling exhausted all the time. If it is a child’s bed, you can expect frequent flu-like symptoms and allergies at best, sometimes worse.
In the case with the bedroom door directly to the side of a person trying to sleep, how many weeks, months and years have to pass before the constant stress and weakened immune system will eventually take its toll, perhaps resulting in a heart attack or some other ailment that results from a weakened immune system? Get the bed out of the doorway and one’s life will change. Can’t move the bed to a different arrangement? Perhaps it might be best to get a different house. If this is not possible, there are feng shui remedies that might work in an attempt to appease the reptilian brain into believing that this is no longer a dangerous situation; remedies that will allow the adrenals to rest and the immune system to be strengthened once again.
Of course, if you allow yourself to be a little more neurotic than usual, you may find “hidden arrows” in all kinds of unsuspecting places, but many can be removed, covered up or deflected. First, you have to identify them before deciding the best feng shui action to take to nullify them.
Perhaps it is a sharp corner of a bedroom chest of drawers that is pointing at you or one that you have to be careful not to bump into when you walk past it. Perhaps it is a beam over the bed that might fall on you. “Oh, it will never fall, it is bolted in place.” “Oh yeah,” says the reptilian brain, “what if?” Can’t argue with that nutty “what if?” response and expect to win. It is much easier to remove, cover or deflect the problem and end the argument; kind of like one of those moments when it is easier to say, “Yes, dear” than keep arguing a point of view. You know he or she is being lame, but harmony is more important than trying to prove your opinion is right and your partner’s is wrong. So it is with feng shui – harmony first.
To find many more examples, the book, Choose the Best House for You: The Feng Shui Checklist by Elliot Tanzer, includes a comprehensive listing of feng shui problems and their solutions that relate to house siting, structure, room configuration and specifics like bed placement in relationship to windows and doors. The Checklist format makes it easy for anyone to locate any problem, then turn to the page listed and discover what ancient feng shui wisdom suggests you do to restore harmony.
You can relax in comfort in an environment that encourages harmonious relationships, attracts prosperity, inspires academic excellence, and perhaps most important of all, a strong immune system to keep the body healthy enough to fully enjoy all that life has to offer.
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