Q&A Sunday: Choosing a Yantra

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I would like to buy a yantra canvas from your site, but I'm having a bit of trouble choosing which one would be right for me. I want to focus on health for myself and my family, and I would like to put it in the center of the house to coordinate with the feng shui bagua. Would the most appropriate be the Sun yantra? If not, could you please make a suggestion?

Charmaine B., NJ

 

Dear Charmaine,

Thank you so much for your email and question about yantras. One of the reasons why we developed the “Mandala Matchmaker” is because a lot of people ask me similar questions regarding which yantra is right for them! There are a few different ways to approach the mandala selection.

When I painted my first yantra, I was asked to select which one I was most drawn to. First thought, best thought. This is tapping into your intuition. That’s a wonderful way to select a yantra mandala, because we are often intuitively attracted to what we need. 

As I began to learn more about painting yantras and mandalas, my teachers started teaching me about Vedic numerology - which is also an excellent way to work with things that you need. You can explore your own number and see what challenges and what successes arise from this.

With my Vedic studies, I began to connect the concepts to feng shui. I created a section of the Mandala Matchmaker that relates to your intention. This is also, of course, very useful. I connected it to the feng shui bagua map, because there was a lot of interconnectedness in the two modalities. 

This leads us to your question. You would like to select one based on what you need — which is health for your family, to be located in the center of your home. 

If there is need of great healing, the Mahāmṛtyuṃjaya yantra, on the top right is the best. 

If it's health in general the Ketu yantra, on the bottom right is better.

For both:

The blues/greens are Wood element, which is great for the health/Earth area. It gives a ground for the Wood to root and can break up the stagnation in any Earth.

I hope this helps!

Also, if you need more assistance I’m available for consultations where we can pinpoint and focus on what is best for you based on our specific circumstances.

by Anjie Cho

My Favorite Things: 5 Holistic Valentine's Day Treats

Welcome to My Favorite Things! Each month, we highlight products to help you create a holistic lifestyle that inspires and nurtures you, so that you can be happier and feel supported.

Most of us know that Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and the race is on to find that perfect gift for your loved one or the perfect way to say "I love you" to yourself! Whoever you're appreciating today, consider ditching the traditional roses, stuffed animals and other gifts that can end up as clutter. Instead, try these holistic, innovative products to help you enjoy this day of love. 

Rose Cardamom Infused Chocolates

Sometimes traditions become outdated and can cause clutter, but others are too good not to keep. Chocolate for Valentine's Day is one tradition we'll never complain about.

But! Indulging doesn't mean we have to harm the environment or our bodies. Wei of Chocolate candies are organic, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, Paleo-friendly and fair trade! They're also infused with Lotus Wei flower essences (our favorite) and 100% delicious. What more can you ask for from chocolate?

I have one (or two, sometimes more) of these chocolates every day! Wei Love is one of my favorites and highly recommended.

Available at: Wei of Chocolate

Venus Yantra Mandala

Valentine's Day gifts don't have to be fleeting, like flowers or chocolate, though both are wonderful options. Loving and supportive art can also be a fantastic way to express yourself!

The Venus Yantra Mandala, associated with the feminine planet, Venus, can assist in relationships and harmonize an imbalance of Earth element. I have the Venus yantra in my bedroom, in the Relationship area to cultivate love and harmony in my relationships. The Venus yantra is also an amazing addition for self-love, which is the most important kind! Valentine's Day isn't just for lovers!

Available at: Holistic Spaces

Rose Quartz 

One of my favorite feng shui adjustments for love and compassion is the placement of rose quartz crystals. If you're seeking a relationship, adding rose quartz to the Relationship area of your bedroom can be a powerful adjustment. And, you guessed it...this is a feng shui adjustment that I have in my bedroom!

Rose quartz can also help to support an existing relationship and can be a wonderful way to encourage and deepen self-love! We can't pour from an empty cup, so it's important to fill our own cups and nurture our relationships with ourselves first!

Available at: Holistic Spaces

Relationship Mandalas

Mandalas of any kind are a beautiful gift for almost any occasion, but my friend and yantra teacher, Mavis Gewant, can take these meaningful pieces of art to a new level!

Mavis offers personal, hand-crafted mandalas based on the combined energy patterns of each person in the relationship. A relationship mandala isn't just a stunning gift; it's also a unique representation of your relationship!

Available at: Sacred Mother Arts

Deluxe Perfume Making Kit

Perfume is another traditional Valentine's Day gift most of us can appreciate. I really love this perfume making kit from The Scentarium, because it offers the chance to create your very own, bespoke smell!

I went to a workshop at Sue's showroom and had so much fun figuring out my scent personality and smelling all the diferent potions. This home kit is the perfect way to have the same experience with your partner at home (or just you!). The best part? The custom scents they've created contain no chemicals!

Available at: Scenterprises

Rituals and Holistic Spaces: Amy T. Won

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I'm excited to welcome artist Amy T. Won for our second installment of Rituals and Holistic Spaces! As you know by now, rituals hold an important place in feng shui and in creating holistic spaces, and we each have our very own rituals, personal to us. Each morning I do a bit of Shambhala calligraphy to get my day started, our good friend Katie Dalebout journals regularly, and Amy has a beautiful collection of rituals surrounding her magical art studio. 

Amy has an amazing experience available online that she calls Wonder Walks or Walk the Labyrinth. It's an incredible experience for artists who need fresh inspiration and to awaken their creativity, and Amy is a wonderful guide. 

In addition, Amy has a detailed map of how to create an "enchanted studio," and she was gracious enough to share these "realms" with us!

AC: Tell us a little about the Walk the Labyrinth experience.

AW: Artists are explorers. Wonder, curiosity and play are what keeps us so enchanted with life that art overflows from within like magic. When we lose our creative sparkle, it’s often because we’ve lost touch with that inquisitive explorer child we once were. While the spotlight on art is often on technique, I created ‘Walk The Labyrinth’ to share with you everything I’ve discovered about the important yet unsung work of lighting and sustaining our creative flame from within. We answer questions like: Where and what do I want to explore? What’s most enchanting to me right now? How can I balance intuition and idea, structure and spontaneous play? What’s the secret to learning from others without feeling bad about where I am?

How do you create a holistic space in your studio to nourish your creativity?

For me, there are six realms of an enchanted studio, and each of them is an important piece in building my creative space. 

The Inspiration Wall: 

The Inspiration Wall is sometimes a literal gallery wall, sometimes a mood tapestry and other times a group of paintings against my easel. It's meant to evoke an emotion and atmosphere that I'm enchanted with at the moment. This is inspiration assemblage-photos, clippings, bits from nature, my own experimental scraps and magical words of wisdom coming together to form a collective vision of what I'm trying to achieve with my latest collection.

The Daydream Corner: 

The Daydream Corner is a comfortable, cozy little space by my library where I dream up ideas with a cup of tea, a large drawing pad, color pencils and a stack of my favorite reads of the moment. It's where I go when I want to disappear into another world, and I'll sometimes have my favorite soft toys to evoke a child-like imagination and candles and incense to set the tone. It's a personal retreat away from the busyness of creating and one of my favorite places in the studio.

Mise En Place:

Like a chef preparing for his grand creations, my studio desk is always ready for creative play and art-making. I'm not an extremely tidy person but this is my most organized corner of the studio : brushes and tools where they are supposed to be, paints and mediums arranged by type, papers in a stack, fresh flowers or nature's gifts ever ready to inspire with their textures and colors, reference books right there to thumb through.. It's never a static space, because it beats to the rhythms of my latest work and therefore, colored and shaped by it.

Nature's Wonders:

My work is very inspired by nature's wonders so I always make sure there's plenty of the outdoors inside-fresh flowers, potted plants and mementos collected from my wonder walks and adventures. It makes me smile and reminds me that there's a bigger world out there to explore and be inspired by, and that sometimes the best thing to do is to step away and let life, adventure and nature direct my art. I'm always looking out for little brass bowls, unusual vases and vessels from thrift shops to collect my treasures in.

Objects That Enchant:

One of the pleasures of having my own studio space is surrounding myself with objects that enchant and light me up inside. These are usually curiosities that evoke my personal symbolism-a rabbit, a snail, a swan vessel. It's ever changing and I'm always looking for ways to make my studio more magical and my own. What do I want to surround myself with? What makes me smile? What do I want to remind me of what matters most in life and art?

Art In Transition:

One of the realities of being an artist is how much intuition and rhythm shape our work and sometimes, no matter what we wish, a piece will not appear in its final incarnation. This means I always make room for beautiful pieces of imperfection and incompletion : oil panels as mood paintings for now, ink splatters on handmade papers waiting to be completed. Sketches and discarded paintings. Those are all part of the artist's life and they are badges of honor to be displayed, lived with and reach for when inspiration strikes.

by Anjie Cho

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Amy T. Won is the artist, storyteller and enchantment-seeker behind The TreeSpace Studio, where she shares her explorations and painted mementos of our wonder-filled world. You can also find her adventures on Instagram (amytwon) and Facebook (The TreeSpace Studio) or take a peek into her inspirations on Pinterest (Amy Won).

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com