Q&A Sunday: Laying the Bagua with a Garage

Anjie Cho January 27, 2019

My garage is attached to my house, and if include it, the prosperity, family and skills and knowledge areas are to the left of the front door. Do I have to include it, and if I do I feel like it will hinder the effectiveness of all other areas of the house. Without it my bedroom would lie in the prosperity area.

Judy M., Ukiah, CA

Dear Judy,

Thank you for writing in with your question for the Holistic Spaces blog.

Your garage is attached to the house, and you like the way the bagua is laid better when the garage is not attached. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work that way. If your garage is attached to the house and it’s under the same roof, it is part of the main bagua map. It’s not something that you can pick and choose, because how the bagua is laid is based on the perimeter of the house.

On the other hand, there is another concept that comes up: the concept of the ever-changing or floating bagua. You have many other bagua layouts besides the one just of the house. You also have a bagua on the whole property, and there’s also a bagua of each room. Sometimes people have more complicated layouts where they perhaps have secondary doors; for instance, they have an outer gate and an inner gate. The outer gate might be considered a yin door, and we have other blog posts about that if you’re interested. So while you can’t pick and choose how you’d like to lay the bagua, hopefully the knowledge that there are additional baguas gives you some relief.

There are different practitioners and different schools that lay the bagua differently, and there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. If you do find conflicts, I would recommend going with what school or teacher resonates with you. It’s also helpful to work with a consultant because they’ll be able to give you ways to work with your unique floor plan.

It would also be very helpful if you could take some time and email us with your floor plan, because I’m a little concerned that perhaps you may not have laid it correctly. What you want to do is lay the bagua so that your front door is aligned with the bottom of the bagua. Your front door would be either in Knowledge, Path in Life, or Benefactors.

I hope this helps, Judy, and I hope this helps other readers as well. Please feel free to email us at info@holisticspaces.com with your floor plan, and we’d love to do a follow-up.

by Anjie Cho

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Q&A Sunday: Disposing of Sacred Ritual Objects

Anjie Cho January 20, 2019

I had two ceramic small decorative fu dogs in my kitchen near main entrance. A worker in the house broke one, and I tried to fix it, but it is terribly ruined. How do I "dispose" of or store these so as not to bring bad luck?

Sarah B., Portland, OR

Dear Sarah,

Thank you so much for submitting your question about Fu Dogs to the Holistic Spaces blog. It’s quite interesting that this is the third question I’ve received about Fu Dogs--maybe I’ve received more, but this is the third one I’ve answered on Q&A Sundays. (You can read the other two articles here and here.) In BTB feng shui, I never learned about Fu Dogs from my teachers, and I really don’t know all that much about them, so in the other two cases I deferred to others who know more about them. I asked two of my mentors and a colleague who is more familiar with more traditional Chinese objects. What I do know is that Fu Dogs are mythical creatures believed to offer protection from evil spirits and harmful people. They are usually placed in pairs, one female and one male, at the front door or main gate of a home, temple, or business.

Since the Fu Dogs were in your main entrance, it sounds like you were using them as protectors, and because one was broken, it is correct that it’s time for you to let go of the Fu Dogs and bring something else in. Interestingly, when you’ve made a feng shui adjustment and something is damaged, it’s actually a positive sign that the adjustment is doing its job. In a sense, it absorbed some negative chi. For instance, say you put up a crystal and it falls and breaks. This is actually a sign that you should replace it with a higher quality (a.k.a. more expensive) version of the same item. If the string breaks, you want to get a stronger, higher quality string. If a crystal breaks, you would want to get a higher quality crystal. It did its job and was strong enough to hold back any negative chi for a while, but now you need to get something stronger. In this case, your small decorative Fu Dogs served their purpose in your kitchen, and now would be a good time to replace them with larger, higher quality, more expensive Fu Dogs in the same location.

To answer your question of how to store them so as not to bring bad luck, I would suggest that you dispose of them, because it’s not recommended that you use that one alone. (we have another blog post that addresses that). However, not everything needs to be a feng shui adjustment. If you love the one that you have and you have some sentimental connection to it, you can keep it in that sense and place that single one somewhere else.

If you do want to dispose of it, here’s a good way to do that, and this goes for a lot of feng shui ritual objects: you can store it on your altar or at your shrine wrapped in red cloth. That’s what I do with a lot of my feng shui ritual objects that are not in use, since that’s a sacred space and it keeps the object sacred.

If you’re going to dispose of both Fu Dogs, you can also wrap the intact Fu Dog and the remains of the broken Fu Dog in the red cloth, thank the Fu Dogs for the service that they provided, and then bury them or dispose of them in the trash. But I wouldn’t just throw them into the trash without any kind of ceremony, as in thanking them and wrapping them in a red cloth. It’s very similar in other disciplines--I practice Ikebana, flower arranging, and in the contemplative form, you wouldn’t dispose of all your cuttings into the trash directly. In Japan they actually have shrines for used needles and flower cuttings. When I do flower arranging, I wrap my cuttings in a piece of paper and then put it in the garbage, and I treat it as a sacred offering.

Another possibility is to donate the one Fu Dog that is intact, and it might end up in a secondhand store. Then another person would find themselves with the question of what to do with one Fu Dog like in our earlier Q&A. Even if you give away the Fu Dog, be sure to thank the object for supporting and protecting you, and you may want to keep it wrapped in a red cloth when you transport it or give it away.

Thank you so much for your question! This is a helpful topic, because my suggestions above are not just about how to dispose of Fu Dogs, but how to dispose of any kind of ritual objects.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui check out the Mindful Design feng shui cerfication program. Laura Morris and I launched our program in September 2018. Check us out at www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday". We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Visit the Holistic Spaces Store

Q&A Sunday: Feng Shui for a White Screen Door

Anjie Cho January 13, 2019

My landlord has installed a screen door with a white plastic frame on my front door that faces northeast. I have painted the main door and the door frame burgundy but wonder if the white screen door is blocking the energy flow.

Clifton S., Austin, TX

Hi Clifton,

Thank you so much for your submission to Q&A Sundays on the Holistic Spaces blog. We get a lot of questions about front doors, and the first thing I want to address is the part of the question that relates to the detail that your front door faces northeast.

There are dozens and dozens of different schools of feng shui. The one that I practice is called BTB Feng Shui. In BTB feng shui, we actually look at the direction of the front door in relationship to the flow of qi in your environment, so we don’t consider the cardinal directions in adjustments. So I can’t really comment on the direction and color of your door in this sense.

With regard to the rest of the question, you have a burgundy front door, your landlord has recently installed a white screen door, and it seems your concern is that the screen door is blocking the energy flow. My gut feeling is that this isn’t an issue. The screen door is there for a mundane reason, and actually using the door is more important from the BTB perspective. So be sure to use your front door!

In terms of the front door, you ideally want it located so that visitors and qi can easily find the entrance. Nothing physical blocking it. Burgundy is also a nice color, especially if it matches the exterior of the home. Burgundy is a dark red, and red is a very auspicious color in feng shui. With regard to the white screen door, I don’t see a problem, but there may be something about it visually that concerns you. I’m not sure whether your question is about white and burgundy specifically, but if your concern is that the color white may be an issue, I would say no. I also don’t feel the screen door will block the flow of qi. Other matters, like the location of your door in relationship to the street, whether it’s easily found and has a clear path, and what you want to achieve in your life, are more important here.

If you are retired and want some quiet time, it’s acceptable if the door isn’t quite as visible from the street. However, if you’re younger and want to welcome more opportunity, you’ll want your door to be easily seen. Additionally, it’s important the door doesn’t squeak, works well and doesn’t get stuck. Again, the screen door shouldn’t be a problem, and I see no issues with the colors burgundy and white. Of course, it would be helpful to see a photograph of the entire context, since this is an isolated question. It’s always helpful to learn more about the situation! You might also take a look at some of these posts around feng shui and the front door.

by Anjie Cho