Feng Shui is the study of how environments affect people, companies and communities.
The words themselves mean wind and water, two forces that shape our environment and give evidence to the fact that in true feng shui the exterior of a property (land, slopes, streets, mountains, water) is actually more important than the interior.
Although a Chinese Art, the Japanese expression “Man and his environment are not two” is a beautiful explanation of how much we are influenced by our surroundings.
依正不二
Most ancient people were agrarian i.e. dependent on nature to make their living, thus they paid much attention to nature’s cycles – Every 24 hours we have a cycle of light and dark, every 365 days we have a cycle of the seasons, and different sides of a property (the 8 directions) are better for different things. These understandings gave rise to the concepts of Yin and Yang, the 5 Elements, and the 8 Trigrams.
As feng shui has become popular, many new ideas have been added to the original time tested concepts. If it does not involve Yin and Yang, The Five Elements and The Eight Trigrams it is not true feng shui.
Coming next – common misconceptions about feng shui…
