Feng Shui for the Soul Read online

  About Denise Linn

  Denise Linn is an international lecturer, healer, and author at the forefront of the Feng Shui movement in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. She is the acknowledged pioneer of the Space Clearing movement that has gained so much popularity throughout the world. Her bestselling book, Sacred Space, has been translated into 12 languages. She is the originator of the groundbreaking Interior Alignment™ Feng Shui and Space Clearing system, and founder of the Interior Alignment™ Institute, which offers a professional certification course and weekend workshops.

  Also by Denise Linn

  Books

  Pocketful of Dreams (1988)

  Dream Lover (1990)

  Past Lives, Present Dreams (1994)

  Sacred Space (1995)

  Signposts (1996)

  Quest (1997)

  Descendants (1998)—reissued as Sacred Legacies (1999)

  Altars (1999)

  Space Clearing A–Z (2001)

  Soul Coaching (2003)

  If I Can Forgive, So Can You (2005)

  Audio

  Journeys into Past Lives (1999)

  Life Force (1998)

  Phoenix Rising (2001)

  Video

  Instinctive Feng Shui for Creating Sacred Space (2000)

  Hay House Titles of Related Interest

  Books/Card Deck

  FENG SHUI DOs & TABOOs for Financial Success, by Angi Ma Wong

  FENG SHUI DOs & TABOOs for Love, by Angi Ma Wong

  HOME DESIGN WITH FENG SHUI A–Z, by Terah Kathryn Collins

  THE WESTERN GUIDE TO FENG SHUI:

  Creating Balance, Harmony, and Prosperity in Your Environment,

  by Terah Kathryn Collins

  THE WESTERN GUIDE TO FENG SHUI—

  Room by Room, by Terah Kathryn Collins

  Audiocassettes

  CLEAR YOUR CLUTTER WITH FENG SHUI,

  by Karen Kingston

  THE WESTERN GUIDE TO FENG SHUI

  (6-tape CD program and workbook), by Terah Kathryn Collins

  All of the above are available at your

  local bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting:

  Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com®

  Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za

  Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  FENG SHUI

  FOR THE

  SOUL

  How to Create a Harmonious Environment

  That Will Nurture and Sustain You

  Denise Linn

  HAY HOUSE, INC.

  Carlsbad, California • New York City

  London • Sydney • Johannesburg

  Vancouver • Hong Kong • New Delhi

  I dedicate this book to

  Interior Alignment™ Feng Shui practitioners

  throughout the world

  ***

  Copyright © 1999 by Denise Linn

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  Originally published in 1999 by Rider, an imprint of Ebury Press Random House, London, England • ISBN: 0-7126-7081-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Linn, Denise.

  Feng-shui for the soul / Denise Linn.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 1-56170-731-7

  1. Feng-shui. 2. Spiritual life—Miscellanea. I. Title.

  BF1779.F4 L5755 2000

  133.3'337—dc21 99-048222

  ISBN 13:978-1-56170-731-7

  ISBN 10: 1-56170-731-7

  13 12 11 10 13 12 11 10

  1st Hay House printing, August 2000

  10th printing, March 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Part One: A HOME FOR THE SOUL

  1 Creating a Home for the Soul

  2 Home as Self

  3 Finding the Hidden Messages in Your Home

  4 Clearing Home Issues

  5 Using your Intuition to Heal Your Home

  6 Instinctive Feng Shui

  Part Two: AWAKENING NATURAL FORCES

  7 Awakening Natural Forces in Your Home

  8 Shapes and Patterns of the Universe

  9 The Spirit of Air

  10 The Vitality of Water

  11 The Power of Fire

  12 The Wisdom of the Earth

  Part Three: MEDICINE WHEEL FENG SHUI

  13 Introduction to Medicine Wheel Feng Shui

  14 The Cardinal Directions

  15 Finding the Centre of Your Home

  16 The Four Sacred Elements

  17 The Elemental Home

  18 Medicine Wheel Energy Map

  19 The Journey Home

  Notes

  Resources

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  I am so grateful to have Claire Brown in my life. A remarkable human being, exemplary writer, and good friend, her suggestions added magic and soul to this book.

  I want to thank my husband, David; our daughter, Meadow Linn; and Ellie Baker, Charlie Baker, and Antonia Chavasse for putting their love into my Interior Alignment™ Feng Shui courses.

  I am also grateful to Louise Coe and Jerry Nowatzke for their assistance with research for this book. I especially want to thank Danny Sollene for his very generous support of Interior Alignment. Also, much thanks to my wondrous editor, Judith Kendra, and to Jill Kramer at Hay House.

  In addition, I want to thank these friends for the depth of their love and support—and also for the contributions that they have each made to the field of Feng Shui: Jane Alexander, Maureen Bell, Tom Bender, Ron Chin, Terah Kathryn Collins, Dennis Fairchild, Lillian Garnier, Johndennis Govert, Roger Green, Andreas Hager, David Daniel Kennedy, Monica King, Karen Kingston, Bruno and Monica Koppel, Jes Lem, Pamela Laurence, Gina Lazenby, Robin Lennon, Jami Lin, Courtney Milne, Katherine Metz, James Moser, Helen and Micheal Oon, John Sandifer, Nancy SantoPietro, Stephen Skinner, William Spear, Sophia Stainton, Sarah Surety, Angel Thompson, Lillian Too, Carol Venolia, Derek Walters, Richard Webster, Rich and Christine Welt, Nancilee Wydra, Seann Xenja, and to Prof. Lin Yun for bringing heart into Feng Shui.

  ***

  Note from the Hay House editor to American readers: This book was originally published in England, so some of the
spellings and syntax reflect the British use of the English language. However, your appreciation of the content should not be affected. Thank you!

  Introduction

  AS A CHILD I moved house nine times. My roots would begin to take hold in a new place, only to be abruptly ripped up once again. None the less I grew like a weed, taking root wherever we lived. There didn't seem to be a common thread connecting the various places; each one was completely different.

  My first home was a small wooden house atop a hill in Astoria, Oregon – a rainy fishing village by the Pacific Ocean. The house overlooked the sea, rolling mists and fog. A later move took us to the dry arid heat of King City, California, where we lived in abandoned army barracks. Whenever we needed more space my dad would knock down a wall, opening up another unit. Later we moved to Chicago and lived in a run-down tenement apartment. The fluorescent lights from the ‘greasy spoon’ coffee shop on the street below blinked endlessly into my bedroom window every night.

  Better times in my father's career took us to a beautiful Tudor-style home in a middle-class neighbourhood near Chicago. After this we moved to a rural region of Ohio, where we lived in an old farmhouse surrounded by an overgrown apple orchard.

  Later, I lived for two years with my grandparents near Los Angeles. Their home was a suburban bungalow in a transitional neighbourhood that was slowly being infiltrated by gangs. By my high-school years, we lived on a gracious tree-lined street in a mid-sized town in Ohio. Our three-storey, historical house had marble window seats, hand-carved woodwork, antique stained-glass windows, and an intricately patterned slate roof.

  Disruptive as it was for a child to be uprooted so many times, I now know that every move we made prepared me for practising and teaching feng shui. The wide spectrum of environments that I called home when I was growing up gave me an intimate understanding of the spaces we occupy and how they influence us.

  This understanding was accelerated by a near-death experience. When I was seventeen, a traumatic random meeting with a crazed gunman left me in critical condition, in an intensive-care unit of a hospital. I had been riding my motorbike on a country road, when I was run into and then shot by a man who had shot several other people. A farmer found me on the side of the road and took me to the nearby hospital. While the doctors were frantically trying to save my life, something remarkable happened: I floated out of my body and entered into a realm of golden radiant light. I was surrounded by a loving force that appeared to be infusing the entire universe with vitality and energy. It all felt so very familiar. I ‘remembered’ knowing that I was connected to all people and all life, animate and inanimate. I felt that this was something I had always known, but had forgotten. I was eventually pulled back into my physical body, but from that point onward I saw the world through different eyes.

  Human beings usually experience the world around them as comprising separate parts thrown together in a jumble of colour, sound and form. But this is an illusion. At death's gateway, I had an experience of not being separate from the world. In that exquisite moment I knew that we are all one with the sea, the mountains, and all creatures on this beautiful planet.

  This awareness eventually propelled me towards the study of feng shui. I found this ancient tradition provided keys to access the rhythm of the ebb and flow of the natural world. By using feng shui principles to organise and clear living spaces, people could live more in oneness and balance with the environment.

  In my book Sacred Space, I sought to unravel some of the mysteries of space clearing and feng shui and to demonstrate how anyone could create harmony at home. Since its publication I have had a deepening realisation of how important it is that our homes are not only retreats for our bodies but are also, in the profoundest sense, homes for our souls.

  In Feng Shui for the Soul, you will find three approaches for transforming your dwelling into an environment for spiritual renewal and inner poise. Each approach is discussed in a separate section of the book. Taken together, the three parts provide a blueprint for creating environments of harmony and beauty.

  The first section focuses on developing your aptitude for instinctive feng shui. Everyone has the ability intuitively to pinpoint exactly what is out of balance at home or at work, and then cure it. Because this ability has been blocked in most people, I have provided information and exercises for accessing this innate power. By unlocking your intuition and working through blockages surrounding home issues, you can understand the deeper meaning of your home. You will learn how to feng shui your home or workplace easily and in a way that brings remarkable results. The ensuing transformation will affect not only you, but everyone who lives with you and enters your environment.

  The second section of this book presents little-known information on how to activate the forces of nature within your home. Living in an environment without the energetic signatures of nature separates us from our deepest heritage and reduces our life force, slowly but surely. Re-establishing our connection to nature in our living spaces is vital to our physical and spiritual health.

  The third part of Feng Shui for the Soul is based on the ancient understanding of the importance of the Medicine Wheel, the four elements of nature and the four directions. Utilising the power of these traditions empowers the energy fields in your home and calls spirit into your life.

  Writing this book has been an exciting process for me. My comprehension of feng shui and sacred alignment has become deeper and, at the same time, fresher for me. I have written this book because I want to help you create a place where your soul is nurtured, so that you can feel at home with yourself, wherever you are, and be at home in the universe.

  Part One

  A HOME FOR

  THE SOUL

  1

  Creating a Home

  for the Soul

  TWENTY YEARS AGO my husband and I, and our two-year-old daughter, squeezed together into our old Dodge pickup truck to move to Seattle. Every one of our possessions was piled on to that truck. Our mattress, roped on top of the load, flapped dangerously in the wind as we tottered down the highway. It seemed like a great adventure.

  It was a rainy cold November day when we arrived at last in Seattle. We had very little money and nowhere to stay, so we immediately began looking for rented accommodation. We finally found a bungalow not far from Lake Washington. It was so tiny that what I mistook for a walk-in cupboard turned out to be the bedroom. We moved our household goods in, and we were home. David found work as a carpenter and I decided to stay home with Meadow. For a while everything was exciting and new, then slowly I became depressed. Every day was rainy, overcast and cold. I didn't have any friends in the area and David was away all day. I felt so alone and miserable. Not only were the skies grey, all the walls of our little home were grey. It seemed like my life was grey too. I doubted myself. I doubted my mothering skills. I doubted everything about my life.

  Then one day I found some tall branches dumped in the alley. I dragged them home, propped them up in the living room so that they extended from floor to ceiling, and wove tiny Christmas-tree lights through them. They looked great. The feeling of the room changed entirely. I loved the effect; it reminded me of a starry night in the forest. I noticed that I felt a lot better after I had done that.

  Next I bought an inexpensive large round rice-paper lantern to hang in front of my ‘forest’. I painted it a luminous colour so it would look like the full moon in the forest. When night fell, I turned off all the lights in the house and switched on my ‘stars’ and my ‘moon’. It was magical. I felt so happy and uplifted. The little grey bungalow had turned into a sanctuary of beauty … it had become a home for my soul. This marked a turning point in our life together there. I continued to find odds and ends in thrift stores and began to assemble a home environment that was warm and inviting. Joy emerged in my life and my spirit blossomed.

  Our homes have an enormous impact on our state of mind. They can make us feel as though we are plunging into the depths of despa
ir, or they can be uplifting havens of beauty and rejuvenation. I believe the soul yearns for places of sanctuary and balance, ones that provide authentic reminders of what is truly important in life. It longs for dwellings that are in harmony with the cycles of nature; places where kindness, compassion and wisdom are cherished…and where these qualities can grow. It has been many years since we moved from our little home with the ‘moonlit forest’, but I have always remembered how changing my environment made such a deep and lasting change in my life.

  One of the ways we can create soulful places is through the use of feng shui. This ancient art shows us how to make our homes harmonious and balanced. The type of feng shui that most people are familiar with originated in China. However, every ancient culture has had rituals, myths and other traditions based on the fact that our living spaces profoundly affect our wellbeing. The intent of all these ancient systems has been to create environments which are in equilibrium with the forces of the universe.

  Our yearning for places that nourish the soul, as well as the body, accounts for the rapid growth of feng shui in recent years. In my feng shui practice and in my classes, people invariably ask me how to create a feeling of sanctuary. They want to bring a sense of the sacred into their homes and workplaces. They want to know how to create a home for their soul.

  The soul

  Soul is a word we use to describe the central or integral part of something; it is the vital core. In its most profound sense, it also describes the essence of every human being. It is that place within each of us that is infinite, eternal and universal. The soul is an enigma, a part of what Native Americans call the Great Mystery, which is the creative force underlying the universe. It is a source that gives rise to form, yet is unknowable. It is illusive by its very nature, yet it also must be nurtured and cared for. We can intuitively understand what its needs are, yet never fathom its depths. It is the substance within us that links our body and spirit to the greater forces of the cosmos.