Moving house, with too many things to do at once, you often make mistakes — especially if (like me) you are congenitally impatient. Is that colour the right choice? Is that sofa well placed? Who knows? Perhaps you do infinitesimal damage to the spirit of the place. All visitors commented on my home’s calm atmosphere, which went beyond mere furniture or paintings, yet six months in I found myself hankering for the opinion of a feng shui practitioner. To be honest, it was not advice I sought, but confirmation. I knew that if I was told that my bedroom and bathroom were the wrong colour, I wouldn’t get the paintbrushes out.
Sofia Stainton travelled from London to Bath armed with impeccable credentials. She had ten years in interior design before training as a feng shui consultant. Willowy and elegant herself, she loves to combine her two disciplines, “bringing Eastern wisdom into interiors; bringing philosophy into design”. This makes complete sense to me and is far removed from some branches of feng shui which suggest that you steer your prosperity by placing a hideous resin model of a dragon on a pile of coins in your “wealth” corner. I’d rather be poor.
Her first responses were encouraging. She exclaimed that the black marble surfaces in the ultra-smart Mark Wilkinson kitchen that came with my house represent the yin, while the white woodwork and walls are the yang — “The perfect balance”. The familiar dark/light yin-yang symbol exemplifies the continuous balanced flow of the life forces and is one of the principles on which feng shui is based. According to Chinese philosophy, the world is a huge interdependent entity and balance of the whole is the ideal. I am a great admirer of the work of the author and scientist James Lovelock, whose Gaia theory underpins so much modern ecological wisdom, so again all this seems like common sense. Holistic beliefs have moved from the fringe to mainstream, calling rational human arrogance into question.
Stainton’s special Chinese feng shui compass reveals another reassuring thing about my kitchen. It is situated in my home’s southern corner, which represents fame and recognition. The element for this part is fire, and both Aga (white) and halogen hob (black) are there, together with scarlet cushions on the window seat. The preparation of food is deemed to be of great significance in Chinese culture — and proper family meals have always been important to me — so this apparently accidental good fortune is pleasing. And it might guarantee me more worldly success.
Her first task was to find out my most positive direction. She informed me that, according to Chinese astrology, my lucky number is six, my element is metal, and there are four auspicious directions — one of which happens to be the direction my house faces. She took me to the front door, we gazed north-east and she told me that I had chosen the house well. “The north-east is about study, meditation, peace, writing — that is the energy coming in through the front door and giving meaning to the whole house. This is one big meditation temple.”
It appears that I have been practising intuitive feng shui. The bay trees on either side of the door are well placed to act as “guardians”, especially as I’ve put my old stone lions in the rear garden where they can’t be stolen. Walking through my front door, first you see a little stone Buddha at the end of the hall — unwittingly placed in the t’ai chi area, the very centre of the house and a place of profound unity. Even my little Maltese (who looks uncommonly like an ancient Chinese lion dog) is good feng shui because pets represent the yang energy. So Bonnie can stay then . . .
All this was much to my liking. For although I grow impatient with some of the esoteric calculations, I am in tune with the broad philosophy. Regarding the space you live in as sacred is not new. The 5,000-year-old system of feng shui acknowledges the spirit of the home that formed a part of many cultures — from the ancient Roman lares and penates (household gods) to the designated space for a shrine within every Mongolian nomad’s yurt. At the root of many folk traditions is the belief in the power of certain objects (such as stones) and places, which are deemed to possess a healing energy. It seems to me to be a natural development from all this that some New Age thinking involves “talking” to your home, asking what it and you can do for each other. Why not regard the proliferation of home and design pages within newspapers and the cult status of decorators as modern manifestations of an ancient respect?
Central to feng shui is the idea of chi — the invisible life energy which flows through all things. It is known as prana in India, ki in Japan, qawa in the Middle East, and the shamans of Hawaii taught that there was an energy called muna which could carry thought. Ancient cultures seemed to know what quantum physics has revealed to us: that everything is energy, shifting changing atoms in perpetual motion, which I like to think of as a great cosmic dance. Realising this helps you to embrace change, rather than to fight it pointlessly. Changing your home environment changes both your perception of it and of yourself. At the simplest level your average teen bedroom is a revealing reflection of the inner psyche — the chi trapped in chaos.
Stainton thinks that there is energy “stuck” in my living room, which could be because of the position of the Knole sofa near the door, or perhaps from a previous inhabitant — after all, many people have lived here since 1820. “Do you find that you don’t go in there as often as you would like?” I can’t deny it. In these situations she uses dowsing rods to ascertain the extent of the problem (they swing from side to side in an alarming manner) and also enlists the aid of her lapis lazuli pendulum. Stainton says that it is hard to explain but that she uses the pendulum for healing, asking if there are negative energies and then releasing them.
Her suggestions for my house are few. One of the corners of the dining room, where I have put a boring shelf of old paperback cookery books, represents family and ancestors. She says that I should place something there to symbolise family, as well as something of wood, something green. Then, in the opposite corner of the building is the end of the sitting room where I intend to write my next book. Stainton tells me that here I need some metal, and she scoops up a small bronze bust of George Eliot and a tiny brass Ganesh (the Hindu god of literature) from elsewhere in the room and puts them down on the desk, as metal inspiration. She dislikes a row of “cutting” coat hooks which impede the passage down to my office basement, and suggests that the door could go, too.
The essential tenet of feng shui is that by making shifts in your home you can affect all aspects of your life. This seems rational — moving house should involve de-cluttering. Clinging to all aspects of your past is like weighing down your pockets with keys to forgotten locks.
In the days after Stainton left, I created the “ancestors” corner, adorned with a plant, glad to have my grandparents visit where I eat. I took away the blocking door and the nasty coat hooks, so the path to the important basement area is clear. I moved the sofa, opening up the entrance to the sitting room, where Ganesh and George Eliot join metallic forces to encourage me to write. Interior design, common sense or hocus pocus? I don’t care. It all looks and feels better, and I imagine the chi dancing up and down the Regency stairs, putting the house and me in harmony with the life force of the universe.
Sofia Stainton is giving a lecture on feng shui as part of the Asia: Body, Mind, Spirit exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London WC1, on November 18; www.asiahouse.org. Contact Stainton on 020-7627 3929
GET INTO THE FLOW
There are more than 800 books: try Feng Shui for Dummies (John Wiley, £14.99) or Karen Kingston’s Clear your Clutter With Feng Shui (Piatkus Books, £7.99).
