Form Methods In Feng Shui
    Feng Shui has three interconnected approaches: Chinese astrological and compass methods, form methods, and secret methods. The rules for form methods are simple, even though the many popular books on Feng Shui have made them seem very complicated. The name Feng Shui can be understood several ways. One of these ways epitomizes the form method, as Feng stands for the natural flow, and Shui means wealth, or well-being. Simply put, when your environment lets you move about with ease and welcomes in fresh, positive energy your health and fortunes flourish.
    The following are some basic rules from which all form methods are derived. It says in the I Ching that simplicity is the highest form of elegance. This is our most important key. The single rule for all placement is to keep the flow simple, smooth and balanced. Smooth lines allow for ease of movement. Balanced, uncluttered order conduces to peace.
    Appoint your rooms and areas and arrange your furniture to allow for unobstructed movement around and through your entire home. To arrange your home so that the chi flows smoothly throughout, first view the entire space from the perspective of its various angles. See and sense how every area in your home relates visually and kinesthetically to every other area. View the entire space by walking through its different rooms, then choose your favorite spots for favorite pieces of furniture. Aim for harmonious sequences of colors, furniture and art placements. Be mindful of the overall lines and patterns you are creating. Working with form method requires the eye of an artist.
    Furniture can be arranged in the round and in a square or rectangular fashion. In large areas, such as in large livingrooms, round placements are very affective. Round is more relaxed than square.
    Rest on the mountain and travel on the river. As a general rule this means sit with your back to the wall and sleep with your head to the wall, not to the doorway or window. There is one exception to this rule: a couch placed with its back to a window works when there is another couch and / or chairs placed around it with their backs to the walls. Do not sleep with your feet pointing out the door. Never block passageways or windows with furniture. Sitting in front of a doorway, either facing toward it or away from it, obstructs the flow. Except for bedrooms and diningrooms, try to keep the centers of rooms open. The open center is a metaphor for the Tao. The Tao is the wellspring of chi, or vital force. Rooms in which vitality is generated encourage prosperity. 
    Pay attention to yang and yin spaces. Every home has yang and yin areas. The entry, livingroom, diningroom, and kitchen are yang. The bedrooms and baths are yin. A home office, or study, is balanced yin and yang. When using colors, keep yin and yang functions in mind. Yang colors are more intense, yin colors are more subdued. 
    The first thing you see when looking into your home affects its first impression. It should be welcoming. The best entry is to a well-lit foyer, livingroom, front room, or home office. Less desirable entries are to a diningroom or kitchen if small. An entrance to a large, comfortable country kitchen is good. It is undesirable for an entrance to look into a bedroom, and worst to look into a bathroom. Screen off such a bedroom, if possible, and place a full-length mirror on such a bathroom door.
    Many rules obstruct the flow of the mind. Many cures make a lot of craziness. The way is fundamentally simple.

Mirrors In Feng Shui
      In some non-classical styles of feng shui now popular in the US, such things as mirrors, crystals, wind chimes, and so on, are given meanings they never had in old China. While nothing may appear wrong with this, the ill-informed use of objects in feng shui, like playing with a not quite full deck, may bring about disastrous results. For instance, I once saw the home of a woman whose husband had had a fatal accident. In their home they had placed mirrors in what they took to be their money and marriage corners, but which, according to the traditional Chinese compass, were in the areas called accidents and ghosts. A Chinese compass reading of a house tells interesting things about its occupants' circumstances.
    Mirrors, originally made of polished jade or bronze, have been used in feng shui and related metaphysical arts by Chinese and Mongolian wizards for thousands of years. Mirrors are used for attracting and summoning spirits, banishing ghosts, purifying space and seeing into the future. Taoist monks, unless they are well versed in the metaphysical arts, avoid hanging mirrors altogether. For mirrors, if hung on wrong walls, can attract misfortune. Conversely, however, well-placed mirrors can attract luck.
A basic Chinese compass method of finding the positive and negative sectors of your living space, whereby you can choose a good place for hanging a mirror, has the following steps: draw your floorplan, take the compass reading of the main door, then mark off the North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest, and Middle sectors of the space. The way to read the door's direction is to stand in the doorway, facing out, and note the compass direction you are facing. Mirrors should be hung only in positive sectors. Thus, if the main door of your home faces North, the positive sectors are to the E., SE., and S. If your door faces Northeast, the positive sectors are in the middle, SW., W., and NW. If your door faces East, the positive sectors are to the SE., S., and N. If your door faces Southeast, the positive sectors are to the S., N., and E. If your door faces South, the positive sectors are to the N., E., and SE. If your door faces Southwest, the positive sectors are in the W., NW., NE., and middle. If your door faces West, the positive sectors are in the NW., NE., middle and SW. If your door faces Northwest, the positive sectors are in the NE., middle, SW, and W. If you have a fireplace in a positive sector, hang a mirror above its mantle to magnify the positive energy of the room. Never have a mirror reflecting your bed that you see yourself when lying down lest you disturb your sleep and open yourself to unwelcome intrusions in your personal affairs.
There is a refinement of the above compass method that yields twenty-four feng shui stars for determining a doorway's positive or negative outlook. According to this, where a malefic star is indicated, a special mirror, called a bagua mirror, is hung outside the house, above the doorway, to repel the negative affect of the star. Nowadays people mistakenly hang bagua mirrors inside their homes, hoping in vain to dispel negative conditions. There is a traditional method for dispelling negative conditions, or hauntings, using, instead, a sacred mirror (usually circular in shape and made of polished bronze - a consecrated round cosmetic mirror will do as a substitute). According to this method, hold a lighted candle in your right hand and the sacred mirror in your left so that the mirror reflects the candle flame, and walk through all the rooms, shining the reflected candle light onto the walls and into the corners, and visualizing all the negative entities and thought forms dissolving into the light.

Equilibrium
      Among Americans, Feng Shui is often defined as "the art of placement." Many Chinese, however, understand it as an art of "seeing." And while ideas of placement and design are instrumental to it, Feng Shui is concerned most essentially with the energetic state, or internal balance, of the person. In Feng Shui your inner, mental / emotional environment deserves as much consideration as your outer environment. Feng Shui, like all other Taoist arts, views all pairs of opposites, such as light and dark, space and time, outer and inner, as interdependent affects, or functions, of the Great Spirit whose essence is the Tao. Accordingly, outer mirrors inner; and inner causes affect outer conditions.
    Spirit, or Chi, manifests all things through its five stages of change, or five elements called Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth. Each of the five elements has numerous outer and inner correspondences. For example, Metal corresponds outwardly to Autumn, the evening, crisp mountain air, the West, round and oval shapes, and the colors white, gray and silver. Inwardly Metal corresponds to the positive states of moral uprightness, interest in communicating, and rhythmical order, and to the negative states of grief, inability to communicate and emotional rigidity. Water corresponds outwardly to Winter, night, cold weather, the North, wave-like shapes, and the colors black and dark blue. Inwardly Water corresponds to the positive states of reflection and will-power, and to the negative states of fear and trembling. Wood corresponds outwardly to Spring, morning, rainy weather (North Carolina, for example, has a predominantly Wood climate), the East, rectangular shapes and the colors green and light blue. Inwardly Wood corresponds to the positive states of kindness and the abilities to plan and decide, and to the negative states of anger and confusion. Fire corresponds outwardly to Summer, mid-day, hot weather, the South, pointed shapes, and the colors red, purple and pink. Inwardly Fire corresponds to the positive states of courage, joy and love, and to the negative states of hysteria, hyperactivity, rashness and impulsiveness. Earth corresponds outwardly to late Summer when everything is ready for harvest, the afternoon, cool moist weather, the middle, square shapes, and the colors yellow, orange, brown, tan and beige. Inwardly Earth corresponds to the positive states of centeredness, or equilibrium, as well as caring, compassion, and nurturing, and to the negative states of anxiety, selfishness, neediness, and envy. All five elements are actively present in all people at all times. When the elements are brought into balance, one experiences well-being and happiness and radiates serenity, harmony, and well-being into one's outer environment. The key to this balance lies in the essential meaning of Earth. Earth is the middle. When one is poised at the middle, or core of one's being, one experiences equilibrium. From this all the positive conditions arise simultaneously.
    The earliest prototype of the Feng Shui compass is the outward projection into space of a mandala of the inner mental states. This compass looks like an equal-armed cross whose center is Earth, and whose arms point to Water in the North, Wood in the East, Fire in the South, and Metal in the West. The middle position of Earth is most significant. Earth in the middle is the key both to what is meant by "seeing" and to understanding how inner causes affect outer conditions. In the Doctrine Of The Mean, Confucius says "To be unaffected by pleasure (Water), anger (Wood), sorrow (Metal), and joy (Fire) is what is meant by equilibrium; being affected by these, each in due degree, gives rise to harmony. Equilibrium is the Great Root (Earth) from which everything in the world arises and flourishes, and from harmony all things are nourished."
    One of the first practices I was given in Feng Shui is to be in a space (home, office, or piece of land), whether sitting, standing, or walking about, without entertaining any ideas, without any preconception, deliberately focusing and centering myself, emptying the mind of all thought in order to "see" the person for whom I am doing the reading and his / her space as is, not as I would have them be. Thus I am able to see the person psychically, as well as see how the Chi is moving to and from and about the space, and see whatever spirit entities and hidden conditions might be there as well, thus open the door to all the outer and secret practices of Feng Shui. Practicing centeredness, or equilibrium, while keeping your home in a balanced and harmonious arrangement, free of clutter, will always impart peace, happiness, and serenity to it and thus to all who live in it and who come to visit.

Feng Shui and Healing
      The subject of healing is vast and deep. Vast, it takes into consideration a broad range of modalities among which Feng Shui has its place; deep, it calls for alignment with Spirit, or, in Taoist terms, attainment of the Way. The relation of Spirit and the Way is the root of all Taoist arts, most relevantly Chinese medicine and Feng Shui. This relation, simply put, is as follows: the Great Simplicity of the Way, or the Tao, gave rise to the One. The One, called the Tai Chi, or Great Spirit, gave rise to the Two, the negative and positive poles of existence called Yin and Yang. The interrelation of Yin and Yang causes Chi to manifest as movement. The movement of Chi is cyclical, or periodic; it pulses, or vibrates. It can be seen in everything in nature. In its cycling, Chi gives rise to its five elements (called Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal), or five stages of transformation. The five elements have correspondences in all things from space and time, the five senses and their objects of color, sound, taste, smell, and feel, the internal organs and parts of the body, to the emotional and mental states, and so forth. In traditional Chinese medicine the condition of the five elements in a person's life and health is ascertained by noting the balance of Yin and Yang in the different pulses in the person's body. In traditional Feng Shui the condition of the five elements in a person's life and health is ascertained primarily by reading the person's Chinese astrological chart. And, as environmental conditions affect the person's Chi, or life force, the condition of the elements in the person's home is ascertained through Chinese compass methods. The compass and astrological methods, like two sides of one coin, are the spatial and temporal applications of one and the same system. And this system is at the very core of all the Taoist arts. Chinese medicine and Feng Shui, being Taoist arts, have thus an identical aim, namely to restore the stream of the person's Chi to the great simplicity of the Way, as attainment of the Way conveys optimum health, long life, and peace. 
    Chinese medicine and Feng Shui also interrelate holistically. Chinese doctors sometimes take the person's environment into account as illness is often related to environmental conditions. When a person falls ill the environment must be readjusted and opened up to let in healing Chi. To find the correct alignment for the person's bed, two systems of Chinese astrology along with their compass methods always must be used in Feng Shui; these are the 9 Star and the Ba Tzu systems. Not only do they indicate the correct alignments for such things as the person's bed, they also indicate the colors which have revitalizing affects on the person's spirit. In addition, the compass methods precisely locate, among many other things, specific kinds of healing energies in the magnetic field of the person's environment.