If you live in a busy, expansive city– like Los Angeles as an extreme example– you’ll often find yourself spending a prolonged amount of time in your car, so much so that it almost makes you feel like you’re spending more time in there than in your house (giving that you sleep in your house at least 7 or 8 hours a day, ideally).
So would it make more sense to Feng Shui a car than a building? Well… no, not really. (Unfortunately.)
Being a consultant that travels from client to client (one day in Santa Barbara, the other in Palm Desert, the other in Riverside) I can definitely vouch that having a “Feng Shui car” would be great, if only it were possible.
So why isn’t it? After all, Feng Shui is about feeling good and being comfortable, so why can’t it be applied to a car?
I must start out by saying that cars have come a very long way, both in terms of looks, performance, and comfort (though they are still working on the gas /mileage). Years ago, a very well-established Jaguar car dealer and client of mine had introduced me to the idea of partnering up with Jaguar in promoting cars designed with Feng Shui in mind. Probably contrary to my best PR interests, I had to dissuade him that a Feng Shui Master couldn’t really be the right spokesperson for them for the following reasons (see below). So they resorted, like most luxury brands, to extreme ergonomic design– which I think works great and which I strongly support, even in work spaces.
Here are my reasons of why I had to decline:
When we talk about Feng Shui at a professional, high level of competence, we discover that it is much more then just design psychology. You have heard me say before how the media at large and most of the books on the shelves of the stores talk about Feng Shui in such cookie-cuter terms that they become almost generic (and boring). And that is because Feng Shui is not a mass-made product. It is really about customization in the sense that each building is completely unique from the next, and hence, TO BE EFFECTIVE, it has to be considered in its deep, full uniqueness.
I have worked on several residential developments over the years and one of the greatest difficulties of doing this is because invariably, residential developments often use a limited number of house typology, perhaps two or three floor plans and mirror-images of the same layouts, while in reality each house is unique and would really required its own design. (Ideally—then, of course, we have to find ways around that even because the vast majority of houses are not designed with Feng Shui in mind to begin with.)
Why is that? What is it exactly that makes each house unique? Popular belief has it that each house contains 8 “fixed” corners, each of which represents an aspect of life (and they’re all the same in every house). This belief suggests that not only is each house the same, but each building also is. So, good luck finding the “romance corner” or the “children corner” in your office.
In Traditional Feng Shui (also know in Asia as Authentic, Classic or Scientific Feng Shui) we acknowledge that the “energy distribution” in EACH building is determined by:
- The year that the building (house, office, or business) was constructed.
- The specific orientation that a building has in relation to the magnetic north– or south– depending on which hemisphere you’re on (that is why we Feng Shui Masters carry a very large and complex compass with markings of different colors and writings to help us assess the correct positioning).
- The design of the building– where the rooms are located and how the energy flows from room to room.
- The lot on which the building is located (in some cases you can have the best building and a horrible landscape layout that totally causes the energy of a building to act the opposite that it would otherwise– which is not good).
- And, if we really want to go to the ultimate customization, based on your date of birth, each of you may relate to a building better than another. And so does your spouse, and your children, and your employees and co-workers… So granted that not all buildings work the same for everyone, we need to create buildings that are particularly sound and favorable from a Feng Shui standpoint to have good effects on just about everybody and ad some final “tweaking” in the décor of each personal room to “play it up” for each specific person using the space.
Particularly, point one and two above can be a bit more challenging to explain because they are completely intangible at a “five senses” level– not even psychics can detect them (and believe me, I’ve tested it!). And yet, their effects are very strong in people’s lives.
In a nutshell, the “energy distribution” of a building is a combination of the Qi (life-force energy) from the Cosmos measured through the time factor (referring to 1 above) and the Earth’s energy “radiating” out from our planet and results in the magnetic poles being positioned were they are (referring to 2 above). There isn’t really any way around it. To be able to apply Feng Shui, your building must capture the energy from the ground and from the open roof (before being sealed). An “open building” doesn’t retain the time factor, so the energy constantly changes with time. And a building that doesn’t stick to the ground will not let the energy from the Earth effect it. This isn’t voodoo. It’s actually more scientific (in fact, it is called “Scientific Feng Shui” in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore).
At the end of the Tang Dynasty (900 AD)– one of the most brilliant dynasties in Chinese history in terms of mathematical advancements– the Feng Shui Masters archives were revealed to the public when one of the most relevant historical figures in Feng Shui tradition, Master Yang, “the poor saver,” began to use Feng Shui on dwellings of commoners other than the Emperors, dignitaries, and high-ranking officials. (I guess by their standards most of us would still be considered “poor”.) The formulas he created– or simply perfected– are the basis of those used today, albeit refined and up-dated by generations of Feng Shui Masters after him.
So when I go into a house, an office, or a business– or I am reviewing the plans for a new building to be constructed– I must keep into account all that data to be able to trace the energy distribution and from there it’s effects on the people who are occupying (or will be occupying) the building. Based on these computations the same building may end up with one “money corner,” or two “money corners–” or sadly, sometimes the “money corner” coincides with the “wasting money” corner, and that is why we use one of the Five elements (never all of them together, otherwise they’ll end up canceling each other out!) to fix the problem– or to enhance the “good money area” so that it can come in more easily.
Back to where we started, as you can see, having to capture energy from the Earth and from the Cosmos can be a rather challenging proposition for a car that is assembled in a factory and is not rooted on a fixed foundation but is instead built to constantly move around.
An exception to the rule can be prefab homes, which can be rather flexible because they’ll capture the Earth energy once they’re set in place on the lot. An RV, on the other hand, will have the same fate as a car, were its energy pattern can’t really be traced down because it moves around and is not linked to the ground a lot of the time.
So then, in regards to your cars, my best suggestion is to stick with having great technology, functionality, gas mileage (zero emissions coming possibly soon!) and lots and lots of comfortable and beautiful ergonomic designs. That’s the best you can do for yourself and your travel experience.
On the other end, if you think it’s time to take a look at how many “money corners” you have in your house, office, or business let me know. I’ll be happy to assist you!
To schedule an appointment for a consultation with one of our associates or with Dr. Mainini herself, call 310.860.8989 or direct your request to dr.simona@fengshuiarch.com.
Click here for more information about our firm
Click here for more information about Feng Shui consultations
