Waynesword, Over the Bridge from 2009 to 2010…
Feng Shui As A Verb
(as per Suzee Miller….)
I’ve known about the Chinese phrase “Fung Schway” (to use the pronunciation guide version of those words) for a decade or more, and we have a half-dozen books on the subject lying around the house, but I admit I only recently started really delving into them. I have been energized on this subject by a former real estate agent in Orange County, California named Suzee Miller, who embraced the principles of Feng Shui in 1996 and ultimately gave up her own lucrative practice six years later once she realized that she could make a great living at teaching other Realtors how to employ the methods and concepts of Feng Shui in their real estate practice. This helps not only the practitioner but the clients they serve, as the clean flow of energy and light is effectively passed along. I’ve decided that this is a path I want to pursue in my own practice of this profession.
In listening to her CD’s what struck me was the use of the phrase “Feng Shui”— normally thought of as a noun, a belief system, or a means of attuning your immediate environment—as a verb. This has proven important to my understanding: this belief system is about actively re-structuring and cleansing your physical space, not just thinking about it. According to Ms. Miller, you must feng shui each room and space in your home--- your bedroom, your kitchen, your living spaces, your home office, each of the guas or sectors of your floor plan. You must feng shui your yard, your land, your property as well.
Once all those areas are in order, then you get down to details—feng shui your desk, your briefcase, your place of work. This is obviously something that becomes a non-stop practice once you start to take it seriously. Eventually you will learn to feng shui your brain, your business, your dealings with people, your relationships.
For those with stubbornly western sensibilities who don’t yet get it—substitute some of the following verbs for feng shui:
*fix or repair
*re-organize
*re-arrange furniture/plants/belongings
*infuse or increase light/helpful colors
*de-clutter
*staging
*straighten up
*perform maintenance on
*clean
*dust
*remove dead items from
*praise and bless
*freshen the space
*raise the “chi”
*liven up
*energize
*aerate
*ionize
Feng shui involves all of the above, and a bit more, as far as I can tell. I’m sure that even Masters of the art are always finding new ways to interpret it, or apply it. I don’t claim to be anywhere near that level but I am seeing everyday how it helps get me closer to the state of za-zen that I had sought so lazily, and thus fruitlessly, when in my early 20’s. I could talk zen back then but rarely walked zen. I realize now I was not aware enough of the industriousness required to actually live in a state of walking za-zen, and to have your life in full working order, either back then or a year ago. I intend to re-invent myself as I learn to live these verbs on a daily basis, and see what happens to improve my verve, and my schwerve, as that dude on ESPN likes to say.
Once you seize the passion for creating a nurturing home and work environment, you seem to have more time to perform the important tasks—your time has been feng shui’ed; you feel more efficient. There is less confusion, fewer things misplaced, and hopefully a more abundant flow of positive thought and energy to inspire one’s
true work.
*****
The basis of the system is that there are 5 elements—
Fire, Earth, Metal, Wood, & Water—that have varying effects on people—depending on what their primary element is, based on their gender and birth date. Then there are 8 directions to take into account, as compass points are very significant in feng shui matters: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Whichever direction you face while you work, eat, relax, work out, or sleep is also germane to your particular element’s likely successful outcomes, or difficulties. I am still bewildered by all the combinations and possibilities…and how to apply it not only to real estate sales & consultations, but to my own home and life. But for those interested in exploring it themselves, there are resources available at Feng Shui Paradigms (1-800-499-7844 or 1-800-730-6177) or www.fengshuiplaza.com …
Long story short, once this way of thinking is in your consciousness, you will not feel comfortable leaving your bed unmade or
having a messy desk, or failing to clean grimy windows. You learn to empty full wastebaskets immediately, put the toilet seat down at all times when not being used, and to liven up your interior environment with appropriate color, plants, water elements and good light. And while our home’s primary living areas have been continually clean and relatively uncluttered over the last couple of transitional months, my wife and I still feel unfinished in our chores due to untended chaos in our basement and garage areas. But we’re working on it. Meanwhile I’ve come to admire anew those people who live in seemingly flawless, highly organized homes, though earlier in my life such a lifestyle would have seemed too sterile and un-creative. Now I realize that a “clean, well-lighted place” as Hemingway wrote about might well be more conducive to creativity and productivity than the densely-packed semi-squalor of my various dens back in the Bohemian days. This new sense of space-cleansing is more in line with actually getting projects DONE instead of just starting new ones all the time. I used to believe it was a form of procrastination to stall before sitting down to work: “I can’t write until the kitchen is clean, or I swiffer-mop the hardwood floors, or I put the laundry away…” My wife does the same thing when she says she’s retreating to her sewing room to get some embroidery done— or to the dining room to set up her watercolors-- instead I hear her vacuuming, or find her folding clothes, or dusting first. Now we each have proper justification for such acts, and hopefully there will be enough time left to finish the creative work we’d always rather be doing: we are prepping our space, and our minds, for the task at hand.
It is in this spirit that I spent November preparing for a move from the relatively cramped, slightly subterranean quarters where I worked for SPA Realty, to the more elegant, newer, above-grade space with west-facing windows of the RE/MAX Premier building at 90 East Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY. This Sonny Bonacio-built structure, only about 3 years old now, features a stone façade and copper-topped cupolas, plus excellent night-lighting. This location is just off the four-lane Rte. 50 arterial which connects the downtown Broadway business district to Exit 15 and the shopping malls which abound northeast of the City. East Avenue itself extends from the famous Saratoga Racetrack—on the beautiful median-lined Union Avenue—to the Skidmore Campus at the north end of North Broadway itself. We are poised over the crescent dip which I wrote about back in the early 80’s in The High Rock Review, which was about the primordial springs that spring up
along this faultline in the low dip of Saratoga’s geography. Somehow it seems to remain a fulcrum point of energy and magnetism, which I hope bodes well for future business there.
***
Though I am in the primitive stage of understanding of the principles of Feng Shui, and am seeing slight improvements in my
psyche and homelife and business world so far, I intend to stick with it, explore it and apply it much more in this telling year to come.
My first positive feedback came recently, however, with regard to my new office set-up. My son Miles was using my computer at the East Avenue Office one day in the week before Christmas while I was out on an appointment—I’d only been in there about two weeks.
Someone stopped by to visit and noted the brightness, the neatness, the flow of the small but uncluttered space, and said to him: “Your father seems like a very organized guy…”
I laughed when I heard that line: it had taken 54 years for anyone to say that about me! It’s never too late to change!
But after a year like 2009, which I will briefly admit, was largely dismal for me, CHANGE is exactly what is needed, and I a actively seeking improvement in all areas, evolution in a personal sense,
and continued growth in the service abilities of my business. This is the only way to overcome any perceived stagnation in the world of commerce, or one’s personal situation within that world. We all know that some people thrive in difficult times; the trick is to be one of them, and learn how to teach others to thrive as well. Joy and balance and enthusiasm are not only possible in this challenging period we are in; they are imperative to our survival.
Stay tuned to this space as I elaborate and update this topic in months to come. Enjoy the New Year! In fact, according to the Eckart Tolle reading I’ve been doing lately (Stillness Speaks, and more recently, The Power of Now), we should not so much be looking at the BIG picture of a new year, but at the IMMEDIATE picture of each New Moment. Our power point of contact with Life is in each second of the Present Tense—the only Time we truly have to work with…
Take advantage of every conscious second from this point onward—not necessarily in frantic action, but in Attentiveness. This is
my goal for the coming year.
Call me anytime to discuss these matters, and how they relate to your real estate needs! My cell is the same: (518) 316-6420;
and my new number at RE/MAX Premier’s Saratoga Office is now:
(518) 871-9035. My recently changed email, for those of you who have
not registered the new one is simply:
wperras@yahoo.com
Thank you for visiting and reading my website. I
look forward to further communications in 2010!
© Wayne Perras 2009