Moving in? Bring good luck into your new home

So now all your bags are packed and you’re ready to go, and you’re standing there outside your door…uh, before you start humming to yourself, it pays to follow certain "rituals," if you will, before leaving an old home for a new one. It’s like a spiritual turnover of sorts and involves some space-clearing ceremony, which, according to feng shui enthusiasts, is a must before you move on with your new life.

There’s really no hard and fast rule about the space-clearing ceremony, as different feng shui practitioners have varying ideas. Some use instruments and tools such as sound from bells and chimes, incense and candles, and salt and water. Others, however, prefer visualization where they imagine a fine golden light bathing the entire house and dissolving all stagnant and negative energy. This is done to help the new occupants of the house feel welcome, and not be bogged down by the energy that you, the former occupant of the house, created over the years. Quite a few people have also been known to go from room to room, caressing the walls, windows, banisters and saying goodbye and thanking the whole house for the good memories, and at the same time, letting go of the bad ones. This may sound crazy but many people have tried it and liked what they felt afterwards.

Of course, it’s a given that when you’re moving into a new house, you already had its feng shui checked as far as auspicious directions and good chi are concerned. According to popular feng shui master Lillian Too, the best direction for Period 8, which begins this year and until 2024, are the southwest and northeast. This means all houses facing these two directions will have amazing good luck for the next 18 years. The north is auspicious, too, in this year of the Fire Dog.

On the other hand, if you must move to a new home this year, just make sure that the front door is not facing west, for this is a bad direction for the year 2006.

Here’s a neat trick to find out if a new home needs cleansing. According to Lillian Too in her book 168 Ways to Declutter Your Home, if you want to get an instant and accurate reading of the energy in the home, let a young boy below the age of nine do it for you. And no, we’re definitely not talking about boys who see dead people here, but just ordinary, normal little chaps. It seems that boys possess a large dose of yang energy – or energy that is active and positive. When in the midst of yin energy, the boy will intuitively feel this and be restless or even cry.

Clearly, says Too, the boy is uncomfortable and the place needs cleansing. Otherwise, if he starts playing, seems happy, smiles a lot, starts to eat or starts drawing beautiful things, worry no more for it’s time to unpack those boxes.

Many Filipinos have their own version of clearing the space in a new home. One tradition is to have the place blessed by a priest, while others invite relatives and friends over and pray over the new home.

Others do it the Oriental way, with lots of fragrant incense and candles. Still others use the tried-and-tested tools of light, cleansing bowls, and bells. No matter the differences in technique, it all boils down to getting rid of whatever negative energy is left behind by former occupants, and creating a sacred space for future owners.

People who are in tune with the subtle energy of their surroundings are most likely to, upon arrival in their new homes, walk around the rooms and give a welcome pat to every fixture in the house. It’s all about symbols, and a common practice among Filipinos is to carry containers filled with salt and rice (those who have a sweet tooth will swear by a jar of sugar) into the house before anything else. This, according to elders, is symbolic of allowing prosperity to enter the house.

Visualization is also very useful as soon as you’re on the premises of your new home. What you can do to clear the space left by former occupants is use what Too refers to as "inner world feng shui." This entails a powerful mental visualization with light as the main ingredient. What you can do is to stand outside the house facing your front door early in the morning. You don’t want to do this at night lest burglars decide to do their own space-clearing ceremony. Close your eyes and feel the sun sending out a powerful river of light to flow into your home and all its rooms. Imagine all the negative energy hiding in the nooks and crannies being dissolved by the yang chi coming from the sun.

It is suggested that the first items you have to get out of the boxes are favorite items that give you good and happy memories. These include photographs, a favorite toy, or a nice painting. Doing this exercise will lift up your spirits and make you feel instantly at home.

Another powerful way to make your new place feel like home is to "unpack" memories from your heart center. According to Karen Kingston of Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, stand comfortably and place your palms over your heart. Then open your arms and send out happy memories into your new home, letting them flow outwards.

Ideally, it’s better to bring in new furniture when moving into a new home. But if that’s not possible and you have to bring old pieces of furniture with you, make sure you have purified the energy of these pieces before you put them in their new places. For instance, wash an old piece of furniture with a mixture of rock salt and natural sea salt. Iodized salt may be good for your body but not your furniture.

What Too suggests is to rub this mixture in your hands and then stroke the furniture pieces with it using a brushing motion. Do this thrice and rub the surface in a clockwise direction. Or, you can always give the furniture a sunshine bath. Too suggests letting it stand under the midday sun for 10 to 15 minutes. It’s a must that the sun shines on all the corners of the furniture to get rid of harmful old chi.

When it comes to arranging the furniture, it helps to remember that it’s an absolute no-no to have bulky things blocking the flow of chi around the room. Avoid poison arrows brought about by having too many corners. Poison arrows create negative energy and whomever these corners hit are sure to feel this negative energy in no time at all.

Also, never make the mistake of putting a piece of furniture that blocks a hallway leading to the main door, for this chokes up the free-flowing energy that’s supposed to enter the door and into your rooms. A blocked energy flow path means problematic relationships, people getting stuck in their jobs, dried-up opportunities, illnesses, blocked cash flow and other forms of bad luck. And to think we’re just talking about blocked doors and paths here.

Doors must open fully and hinges should be well-oiled. Try not to paint your door red, please, for this will have a tiring and exhausting effect on the household.

If your new home is carpeted, make sure that it’s new. If not, have the carpet cleaned, which can symbolically remove a lot of stale chi, apart of course from the dirt. Watch for peeling paints as these are signs of neglect and sources of negative chi.

Ways to freshen up the house chi is to repaint the walls and wash the windows. Make it a point to have a cheerful and airy living room, filled with lights and plants. If it’s possible, fill your new home with colors, music, children, lights, water and sounds, which, says Too, are strong sources of yang energy. Yang energy brings happiness and life to the home. People living there feel strong, confident and fulfilled. There is warmth in a home that has a constantly moving energy.

The ruling energy for this year is the yang wood so it’s advisable to put plenty of plants in either the east or southeast. Place the plants in uncluttered areas so energy could flow from them and to all parts of the room. Choose round-leaf plants instead of spiky ones as these could become poison arrows. Hanging round-leaf plants in corners of the hallways also helps the energy to flow smoothly toward the house. Potted herbs also have a calming effect in the kitchen.

Since water also produces wood it’s a good idea to invest in water features in the north and east part of your home. It should be a flowing water feature, not the trickling kind. Fire elements, such as candles and lights, should be placed in the south of the home. Metal elements, meanwhile, are best placed in the west and northwest this year.

If you must hang paintings on the wall, do yourself a favor and not put disturbing and very dark art pieces. Images you see daily have a great effect on your subconscious. According to Too, avoid hanging paintings "that suggest loss, horror, or show distorted images, fierce animals, storms, fires, dead trees and portraits of old people." These images weaken your energy, make you feel choked up and depressed, and could make you feel that life is difficult to bear. Instead, she says, hang images of open fields, blue skies, calm waters, birds, and other happy images that bring light and good feeling to your home.

Observing feng shui rules in the bedroom is a must in your new home. Never ever place old clothes, books, albums, files or other personal stuff under the bed. Sleeping above personal items is said to press down your good luck. Neither should you place photo albums, especially photographs of your children, under the bed as this will hinder their growth and development.

Of course, it’s bad feng shui to have a mirror directly reflecting the bed as this will zap up the energy of those living there. The television shouldn’t be directly opposite a bed for the same reason. Also, it’s bad luck to have the bed directly facing the bedroom door. It’s also a must to give your mattresses and pillows a regular sunshine bath to get rid of the negative energy that has stuck there. Too suggests doing this ritual at least once a month: light a fragrant incense stick and walk around the bed in a clockwise direction thrice. This will effectively remove any lingering negative chi in the bedroom.

We do understand that many homes and condominium units don’t have enough space for all your stuff but give yourself a break and don’t put your gym equipment and exercise machines in your bedroom. Don’t turn your bedroom into a home office either and remember to let the light and breeze into your bedroom to keep the yang energy flowing.

As far as the kitchen is concerned, feng shui practitioners suggest that people doing the cooking should have a commanding position when at the stove. This means that the cook should be able to see the doorway directly without turning away from the stove. It makes very practical sense because you don’t want to be scalded by boiling oil or water when some mischievous member of the household decides to do a little but lethal "Surprise! Surprise!" game on you.

It’s also important not to take any broken plates, cups and bowls from your former home into the new one. This also holds true for defective pots and appliances. You’re about to start a new life in your new home and it’s just no use keeping things that don’t function in your life anymore.

According to Too, anything that depicts a bountiful harvest should be placed in the dining room, which is considered the heart of the home. Pictures of a good harvest, or an open field filled with ripe-for-the-picking corn, rice and wheat are powerful symbols of abundance. So too are paintings of round and golden fruits, or better, a big bowl of real fruits placed at the center of the dining room table.

Mirrors are considered lucky when placed in the dining room, as these reflect abundance and, when placed in such a way that it reflects the table, double up what’s on the table thereby suggesting that the house is teeming with good food and is never lacking in abundance.

Moving into a new home signals the start of something good. The age-old wisdom called feng shui is not some mumbo-jumbo art that borders on the supernatural. It’s a discipline developed through thousands of years of observation. You don’t need to know feng shui principles to the letter. It’s all a matter of being sensitive to the subtle energies that are all around us.

With The Legacy at Montgomery Place starting turnover this year, feng shui is a great way to bring good luck into your new home.

Thanks to feng shui wisdom, we can always take refuge in our own sacred spaces.