Homemade Feng Shui
It's About Space By Lisa Marshall
Boulder Daily Camera Crack open the door to the New Light Media office in Denver, and you know before you even step inside what this small nonprofit is all about. You can feel it.
  Toby Stearns, right, and Patricia Grinnan, center, look over wallpaper samples in Stearns' living room. Stearns relocated his fish tank from his bedroom on the advice of Feng Shui consultant Laurelyn Baker, left. The tank is now in the "career" section of his house. The water represents the flow of career opportunities. After moving the tank to its current location, Stearns got a raise. |  This table, which is located in the "relationship" portion of Stearns' house, is kept set for two as a symbol of the other person he would like to bring into his life. (Photos courtesy of Marty Caivano, Boulder Daily Camera.) |
As the door inches open, a giant poster of an angel, welcoming arms outstretched to all, comes into view. Next to it is a portrait of Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming college student murdered in an anti-gay hate crime. Then comes a map of the Earth. The placement of the pictures is no coincidence. Neither is the location of the soothing waterfall in the entryway, the welcoming pastel couch in the sitting room, or the suite's warm wide-open floorplan. When filmmaker Brent Scarpo and Matthew's mother Judy Shepard brought the nonprofit to town, the first call they made was to Boulder's Linsey Franklin. They needed Feng Shui. "Given the kind of work that we do, it is vital that the energy be just right in here," says Scarpo, executive director of New Light, which teaches diversity worldwide through film and lectures. Scarpo is one of a growing number of business professionals and homeowners opening their minds and pocketbooks to improve their surrounding energy, or "qi," with Feng Shui. Thousands of years after the Chinese began using the ancient art and science of placement to determine the best spot to bury their elders, Americans are summoning it to boost productivity in office buildings and spark stagnant love lives in suburban homes. "People are really hungry for it right now," says Laurelyn Baker, of Boulder, Colo.-based Visions of Home Multicultural Feng Shui (visions@earthnet.net . "We see our resources being gobbled up by cookie cutter developments, and it is killing our natural qi." While the tools of the trade differ among Feng Shui practitioners, the goal is the same: to balance all the different life energies the Earth throws into a space into one balanced flow of good "qi." To achieve it, placement is key.
 Baker, Stearns and Grinnan look at wallpaper samples while planning an overhaul to one of the rooms in Stearns' home. Stearns has used Baker's knowledge to redo several of the rooms in his house. |  Baker and Stearns hold red envelopes between their hands while performing a brief ceremony. (Photos courtesy of Marty Caivano, the Boulder Daily Camera.) |
The right mix of the five elements--water, wood, fire, earth and metal--and the right balance of active energy (yang) and passive energy (yin) can do wonders for work and home life, they say. In contrast, a bed placed in the wrong spot can interfere with sleep; a desk in the wrong corner can slow productivity or heighten stress. Some hire a Feng Shui specialist the day they decide to build their home, asking for input on everything from where to place it on the lot to where the rooms should be. Others just want to know where to hang their mirrors to brighten up the mood of a room. "What all our clients share is a desire to remove the static from their environment and provide themselves with energetic support from the invisible world," says Franklin, executive director of the Boulder-based International Feng Shui Research Design Centre, founded in 1996. While the concept may seem a bit ethereal to the uninitiated, it is undoubtedly catching on. In 1997, Feng Shui experts were called on to examine McNichols Sports Arena to see why the Colorado Avalanche was having a stellar season but the Nuggets were foundering. Since then, Franklin has been summoned to help writers boost the energy in their home office, help plastic surgeons spruce up the qi in their waiting rooms, and help Realtors with a house that just wasn't selling. Nationwide, the International Feng Shui Guild, a membership group for practitioners, boasts 430 members, 46 in Colorado, 17 in Boulder alone. Feng Shui candles and chimes can be found at Target, and at least one Web site offers a Feng Shui tip of the day. While happy to see the word getting out, longtime practitioners stress that their trade is much more than a glorified version of interior decorating. "I am creating my life using my house as a template," says Baker, who has incorporated Native American spirituality into her Feng Shui practice. Baker guides her consultations with a Ba Gua, an ancient template placed over a home, lot, or room to point out which portions should be devoted to which life emphases, such as "health and family" or "wealth and fortune." Then she makes recommendations on how to optimize the qi for each emphasis.
 Grinnan, Stearns, Baker and student, Rhonda Akin, join hands to bless the house and their efforts to bring positive energy into the space. (Photo courtesy of Marty Caivano, Boulder Daily Camera.) |
In her own home, for instance, a tea set sits in the focal point for "marriage and relationship," there to remind her and her husband to make time for each other. A small waterfall, a catalyst for creative flow, sits next to her computer in the "wealth" area of her home. A crystal hangs from the ceiling in the sitting room, the area devoted to "reputation," to draw and distribute good energy for visitors below. Toby Sterns hired Baker this summer to Feng Shui his 1,250-square-foot home in Lafayette, Colo. Following her advice, he's since painted walls and moved every painting and piece of furniture, he says. He swears by the results. After moving a large plant into his "wealth corner," his financial life made a turn for the better almost immediately, he says. Ellin Todd, manager of public relations for Omega Tech, a Boulder-based biotech company, is also a believer. The company had Feng Shui help when it was determining where to position each of its 67 employees. Now, it's moving into a 15,000-square-foot office space, and has hired Franklin to help with the office design. "Careful consideration of the actual structural environment and how we place ourselves in it can affect our happiness," says Todd. "If people like where they are, they stay there a little longer." Franklin uses the Ba Gua to gauge the "invisible structure" of a place and an ancient Chinese compass called a Lo Pan to measure the energy flowing through it. Her recommendations on how to optimize that qi depend a lot on the person and their current goals, she says. "I design a space to reflect the person, the space, and the time," she says, noting that some clients Feng Shui their space once a year. But for those who want help from a professional, it is not cheap. In Boulder, a Feng Shui consult can range anywhere from $90 per hour to $1,000 to $3,000 per day depending on the scope of the project. However, say practitioners, ignoring your qi flow can cost a lot more than that. "It's as equally important in their living structure as their plumbing and their heat," Franklin says.
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