Van De Car - Feng crochet - calming projects for a harmonious home

Our homes are meant to be a refuge. We go out to work, to shop, to exerciseall important and (hopefully) pleasurable things. But sometimes, for one reason or another, it feels more like we go out to do battle. We get stuck in traffic, we wait in lines, we argue with colleagues, we struggle to meet deadlines and when we come home at the end of the day, we are exhausted and depleted.

At times like that, it is essential that the place we come home to can provide us with peace, with calm, with nurturing and healing support. Feng Shuiwhich is simply the interaction between you and your environmentis meant to help you achieve success in your life, however you define it. Depending on how you create that environment, by how decorate your home, you can bring yourself into harmony with the natural flow of energy around you, bringing you more energy in turn.

The stress and anxiety of our daily lives are prompting many of us to seek the elements of the natural world, to find peace. We can bring nature indoors, make it a part of our home, turning our surroundings into something beautiful and nurturing. This beomes doubly powerful when you create that haven yourself. Just the act of making provides a reflective release, as you tap into your creativity and your ability to bring something into the world, where before there was nothing.

The patterns in this book are all inspired by the philosophies and practices of Feng Shui, and thus they are all simple, meditative, and beautiful. As you bring table runners, mandala coasters, and cotton plant hangers into your home, you will create that refuge you crave, so that you can find the peace and restorative happiness you need.

At its heart, Feng Shui is a very simple practice. It is the act of bringing your surroundings into harmony with natureboth our own, internal nature and the natural world. Feng Shui translates to wind-water, highlighting two of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) that the art of Feng Shui holds in balance.

There are three core principles at work within Feng Shui: the elements, qi (which translates to energy, or life-force), and the bagua, which is a map of your home, featuring principles like abundance, career, family, and so forthall the things we negotiate in our homes, throughout our lives. When you dive into Feng Shui, it becomes quite complextheres a reason there are certified practitioners offering guidance for those of us who arent quite sure we understand all the principles. I make no pretenses about being one of those certified practitioners! This book offers only a small glimpse into the workings of Feng Shui, just to give you an idea of how to get started.

For all practical purposes, Feng Crochet focuses on just the five elements, giving you ideas, thoughts, and patterns for ways to incorporate those five elements into your home. But how you incorporate those elements depends on qi, and on the bagua, and each of those elements affects the others.

Everything has energy. That chair you love, even though it might be a little faded and ratty, because its just so comfortable and comforting? Thats positive energy, free-flowing qi. But that end table you inherited from your grandmother, that you ought to love but just makes you sadits energy just isnt working for you. Its blocked, and the qi within your home is blocked by it. You want to balance these kinds of energies, as well as the energies of the elements and the bagua, so that the qi within your home flows gently, ebbing and flowing in a peaceful, natural rhythm.

Each of these sections represents an area in your home, and an area of your life to focus on in that space. Each section resonates with a particular element. The center of the baguaand the center of your homerepresents a healthy state, where all of your elements, and all of the different demands you place on yourself, are in balance.

Now, most of our houses are not octagonal, so this is a very rough guide. You can use the bagua in whatever way feels the most natural to you; if there is a room in a southeasterly part of your house that would make a good home office, terrific! If you can put your bedroom in the southwest corner, thats great, too. And if some of these parts of life feel less important to you than othersif fame is less important than health and creativity, for examplethen feel free to minimize those parts. This is about your qi, about your home, and it should reflect you.