Terah Kathryn Collins - The Western Guide to Feng Shui

THE WESTERN GUIDE TO
FENG SHUI

Also by Terah Kathryn Collins

The Western Guide to Feng Shui for Prosperity:
True Accounts of People Who Have Applied
Feng Shui to Their Lives and Prospered

Home Design with Feng Shui A-Z

The Western Guide to Feng ShuiRoom by Room

Feng Shui Personal Paradise Cards

(Booklet and card deck)

Also available:

The Western Guide to Feng Shui
A companion six-tape audio program
(featuring information not included in this book)

To order, please call: 800-654-5126, or fax: 800-650-5115

All of the above are available at your
local bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting

Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za
Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

THE WESTERN GUIDE
TO FENG SHUI

Creating Balance, Harmony, and Prosperity
in Your Environment

Terah Kathryn Collins

HAY HOUSE, INC.
Carlsbad, California New York City
London Sydney Johannesburg
Vancouver Hong Kong New Delhi

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in theUnited Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Publishedand distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.rain-coast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hay-house.co.in

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews without prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Collins, Terah Kathryn.

The western guide to feng shui : creating balance, harmony, and prosperity in your environment / Terah Kathryn Collins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-56170-324-9 (trade paper)
1. Feng-shui. 2. Interior decoration 3. Architecture, Domestic. I. Title.
BF1779.F4K335 1996
133.333dc20 95-47274
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-1-56170-324-1
ISBN 10: 1-56170-324-9

11 10 09 08 44 43 42 41
1st printing, March 1996
41st printing, February 2008

Printed in the United States of America

To our homes and workplaces.
May they be our Personal Paradises.

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Notes

MY OWN
JOURNEY HOME

I began my Feng Shui journey when a friend insisted that I join her at a lecture on a strange subject called Feng Shui. I had heard just enough about it to assume it was a superstitious collection of Chinese folklore. Now I was invited to sit through an evening lecture on it. Reluctantly, I went.

Dr. Richard Tan was the speaker, a highly respected acupuncturist and Feng Shui expert in San Diego, California. I was in my seat less than three minutes when I was filled with the realization that Feng Shui described what I had been intuitively practicing for years. It was one of those rare and wonderful moments when I felt that my whole life had been arranged in perfect sequence to bring me to this man and this information. As I listened to Dr. Tan, my excitement about, and awe of, the synchronicities in life steadily grew. Here was an ancient Eastern science that approached and treated buildings in the same holistic manner that I had approached and treated people for over a decade. Wide awake and hanging on Dr. Tans every word, I took my first lesson in the theory and practice of Feng Shuithe language of my future.

I immersed myself in the study of Feng Shui with Dr. Tan; with Louis Audet, a Feng Shui expert with a rich understanding of Earth Wisdom practices; and with Master Lin Yun, a Feng Shui authority and founder of the Yun Lin Temple in Berkeley, California. As I studied with different teachers and read everything on Feng Shui that I could get my hands on, I observed that tightly woven into the timeless fabric of Feng Shui, were the holistic principles I had always worked with and lived by. And for the first time in my life, I felt passionately in love with what I was doing, and aligned with my lifes purpose.

The search for my lifes purpose began when I was a teenager. I learned and practiced transcendental meditation and yoga, took instruction from the I Ching, and studied Eastern philosophy. After high school, I decided to travel and perhaps live in other areas of the world. I lived in South America, then Puerto Rico, the American Southwest, and finally, Spain. Throughout my journeys, I experienced countless synchronicities, including an endless stream of people involved in holistic health. It became the ongoing theme of my travels. Chiropractors, acupuncturists, shamans, and healers of all kinds crossed my path, sharing their ways of bringing people back into healthful balance.

Inspired by my adventures, four years later, I returned to my home in Virginia and became a registered polarity practitioner and neurolinguistic programmer, honing the skills of holistic health provider and educator. This led to a busy practice in holistic health care, as well as co-founding (and teaching at) the Polarity Therapy Center of Northern Virginia.

Time passed, and one day during a meditation, I was struck by the fact that it had been 14 years since Id returned to Virginia from my travelsand that it was, again, time to move on. I sensed a significant change coming in my profession as well. It was time to take the steps necessary to go where Id always wanted to beCalifornia. I began preparing that day.

For the next two years, I carefully brought all areas of my life to completion. I trained an apprentice to take over my practice, turned my teaching responsibilities over to my partner, and spent as much time as possible with my friends and family. Finally, I closed the door on the moving van and headed for California.

After I settled in San Diego, I faced the next challengewhat now? I didnt feel moved to start another practice, or teach as I had before. I felt something new was coming, and I couldnt re-immerse myself in the past. I was captivated by the notion that holistic health principles apply as powerfully to environments as they do to people. With this in mind, I felt that my new purpose would involve healing and my love for the environment. I filled notebooks with correlations, musings, and notes on my observations of the environmental body. I felt pregnant with myself and prayed to be delivered so that I could move forward with my life. What is my new profession? When will it be born?