40: A Little Feng Shui to Ease My Mind

40 

A Little Feng Shui to Ease My Mind     

       

It’s only been twelve years. That’s long enough, one would think, to clear the clutter out of the basement of our new home in Georgian Bay. Well, it’s no longer new; it’s twelve years old now. But when we built it we stored my books in boxes and all my manuscripts and notebooks in plastic containers in the basement, which became the catch-all for everything, including more than a dozen boxes of preserves that we never got to use and had to discard (Penny and I loved picking blueberries when we lived up north); so we had a lot of feng shui-ing to do, and we started with my books.

I have a lot of books. We have two large bookcases in the sunroom, two more in the living room, and five in my writing den with one more to set up, and they are all full; and in the basement I made improvised book shelving out of bricks and ten 8 ft. shelves that I purchased at Home Hardware; but these selves are full and overflowing with books, so I purchased another ten 8 ft. shelves for the rest of my books; but only because a neighbor down the street had some work done on their house and left a pile of leftover red bricks at the end of their driveway for anyone to pick up.

I wheelbarrowed the bricks down to our house and gingerly carried them into the basement, six bricks to an armful, with a few minutes rest in between to catch my breath because of my heart condition, and I set up another 16 feet of shelving five rows high like the other wall; and the following day I began unpacking the remaining books in no particular order because if I stopped to check out my books I’d still be there unpacking. But I confess, some books did catch my eye and I had to bring them upstairs; and as I was doing my books, Penny was cleaning jars for new preserves.

The Ontario peaches and yellow plums were out, and they were on sale at Food Basics in Midland for $2.88/basket, and I came home with baskets of peaches and plums one weekend; so after I unpacked all of my books I helped Penny with the preserves because that’s something that we love to do together. It’s very bonding.

“It’s like going back to our roots,” I said to her, as I poured the hot sugary liquid into the jars laden with fresh Ontario peaches and plums, because it had been twelve years or more since we had last preserved. The yellow plums were easier to do than peaches, which we had to peel and quarter, because we canned the plums whole; and then I attended to burning all of cardboard boxes and hundreds of magazines in our burn barrel (we do live in cottage country), and our basement felt so clutter free that I excitedly said to Penny, “Now the chi can flow freely!”

Chi is the Chinese word for vital life force, and according to the ancient art of Feng Shui, when one’s house is cluttered the chi does not flow freely; and when the flow of chi in one’s house is interrupted by clutter, one’s life does not go so smoothly. So I had another good and ancient reason for uncluttering our basement.

How Feng Shui came into being is lost to antiquity, but the term Feng Shui is composed of two Chinese words: feng (wind) and shui (water); and together the words represent harmony and balance. Wind and water are the two natural elements that flow, move, and circulate everywhere on Earth. They are also the most basic elements required for human survival. Wind, or air, is the breath of life; and without it we would die in moments. And water is the liquid of life, and without water we would die in days. The combined qualities of wind and water determine our climate, which historically has determined our food supply and in turn affects our lifestyle, health, energy, and mood. These two fundamental and flowing elements have always profoundly yet subtly influenced individuals and society.

The essence of these life-giving elements is chi, or vital life force. Wind and water are direct carriers of chi, as their flowing qualities reflect their essential nature. All living organisms are largely composed of these two elements. Thus, Feng Shui is the art of designing environments in harmony with the flow of chi through one’s living space, and this flow supports and enhances one’s personal chi or vital life force. But, of course, this is all a matter of personal belief and not proven science.

I believe in Feng Shui because I believe in the ancient principle of the vital force of life, which for me has taken on far more meaning than simply the energy that sustains all life; it’s also the creative energy of life that every artist taps into with their art, as well as the I Am consciousness of life that nourishes our being and evolving individual identity.

But that’s a thought for another musing. What I wanted to say today is that feng shui-ing our basement has allowed the chi to flow more freely in our retirement home in Georgian Bay, and as tenuous as this may be for the unbeliever, it’s eased my mind and helped me to sleep better, almost as though (if not so), the chi flows more freely in my subconscious (the basement of my mind) and eases psychic tensions. And if this is so, which I believe, then why in the hell didn’t I do this twelve years ago? 

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