July 2, 2021

Are you Burning Away your Money?

• Feng Shui Tips

After the front door, the kitchen and bedroom are the two most important factors. Why is the kitchen so important? This is where the family’s food is stored, prepared and cooked. The energy of this room transfers to the residents and is directly connected to the emotional, physical well being and prosperity of the residents. A home with a good Feng Shui kitchen has happier and healthier residents. I see it all the time.
In the last 20 years I’ve read over a thousand books on Feng Shui and there is a lot of misinformation surrounding kitchens. Some of the more crazy things I’ve come across are:

• Myth: A stove with bad Feng Shui is burning away your money. Truth: Only if you are literally setting it on fire.
• Myth: Wrapping the sink drain pipes with red ribbon and always keeping my sink stopper in will prevent me from losing money. (I wish.)
• Myth: Displaying your knives in a standing wooden or magnetized knife block is bad Feng Shui and creates arguments. This falls under old wives tale or superstition.

Like most new home designs today I prefer the open concept kitchen attached to the Great Room. But is that good Feng Shui? It depends. The classics describe the ideal kitchen as placed at the back of the home, away from the front door and away from the areas of entertaining. This makes sense. Keep the cooking smells (and the servants back in the day) at the back. Even today in mansions and castles, the kitchen is a separate room.
If the only reason you have a kitchen is because it came with the house, does it still matter to the Feng Shui? Absolutely. Regardless of whether you use the kitchen or what style of kitchen you have, we must analyze with Forms. Always in Feng Shui, Forms, or physical location and environment, are evaluated before Formula. If the physical environment is negative and produces Sha Qi, the formulas based assessment isn’t able to produce a positive effect. So before you worry about anything, make sure your Forms are good.
Here are some guidelines to go by:

• The kitchen needs to be well maintained. Of all the rooms, the kitchen is most vulnerable to both stagnant (dirty) as well as volatile (fire, commotion) energies. Keep the room clean, organized, de cluttered and fix what’s broken.
• The kitchen should never be located in the centre of the home. The middle section of the home is where the ‘heart’ resides. Placing your kitchen here will metaphorically burn the heart of the house (resulting in emotionally unhappy people).
• Avoid a Fire and Water Clash. The stove is Fire, the sink is Water. The kitchen sink located next to the stove or directly opposite one another, while convenient, creates a Fire and Water element clash and brings about negative consequences to the emotions and health of the residents.
• The stove must always be located against a wall for stability. Island cooktops are not good Feng Shui.
• Do not locate the stove below an exposed ceiling beam. Suppressing Qi from the beam above disturbs the energy enough to have a serious negative impact.
• No problem if your fridge and stove are located next to each other. Your fridge is not considered a water element thus no fire/water clash.

Location of Kitchen and Stove

The most suitable location for the kitchen and stove, along with building design and Forms assessment, is determined using the Eight Mansions House Gua system. Eight Mansions Formula is based on the buildings sitting compass direction. There are four positive and four negative locations. The kitchen should be located in a negative sector of the house based on the House Gua. According to the ancient classics, the kitchen is located in a negative sector as it has the capacity to suppress negative Qi.

If you wish to learn more about Eight Mansions and Feng Shui, we have on demand and live study options available.  To learn what’s best for you, book a discovery call with Marlyna contact via email.

Image courtesy of flickr.com/statefarm