Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash
I would like my home to feel more like a sacred space, especially now that I’m spending more time there. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for your question! One thing that really helps me incorporate more sacredness into my day is ritual. Ritual has been really important to me, even when I was little. I’ve always felt very connected to the ritual aspect of feng shui, and it really helps me feel connected to my home.
How do we bring more ritual into our lives using feng shui? There are a lot of ways to approach this, but a great way to start is to look at what happens when you first get up in the morning, and to create a morning ritual that really supports you.
I’ve been reading The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chodron, and I really love what she says about ritual. She writes, “Ritual is about joining vision and practicality, heaven and earth, samsara and nirvana.” How can you join vision and practicality in your home? How can you join heaven and earth? In feng shui, heaven is the ceiling and earth is the floor. Earth is always there to ground you, and heaven represents guiding principles, spaciousness, and openness.
For instance, I wake up to an alarm clock that emulates sunrise and sounds like birds chirping, and then I do my beauty rituals. Your ritual could be preparing a cup of tea or coffee, or making your bed. Whatever your chosen ritual, having that daily structure in your home gives you a sense of sacredness in your daily life. Feng shui is mindfulness for your home. It’s about paying attention to all the details in your environment, and noticing how your space affects you and how you affect your space. When we’re aware of this, we start to see that we’re not separate from our environment.
Morning rituals can look different for each person. If you’re not sure what to incorporate into your ritual, I would suggest looking at which of the five elements is most supportive for you. You can take my quiz here to find that out. For me, water is really nourishing, so part of my morning ritual is going to the East River and sitting in meditation by the water. Other ways to connect to the water element in the morning are to take a shower, drink a big glass of water, or listen to water sounds when you first get out of bed.
If wood is really nourishing for you, you could make sure one of the first things you see when you wake up is connected to the wood element, like a houseplant or something green or blue. If you’re fed by fire, you could sit in a room with a lot of sunlight first thing in the morning, or turn on the stove to make a cup of tea. To connect to earth in the morning, make sure the first thing you see when you wake up is brown, or sleep in earthy colored sheets. If metal is most supportive for you, try sleeping in a white room or in white sheets, so that’s what you see in the morning.
Thanks again for your question, I hope that helps!
by Anjie Cho
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