Empowering the “Goldilocks Species”

Instead of making another New Year’s resolution to change your life, why not give yourself the power to make the change? Terah Kathryn Collins, founder of the Western School of Feng Shui, sees the ancient oriental art of Feng Shui as one of the best ways to give you that power.

But check all those “chi” clichés, indoor fountains and wind chimes at the door. For Collins, the power of Feng Shui can be invoked by anything from a bouquet of flowers in a hotel room to the U.S.S. Enterprise ™ in the boardroom.

Crescent Blues: For our readers who may not be familiar with the term, tell us a little bit about Feng Shui.

Terah Kathryn Collins: I define it as the study of how to arrange your environment to enhance the quality of your life.

“Feng Shui” literally means “wind/water.” The whole philosophy behind Feng Shui is how the seen and the unseen — the wind and water — interact and become each other. It’s a whole yin/yang, seen/unseen play between the polarities of our universe.

Feng Shui sees the environment as a display of a person’s consciousness. And our consciousness is affected by our environment. It’s the play between the unseen of our inner world and seen of our environment. One becomes the other.

It sounds as if the Feng Shui you practice is very individualized. Are there any absolutes?

There are absolutes, like no one can stand up straight if the ceiling is four feet off the floor. Most of the time, the absolutes have to do with extremes.

Feng Shui is a study of how humans beings interact with their environment. Not polar bears or lizards; you would have a whole diffierent Feng Shui for them. I call human beings the “Goldilocks species.” We like things not too high, not too low, not too hot, not too cold — not too anything. We have this comfort zone, and we know when we’re in the presence of this comfort zone. It’s not too big, and there are certain things we need to survive. We’re always looking for that.

For example, people love the ocean. People will spend zillions of dollars to be by the ocean. So they think if it’s fun to be by the ocean wouldn’t it be fun to live by the ocean. But Feng Shui points out that although we love to experience extremes — go skiing, walk close to a volcano, go to the tropics — we only want to do it for a little while. Then we want to return to the comfort zone.

In Southern California, so many people have all moved to the cliffs, where their houses fall into the ocean, or where there is an extreme view. Their houses are hanging like eagles’ nests off the edge of the cliffs to obtain these extreme views. But being in an extreme environment day after day will begin to show up in their lives and will create extreme symptoms. Environment is a display of consciousness. If my environment is the side of a cliff, it will affect my whole consciousness.

It’s important to look at your own personal comfort zone, then.

Yes. I practice very personal Feng Shui. What works for you is not necessarily what works for me. For me to walk in and tell you that you need four mirrors before I even find out if you like mirrors is inappropriate. Or [telling you to use] fresh plants if you have a black thumb. All that has to be considered on a very personal level.

Could you explain the concept of “chi” as it pertains to Feng Shui?

“Chi” is defined as the vital energy that is in everyone and everything. It’s looked on as the life force that animates everything from our rugs to our couches to our art to our pets, our computers, our cars, and ourselves.

There’s no distinction made between my computer and me, both molecularly and in our association and thoughts and memories. Chi is in everything. It is alive with our impressions. Understanding that leads to a huge, incredible, lifestyle change about living exclusively with what brings about positive impressions.

That’s our power point, and that’s why Feng Shui is as popular as it is today. Today’s trend in spiritual growth and development is to be personally empowered. For that, our environment can be like our game board. If I want my consciousness to be full of happiness and prosperity and abundant thoughts, why not have my environment completely display and feed back to me those impressions?

And for you that [positive environment] would be different than mine. Look in any New Age store and you see lots of things many people like — rainbows, angels, polished stones. But what do you, Donna, like. That’s one of the most interesting aspects of Feng Shui — pulling the most personal things out.

Then the personal things that have power don’t have to be traditional Feng Shui objects?

Absolutely not! I’ll give you an example: this couple who owned a company were having trouble with their financial officer. He had taken more control than he should have. They were feeling like their power had been usurped, and they were trying to rebalance the power play.

I asked them what was a personal symbol of their power, what they felt identified them as a couple, because we needed to put a symbol nearer this man. We needed to give him the idea that they were near and watching him. I said think about what identifies you as a couple, your interests.

The guy just lit up. “The U.S.S…Enterprise!” They had a model of it home. The couple hung the model so it looked into an interior window that looked into the financial officer’s office. It completely shifted the power play. In this case, good Feng Shui is using an environmental enhancement to shift the energy

And a very nontraditional one!

Yes. And when the financial officer looked at the model, he got it. He knew enough about his bosses to know they were Trekkies — and he wasn’t. He resigned a month later.

We see this in Feng Shui all the time; when we get the environment to reflect who we are and what we do, it completes the cycle of manifestation. We have all our hopes, our dreams inside in that unseen place. When we bring that out, place a symbol of our hopes and dreams in a visible place, it creates the cycle of manifestation.

What would you say is the most common Feng Shui problem in most American homes?

Being completely overwhelmed with physical possessions. We can have as many possessions as we can take good care of and give a home.

My mother-in-law has a million possessions. She was an antique dealer for fifty years and has all these beautiful antiques. She spends all day taking care of them, and she loves them. That’s all right. It’s not about everybody going Zen, but about taking responsibility for our possessions.

If we have stuff that has just been smashed into closets indiscriminately, it’s a statement about how we run our lives. A closet is a perfect demonstration of that. People can see their consciousness displayed across their living rooms, dining rooms and closets.

Feng Shui is all about honoring ourselves. We honor our neighbors, we honor every possession, and we do that by being kind and living out the idea that everything in our environment is a manifestation of our consciousness. So how do we want that to be? If you need to have five hundred pairs of shoes, that’s fine. Just make sure those five hundred pairs have a home, that they are supporting your life, and that they are loved.

I love the idea so many Americans have that possessions mate in the night — where you only had one blender, and all of a sudden you have five. One of them needs a new blade, one of them has one button that doesn’t work. We have this problem continually in our materially oriented culture. The problem of managing our stuff is never over — just have a birthday and stuff comes pouring in the door.

It sounds as if one unique thing about your view about Feng Shui is your emphasis on the practical.

Yes, it’s practical and it’s been honed from many kinds of Feng Shui. Most people in our culture respond more to the practical than the transcendental kind of Feng Shui.

How would someone interested in Feng Shui go about finding the right practitioner?

The part of Feng Shui that I feel is really important in our culture — besides personalizing it and empowering the client — is to concentrate on the practical aspects. A person can understand that they need to turn their desk around so they’re not jumping all day. “Oh, yes, that’s good sense. That’s practical. I can do that. I can get behind that, or maybe I need to change my art to support or inspire me every day rather than to depress me every day.”

There’s tons of those kind of things. That’s the form of Feng Shui I like to practice, rather than concentrating on transcendental cures. The school that I have started trains people in that [practical] form. We keep a list of the folks who graduate, and our administrative office uses the list to refer people who call seeking a Feng Shui practitioner.

In addition to your school, you also write about Feng Shui. Your first book, The Western Guide to Feng Shui, is still in print, and you have a new book coming out soon.

Yes, It’s going to be fun to see it again, I haven’t seen it since the end of June. I waved goodbye to it, and it’s like a child that went off to college or something.

You mean you didn’t have to see five million drafts of it? I’m in the book production process myself, and I got tired of proofing things.

You know, I did get sick-to-life with it. I feel almost like I’m blind to my own work because I’ve seen it too much.

I consider that the point where it’s grown up, and you need to let it take flight.

This book’s called Home Design with Feng Shui A to Z, and it’s kind of a real bottom-line little book. I think it’s going to be a great book for our culture because, if you just want to do the bedroom, you’ve just got the bedroom stuff to look at — the linens, and the way that the bed’s in the room and what other furniture you have going on in there. How would you do it if you’re a single woman or a single man, etc. That book’s going to be out in mid-January.

From talking to you, though, I gather the most important thing is personal comfort. If you feel comfortable with a Feng Shui practitioner, that might be the person for you.

Absolutely. However, there are people who want to have a lot of ritual and a lot more transcendental work done. There are people that want to have their astrology and their birth date taken into consideration and have the compass done.

I personally find that the compass school of Feng Shui is tough in this country because everybody’s houses fail miserably. It’s sad. I practiced it to begin with and …I just couldn’t stand it. Because I like to be full of good news and empowering possibilities rather than “Oh, my God, your Five Ghosts is in the middle of your master bedroom; you’re going to have to move.” And [the customers are] looking at me like, “What are you, nuts?”

Besides, no one in this country knows the directions unless they happen to live in a state like Kansas where they pay attention to these things.

Right.

Having family from Kansas, they all talk about the north corner of the house, and no one else knows what the north corner of the house is.

Why do they know?

Because everything in Kansas is laid out in absolute squares from the homesteading days. I have relatives from Kansas who say, “You take the diagonal road,” because it’s the only one in miles that is diagonal.

When my father, who is originally from Kansas, comes back from visiting his Kansas relatives, he’ll tell my mother, “When dinner’s ready, call me. I’ll be in the north corner of the yard.” And she says, “You’d better tell me whether that’s the front or the back. Or you won’t have dinner.”

It’s not something anyone on the East or West Coast ever thinks about, and yet that’s how the homesteads were laid out. Not very organic, but it’s just how it happened. And when the federal government comes through and builds a diagonal road, I think it’s distressing to a Kansan’s sense of order.

I guess so. I think of all the times I’ve flown over that area, looking down on the quilt.

It’s beautiful from the air.

It is beautiful. It’s absolutely striking. The amazing ability that we have to establish order — and then you get into people’s garages…

Another practical thing that I ask people to do is to really organize their stuff. I feel organization is an important thing for people to consider. When our stuff is organized, we can tap our creativity easily. We all know this.

If I go into my [home] office, and it’s a mass of papers and open books and gift wrap and the kids’ toys and God knows what else, there’s no way I could sit down and write clearly in a place like that. The confusion in the room creates confusion in my mind.

And the same thing in the kitchen. Say we went and we made a beautiful meal, and we create chaos in the meantime, and we never clean up. What I see with all the folks I’ve worked with is that most people live in chronic chaos. They have very few creative endeavors in their lives; they’ve become almost like little robots.

All their energy goes to dealing with the chaos instead of dealing with creativity.

Right. They keep getting sucked into the black holes of their own chaos. And it gets overwhelming. It gets really challenging to deal with so much chaos for some people. And so their creative spark is just buried.

So the first thing someone should do is to start organizing.

Actually a lot of the time a Feng Shui practitioner will say, “I’ll be back in a month, and here’s your homework.”

Oh dear! Clean those closets! Get rid of half of those papers!

Yes. And it is very comic. The house looks gorgeous. You walk in and it’s vacuumed, dusted, beautiful tchotchkes. But open any closet in the house…

And it’s a deathtrap.

And what’s so funny is to watch the face. Because I’ll say, “OK, great, look all the seats in this room have a view of the door, beautiful colors, very warm, welcoming, comfortable. Do you mind if I look in this closet?”

“What! You have to look in the closet?” I had one lady throw herself against her garage door. “No! I didn’t know you needed to go into the garage!” It’s part of your house.

Essentially, there is no such thing as offstage when it comes to Feng Shui.

There’s no place to hide with Feng Shui. I mean, no place. Even the yard. There are houses that are neat as a pin on the inside, but you get outside, and there are all these homeless beings camped out all around the periphery of the house. You’ve got the dead lumber pile, and the empty pots from years of potting things that have been thrown in the corner.

And the plants that have died and are just sitting there waiting for decent burial.

Right. If you’re in the country you’ve got the old sheds and the dead cars, and you name it. And it all counts.

What if you’re living in an apartment or a town home community where your ability to independently improve your surroundings is limited? For example, if you live in an apartment that has an ugly hallway.

I like to ask people to start with their point of power or place of power. Be where your power is.

If someone takes on their apartment — if it is really a place that is not working well for them — when they Feng Shui their apartment, the chi will change. More times than not, they’ll move. It’ll just happen. “Ring, ring” goes the telephone. “I know you were looking for a two bedroom two years ago…” All kinds of things like that happen for people.

So change what you have control over and trust that the rest will take care of itself.

Exactly.

Don’t sweat the fact that the hallway is ugly.

Right. Just go for it, knowing that you have to pass through this less than excellent state, but remember you’re moving toward excellence. You are moving towards a space that you have claimed in full.

A lot of people live in “temporary quarters.” They’ve rented an apartment, but they think that someday they’re going to buy a house. There’s a big thing about if I’m renting a space it doesn’t count, but if I buy it, it counts.

Not true.

No! I tell people we’re all renting. Whether you think you own it or not, you’re renting it, honey. This whole thing about ownership!

Of course, someone who’s renting may choose to handle the Feng Shui of their house differently than someone who owns it. But the point is to address whatever problems the structure has in a way that helps or balances it. So somebody who’s renting may buy a shoji screen or some kind of screen to hide an eyesore, whereas somebody who owns a place might do something much more structural.

Accepting temporary inconveniences is a bad sign, then. It could turn into not-so-temporary; you never can tell.

That’s the whole point! If somebody lives with ugliness and discomfort and unsafety or whatever and says, “Oh, well, this doesn’t matter,” the chi stops moving them forward and no longer helps them progress in life.

This whole thing of waiting for the ideal before you do anything is a mistake. Earlier, you asked a question about traveling. I travel with my own little Feng Shui travel kit. Are you kidding? I have been in some godawful hotel rooms, as anybody has.

So it’s valuable to do something, even if you are temporarily in an unpleasant environment.

Absolutely. I’ve just gotten ridiculous with it. For instance, when I travel or my husband travels, we always send each other flowers. No matter where we’re going. Because just an arrangement of flowers in an otherwise yucko room is going to bring new chi into the room.

It brings in something natural and alive.

Yes, and I take my candles and incense. You know how some hotel rooms smell. And a photograph that I really love of my husband and myself — things that make me feel good when I look at them. And I will make a little arrangement so that I have a place to cast my eye that feeds me.

That makes a lot of sense. I once checked out of a hotel just because for some reason I felt unsafe. I felt completely threatened there. No rational reason for it, I just didn’t like the place.

I love it. Clearly you are so in sync with all of this. In a paper I wrote recently, I went into this whole long song and dance about how to deal with a hotel where you make an outrageous request — and I make outrageous requests all the time. You have to be willing to hear “no.” I don’t want to be a Feng Shui brat. And there are Feng Shui brats: “Oh! This room! There’s nothing about this room that works! It’s just a disgusting room!”

At three in the morning they wake the people below them by moving the furniture.

Right! Another thing almost always I do, by the way, is move at least one piece of furniture. Because it helps to move the chi in the room. It’s been sitting in the same place for a long time.

But I’ll also make an outrageous request. I recently did this in a big hotel. They gave me a room with a terrible view. I called them and said, “I’m so disappointed; I would just love to have a better view.” Next thing I know I’m on the top floor with a mountain view. And I thought, that’s great. I was willing to hear “no” if they had no other rooms. I could deal with that, but at least I tried. Most of the time I meet with great success.

It sounds as if just being aware of your surroundings in a positive way and going with your instincts are the keys.

Yes, I’ve been known to go out and pick weeds off the side of the highway just to bring something green into the room. But that’s about the time that I realized, “Oh, time to start sending flowers.”

That’s an excellent idea, yes.

So even in temporary quarters — no matter how temporary they are — our chi is being fed by our environment. Our inner space is being fed by our outer space — or not — all the time. So I sit in an airport and try to find someplace to look.

It makes a difference even in the short term.

Absolutely.

Is there one final thought you’d like to leave our readers — one thing that everyone should consider doing?

Feng Shui is really the process of honoring ourselves. It’s waking up to the idea that we deserve to live in a personal paradise. I say personal paradise because my paradise will look different than yours or anybody else’s. It’s our birthright, in my opinion.

It doesn’t matter whether we have a lot of money or not, because even people who don’t have a lot of money can bring things into their environment that feed their spirit every day. It can be as simple as the rose on the bureau, all the way up to whatever people are comfortable with and can afford.

[Feng Shui is about] honoring ourselves enough to surround ourselves with comfort, safety and beauty and creating a personal paradise. And what’ll happen is, as each and every one of us does this, it will ripple out in exquisite ways. So when I have created an environment that feels exquisite to me, when my friends come over, they feel it too. Then they go home empowered to do the same thing for themselves. And the process continues until the end of life, continually making more and more of a personal paradise to surround us all the time.

I like this idea.

Yes. Aspiring toward that will continually nurture and feed us.

And the fact that the search for a “perfect environment” is a journey, not a goal that we can ever expect to reach.

Right. And so we take it on. We may want to have a Feng Shui practitioner come to our homes to start us off, to get the flavor of the philosophy and the flavor of what are we doing here. Then we are set free to continue the process, with little or no guidance.

There are some people who want to have a Feng Shui practitioner every time they want to do a big thing, like add to their house. Sometimes, sure, we want to bring a professional in to help us. But on a daily basis, we are perfectly capable of creating our own personal paradise, and that’s what Feng Shui’s all about.

(Confession time: your interviewer spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out her closets. And getting rid of those depressing dead houseplants. And taking a whole trunk full of stuff to the Salvation Army. And about that desk covered with papers; OK, I’m going to get to that really soon…)

Donna Andrews