“In its highest and purest form, good feng shui signifies perfect alignment between inner and outer worlds.”
– Lada Ray

Feng Shui – The Art of Placement for Magic: Before considering how magic works cooperatively with Feng Shui, it helps to understand the basics of this system. Once you’re over that hump, it becomes much easier to adapt and apply it to both mundane and spiritual pursuits. Since Feng Shui is as much a way of perceiving things as it is a method, it encourages a balance between our daily life and our soulful adventures. Asian Witches have a head start on this!

Feng Shui History

Let’s start at the beginning-some 4,000 years ago in China. Here, the Art of placement began as a system to inspire the best flow of energy (chi) for homes, buildings, and sacred spaces. In more modern sense, people were trying to manifest good vibrations that, in turn, encouraged long life, joy, prosperity, peace, and all those blessings for which human beings strive.

To accomplish that lofty goal, Feng Shui practitioners look at a region or space assessing where energy might be blocked. They divide any building or landscape into eight segments, based on the cardinal directions. Each of those eight points governs specific and unique types of energy. In turn, the chi influences what’s going on in that space energetically.

To Illustrate: suppose your bathroom sits due north in your home. North governs careers. If your job has “gone down the toilet,” all of a sudden, the reason for it becomes clear from a spiritual perspective: the chi for your profession is being blocked or misdirected and needs to be remedied. Now most of us can’t just blithely move a bathroom! Instead, following Feng Shui guidelines, fixing this can relatively easy. For this purpose, adding the colors of black or blue to this room and hanging a mirror over the toilet keep the positive energy from flowing down the drain.

Feng Shui Directions and Correspondences

When you are working with Feng Shui, you can think of the directions and associations similarly to those Wiccans, and Witches use for designating sacred space. You will need this information if you’re utilizing Feng Shui in any of your magical pursuits from where to place an energized crystal to finding the right spot for weaving a spell.

These are the directions in the feng shui circle and their basic correspondences:

• North: The financial region rules how successful you are in your chosen career as well as how you handle balancing work against your home life. This region contains strong nurturing energies. Colors: black and blue. Element: water.
• Northeast: The Northeast rules over the conscious mind, theory, education, and learning new skills, including spiritual ones. Colors: yellow and brown. Element: earth.
• East: As in Wicca, the East is the region of beginnings and inception. The energy of this direction fosters kinship, steady personal growth, well-being, and improved vitality. Colors: pale blue and yellow-green. Element: wood.
• Southeast: This is where your abundance, comfort, and blessings lie along with your creative energy. This is an excellent region in which an artist should consider having a workstation. Colors: dark green and dark blue. Element: wood.
• South: This direction contains all the power of Fire, specifically the yang aspect, which controls your honor, courage, self-control, and the way in which others perceive you. Colors: vibrant red and purple. Element: fire.
• Southwest: This region rules over your luck, empathy, and relationships (specifically the peace and joy you achieve in personal interactions). Colors: rich brown and bright yellow. Element: earth
• West: If you have children or pets (or anything you treat as a child, including pet projects), this region governs their fortune and future. Colors: white, gold, and silver. Element: metal.

Although this list is simplified, it’s a great place to start.

Adding Color to Your Feng Shui Efforts

If you wish, you can bring specially chosen candles into your Feng Shui magic using the Eastern correspondences for their hues. Since we’re working with Feng Shui, an Eastern methodology, the overall sympathy between your components and tools strengthens by sticking to one cultural system as opposed to mixing and matching. Here’s a brief list of Eastern color correspondences:

Black: Constructs, foundation, karmic law, and deep understanding.
Blue: Inventiveness, joy, inner beauty, wealth, kindness.
Gold: Health, prosperity, power, universal wisdom.
Green: Choices, determination, abundance, organization, health, sound advice, steady changes.
Indigo: Ancestors, divinatory awareness, honoring customs, truth, discipline, honesty.
Orange: Respect, safety, courage, certainty, wisdom, gentility, structure.
Purple: Inner peace, spiritual connectedness, fulfillment, authority, and amity.
Red: Passion, joy, love, ingenuity, spirit of adventure, overall energy, or motion.
Yellow: Stability, wishes, astuteness, sophistication, culture, friendship, safety from spiritual entities.
White: The soul, past lives, physical chi (yours), vanquishing darkness, journeys, youth. White is the Switzerland of colors: it’s wholly neutral, even as it is in Wicca. The center of a room or any space is likewise neutral. So, mingling chi energies into your magick, white makes sense for the central candle on your altar.

Feng Shui and the Elements: It’s Elementary

In the correspondence list of the eight cardinal directions for Feng shui included the respective elemental associations. Since these elements are a little different than those of Western magick, let’s explore them in greater detail:

• Wood: Wood is the originator of the five-element cycle. It offers new life, creativity, socialization, and community-oriented energy. However, living wood is far better than processed wood for encouraging that energy. If having a living shrub or something else with a woody stem is not possible, substitute the color green. The Wood element is particularly helpful in magic for overcoming anger and stress or for building strong partnerships and relationships. Wood’s shape is tall, rectangular, or oblong. Water is the best companion element for Wood (as a source of nourishment).
• Fire: Fire is the ultimate yang (masculine nature) of Feng Shui. It’s full of heat, happiness, cheer, enthusiasm, and activity. Some good options for improving the Fire energy in your living space include using red-colored light bulbs, sheer red window shades, or a red lampshade. Alternatively, a brazier for incense also works. Be careful, however, as too much Fire leads to “burning out.” The shapes for Fire include anything triangular, pointed, diamond-shaped, or zigzag. Fire balances out too much Wood energy and may excite or evaporate Water energy.
• Earth: Earth has foundational, stabilizing, and nurturing qualities. It also represents the mountains, so many Feng shui experts recommend rocks or boulders for balancing out this element. Alternatively, clay statuary and potted plants suffice. Spiritually, Earth grounds out worry or angst and seems particularly helpful for restless teenagers. Earth’s shape is the square. Earth gives Wood strong roots and accepts the energies of Water fairly well so long as it doesn’t flood.
• Metal: Metal rules over businesses and personal success. It also seems particularly helpful for those trying to overcome sadness or grief. To bring more metal into your home, choose bronze or brass wall hangings and don’t forget your silverware. Metal is circular or oval and compensates when there’s too much Earth or Fire.
• Water: Water relates to travel, communication, learning, and the arts. It also clarifies situations, washes away fear and acts as a powerful protective force. Use simple fountains (metal or glass) and fish tanks as a means of increasing this element in your living space. Water has no defined shape. Too much Earth cancels out Water.

As with all other parts of Feng Shui, balance, symmetry, and beauty among these elements are what bring about the best flow of chi.

Feng Shui Timing

Going one step further, Feng Shui matches various hours of the day to specific elements in much the same way Witches pair Zodiac signs with specific elements. Having this information may give you more ideas on when to enact a specific spell, charm, or ritual to which you’ve added other Feng Shui concepts:

Wood: 6 A.M. to 12 noon
Water: 12 midnight to 3 A.M.
Metal: 6 P.M. to 12 midnight
Earth: 3 A.M. to 6 A.M.; 9 P.M. to 12 midnight
Fire: 12 noon to 3 P.M.

Mirrors in Feng Shui

Feng Shui practitioners commonly use mirrors as effective tools for directing energy. In fact, they are perhaps as important to Feng Shui as the pentagram symbol is for Witches. The use of mirrors appeared in China as early as 500 B.C.E., when people attached them clothing as amulets against evil influences. This concept works perfectly well today. You are reflecting away negativity.

Mirrors became gifts to promote marital happiness. They were buried with the dead with suitable magickal formulas recited for a peaceful spirit. Generally speaking the magic mirror bore symbolic values of consciousness, awareness, the water element, connection between past and present, and the moon. Round represented the heavens and thus promote blessings. Throughout the Eastern world, different mirrors have different applications, and most have a story behind them.

Origin of the Sun-Moon Mirror

A story dating back to the Ton Dynasty begins with a Chinese princess, Wen married to Tibetan prince. When Wen went to live in Tibet with her new husband, her father gave her various treasures as a dowry, including a magickal mirror. This mirror was beautiful, fashioned of two copper disks separated by a wooden frame and bearing a handle. Whenever the princess missed home, she could look into the mirror and saw all the people and places for which she longed.

Her traveling companion to Tibet was an ambassador who knew of the magick mirror. His mission was ensuring that the marriage went off flawlessly. Worrying that Wen might become too homesick from using the mirror, he snuck the precious item away and replaced it with an ordinary one. Of course, the first time Wen tried to use the mirror it did not work. She became enraged, throwing the mirror at a mountain, where it split in two. One disk was exposed to moonlight, the other to sunlight. Two pagodas were built there in memory of the event.

With a heavy heart, the princess continued to Tibet. The marriage went well, and she was able to share her Chinese culture, including Tantric Buddhism, which remains with the Tibetan people. Commemorating this story, sun-moon mirrors continue as part of wish magic and for keeping peaceful relations between people.

Making Your Sun-Moon Mirror

The process of making the Sun-Moon mirror traditionally took twenty-seven days before being blessed at a Shrine. A less time-consuming approach for making a similar charm begins with two small round mirrors (the same size). Glue the backs of the mirrors together. Add a semi-see-through coating of gold gloss on one side, and silver on the other. Charge this by putting the gold side up at the hour of noon outside, and the silver side under the light of a full moon. Bless it in any way suitable to your magical path.

Mind you, the sun-moon mirror is only one of several used in Feng Shui.

BaGua Mirrors

Another common mirror is called the BaGua, and it attracts good fortune. There are actually three types of BaGua. The first is made of wood fashioned into an octagon four to six inches in diameter. The center of the octagon houses a two-inch mirror. The maker paints the exterior of the mirror in green, red, and gold, representing creativity, vitality, growth, productivity, and success.

The second BaGua mirror has a basic six-inch wooden frame holding an octagonal mirror. Plate glass painted with the yin-yang symbol covers the mirror. Typically, the border around the yin-yang sign bears four colors-blue, green, red, and yellow. This design brings harmony to a room or a whole house.

The third BaGua mirror is made of wood that bears the scene of a God riding a tiger. This god holds a staff, keeping evil energies away and a plaque that declares good luck for all who abide in the home. Placing this mirror near doors keeps away unwanted guests, but they do not face outward, or the positive chi would simply be reflected away.

You can adapt any of these designs with the right shaped mirror and paints. Choose one according to your goal, then add it to your sacred space of home. These really have to restrictions other than avoiding putting them under staircases.

Location in Feng Shui

Feng Shui experts often call mirrors the “aspirin” of this philosophy−they seem to be able to help nearly any imbalanced energy. Can you imagine calling your high priest or priestess and being told, “Take two mirrors and call me in the morning?” Well, in many cases, that’s close to what Feng Shui prescribes except the aspirin here is where you put your mirror.

Best Locations for Magic Mirrors in Feng Shui

Here are just a few suggestions for placing your blessed and charged magical mirrors properly. The goal is generating protection, peace, and good fortune in and around a room, home, or magic space.

1. Place a mirror near the center of a room, building, or altar to improve peace and good luck. Hang a mirror over a doorway to bless those who enter and deter negativity (this might also be nice for the entryway of a Sacred Circle).

2. Turn a mirror so it faces toward a source of negativity, so it stays away. In the Sacred Space, one might turn four mirrors (in the four directions) outward as a means of protection.

3. Avoid placing mirrors so you can see yourself in bed (it’s thought unhealthy for the soul). This is especially important for people who have trouble sleeping or those just starting relationships. Instead, put the mirror behind the headboard where it improves your rest but helps with struggling relationships.

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4. Place a mirror in a baby’s play area. This expands awareness and increases personal development.

5. Position mirrors in front of you, especially when your back must be positioned toward a door. This allows you to monitor the energy of each person who comes into your space. However, avoid having a mirror directly face the front door of an establishment, as it will reflect positive chi outward each time the door opens (kind of like a leaky faucet).

6. Place four mirrors on the inside walls of your garage and make sure the space is free of clutter. This leaves road rage in the garage instead of taking that stress outside.

7. Put four mirrors on the inside walls of sheds or other areas that have clutter. This keeps the chaotic energy of clutter away from your living space.

8. In attics, mirrors should reside on the floor facing upward (take care no one steps on them), and for cellars put mirrors on the ceiling facing downward. This is doubly helpful if you feel either space is haunted by ghosts.

9. Position one small mirror above the inside of your closet door facing into the closet. As with other cluttered areas, this keeps unwanted energy neatly inside and blesses your wardrobe. If you wish, hang a bundle of specially empowered herbs from the mirror for a personalized touch of aromatherapy.

10. If you have trouble in a particular area of your house, such as a bedroom in the North and difficulties with your budget, put a mirror in that area, facing out of the room so that chi reaches you more effectively.

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11. If you cannot work your magick in the most propitious room of the house for the need at hand, place a mirror directed toward the area where you are able to work to take advantage of that extra energy.

12. Stagger mirrors along long corridors or narrow halls, but don’t have them facing each other. This makes the area feel wider and brighter and improves the flow of chi.

13. Place a mirror on any door or window that is never opened. This keeps chi flowing freely.

14. Putting a mirror in a place where it reflects the stove and its burners bring prosperity and long life.

15. Keep your mirrors and windows clean as you might any other magical tool. This improves daylight in your home up to 30 percent. Metaphysically speaking, this also makes for a clear implement through which energy can flow unhindered.

Feng Shui Results and Expectations

Because Feng Shui is a relatively new concept to most Westerners, expectations remain uncertain for a process that is both a philosophy and a methodology. The best advice is simply to focus on your goals. Trust fully in what you’re doing. In both magick and Feng Shui, faith combined with mindful action makes a powerful partnership.

Feng Shui encourages a thoughtful, mindful approach to our living and working environments. Many of us spend eight or more hours daily in unhealthy spaces. Feng Shui redirects our focus to those spaces and asks, “How can I fix it?”

Just like other metaphysical practices, Feng Shui cannot wholly remedy those things that have been out of balance our entire lives, at least not quickly. This isn’t a shake-and-bake, drive-through form of spirituality. The more time and effort you give to it, the more it returns like for like. The harmony achieved by using Feng Shui combined with magick is quite beautiful without stepping all over proverbial metaphysical toes. Could you learn more about Feng Shui before using it? Absolutely! Just know that there is a ton of information. Narrow down your area of interest as it blends with the goals of your spells, rituals, etc.

Let’s put it all in place!

Adapted from a “Little Book of Mirror Magic,” by Patricia Telesco. All rights reserved.