an interview with feng shui master Kate MacKinnon
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As we explore feng shui and how to work with it in your home, it seems to be a good time to work with your “career area”. In the bagua, this area is located is on the lower center area as you walk in your home. If it turns out that your home or your apartment is square in floorplan and fits easily into the bagua diagram below, the “career area” is in the center lower area as you walk in your home. For those of you who live in a traditional colonial home, that will be right as you walk in your front door with the living room to the right and the dining room on the left, that small entry way/vestibule/foyer is your “career area”. For those of us who live in a city, that is not what happens, often we open our door either to a narrow hallway. In my case, we enter into the “mentor corner” and my entire career area was missing. So Kate has helped me with feng shui cures to create the area in my home that was energetically missing.
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In the ideal situation, your career area is a generous foyer/entry way allows the chi – the life force, as known in Chinese culture, into your home. The idea is to do everything possible to welcome this energy into your home with ease and grace. Traditional, the color of that area is dark blue to black, like water – the element associated with this area. The color can be used as painting a wall, or in accents or the actual element of water – a fountain or a fishbowl or tank. These elements, a fountain, are “active water”, bringing good energy, money and abundance to your home. Additionally this is a great spot to have bookshelves in your career area, books about your career, your aspirations, your passions, etc.
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In my case, Kate needed to energize the “career area” because that area was missing because you enter my home through a slender corridor. Her recommendations were to place mirrors the entry foyer. In addition, I installed bookshelves in the niche in my entryway, which were perfect in the “career area”. So after a bit of ruminating and pushing and pulling with Kate about the placement of these mirrors – she really wanted the whole place plastered with mirror and I just couldn’t walk into my home and into one of those 70’s discos, I mean who wants a mirrored ball in the foyer – ok, so Hugh Hefner would be ok with it, just not for me. We came up with a solution, to mirror the three sides of the bookshelf alcove and add a slender frame to accent the architecture of the space. On the wall facing the alcove will be a large mirror with a floating photograph in the center of a library that I particularly love.
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In your home, if you have the “skinny hall” version of an entry foyer, Kate recommends mirroring as much of the walls as you can stand and there are many way to achieve this. This is to allow for the expansion of the energy, bringing you abundance in your career. If you have the career area of your home and it is not your entryway, reference the Bagua chart above, then this is a good spot for your home office/desk area.
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This same position for your career area of your home, is also the location of the career area in room, however Kate made a point to say that she often does not emphasize the career area of each room, often only focusing on the entry way, the living room and the home office. Since you really don’t want to have a fish tank as you enter each room, Kate recommends that the career area of your living room or office is a good spot to have a fountain, bookshelf, a painting of moving water or a if you are doing painted accent walls then this is where you might want a dark blue wall or painting with deep blues and blacks.
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Interesting footnote, when you sit at your desk, you are sitting in the career area of your desk. So use a beautiful, comfortable chair.
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If you have any questions, please post them to blog and Kate will answer them.
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dale b. cohen
posted from Eilat, Israel
A Bachelor's Decorated Life 