Invite Positive Chi with the Right Balance of Wood and Water

Water and wood are two of the five essential elements of feng-shui; the others are metal, fire, and earth. You must maintain a balance among the five elements within your home and garden in order to keep chi positive; any upset in the five-way balance can attract negative chi. The negative side of the relationship is much like the children’s game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, in that each element dominates another: water consumes fire, fire destroys metal, metal cuts wood, etc. The all-important positive side manifests itself in the good of the elements’ coming together in absolute harmony: water feeds plants that produce wood, fire burns wood to produce ash that also nourishes the wood-bearing plants, and fire in the form of sunlight provides life not only to those plants but everything. But if there’s too much sun, water will protect the living things from drying out.

Add An Indoor Fountain

If there’s space available in your home, atop of your wood entertainment center, you can put a small indoor fountain there as a way of drawing chi into the room. Just be sure to put something beneath the fountain to protect the wood from potential damage from the water.  A fountain with small pebbles can help set the essential balance between yin and yang. How does this work? Water (from the fountain) and wood (from the furniture) are seemingly very positive when paired, but think about what happens when plants get too much water. They rot instead of growing. Therefore you’ll need some of the earth element (rock) to come between water and wood to provide balance. Use some other available surface area on or beside your furniture to display a pretty, Asian-style vase or bowl, and keep it empty so that it can hold the chi in the room.

Building An Outdoor Fountain

Water must flow in order to attract chi, and if you aren’t fortunate enough to have a naturally occurring water feature on or next to your property, you can achieve this by installing a garden fountain. Many styles and sizes of fountains are available online, but if you are just a little bit handy and want to flaunt your creativity, you can build your own outdoor fountain in just a few hours. The plan we’ll show here makes it quite simple by using a metal urn as the basis. Not only is the metal easy to work with, but it also supplies one of the essential elements of feng shui. The water element flows through the metal fountain as the fire element, the sun, shines on the garden, which gives life to the garden plants (wood) growing in the earth. This happy balance creates an even flow of positive chi, which you can draw into your home by arranging more representations of the five elements among the furnishings.

You will need:

• a large urn or decorative receptacle, preferably in an Asian style (metal and resin planters work well); note that if the receptacle does not have a drainage hole you will have to drill one for the plastic tubing, so choose a material you are able to drill

• a small water pump (available from big-box stores or garden centers that sell outdoor fountain supplies)

• plastic or rubber tubing to fit pump

• a plastic basin with a capacity about equivalent to the urn’s (you can cut down a plastic trash can for this purpose) and sufficient height to accommodate the pump; it must also be sized with a circumference 3 to 6 inches larger than that of the urn

• plastic or metal grating sized larger than the receptacle’s opening

• medium-sized, decorative stones (any size larger than the grate’s openings)

• a drill with proper bits for the urn’s material

1)      Select a site for your fountain that is convenient to an electrical outlet and in line with the ideal flow of chi (aim for a curving path into your home).

2)      Dig a hole large enough for the plastic basin at a depth that will allow the urn to sit at the desired height. Set the basin inside the hole and install the pump in the basin.

3)      Drill a hole in the center of the urn or planter’s bottom (or enlarge existing hole, if necessary) so that the tubing will fit through. Cut the tubing to the desired length: longer for a high fountain and shorter for a quieter, softly flowing fountain. If you’re not sure, use a length that reaches to just below the rim of the urn. You can then adjust the flow by changing the intensity setting on the pump.

4)      Place the grate over the pump and set the urn on top of the grate. Fill the urn and receptacle with water and spreading the decorative stones over the grate to conceal it.

Now you’re ready to enjoy the soothing sight and sound of your new fountain’s cascading water. Pull up a comfortable patio chair and turn on the pump. Add design accents—statuary, flowering plants, low fencing—according to your preferences, keeping in mind the five elements of feng shui. Do the same along an undulating pathway (actual or theoretical) into your home and to your media room, where your wood media TV furniture, water, and metal elements within your décor will maintain the crucial balance of chi.

Debbie Bello is the publisher of TVRoomStands.comwho is well versed in the area of television furnishings and corner media stands while helping others select the pieces that best suit their lifestyle.