In Search of Balance and Harmony

The words mean “earth luck,” and over the last 18 months, at least half of my design-work appointments have been with people who have some concern or interest in the ancient philosophy known as feng shui. In fact, many of these (mostly upscale) customers already own books on the subject and have the expectation that I will factor feng shui principles in as I design their watershapes.

By now, most of us have at least heard of this ancient Chinese philosophy, which is often described as “the art of living in perfect balance.” If you’re like me, it’s been one of those things to which you’ve never paid too much attention in your own life. But as has been the case with other forms of Asian philosophy and spirituality, feng shui (pronounced fung shway) has gained a strong foothold in this country and among my clients in recent years – and at this point I have a sense that I need to get up to speed, sooner rather than later.

In other words, regardless of the reasons behind the trend toward feng shui, the reality is that this is something that many of my clients and potential clients here in South Florida really care about. I therefore believe it’s up to me to know more about it, too.

GARDEN PATHS

I recently attended a dinner sponsored by my local food and wine association to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We ate truly wonderful Chinese food and were treated to a presentation by author Grace Young, who, among other things, informed us that we were entering the Year of the Dragon. More helpfully, she also gave us some historical perspective on feng shui.

Although it’s been around for centuries, she said, feng shui has not been hugely influential in Asian culture. That aligned with what I’d learned in my own reading: Only the wealthiest Chinese citizens originally practiced feng shui, and its principles are mostly evident in grand ceremonial buildings such as tombs, palaces and temples.

Over time, however, the feng shui sensibility filtered down to the masses to a point where it became popular throughout China and began spreading to other parts of Asia and, eventually, the rest of the world. Whatever path it’s taken to get here, feng shui certainly has caught on in my area. We now even have a “Feng Shui Master” listed in our Yellow Pages.

Although I’m certainly no feng shui master, I do believe that the current interest in this ancient art is part of an important trend that we in the watershaping industry should strive to understand and even embrace. Put in a way that steers clear of mystical mumbo jumbo, more people than ever before are actively seeking opportunities for serenity in their busy and often noisy lives and want tranquil places in which to experience these brief respites.

In fact, many of my clients have read books on the subject and are asking me to apply feng shui principles in our projects. They want pathways through their gardens and places along the way where they can sit and read a book or practice yoga or simply relax while listening to the sound of some gently flowing water.

I’m finding more often that this “tranquility portion” of the discussion is dominating my client meetings, far more prominent now than concerns over features of their pools and spas. Taken in the broadest sense, feng shui thus offers us a design philosophy and vocabulary that gives us access to people who believe that its principles are important to the creation of these small spaces for peaceful repose.

TRINITY OF LUCK

So what exactly is feng shui?

In elementary philosophical terms, it is the third side in what is known as the “trinity of luck.” The first is considered “luck from heaven” – that is, your destiny or karma. The second is “human luck,” the kind you create as you live your life. The third is “earth luck,” or feng shui.

Earth luck relates to the flow of energy through the universe and achieving harmony and balance within that flow. The ancients used the luo pan, the original feng shui compass, to interpret this energy flow and arrange interior spaces, exteriors and entire complexes according to what they observed. Today, figures known as pakua, which look like small octagonal compasses, are used as guides to find balance and harmony in the way that objects are arranged in exterior or interior spaces.

Figuring all of this stuff out can be a bit intimidating at first. Feng shui encompasses several ancient Chinese ideas and techniques, and many of the references are both unfamiliar and a bit bizarre. For example, one of the keys is the concept of chi (a counterpart of the ki I mentioned in a previous column), which is also known as the “dragon’s cosmic breath” – a common Asian metaphor that refers to the flow of energy in the universe. Harmony with this flow is achieved by balancing the yin and the yang – a pair of common Asian philosophical terms that most people recognize even if they don’t quite know what they mean.

Yin and yang are very important in feng shui because they are believed to encompass the basic opposing forces of nature. Yin is considered female and represents things such as the moon, water, winter, valleys, streams and darkness. Yang is male and represents fire, light, heat, summer and life itself. According to feng shui philosophy, yin and yang together “constitute the eternal union of heaven and earth, which becomes the universe whose breath is chi.”

In feng shui philosophy, all things contain both yin and yang, and it is how they are balanced that matters. The practice seeks to eliminate or offset what are known as “poison arrows,” which might loosely be interpreted as sources of negative energy and are things that are sharp, straight and rigid.

In that context, a straight path leading to your front door from the street is considered a poison arrow, as are any sources of excessive noise. There are some less obvious examples, too: A mailbox pointed at your front door, for example, is considered a poison arrow.

INSTANT KARMA

Much of what I know about feng shui I learned from the book, Feng Shui for the Garden by Lillian Too. It’s widely available along with many, many others and can be found at bookstores everywhere.

As I’ve delved into it, I’ve found many useful ideas and many others that seem far less practical. What is particularly interesting and certainly has been of most use to me in working with my design clients are the ways that the art of feng shui can be used to manipulate exterior spaces. The books discuss several famous examples of buildings and spaces that are said to have either good or bad feng shui.

Buckingham Palace, for example, has very bad feng shui with all that ungainly stone and sharp masonry features – lots of poison arrows with little or no balance. It’s all rigid, sharp and devoid of life or water. On the other end of the spectrum, the Summer Palace of Peter the Great on the outskirts of St. Petersburg is surrounded by gardens with lots of beautiful winding paths and is said to exist in an excellent state of balance.

As I began looking around and trying to interpret these concepts on my own, I noticed that my own backyard includes several (unconscious) attempts to balance yin and yang.

Most dramatic have been my attempts to deaden the noise I pick up from a nearby thoroughfare. In my attempts to drown out the racket, I built a fence that was the maximum allowable height and backfilled soil to create an elevated slope up against it. This let me elevate my landscaping near the roadway and do a better job of knocking down the sound of the cars speeding by.

Little did I know, but in feng shui terms I was seeking to balance out the negative yang energy of the noisy traffic. What I’d done simply made sense as a Miami guy trying to make his backyard a more pleasant and usable extension of his interior space. What all the local buzz about feng shui has done is bring issues like this into focus and given me and my clients a vocabulary we both understand and can use to speak clearly about key design issues.

At the risk of sounding cynical, I’m happy to apply my problem-solving skills in these situations no matter what terms are used to describe what I’m doing. If those terms happen to float my clients’ boats, they work for me, too.

WET AND DRY

Of particular interest to us watershapers is that feng shui describes water as being highly beneficial when used in a balanced way. In fact, water brings good fortune when the balance between wet and dry is optimized. Doubling back to the notion of creating tranquil spaces, a small stream that meanders by a stone bench represents a nice form of balance.

With a bit of practice and application, I’m now working full speed ahead with feng shui in mind. For instance, I’m currently installing a spa that is fed in part by a massage waterfall. To add balance and soften the design, the waterfall’s flume will be made of wood, probably some type of oak that will stand up to the treated water without adding tannins to the spa. It works in feng shui terms; it’s also a flat-out neat design – and I must admit that I’ve been helped here by a sharper awareness of balance and other issues I’ve encountered in studying feng shui.

In another job, I’ve created an elevated wooden path that angles over a small meandering stream bed. The detail here is pretty interesting: Instead of building the path with horizontal planks, as on a pier, I’m laying these long planks lengthwise with the wood grain flowing in the direction of the person walking down the path. The path leads to a wooden gazebo where my client, an extremely busy professional, plans on practicing her yoga.

These are just two modest examples of small details that are extremely important to some of my clients. When approached with an open heart, I believe that feng shui keys the creative mind to an array of compelling ideas. I’m no mystic, but I observe design details with new awareness and seriously consider things such as the balancing of light and dark areas with shade structures, or schemes for juxtaposing hardscape elements with plantings. And I’m more aware now of how gently cascading water, flowing in the correct direction, can mask the sound of our noisy world.

I look at it this way: If I sell a small waterfeature or incorporate some material like bamboo or include some other traditional Asian design touch because the customer wants it based on their belief in feng shui, then to my mind, it is only to everyone’s benefit.

After all, being in the business of providing “earth luck” sounds pretty good to me.

Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].