Workplace Feng Shui

By JOHN DARLING February 9, 2003
for the Mail Tribune

The Chinese practice of feng shui is designed to fill your home with good energies: wealth, success, love. This fast-growing interior design tool also lifts things out of the ordinary and, using daring yet subtle colors and objects, paints the space with beauty.

Mike Tracy decided to incorporate this ancient art into his business.

With the help of Sharon Baldoni of Feng Shui Designs in Central Point, Tracy did a total makeover of his shop, The Goldsmiths, at 612 Crater Lake Ave., Medford.

"Everything used to be just plain white, with half-walls breaking up the space and my desk sitting by the entry. It looked like an accountant's office," Tracy said. "Now, my customers come in and say, "Wow! They love it."

Tracy took out the low walls, opened up the space, moved the desk to the far side and turned the walls and ceiling into a subtle riot of color.

It works, said Baldoni, because the design adheres to feng shui's time-tested recipe, breaking the space into a bagua, a nine-segment tic-tac-toe floor plan, and painting purple tones in the left rear (the prosperity sector), red in center-rear (fame/reputation), pink in the right rear (love/marriage), jade green in the left-middle sector (family), blue in the left front corner (knowledge) and so on.

Each sector also has elements: air, fire, earth, metal, wood. Air is at home in the prosperity corner, so Baldoni hung wind chimes there.

Does feng shui bring in more money, like it's supposed to?

"Something changed," said Tracy, who sells and repairs jewelry with his wife, Carol. "The energy here wasn't flowing before, but this increased my business. I mean several thousand dollars a month increase, up to $5,000 more during the holiday season."

Jewelry store customers normally fold their arms, signifying standoff and uptight feelings, said Tracy, but since the makeover, "I haven't seen the folded arms once. People are in awe. They're not inhibited. They get a good feeling and start saying, "My gosh, look at all the colors."

Before the makeover, Tracy had an aquarium in the center of his space, the health sector, whose element is earth. Water doesn't go in earth; it would mix to create muddy energy, said Baldoni, who learned the art from Tho Lin Yun, a grand master of the black hat tradition of Tibetan feng shui, in 1998.

The aquarium ended up in the knowledge sector. At the front door, another water-friendly spot (and governing work/career), Baldoni placed a tiny Zen fountain with water (representing money) flowing into the business. You never let water flow toward the door.

"I know, it sounds very froufrou and superstitious, but the fact that it actually works is pretty amazing," Baldoni said. "For the more Western mind, it's validated by quantum physics, which holds that, at the subatomic level, human consciousness affects matter and causes change."

Feng shui is big on simplifying, rearranging things at angles and cleaning out clutter so energies flow, your space becomes warm and energetic and it's all part of your "art of living," said Baldoni.

You hear tips like: Never place your desk with your back to the door. That's where energy comes in and you want to have it in your view. And don't follow the widespread American custom of parking furniture so it faces the television or the view. Arrange for energy, Baldoni said.

You don't have to "go Chinese" to use feng shui. With more conservative clients, Baldoni suggests a pillow or painting with the right symbols and colors. Sometimes even a dot of paint does the trick, she said.

Julie Brooks, owner of Health Food Mart on Barnett Road in Medford, did feng shui lite. With a focus on generating income and finding love, she and Baldoni adorned the wealth corner with green plants (plants symbolize growth) and a framed picture of a waterfall, put red candles (red energizes) in appropriate spots, hung crystals (they clarify and magnify) and put red velvet under the cash register.

"Five days later I got a surprise tax refund check of $5,000 and soon found the love of my life on the Internet," Brooks said. "It was pretty amazing."

John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org.