Hello!
A little refresher on How to calculate your Bagua map could be good. Don’t you agree?
Feng Shui (literally “wind water”) is the ancient art of harmonizing spaces in order to create a rich, happy and vibrant life. Indeed, many positive transformations happen as a result of applying Feng Shui to our homes, offices, desks and all living spaces.
Feng Shui aims to explain the relationships between the elements present in nature, which are: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. In order to feel good in spaces, it is important to balance those elements. It is also important to balance the yin and the yang.
The Bagua map (which literally means "eight trigrams" in Chinese) is the main tool we use in Feng Shui. The Bagua map is applied to the floor plan of your space, and divides it into 9 areas around the center of your home. Each area of your life is directly related to an area within your home.
Photo: Karen De Luca (Feng Shui with Me student) featuring her home entrance.
The bagua map basics
The Bagua Map can give you guidance in observing how your interior life is manifesting in your environment. The center of the Bagua is important, because it is the heart of the home, the center, which distributes all the energy to all the different sectors.
The traditional or compass Bagua Map uses compass directions in order to detect the eight areas of your home. For example, the south corner of your home would be the fame and reputation corner. The East would represent Health and Ancestors etc.
The Front Door method consists in aligning the front door with the bottom of the Bagua map.
Each Corner of the bagua represents an area of your life
Everything that happens in your life can be placed in one of these 9 categories, and the Bagua Map helps you locate them:
Wealth & Prosperity
Fame & Reputation
Love & Marriage
Creativity & Children
Helpful People & Travels
Career
Ancestors & Health
Health & Center
Knowledge & Self-cultivation
Here is the In-depth look at each corner (“gua”)
1. The Wealth Gua is related to abundance. The Wealth Area of your home is enhanced with mostly the wood element. It is the South East area of your house OR the top left corner of your apartment. It can be represented by: healthy Plants, Green and Blue Colors.
2. The Fame Gua is located in the South corner of your house OR the rear middle section of the apartment. It is ruled by the Fire element. Can be represented well by candles, fiery colors like red or burgundy, fireplaces, triangular shapes, summer vibes.
3. The Love Gua: the South West of your house of top right corner of an apartment. The dominant elements in the love corner are Earth and Fire. Therefore accents should be in tones of red, pink, orange, burgundy, yellow, etc. Things should be in pair.
4. The Creativity and Children gua: The Creativity and Children area is located in the West corner of your house OR middle right section of the apartment. It is about creativity and its process. Children rearing,new projects and the wellbeing of the children in the house. When you want to conceive or create, enhance the corner with pastel tones and kid-friendly colors, white and metal, gold, playful décor.
5. The Helpful People and travel gua: also represented by the Metal element, located in the northwest corner of your house, OR the bottom right quadrant of your apartment. Your mentor luck, your opportunities, your network, your travels can be propelled by displaying round metallic objects, globes, maps, connected devices, phones and electronics.
6. The Career area: If you live in a house, the North quadrant will be your career area. If you live in an apartment, your career will generally fall in the bottom middle part of the map (unless of course your apartment has a missing career area, that is if your apartment has an irregular shape). The career LOVES the water element. You can enhance it with a fountain, dark colors, mirrors, asymmetrical shapes, water paintings.
7. Wisdom and Self-knowledge: North East or bottom right quadrant. Place an altar in this part of your house and calming symbolism: a buddha, some candles, a quiet water feature, some floor pillows, your crystals, photos of people that inspire you (dead or alive, famous or not, people that have your best interest in mind), quiet paintings. The elements presents should be of the Earth and Water elements.Colors: dark blue, black, cream, taupe, yellow, beige.
8. Ancestors and Health: East in a house or right middle section of apartment. Enhancements for Health and Family wood furniture and objects, Healthy plants and flowers, green and blue tones, shapes of columns, tall thick stripes.
9. The Center (and health): Because this is the center of the Bagua and touches all other areas of the Bagua, it really plays a supporting role to every one of the other areas. The center is the foundation of your home. Rules by the Earth element. You can decorate with Earth-Tones/Yellow, low furniture, very calming décor.
If you want to make sure you get your Feng Shui right the first time, check out my Feng Shui your Home in One week course, a complete guide which is all you ever need to know about Feng Shui.
How to use a bagua map in your home or apartment
Photo credit: Entrance of L. Massalas (Feng Shui with Me student).
I like to use the Western / Front Door bagua map when analyzing apartments because apartments generally do not have all the exposure to the elements as houses do.
Chances are that looking straight across the front door would be where you would get the most sun (Reputation is ruled by fire).
I like to use the Compass bagua when analizing houses with land around.
In my opinion, fire, earth, metal, water and wood, are very present in a home that has nature around. The South is where the sun is the strongest, the North is where the “water” is the strongest (the damper side).
Therefore my choice is to always rely on the sun exposure to choose the Western or the traditional method.
1/ If you live in an apartment: Align the bottom of the Bagua Map with the Front Entrance wall. Most likely, your front door will be either in the Knowledge and Self-cultivation area or in the Career area or in the Helpful People area.
2/ If you live in a house: Get a compass (probably the easiest way to get a hold of compass readings is to download a free app on your smartphone) and place the Career Area (from the map above) where your compass indicates the North. The South will be your Reputation Area, The East will be your Ancestors and Health Area, and so on.
The way to make sure you follow the directions is to take my Bagua Course. And complete it with my Feng Shui Your Home in One week course, a complete course to reaching your goals thanks to Feng Shui.
Many blessings,
Marianne