Hi blog readers! I'm starting some longer and more subject-specific blogs this month and plan on approximately one new post each week. These will be more like newsletter subjects and will cover topics such as choosing a paint contractor, decorating around an art collection, even interviews with designers and more! I'm still going to do the newsletter and that will continue to be quarterly. And archives will be availible SOON. So keep checking back and enjoy!
~rebecca

Tips on hiring a good Feng Shui practitioner

• Decide if you want a traditional practitioner or a “new age” practitioner. New age practitioners are not associated with a traditional Chinese feng shui school and belong to the recent schools teaching “Black Hat Feng Shui” or affiliated with the “Black Sect Tantric Buddhism” or similar. (Sometimes referred to as “BTB”). Traditional Chinese feng shui has been practiced for thousands of years. Black Hat “feng shui” is a recent (1986) invention. NOTE: If you want to hire a new age/BTB feng shui practitioner, terrific! Just realize this style is not traditional Chinese feng shui and it generally not practiced in China. You are on your own here.
• Check credentials and references. You should require your practitioner to have taken more than just a weekend course!
• A good practitioner will be able to substantiate any claims about changing their client’s lives for the better.
• Make sure your practitioner can explain all of the reasons behind every recommendation and understands principles behind the recommendations rather than a one-size-fits-all cure with a vague explanation.
• Do a little homework so you can ask intelligent questions. Recommended reading:
• A Master Course in Feng Shui by Eva Wong
• The Art and Science of Feng Shui by Henry B. Lin
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui (2nd Edition) by Elizabeth Moran, Joseph Yu, & Val Biktashev.
• Your practitioner should be aware of Chinese culture if they trained at a traditional school. Feng shui is a Chinese art and science and embraces some of Chinese culture and tradition. It did not originate in Tibet.

Beware if your feng shui practitioner:

• Tells you what they are doing is secret, spiritual, or intuitive, or religious, then you’ve hired a new age practitioner! In this case, see note under #1.
• Asks you for private, personal information beyond your name, address, phone, birth date and date building was built, etc. Info such as relationship or employment issues and the like is not needed to do a proper feng shui reading.
• Recommends you hang mirrors and flutes or make you write affirmations to place around your home to “cure” bad energy. This is not traditional feng shui. Again, see #1.
• Claim they can “feel” energy fields in your home. Another new age-style proclamation.
• Places an 8-sided diagram or map over the floor plan of your home or office. This is more one-size-fits-all version of feng shui. One-size-fits-all is for concert t-shirts, not feng shui.
• Mentions clutter and the need to “clear your space”. Clutter or lack there of has nothing to do with feng shui and is culturally learned behavior.
• Makes you pay them using a red envelope. It’s just a marketing gimmick.

A very big tip of the hat to Cate Bramble and her website www.qi-whiz.com as well as Shambhala Publications.

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