Lesson #4

Story behind this photo: This is a shot of the wall in my room last April, including:

• my chalkboard, proudly displaying the words "life is good"
• my clock (I stuck the paper that said "be present" underneath it in a moment of inspiration and it's been there ever since)
• my VW Beetle sign, which I got in Amish country on a road trip two years ago

This was the layout on one of my walls before everything was rearranged by my friend the Feng Shui master. Everything got rearranged. Our Feng Shui process went something like this:

• We consulted books: Feng Shui by Nicola Jenkins (part of a kit that includes a pa kua mirror, too) and Soul Searching by Sarah Stillman (who was sixteen when she wrote it, can you believe that? It's a wonderful book.)
• I threw out loads of stuff, because clutter in the room adds to mental clutter. I kept things that are important to me, but now they have a place to be stored.
• We put my furniture in entirely different places because of the energy flow in the room (the bed should be far away from the door so it doesn't pick up the energy flowing in, but a desk would be a good place to absorb the energy, so it can be near the door.)
• There are certain elements that are supposed to go in each corner of the room, so we put small symbols of those elements in the room (like a small jar of gold flakes in the metal area).
• Each part of the room has a zone, which you can find on a Feng Shui map. The zones include things like "career", "family", and "personal projects" (among many others). So, using symbolic items, I added important things to those zones; I put stones in my career zone to encourage stability and solidity, family pictures in the family sections, a pair of candles in the relationships section (to encourage people being together!), etc.
• Having life is a great addition to the feeling of health and vitality in the room. We put a healthy plant (one that I can actually keep alive; it's not too high maintenance) in the relationship section of my room. My friend and I also got a betta fish to live in my room. I have cats, but I wanted an animal that would actually live in my room all the time to add good energy to it. We named the fish Buddha.

My room feels completely different now; it's amazing. I've had an easier time keeping my room clean because there is a place for everything. Things that are important to me are more proudly displayed. The room feels more open, and I want to be in there all the time! I don't know how much to buy into all of the principles of Feng Shui; they certainly make sense, but it's mostly the general idea of creating a peaceful space that matters, not all the little details.

Alright, I'm almost done, I promise.

The quote in this photo is one of my favorites. One time, my vocal teacher and I were talking about ideas of perfection (we seem to get distracted from singing sometimes and end up discussing the most interesting things), and she said that a teacher once told her, when she was talking about seeking perfection, that she had the wrong idea about what it was. He told her "perfection is acceptance of what is in the moment." Just hearing, saying, or writing the quote puts me in a place of presense. There is only now.