Feng Shui Your Life #3

Removing clutter makes space for the good stuff

Japanese organizing expert Marie Kondo made the world of Japanese minimalism all the rage with her New York Times Bestselling book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. And, despite being a bit skeptical of anything that hits Oprah’s book club list (her endorsement of John of God was a PROBLEM), I loved everything about Marie Kondo’s approach to spatial— and personal— transformation through the literal magic of de-cluttering.

I often describe Marie as an “awesome, mean Japanese woman that loves throwing shit away.” And I, for one, am here for it. I love throwing things away, donating items, and re-homing stuff— and I do it every chance I get. I love how much more expensive my furniture looks when it’s not littered with candles and crystals and the day’s mail. I love watching the deep clean and demo phases of an episode of Hoarders, delighting in the sight of over-filled dumpsters and power-washed walls— and their promise of possibilities to come.

And I really, really love how this minimalism emerges in Japanese floral arrangements at my local Aikido studio and go-to Japanese restaurant, finding myself reflecting on the elegance (and magic) of the negative space.

Ikebana

This Japanese approach to floral arranging is called ikebana. In ikebana, the artist maximizes and arranges the negative space around the flower or plant, refining the presentation down to its most bare bones, elemental form and creating unique, one-off artistic expressions of natural beauty.

But ikebana isn’t just for the aesthetic benefits of asymmetric simplicity. Rather, it also enables the chi— i.e. primal life force energy— to move, preventing stagnation and all of the bad things that are said to come with it: poverty, conflict, illness, madness, loneliness, and so on.

In Feng Shui, this negative space is seen as “making room” for The Emperor’s Robes. In this Feng Shui practice, you are guided to visualize an emperor with long, flowing robes walking around your house and garden (or floral arrangement). Do his robes get stuck on furniture? On stacks of books? Can he move freely around and behind your belongings? Do his sleeves snag on your floral arrangement’s edges?

If The Emperor can’t move freely, neither can the very essential chi energy from which we draw our own vital life force.

Considering that the Year of the Wood Dragon is demanding our full attention and energy to innovate, rebel and grow, it’s perhaps more important than ever to reduce clutter, embrace an ikebana mindset, and make room for the metaphorical Emperor’s Robes.

But, as it turns out, clutter can be a sneaky enemy, manifesting in seen and unseen ways— all of which impact us negatively. In this post, we take a look at the clutter that can’t always be seen with the naked eye, and propose simple exercises to tackle it with aplomb: