Feng Shui Saturday – The Bagua Map

To get started in feng shui, you first have to know about the Bagua ( baa-gwah). The bagua is a map, if you will, which divides your living space into 9 areas.

I’m not going to go into the origin of the bagua, or all the different schools of feng shui – and there are a few. The principles I follow – Black Hat Sect – are by far the easiest to learn and apply. Some purists discount the BHS, but I’ve had far too many validations.

Ok. Here are a couple of samples. The first is in an octagon shape with 8 triangles.



Here is the next bagua – the one I use. Don’t let all the text scare you. At this point it’s just important to see the 9 squares. Think of it like a tic-tac-toe board.



What you do is lay the Bagua (tic-tac-toe squares) over your house. But how do you position it?

Look at the bottom 3 squares – Knowledge, Career & Helpful People. Your front door will be in one of those 3 areas. Imagine being in front of your house – look at your front door. Mentally divide the front of your house into 3 areas. Is your door more on the left? The center? Or the right. Get the idea?

The Bagua is always positioned based upon the doorway. You can use it on your entire house, a particular room, even a desk or a work cubicle. Just imagine a tic-tac-toe board lined up by the entrance.

Okay. A little more envisioning. Think about, based upon your front door, the back left corner of your house. That’s your Wealth & Prosperity gua (gwah). And the right back corner will be your Love & Marriage gua.

Now, I know very few houses are shaped like squares or rectangles. Quite the opposite. There are recesses and extensions, nooks & crannies. But let’s keep it simple today and just get this process down.

The first thing you’ll need to do is draw a little footprint of your home. Don’t go crazy with this. It may take a couple of tries to get it fairly accurate. You’re just going for an approximation.

Black Hat Sect is intuitive feng shui. As we move along, you’ll learn it’s more about the way you feel, than measurements. If you’re really interested in specifics, you can hire a feng shui consultant to size up your home.

I found this floorplan online. (I was too lazy to draw my own). It’s more detailed than you need at this point, but it’s good for demonstration purposes.



Don’t worry about all the furniture yet. Just get your rooms in, the doorways, and window approximations.
Now, here’s a Bagua laid over this floorplan.



The first thing you’ll notice is the garage juts out. So part of Career & Helpful People is missing. We’ll get to that in another post.

Also notice how the living room is in 6 different guas. You might have that happen in your home, as well.
Right now, you just want to get a feel for how the bagua lays over your house.

Most people interested in feng shui want to enhance one or two particular areas -

• Career (front center)
• Knowledge & Self-Cultivation (front left)
• Family (side left)
• Wealth & Prosperity (back left)
• Fame & Reputation (back center)
• Love & Marriage (back right)
• Creativity & Children (side right)
• Helpful People (front right)
• Health (center of space)

Maybe even more, hm? Well, you’ll want to start with only one or two.

So, without getting into a lot more today, after you’ve drawn your home footprint, laid the bagua over it, and notice which areas you want to work on, here’s the question . . . is there any clutter in that space? Or is there something that needs repaired? A door that doesn’t open fully, or a lightbulb that needs replaced, or a window that sticks?

Just food for thought. As we delve deeper, you’ll begin to see how things line up – or don’t, and how simple it is to make adjustments.

Have fun with this. I hope you get a chance to do it over the weekend. If you have problems or questions, please let me know. I’m happy to help.

Colleen