Colors of Feng Shui

Feng Shui as a topic has received much coverage in recent years - some of it accurate and some of it highly misleading, according to Shari de Nobrega, spokesperson for Feng Shui Professionals, leading South African practitioners of authentic Feng Shui as practised by the Chinese for thousands of years. "One of the areas that has been hyped a lot and often incorrectly, is the subject of the use of colour," she states.

She explains, "The history of colour is difficult to trace, but it dates back many centuries." Colour has always fascinated mankind; it expressed his need to emulate the beauty found in nature. She continues, "We use colour in many way to express our feelings and surroundings: for instance, the way we dress-wearing black (which represents yin/death) to a funeral, or wearing white (representing yang/birth) to a wedding or Christening. We also use colour to reflect our moods - itÕs a blue day, IÕm in a black mood, sheÕs green with envy, he was red with rage - or to reflect the status of various things, such as a bank balance thatÕs in the red or the black, having reached your golden years (hopefully you have planned your retirement to be golden!); to be blue with cold; a fire poker is red hot. For these reasons," she explains,"It's not surprising that we also find the presence of colour in Feng Shui."

The Use of Colour in Feng Shui

De Nobrega states that the growing interest in Feng Shui in the West has seen the birth of many different "systems" or schools of thought that stipulate various "rules" governing the use of colour. She cautions, "We need to go back to the roots of Authentic Feng Shui to establish the true role of colour in Feng Shui. ItÕs important not to confuse Chinese symbolism with actual remedies that make use of colour, but rather to view them as two separate practices."

In Chinese lore, Yin and Yang are two primal, natural forces that represent light and dark, day and night, firm or yielding Ð in other words, they are polar opposites and, as such, they represent the forces that balance and shape all of life. The principal of Yin and Yang is derived from the I Ching (Book of Changes).

De Nobrega states, "Colour in Feng Shui can have a Yin or Yang aspect. In other words, Yang colours would be light or bright such as whites, creams, sunny yellows, silver, gold, bright luminous colours, bright oranges and fire red. Yin colours in turn are darker and heavier, such as blacks, dark blues, dark greens, and browns." She adds, "Sometimes, a colour can have both a yin and yang aspect e.g. whilst blue is intrinsically yin, if it is a bright blue or a French blue, it could also be considered to have some yang quality, meaning that it has good balance. Taking this into account, provides one way with which we can use colour to balance our environment."

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