Bowie said she uses a nine-segment bagua map, which she calls a grid and serves as an overlay of the floor plan of a space, to help clients harness good chi in their homes. Each of the nine areas of the bagua map represent a certain theme, including wealth, relationships, fame, knowledge and more.
Some feng shui recommendations are simple and easy to use. For example, wind chimes can be best placed in a different spot for every home, but in the most simple terms, the wind chimes are good in the back left corner of a home. In this file photo, a camellia or magnolia flower wind chime hangs in a garden maintained by Florence Crowder in Denham Springs.
When it comes to the basics of feng shui, Bowie explained that there is good chi and bad chi. Good chi flows in a meandering pattern, while bad chi moves quickly in fast and straight lines. For example, if a home is designed where the front door is lined up with the back door, Bowie said chi comes in the front door and, if there’s nothing to stop it, goes straight out the back door.
Instead, energy should linger in a space. Bowie says that rearranging furniture can encourage chi to linger, which will make your home or office feel better.
“If you experience and open yourself to trying a different furniture arrangement, you might actually see and feel the difference — see a difference in what’s going on in your life and feel a difference in how that space affects you,” she said.
The placement of a home’s front door and/or front of a home is a basic of feng shui. Bowie said that, in most cases, if the front door doesn’t face the front of the home, you turn the grid or bagua map to line up with the direction the front door faces, but there are case-by-case exceptions.
A file photo of a water fountain in a courtyard at the home of Steve Martin and Tonya Excho in New Orleans on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, is an example of a water feature that could be useful to improve a home’s feng shui. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Feng shui places emphasis on the elements — wood, fire, earth, metal and water.
“In feng shui, water is symbolic of money and wealth,” Bowie said. “Every culture in the world has developed around water.”
She said the best place to introduce a water feature is different in every home, but she does not recommend adding a water feature to a bedroom, even an aquarium.
“Everything about feng shui is symbolic,” she said. “Our brains respond to the things we attach meaning to. Feng shui is mostly about your intent.”
Jill Laroussini took one of Bowie’s continuing education feng shui classes at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette more than 20 years ago but still uses the principles that she learned. As an anniversary present for their first home, Laroussini’s husband arranged a consultation with Bowie. He presented the gift with a note that read, “Where there’s a feng, there’s shui,” Laroussini said.
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