Birdbaths
Excellent water features suitable for the north, east, and southeast of your garden. Ensure that the water is clean at all times, replacing the water daily if necessary. The more birds you have visiting your birdbath, the better the energy that is created by this water feature.
Birds
Represent the auspicious phoenix, especially when they are placed in the south part of your home. Thus, keeping sculptures of any kinds of birds in your south-facing garden, or on the south side of your living room, brings luck in the form of opportunity. Live birds in captivity, however, spell bad Feng Shui, captivity being symbolic of retarded growth, and this may well curtail chances of progressing in one’s career.
Birth Dates
These are required in calculating Eight Mansions and Four Pillars Feng Shui. Birth dates are required in the calculation of personalized lucky and unlucky directions. There are two main schools of Feng Shui requiring the date of birth. The first is the Eight Mansions formula, which works out your Kua number. With this number you will be able to refer to a table that details your four auspicious and four inauspicious directions. The second is the Feng Shui method using your Four Pillars. This is the same as the Eight Characters (Paht Chee) method of fortune-telling. This method requires not just the date but also the hour of your birth. In using your birth dates, however, always remember that in using any of the Chinese divinitive sciences you must know your date of birth according to the lunar calendar.
Black Turtles
Celestial creatures that bring great good fortune. The black turtle is believed to be one of four celestial creatures that bring good fortune as well as good health and protection. The arrangement of the numbers on the Lo Shu magic square, one of the most important symbols of analysis in Formula Feng Shui, is said to have originated from the back of a black turtle which swam up from the shores of the Lo River. The arrangement of the numbers one to nine within the square is supposedly based on the markings found on this ancient turtle. Whichever way you add up the numbers, whether diagonally or in a straight line, the numbers always added up to nine. The black turtle is one of the four animals that make up the auspicious “armchair” formation in Landscape Feng Shui (or the Form School method of Feng Shui). The armchair is made up of the green dragon on the left, the white tiger on the right, the black turtle at the back (for support), and the crimson phoenix in front (as a footstool). When a home is built in the middle of these four animals, precious Chi is attracted and created there, leading to much good luck for the occupants of the home.
The black turtle is a popular symbol of good fortune for the home. Displayed either as paintings, or figurines, or kept as a pet tortoise or terrapin, the symbolic Feng Shui created is extremely auspicious. These smaller cousins of the turtle are believed to bring the same good fortune as the turtle. If you wish to keep a terrapin or tortoise, keep it in the north sector of the house, but keep only one, since this is the number of the north. Do not worry that your pet will feel lonely without a mate: terrapins are natural loners.
Blue Flowers
Good for the north, east, and southeast parts of the garden. Colors are powerful Feng Shui enhancers and playing with colors is a creative way of perfecting the Feng Shui of your garden. Blue flowers symbolize the element of water, thus planting them in the north, southeast, and/or east parts of the garden will activate the luck of these corners. The north sector is for career luck, the southeast is for wealth luck, and the east is for good health.
Blue Roofs
One of the danger signs in Feng Shui. Try to avoid having a blue roof since this signifies water on the top of your house. Change the tiles if you have to.
Boardrooms
These can be energized to bring excellent corporate Feng Shui. The best location for the boardroom of a corporation is the place that is diagonal to the entrance, deep inside the office. Boardrooms should not be on the top floor.
Bonsai
Though beautiful, bonsai trees are artificially stunted and do not give good Feng Shui. They are particularly harmful to businesses and commercial enterprises since they are the direct opposite of what needs to be energized for growth. If you have a passion for bonsai trees and simply must have them somewhere in your home, avoid placing them in the wood corners (east and southeast) of your house or garden. Placed in the north, they cause the least harm.
Book of Changes, or I Ching
The major source book of Feng Shui, and probably the main source book of most of China’s cultural practices. The seasoned wisdom of thousands of years has gone into the makings of the I Ching. Both branches of Chinese philosophy – Confucianism and Taoism – have their common roots in this ancient classic, known also as the Book of Changes. The I Ching alone, among all the Confucian Classics, escaped the great burning of the books under Emperor Chin Shih Huang Ti in 213 B.C.E. The origins of the I Ching go back to mythical antiquity, as a book of divination and as a book of wisdom. All that is great and significant in Chinese cultural history takes inspiration from the I Ching – aspects of the many related principles and symbols of the Chinese predictive sciences, its view of the trinity, heaven, earth, and man, the concepts of Yin and Yang, balance and harmony, positive and negative forces, good fortune and misfortune, are all derived from interpretations of the texts and judgments of the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams.
Bookshelves
These represent knives cutting into you and are bad Feng Shui. If you have exposed bookshelves in your office or study, change them into cupboards by covering them with doors. Unless you do this, the shelves will act as deadly poison arrows, causing you loss and illness.
Boulders
Signify earth energy and are an excellent Feng Shui remedy. Tied with red string, a boulder is an effective antidote if placed in a bathroom that is in the wrong place in your home.
Boundaries
For Feng Shui analysis, boundaries must be accurately measured and taken. Feng Shui is best approached as a method or technique. When using the compass methods it is vital to get measurements and compass readings correct. This enables you to establish the parameters of your space more accurately. Feng Shui works when the space has been accurately demarcated according to directions, locations, and elements.
Breath of the Dragon
The cosmic Chi.
Brick Walls
Feng Shui remedy for blocking out unwanted and inauspicious sights, especially structures that are sending killing breath to the home.
Bridges
Bridges near your home will be auspicious if they have three, five, or nine bends. They may be straight or curved, beamed, arched, suspended, or floating. They can be pavilion or corridor bridges and can be made of stone or wood, including cane. In China, bridges that are intended to enhance the Feng Shui of gardens are usually built of stone, and the arch formed is usually in the shape of a semicircle.
Bright Hall
An excellent Feng Shui situation. One of the most auspicious Feng Shui features a building can have is for the main door to open out onto a park, a football field, or any kind of empty land. This creates what Feng Shui masters describe as the bright hall effect, where auspicious Chi can first collect before entering the home. You should not try to achieve the bright hall effect at all costs. If, say, there is a statue or structure that forms a poison arrow directly facing the front door, it is better to give up trying to create the bright hall effect and the auspicious good fortune that it is supposed to bring than to suffer from the deadly Shar Chi from the poison arrow. Remember always to practice defensive Feng Shui first.
Brooms
Brooms, mops, and cleaning materials should never be left around the home.