Some schools of feng shui consider the compass directions when looking at a home. If you work with a practitioner who is trained in the Compass or Classical schools of feng shui, for example, this is something they will pay attention to. One of the things they will likely look at is your home’s facing direction.
Find Your House Facing Direction
To find your house facing direction, find a compass (the one on your phone works) and stand in the front door of your home facing out. Using the compass, determine which way you are facing. Generally, that will be your house facing direction. However, there are also other factors that affect your house facing direction. It’s always best to work with a qualified feng shui practitioner if you are really curious about this.
What an East-Facing House Means in Feng Shui
One of the ways that feng shui practitioners gain insight about a client’s home is through the feng shui bagua. You may have seen the bagua represented as an octagonal shape, or perhaps a three-by-three grid with different colored sections. The bagua is a mandala made up of eight areas around a center. Each of these areas has many meanings and nuances, but on a basic level, each one is connected to a different area of life. Each area is also associated with a particular compass direction. The East direction is connected to the area of the feng shui bagua called Zhen, which represents new beginnings and family. It has the energy of the wood element and springtime, like a fresh blade of grass emerging from the soil.
How to Activate the Energy of an East-Facing Home
To activate the energy of an East-facing home, you can bring in the wood element to support this direction. You can also bring in the water element because water feeds and nourishes wood in the five elements cycle.
Wood and Water Element Colors
One way that you can bring supportive elements into your home is through color. When you want to support the East direction, you’ll want to work with colors that express the wood or water element. Wood is related to greens, mid-tone blues, and teals. Water is connected to black, as well as very dark charcoal gray and deep navy blue. You can add these colors to the East sector of your home in big ways, like painting a wall or your front door, or in smaller ways, like artwork and other decor items. If you are thinking of painting your front door, choosing one of these colors can be very supportive. In feng shui, your front door is called the “mouth of qi” because it is the main way that energy enters your home. It’s a good idea to spend some time and energy making this part of your home clean and welcoming, and painting your door is one way you can really shift the qi here. If you don’t want to paint your door, you can still intentionally bring in the energy of a particular element with smaller items, like a doormat, planter, or light fixture.
Enhance the East With Wood
Another way to bring the wood element into the East sector of your home is by adding healthy green houseplants. In addition to representing the wood element, plants offer us a lot of lessons about compassion, growth, and generosity. As you’re deciding which plants to get, consider the light and humidity conditions of this part of your home, and look for plants that have the ability to thrive in these conditions. Wood energy is also related to tall, columnar shapes, like the trunk of a tree. You could incorporate this into the East sector of your home with long window curtains, a tall lamp, or a wallpaper with vertical stripes, depending on what you like and what makes sense with your decor.
Enhance the East With Water
To bring the water element into the East sector of your home, you can add a water fountain. You can also add water by bringing in wavy shapes. You might look for a rug or upholstery pattern that includes these types of shapes, or try making some wavy, watery artwork that you can frame and display.
