By Maria McCullough

“Love grows from the inside out. Its natural evolution begins with self-love, where you prepare a place within to receive pleasures of loving relationships.” — Terah Collins

MANY OF MY CLIENTS ASK ME THE SAME QUESTIONS: “How can I find love? How can I strengthen and re-energize the romance in my life?” I answer by explaining the direct correlation between home and the quality of their relationships. The energy in your home can help you achieve your loving relationship goals.

It is important to listen to what you need and then gladly give to yourself. When you love yourself you become open to other loving relationships.

In past columns I have described how to focus on the Love and Marriage corner specifically as it pertains to the Bagua. In this column I am going to show how you can apply Feng Shui solutions for Love and Marriage in every room in your house.

Love and Marriage — Bagua review

In the Bagua the Love and Marriage Area is located in the back right corner of your home or office, and is particularly associated with “adaptability, devotion and unconditional support.” This area of your home or business is called “Receptive Earth,” meaning that to truly love another person you must love yourself, opening your heart to be totally receptive to your partner.

In whichever room this area resides, basic Feng Shui principles can help you nurture and strengthen yourself and your relationships, and even send out the energy to help you find your perfect soul mate.

The Love and Marriage Area is located in the right back corner of your home/office/business. Enhancements in this area are particularly helpful if you want to attract a love relationship, you want to improve a relationship you are currently in or you want to develop or improve a nurturing, healthy, happy relationship with yourself.

Applying Love and Marriage enhancements to other rooms

If creating a healthy, loving relationship with yourself and another is important to you, you can further energize your home for romance by enhancing the Love and Marriage corner of every room in your home. Remember to start with the Love and Marriage Area of your home first, and then you can make similar enhancements in every room. This is especially important if you are missing the Love corner from your home.

Regardless of the room, the actual enhancements for Love and Marriage are the same. The element for this area is Fire, and the colors are red, pink or white. Representations of this element can be used inside and outside of your home or business, as well as in the right back corner of every room. Enhancements include:

• Photos, paintings, collages or figures depicting your significant other

• Pairs of items (lovers, doves, hearts, candles, vases, figurines, etc.)

• Art with a romantic theme

• Quotes, affirmations and sayings pertaining to Love and Marriage

• Items that have a personal association to Love and Marriage (romantic vacations/honeymoon mementos)

To add supplementary enhancements to other rooms, pick a room and stand at the entrance to the room, facing in. This may not necessarily be in the same direction as the front door of your home. Locate the back right corner and place in the space one or more of the enhancements mentioned above — for example, a picture of you and your partner, a red/pink orchid with two stems, red/pink candles, a pair of love birds or romantic art.

Examples of love enhancements for various rooms

Kitchen — If the right back corner is by the sink, add two romantic figurines. If it’s by the stove, hang a small romantic picture near it. For fun, I also have a red toaster and blender in the corner.

Dining room — Add a set of romantic salt and pepper shakers, two rose-colored candles in beautiful candlesticks or a picture of you and your significant other.

Bathroom — Hang pictures of romantic vacations, a pair of matching candles or a beautiful flower arrangement in the red spectrum.

Office — Display a picture of you and your significant other, or two paperweights.

Just remember that the choices are endless. Have fun with it!

Bedrooms

I’m setting this room apart because it’s one of most important rooms to add Feng Shui Love and Marriage enhancements, regardless of its location in your house. The ideal location for a master bedroom is the far back right corner; unfortunately not all homes are built this way. As you decorate your bedroom, it is always important to incorporate some of the red spectrum to bring in fire, pairs of items and romantic representations.

If you are single and looking for a relationship, you should design the room as if two people are already living there. For example, make sure to use two nightstands and two lamps, and leave room in the closet. This signifies the intent that you want to share your life with your soul mate. Walls should be any of the colors of natural skin tones: light cream, pink, peach, or warm reds and dark browns. Because the feeling should evoke warmth, coziness and fire, blues, greens, whites, gray and black are too cool for bedroom walls.

What to avoid

Water — Since Love and Marriage is a Fire Element area, we know that water extinguishes fire. Be careful not to place many mirrors, water features or waterscapes in this room, especially above the bed.

Confusing Love and Marriage with the Children or Family Area — There are designated areas in your home that enhance family and children. (See the Bagua, above.) The bedroom concentrates on you and your significant other alone. Avoid filling it with stuffed animals, other relics from your childhood or pictures of your children and family. Focus on making this a romantic boudoir.

A missing Love and Marriage Area

If your Love and Marriage Area is missing from your home floor plan, you can anchor the area by doing one or a combination of the following cures: structurally close off the corner by building a deck or arbor; plant a pair of large red flowering plants at the spot of the missing corner; plant a tree and hang a wind chime representing a pair (hearts or lovebirds); place a table-and-two-chair set or a large sculpture representing a loving pair.

If the area outside is not accessible, you can symbolically anchor from the inside by hanging a 30-mm, round-faceted crystal and placing a mirror and/or a picture of a romantic representation on the wall by the missing corner. If the missing area happens to be a parking lot, you can draw a small symbol of a heart, Yin-Yang sign or the trigram for receptive earth in the exact location, closing off the corner; then, enhance this area in every room.

Affirmations and inner work

Remember that in Feng Shui, intent plays a significant role in enhancing any area of your home or business. Intent is the inner work that leads you to a more harmonious life. That’s why all enhancements need to be made with intentionality; written or stated affirmations are very important. It is also important for them to be expressed as if they are already happening.

Examples or affirmations for the Love and Marriage Area

“I attract, joy, love and intimacy into my life”; “I love, respect and honor myself”; “My perfect love partner and I are connected in our minds, hearts and spirits, now and always.”

Feng Shui at work

A number of years after her husband’s death, a client was ready to move forward. She had been on a number of dates that proved disappointing. It turns out she was missing this corner from her new apartment. It was in the parking lot below, so she was unable to anchor it with a tree or flowers. In our consultation we anchored the Love and Marriage Area symbolically by hanging two brightly colored heart pictures on the wall facing the corner, and placing a two-stemmed pink orchid and two love birds on a table beneath. She also drew a small heart in the parking lot where the corner should have been. She wrote affirmations envisioning that her next love would walk right into her art and jewelry studio.

Her current boyfriend did just that! Though they met briefly at a city event, he walked into her studio to ask her for a date. They have been together ever since.

One of my clients was in an unhappy relationship that was stuck and going nowhere. In our consultation we focused on her bedroom, which was painted a cool green and featured many pictures of landscapes and water. Nothing signified romance, passion or warmth. She changed the pictures to romantic art, added candles by the bedside tables and spruced up the room with red accents. Shortly after, she and her boyfriend broke up. This may sound like a bad thing, but Feng Shui works at giving you what you need in life, not necessarily what you think you want. After getting out of the relationship, she was free to meet the right man. In her new house she followed the lessons she learned in our consultation. She now has a wonderful man in her life and they are expecting their first baby. She couldn’t be happier!

Our Love and Romance Area is on our upper and lower patio. Love birds hang from the deck, and red cushions and flowers adorn the patio set. In the lower patio we have a red bistro set with two chairs and a statue of two kissing frogs we purchased on a trip to Hawaii. We love to eat outdoors together. As I sit and write this, I also notice a picture in the Love corner of our new office of the two of us riding our tandem bike, as well as a picture in the back right corner of our desk of the two of us on a beach.

Feng Shui on a shoestring

Feng Shui enhancements do not have to cost a great deal. Just the act of writing affirmations and placing them in the back right corner of each room will begin to energize the romance in your life.

This Valentine’s Day, create a space in your home and life for a perfect relationship with your perfect mate. Enlist the energy in your environment to help you achieve your goals.

For questions or home consultations email me at mtmccull@aol.com and put “Feng Shui” in the subject line; visit my website, where you can read past columns; or Facebook “Feng Shui by Maria,” where I post pictures as examples to enhancements. You can also check out my blog — just go to the website and click on “Blog,” where you can view many pictures and where I will respond to your questions quickly.

Also, I will be teaching one more three-hour class through Benicia Parks and Recreation this spring, on Saturday, April 20 at 9 a.m. The Parks and Recreation Guide is now available, if you’d like to register. Participants will receive $40 off a home consultation. Mark your calendars and invite friends!

Until then … Blessings!

Benicia resident Maria McCullough is the owner and founder of Feng Shui by Maria (www.fengshuibymaria.com). She is a speaker and educator with more than 15 years’ experience specializing in residential, landscape and business consultations.