HAVING BEEN BORN IN MILAN AND WITH FAMILY STILL IN NORTHERN ITALY, I long to return to my roots as often as possible, though I have not been able to go back since 2009. With my mother passing away last year, I felt a strong pull. It was time to plan — and time for Feng Shui to help us get there.

Whether you desire to go on an exotic holiday, a local vacation or just want to ensure that everything goes smoothly during an upcoming move or during your everyday commute to work, Feng Shui can help. Feng Shui is simply about living in harmony with the world around us. When your environment is harmonious, channels are open for good things to come your way.

When thinking of travel, there are two very important things to consider:

• Planning your getaway — activating Feng Shui energy

• Creating harmony while traveling — taking Feng Shui with you.

Plan your getaway

To help you achieve your travel goals, the first thing you want to do is clear (de-clutter), activate and enhance the Helpful People and Travel area of your home.
In the Feng Shui Bagua (Ba-gua) Map, represented as a grid of nine sectors, the Helpful People and Travel area is located in the front right corner of your home/office/business.

The Bagua comes from the Chinese philosophy, “The I Ching,” and literally means “eight trigrams,” with the center area for grounding. In the “I Ching” the Helpful People/Travel area of your home or business is associated with the qualities of power, synchronicity, inspiration and confidence. When activated and enhances it produces the energy that brings helpful people to us, and guides us to special travel places.

Enhancements for the Helpful People and Travel area in your home or business

• Art, photos, collages or figures pertaining to spiritual guides and/or mentors or helpful people

• Special places where you have traveled or want to travel; create a vision board — see below

• Items in colors of white, black or gray

• Things made of metal — brass, steel, pewter, silver, gold, aluminum, copper, etc.

• Quotes, affirmations and sayings pertaining to Helpful People and Travel.
Feng Shui can help you achieve your travel goals. Just as in every other facet of life, you achieve your goals when you focus clearly on what you want to accomplish and then take action accordingly. “Picture it and it will happen …” Positive affirmation, enhancements, imagery and vision boards in the Helpful People and Travel area play a large role. Putting a picture or travel brochure of your dream destination, visualizing yourself relaxing on a beautiful soft sandy beach in Hawaii, climbing Half Dome or just having a stress-free commute will begin the energy flow.

Creating a vision board for travel

A vision or dream board is an excellent way to focus your energy and display your goals. Since the focus of this column is on travel, you will create a board that will reflect places you want to go.

To start, make a collage of pictures, words and phrases that reflect where you want to be and how you want to feel when you get there. Put pictures of yourself in the scenario; act as if you’re already there.

The Helpful People and Travel area is enhanced by the metal element. For imagery, use black-and-white photos, white posterboard and black, metal borders or frames. Objects of metal such as foreign coins and/or small metal figures like the Eiffel Tower are especially helpful. Finally, place written affirmations on your board as if they have already happened, and state these on a regular basis.

For best Feng Shui, as usual, be sure to trust your feelings. Experiment and play around until you reach that moment when everything clicks, and you have the perfect vision board in the perfect Feng Shui location to support your dreams.

A missing Helpful People and Travel area

If the Helpful People and Travel area is missing from your floor plan, you can anchor the area by doing one or a combination of the following cures: Anchor the missing area structurally using the metal element wherever possible, such as building a trellis or deck, planting flowers in a flower garden or planter boxes in white, adding a large stone statue of a spiritual guide or placing a large rock on the corner, or a metal seating area. (This could be a beautiful meditation area).

If the area outside is not accessible, you can symbolically anchor from the inside by hanging a 30-mm, round-faceted crystal, placing a mirror and/or your travel pictures or vision board on the inside wall by the missing area.

Creating harmony while traveling

The key to good Feng Shui in transit is to bring it with you internally! Feng Shui is about creating harmony with the world around you, and there’s no better time to step up your Feng Shui than while you are in transit, on vacation or between places.

Creating a sense of harmony and peace during this time is the key. I always travel with a Feng Shui travel kit that my daughter made for me. It’s easy to make, and by putting it in a soft pouch it can be easily transportable.

Suggestions for your personalized Feng Shui travel kit

Select small, lightweight items that boost, balance and circulate the Chi in any environment.

• 1 or more round-faceted crystals on strings

• 4 small angels made of thick paper in the Bagua colors of black, red, purple and green

• 4 scented tea lights in their own metal cups, or a mister to scent up and clear the area

• Cleansing incense such as pine or sandalwood

• Necessary items such as thumb tacks, safety pins, matches, string

• A multicolored scarf representing the colors of the five elements (white, black, green or blue, yellow and red hues)

• Smooth stone or natural crystal for grounding energy

• A touchstone to remind you physically and in every other way of “home,” such as a picture of your loved one or another item from your home.

Using the Bagua, start at the front entrance to the room and place one crystal in front of a window and place angels in the Health, Wealth, Helpful People and Love areas. If the room feels especially stagnant, hang a crystal in the center of the room. Set up a place of beauty in the area that you would see as you wake up; use a five-element cloth, incense, candles, angels and fresh flowers when available. Choose items that are light, travel well and are available at a moment’s notice.

Move the furniture if need be, and cover the TV — usually a big hunk of energy staring down on the bed — with a towel or your five-element scarf. Make sure the room is free of clutter. Then create a drop zone in your temporary home, a safe space to drop everything when you come in the room, so you know where to find them when you need them.

When used, these items and recommendations can transform a room from grim to agreeable. Keeping a sense of home and creating space in our temporary environments allows us to ground, unwind and fully enjoy the fun of traveling stress-free.

Feng Shui at work

While on our last trip to Paris, my husband and I rented a lovely one-bedroom apartment. It had four big windows all down the right side of the apartment with large window boxes. The apartment was artfully decorated and charming, but the window boxes each contained dead flowers, all working to drain our energy. I took it upon myself to have fun shopping at a local florist, buying a flat of red petunias and planting them in each box. For our remaining stay the Chi was enhanced and worked to make the trip very successful, fun and hassle-free.

A client had “Travel to Egypt to see the pyramids” on her Bucket List. After a consultation she created a vision board with pictures of the pyramids, travel brochures and inspirational sayings in her Helpful People and Travel area. She took it a step further and placed either a mini statue of a pyramid or a small picture in the right-hand front corner of every room in her house. With her affirmations and visualization she made it happen! She just returned from her once-in-a-lifetime, fabulous trip.

Affirmations

Remember that in Feng Shui, intent plays a significant role in enhancing any area of your home or business. 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 Helpful People and Travel area:

“I travel as often as I like, to the places I want to visit”; “I have traveled to every place on my vision board and have met wonderful new friends”; “My commute has been a breeze since I researched a new way to go.”

Feng Shui on a shoestring

Feng Shui enhancements do not have to cost a great deal. Clearing your entrance of dead or diseased plants will halt negative energy from coming into your life. Add just one beautiful, healthy, blooming plant to your Health Area, make your affirmations and watch the shift occur.

For questions or home consultations, email me at mtmccull@aol.com and put “Feng Shui” on the subject line, or visit my website at fengshuibymaria.com, where you can read past columns, or Facebook “Feng Shui by Maria,” where I post pictures as examples to enhancements.

And check out my blog! Just go to the website and click on “Blog” and you can view many pictures, and I will respond to your questions quickly.

Come to my next class and receive $40 off a home consultation! My next class will be a series of three two-hour classes with practical instruction on Feng Shui principles, enhancing the Bagua in your home and balancing the elements.

The class will be three Tuesdays, Oct. 7, 14 and 21, from 1-3 p.m.

The Parks and Recreation Guide will be available late July and registration begins Aug. 4. 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.