Feng Shui Hawaiian Style: Lighten Up Your Life With the Fire Element

By Marta Barreras, Master Feng Shui Practitioner

Have the stresses of life got you feeling burned out? Has your passion for living, your joi de vivre, become a distant memory of the past?

Would you like to rekindle a sense of passion and joy in your life, to feel more connected to your true radiance and purpose in the world? Well, according to the great masters of every tradition, our outer world is a reflection of our own inner consciousness.

With a goal of creating a dynamic life filled with enthusiasm, heartfelt warmth and spiritual purpose, an intelligent step to manifesting an incredible life is to take a look at your environment. With the hidden language of feng shui, you can begin to create a home or workspace that frees you from stressful energy patterns and inspires your highest potential.

Lighting the Candle of Ancient Wisdom for Vibrant Living

Ancient Hawaiian and Chinese Taoist traditions both teach us the power of living in harmony with our environment. Within both systems, the fire element is regarded for its purifying, transformational and regenerative powers. Legendary gods and goddesses, as well as mythical creatures, have been used to personify the awe-inspiring forces of this element. Pele, the infamous fire goddess of Hawai‘i’s volcanoes, is revered for both her power to destroy and her power to create new land.

In Taoist mythology, the Chinese associate the fire element with the Phoenix, a legendary bird that is synonymous with good fortune, opportunity and luck. The Phoenix conveys the transformational and regenerative powers of the fire element through the symbolic rising from its own ashes and soaring to greater heights. The ultimate message of this majestic creature is that fire contains both life and death, enlightening us to the truth that both are one.

The Fire Element as Medicine

In Chinese medicine, the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water) represent the fundamental building blocks of all things in the physical Universe. From this perspective, these elements (which are essentially movements of essential energy or vibrations) also exist within you and everything in your environment.

One of the creative building blocks of our natural world, the fire element is also healing—it clears, transmutes and regenerates. Mostly masculine, or yang, in nature, it represents the phase of blossoming, attainment and peak experience. It is responsible for the brightness of our spirit and holds the torch that illuminates us on the journey of our highest life purpose.

When our personal fire element is in balance, we are intuitive and enthusiastic. We are always guided to the right place at the right time. With healthy fire element, we are enlivened, joyful and directed in our purpose in life.

When our personal fire element is deficient or weak, we lose faith in ourselves, our relationships and in life. With little enthusiasm or direction, we are unable to reach out to connect with others and we become isolated, even uncaring. Fire element deficiencies create an inability to follow through and can result in physical symptoms such as heart palpitations and weak or erratic pulse.

Conversely, when our personal fire element is in excess, we are irritable, impatient, over talkative and hyperactive. We become overexcited, over involved and overcommitted. We “burn the candle at both ends”.

Feng Shui and the Fire Element

The simplest, yet most powerful way, to balance the fire element energies in your life is to incorporate feng shui, the ancient art of space alignment, into your surroundings. With the proper alignment of how the natural elements interact in your intimate surroundings, feng shui helps you to live in harmonic resonance with the flow of joy and prosperity that is truly your divine birthright.

In Feng Shui, Fire corresponds to three main areas of the home:

1. The “Fame and Reputation” area – found in the middle one-third of the rear quadrant of the building, opposite the quadrant where your entrance is.
2. The “Love and Marriage” area – found in the rear corner to the right of Fame as you are facing in from the entrance. It also occupies one-third of that rear quadrant.
3. The stove in the kitchen.

Although there is a multitude of ways to balance Fire in the home, one basic guideline is to make sure that you do not have the Water element extinguishing your Fire in any of these areas.

Problematic examples that I have commonly seen in clients’ homes are:

1. Bathrooms or laundry rooms in the Fame or Love areas.
2. A pool, ocean or large pond in the backyard in one of these areas.
3. A second-story bathroom positioned above a ground-floor stove.

Any of these imbalances in your home’s main Fire areas can result in a negative impact on your relationships, your personal or professional reputation, your health and prosperity and your overall capacity for renewal and regeneration. ❖

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Enlightening Tips: Use the Fire Element to Increase Passion, Radiant Joy and Enlightenment

Is the water in your bathroom putting out the fire in your Fame or Love area?

In your Fame area, try putting a red rug on the floor, hanging some red bath towels and placing a bright colored pillar candle on the counter for radiant health and positive recognition.

In your Love area, incorporate some fiery, warm pink or magenta colors in the form of towels and bath rugs. Add a pair of candles in equal size and a pair of rose quartz hearts to affirm love and partnership.

Is the bathroom above your stove putting out the nourishing fires of your health and prosperity?

In the language of feng shui, the stove represents nourishment, health and prosperity. If there is a bathroom above your kitchen, try hanging a faceted, man-made crystal ball (the type that creates prisms) over the stove and another one over your toilet. You can also place a quartz crystal point (not man-made) on or near the stove, standing upright with the point directing to the ceiling. Both of these feng shui “cures” will help lift and disperse the negative bathroom energy and help restore the flames of nourishment for your body, spirit and your bank account!

Is there a large body of water behind your home near the Fame or Love areas?

A large (with depth) body of water behind the home can instigate health issues, especially related to digestion and the female organs. In the Love area, I have seen it create instability and bring up “deep, dark” issues in relationships. This is a common concern, especially in Hawaiian homes, and it is a very important one to address with various remedies (check out the past article on the Water Element in the Sept/Oct ’09 Ke Ola Magazine or posted at www.crystalclearfengshui.com).

For issues related specifically to the Fire element, you can add lots of Fire related colors, shapes and items to your landscaping design. Examples would be red cushions for your lanai furniture, solar powered lights or tiki torches that turn on automatically every night, and statues of animals and people like turtles, birds, tikis, Buddha, Quan Yin or St. Francis.

Color your Fire:

Reds* Bright Orange Warm Pink

Magenta Fiery Yellows Warm Purples

Shape Your Fire:

Pyramids Triangles

Obelisks Flame Shapes Upwardly moving items

Fire Materials:

Lights Skylights Fireplaces

Candles Animals People

* Red, the color of the Fire element, represents power, luck, fortune and celebration. But use with caution: just as too much fire can rage out of control, red is very activating and is best used as an accent color.