10 Jan Water, Water, Everywhere: A Home’s Way of Grieving?

I received an email from someone who had moved into their home a couple years ago and since then had been dealing with water issues—–leaky roof, refrigerator leaked, shower leaked, water in the lower level.  Her question was what can they do—-more specifically, is there a Feng Shui fix? 

Let’s talk about some Feng Shui theory first. Water has a direct connection to money:  the flow of water = the flow of money.  If you live by water or have water on your property, there is a greater potential of gathering money into your life than if you don’t.  Fountains are often used in Feng Shui to symbolize the flow of money in a space.  When water is inappropriately flowing/leaking/flooding, then you may be losing or spending money.  Obviously this could be reflective of the financial state of the new owners—-they just spent or committed to spending a whole bunch of money to buy a new or different home.  The new house is simply recognizing the situation and mirroring it back to them.

In my new book Conversations with Your Home, I argue that a home expresses MORE than the direct mirror concept.  Instead, your home can put forth a new thought or a new idea—-we could call that it’s way of communicating.  This communication is subtle and understandably seldom recognized or acknowledged.  But with little effort, it becomes easy to identify independent stirrings of your home as it reaches out to be in touch.  When an owner moves out of a space, perhaps there is some sadness for the changes that are occurring.  We seldom let our homes know what we’re up to—-moving may feel like abandonment to a home that’s been assuming all is going well. 

So, it expresses itself in an overt way that draws attention to the new inhabitants in an effort to get some answers.  Unfortunately, rather than compassion and understanding at its mis-guided efforts, we are irritated at the inconvenience of mopping up the leaks or investing even more money in a new water heater.  What if we had written our new home a letter letting it know how happy we were to be there?  What if we had paid attention to the adjustments those walls were trying to make on its own rather than immerse ourselves in our own giddiness at hanging new pictures and painting walls?  What if, instead of basking in our excitement to move in, we had considered how the house was having to change?  Maybe we could have found a small way to work together with the space to create an experience that would have made us all happy.  I’m just sayin’. . . .