Go With the Flow

Feel the flow--feng shui is going mainstream.

“Five years ago, people would ask, ‘Feng what?’ Today they’re doing it,” said Karen Kingston, who has been teaching the ancient Oriental art for more than 20 years. “It’s a hot topic.”

She was in Los Angeles recently conducting workshops and promoting her new how-to book, “Creating Sacred Space With Feng Shui” (Broadway). “It’s very practical,” she said. “It goes through the steps average Americans can use to improve their own lives.”

Feng shui involves the design of buildings and placement of furnishings to ensure the healthiest flow of energy (or chi). The British-born Kingston has long been considered an authority on “space clearing,” the first step in the complex process.

Formerly a therapist and body worker,???Kingston became aware of the energy that surrounds people, and got interested in buildings and trained herself to read these energies, stored in the walls or furniture. “We don’t live on a dead planet,” she said. “There are energies moving through all the time.”

And although years of apprenticeship are required to become a feng shui master, there are some basic principles that can be taught relatively easily. People who try them are amazed at the results, Kingston said. “There is something immensely therapeutic about clearing the clutter out of your house,” she said.

Kingston, who divides her time between London and Bali, acknowledges that her self-taught approach is unusual. She attended a recent International Feng Shui Conference in Palm Springs with some trepidation. “They didn’t throw me out,” she said. “In fact, I was welcomed. People were standing in the aisles.”