Your space is in conversation with you.
With the Wood Element emerging, you may feel pulled to engage with your space with a new set of eyes. Not to renovate or overhaul, but to look again. To notice what's working and what's quietly asking for something different.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, how our spaces hold us, or don't, and I wanted to offer you something practical to work with.
I created something for you. It's a new pdf on how to bring the elements into your home. Of course you can do this through art. (wink) but it's so much more than that. It’s colour, texture, accents and even your light.
I’m not a Feng Shui expert, however, the aesthetics of a space affect me deeply, and usually when I’m feeling off in my life, the rooms of my home reflect that back to me. Loudly calling for my attention. More often than not it’s clutter that has piled up and needs sorting, but sometimes it’s the room itself asking to be tended. Whether it be changing out the art, or rearranging the layout, and sometimes a refresh of fabric and texture.
It’s beyond just wanting to look good by an industry standard or decor book and more about a feeling. Certain rooms in my home need to feel a certain way.
Our living room while hosting company occasionally is typically a room to seek solitude and quiet. It holds colours of deep blue, grey with accents of silver, gold and white, ornate buddhas and spirals. Each of us usually finds ourselves sitting there when we just need a moment or many to decompress and embrace silence.
Whereas the space in our loft where we hang out as a family, watching movies etc, is more earthy, the furnishing minimal and the throws and pillows in shades of plum and earthy browns.
My clinic/studio is like a warm cozy womb, the floor a deep brown with moss coloured blankets and warm light including salt lamps, light music, and usually the smell of moxa combined with nag champa filling the air depending on the session requirements. It is designed to let clients feel cared for, not just by me, but also the environment that holds their transformations.
If allowing the elements to shape your space is new to you, there are three ways in:
1. Your dominant personal element: if you have taken the Five Elements quiz, your element type offers a natural starting point. The qualities that support you as a person will often support your space.
2. The element your space is missing: sometimes a room feels flat, restless, or heavy without a clear reason. Move through the elemental profiles in the pdf and notice which one stands out as being absent.
3. The element you are drawn to right now: trust your instinct. If a particular element keeps calling your attention, it is likely offering something you need in this season.
All three are valid entry points. You may find yourself returning to this guide in different seasons of your life and choosing differently each time. That is the nature of elemental living, it evolves with you.
Right now, as Wood pushes through in my own life, I find myself drawn back to the spaces in our home that are used the most. How can they support us as new opportunities come into our awareness, my husband starting a new position, my son now fully a teenager and requiring his own space for solitude and decompression. My clinic/studio to support my clients and my art practice.
Noticing what feels alive in the room and what has gone quietly flat. It doesn't take much. Sometimes it's moving a single object, or finally putting up the print that has been leaning against the wall for three weeks. The space exhales. And so do I.
Your space is always in conversation with you. This guide is simply an invitation to listen. Click here to download it.
PS — April's print is almost here. I'll be sharing it first with Print Club members later this week — if you've been curious about joining, this is a lovely moment to step in. The door to join is HERE.
XX Ashley