Sweeping the Flow Under the Rug

I love when things just happen, especially when I’ve spent lots of energy trying to force it to happen. I had an experience in my dining room that exemplified to me the necessity to let stuff unfold in its own way.

Our cats access the back yard mainly through a sliding glass door going out from our dining room. Because they sometimes come in with wet little paws if it’s rained or there might have been some snow, I placed a rug there. I haven’t trained them to wipe their feet, but it did act as a slight buffer before they hit the rest of our hardwood floors. The rug disintegrated over time and I threw it out quite a while ago. That’s when the effort to find the right rug kicked in.

My argument was that it would visible from many angles of our house, so it had to be more than functional----it had to be Feng Shui perfect. It was important to find the right color to go with the dining room. I wanted it to be round if at all possible. Plus I didn’t want it to be so special (as in expensive) that having cats walk over it with wet, dirty paws would cause concern. Mind you, for years, we had a very unattractive woven thing laying there serving the purpose. I never liked it and took it away when company was coming. However, now I could put all that behind me and have an attractive rug with all the features mentioned above.

Over the last few months I found lots of rugs, tons of rugs, more than enough rugs to place in front of all our doors and more. But there was always something not quite right----color was off, too big, too small, too expensive. I’d come home empty-handed from various rug-shopping ventures, frustrated with not finding just the appropriate one. Then last weekend I went to visit my sister. She is the catalog queen, so during some down time during my visit I started looking through one of her cheesy little catalogs. What junk, I thought. What trivial nonsense. Who’d buy this crap? Wait, here’s my rug.

Sure enough, I found the perfect rug to put in front of the door—right color, size, design, price

($17). It came today and I put it in place. The cats love it (see photo of cats basking on new rug), I love it, proving once again if I didn’t try so hard, the thing I’m looking for will find me.

All You Need is Dove

In my years of experience in the Feng Shui world, I have come up with a couple pretty earth-shattering revelations. They may be obvious once I state them, but I don’t think anyone else has claimed this data, so let me be the first. I’ve discovered some common threads that run through the lives of people who study and practice Feng Shui. Sometimes it’s a certain "je ne sais quoi" that simply hits me----someone just feels or looks like they’d be open to Feng Shui. Perhaps it’s the way they’re dressed or the fact that they’re shopping at Whole Foods. Whatever. I feel a sense of camaraderie with a total stranger.

However, my theory extends far past this idea. A long time ago I witnessed the inordinate amount of my clients who had cats. I kept track for a while and I went nearly one whole year visiting clients on a brisk basis. Each one had at least one cat. The first time I visited someone who didn’t have a cat, it was just odd. Having three cats myself, I feel a real kinship with other cat owners.

Now I have another discovery. Feng Shui people, almost without exception, love chocolate. Whenever we have a birthday celebration during one of our training weekends, someone brings cake---chocolate, of course. A student will go on a baking binge and bring treats for us all---brownies. The Wind and Water School of Feng Shui is housed in the Old Arizona complex in Minneapolis, part of which is a store. One of their specialities? Chocolates. Late last fall I re-released my first book while at the same time the owners of this store were introducing a new line of chocolates, so we teamed up with a "Feng Shui and Chocolate" event. People were streaming in all afternoon, blissed out with chocolate, asking Feng Shui questions, buying my books. Fun was had by all.

Sometimes a student will say they "take it or leave it" when talking about chocolate but I’ve yet to meet anyone who despises it. Of course, there’s always the possibility that someone who hates chocolate is too intimidated to admit this fact among all of us chocoholics.
As with any hypothesis, holes could be punched into these cat-chocolate claims. No doubt there’s someone out there, a well-qualified Feng Shui consultant who can’t tolerate either. But they’ll have to admit, if they’ve done any kind of research at all, they’re in the minority. Perhaps it’s a gender thing since most of my students and clients are women, and women are known to be partial to both. Somehow I don’t really think that undermines my theory much at all—don’t know why exactly, but my argument still feels strong. Now if I could just train my cats to bring me my Dove bars.

Feng Shui and Felines

I’ve had a theory for several years now----it has stood the test of time and I think it merits consideration. My theory is that people who are interested in Feng Shui also have cats. I’m not proposing this idea just because I myself have three cats but because the majority of my clients are also owners of felines.

It may be that cats are very attuned to subtle energies and since Feng Shui is all about energy, people may find a connection between the two. Cats like to sleep in warm, cozy corners where there might also be a soft pillow or a fresh pile of laundry, seeking an area where the ch’i flows favorably. By nature cats are nocturnal----ask anyone who owns a cat about those night-time tirades where hanging from curtains or "cat"- apulting over the back of chairs is just normal behavior. Feng Shui also prefers a good balance of yin energy—soft and winding paths, fountains, gentle breezes.


It’s not that dogs aren’t good indicators of energy, but you must admit they lack subtlety. A cat knows how to coerce ch’i to get what they want. They can masterfully stare changes into happening. They will stare at a door so long that suddenly it will open for them. They can stare at their owner from across the room for hours if needed until food appears, or a lap, from which they can choose which one will fulfill their needs at the moment.

A few years back, I kept track of this cat phenomenon. Each and every one of my clients had a cat or two, even three. This lasted unbroken for nearly two years. Back in those days I was doing two to three appointments a week. That’s a lot of homes with a lot of cats. I even wrote a tongue-in-cheek article back then sharing this observation if you want to ponder more about this topic.


My question is whether cats actually enhance the Feng Shui of a space or not. Or do they simply manage to get themselves adopted into a home that already has good Feng Shui. Perhaps that will always remain their secret. But, as a cat love, I myself am happy they’re here doing what they do----which is pretty much nothing.