Good ch'i helps businesses prosper: Feng Shui practitioners hail ancient Chinese practice as saviour to workplace balance.

It is about balancing the yin with the yang, and clearing away those blockages that impede good. ch'i.

Because if you don't have good ch'i in the work place...well, you will have problems.

The ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui may be considered hog wash to some, but business executives such Donald Trump are applying its 3,000-year-old principles to their daily business dealings, redesigning their. office space to promote happiness and productivity.

Feng Shui practitioners are few and far between in the North, but Mary Fournier and Kathleen Ryan, partners in Feng Shui Consulting, have been devotees for the past six years.

Ryan, a semi-retired decorator and astrologer, and Fournier, an antique and gift shop owner, provide private consults in homes and offices in Sudhury.

Feng Shui (pronounced fung schway) is the philosophy of balancing and harmonizing life energy through personal environment. How you feel about work may be reflected in your office environment.

Some additions may involve adding bamboo blinds (considered a talisman), arranging plants in a certain spot or placing a personal symbol of wealth, health, love or growth in a select place in a work space.

Feng Shui is very complex. What works for one business may not work for another.

In doing an on-site evaluation and walkthrough of the offices of Northern Ontario Business (NOB)in Sudbury, both gave NOB work space a passing grade, though there was room for some slight improvement.

"You're doing quite a bit right," says Ryan, in granting her seal of approval, pointing out the purple walls at the top of the stairwell.

"Purple is good for publishing," but she cautions too much of it is dangerous since it is an aggressive and dominating colour.

It encourages business, but bathing the place in one colour is too much yang (male) energy, as opposed to yin (female), which can. bring about illness and other in-house difficulties.

"It's about balance and-harmony. That's something we seem to be talking about all the time today, bringing in the qualities of the male and female.

"Feng Shui is very, very subtle. In a room you may not notice any differences when you walk in, but when you're there for awhile you begin to feel different; that sense of balance," says Ryan.

Using points of the compass, they prepared a floor plan to explain any problem areas and recommended solutions to encourage flow of ch'i, which is the energy force of life naturally through living and working spaces.

"Ch'i shouldn't go straight out...you have to allow it to meander. So furniture placement should encourage the people flow of ch'i."

The Northern Ontario Business Elgin Street building, bordered by busy roads to the front and side, means lots of good energy flow.

But the CP railway tracks across the street poses as a barrier, and they recommend a concrete planter with some kind of evergreen on the left side of the building.

The quirky, oblong second-floor layout of NOB, with which the company share's floor space with Northern Life, a community newspaper, presents all kinds of corners and wall indentations that can trap negative energy.

Mirrors in two strategic places will break up some of that choppiness and reflect the ch'i back into the office setting, they say.

A back office where a reporter and the staff researcher share space, they say, sits in a bad place, separated from the rest of the group with a long corridor, and two bathrooms; "Any of the creative knowledge that's going on this office is getting flushed' down the toilet," says Fournier, who suggests a barrier such as a book case along one wall as a demarcation.

And the peach colour of the men's washroom is a "poor choice" since it can signify promiscuity and extramarital affairs. A soft, apple green colour is best, they say.

Publisher Patricia Mills' office in the building's southwest corner is the best possible spot since-that is where the matriarch traditionally sits in the home.

"You've got really good things happening in that room," says Ryan. But with the publisher's second-story office situated above an open staircase, that missing space-needs a grounding influence, they say.

Rip up that blue carpet and replace it with earth tones. A wood floor would be even better, Ryan notes.

As with most consulting businesses, prices vary depending on the service and how indepth their survey is. An initial consult is $100.

Whether it is worth it depends on the belief of the occupants. Sometimes changes occur over months, sometimes overnight.

One woman in Lively, outside of Sudbury, who had her entire house feng shui'ed, saw her husband's business quadruple within a year and half, Ryan says.

"If the business does the feng shui, the positive energy will carry over into the personal lives of the employees, and vice versa.

"You're working with harmony and bringing in all the elements," says Ryan.

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