Perfect Harmony: Pictures depict energy

Bilkis Whelan writes a fortnightly column, Perfect Harmony, for Tabloid. She is an international author, consultant, speaker and teacher on Feng Shui, Vaastu Shastra, meditation and Eastern astrology. She does a regular monthly programme on BBC Radio (live) on Feng Shui and Vaastu Shastra. She has travelled widely to study the esoteric secrets with world-renowned Eastern masters

A picture says a thousand words... so try to remember that when you plan your home. Pictures can enliven a room and add brightness and colour. If you want they can be the centre of attraction in a room or they can sit discreetly and quietly on a wall.

Pictures can make a room more interesting because of the colours used or whatever is depicted on it. Some pictures automatically attract your attention while others do nothing for you or might even be "ugly". You need positive, happy energies in your home and hence it is a place for happy pictures. Pictures that have ugly, violent, sad or angry subjects are not ideal.

The size of the picture should always be in proportion to the size of the room. You do not want a picture to overpower the room by its size. The picture should be ideal not only for the wall but also the room.

Pictures can depict two kinds of energy - yin and yang. Yin pictures are those that have restful, quiet energy and colour. Yang pictures are those that have active, aggressive energy and colour.

I Feng Shui-ed a house of a single, young, attractive woman who wanted to get married and was looking for the ideal partner. She was working in an environment where daily she interacted with male colleagues. She was very sociable, easy to get along with, had a sense of humour, was pleasant company and great fun. It was difficult to understand why she was finding it difficult to meet her ideal mate. When I visited her house... I realised why. Her house was full of yin energies. She had a lot of photographs and pictures in the house - the walls were covered with them. When I looked more closely I realised that all the pictures had women in them. Either there was one single woman or a group of them in the pictures. All the pictures were yin in nature. Very few of the pictures even exuded happiness from the subjects.

She came from a close-knit family of four sisters and a brother. There were pictures of her with her parents, and some with her sisters, girl friends and female colleagues. There were hardly any pictures of her with her brothers or male colleagues. There were no pictures of male in her room. In fact, Madonna dominated one wall of her bedroom - she was a great fan of the pop diva.

The colours that she had used on the walls in her home were pastel and pale. Everything had frills and lace - it was all very feminine. In fact, there was far too much of feminine or yin energy and hardly any male or yang energy in the house. Her female friends would feel so much at home in her home but any male visitor would not feel very comfortable in there.

We did a great clearing of the house... we gave away some of the yin pictures and bought pictures with bright colours, happy energies and with male and yang overtones in them. We started with the bedroom first! We replaced the pin up of Madonna in her bedroom with one of Madonna with her husband, Guy Ritchie in it! We got her a colourful duvet to cover her bed and some colourful cushions (with frills) on them for her bed. The bedroom needs restful energies so we let her keep her pastel, pink colour walls - but just added a fresh coat of paint to them.

We then moved to the living area and we painted her living room walls with a fresh, new coat of a brighter shade of mauve instead of the pale and pastel shade that she had used before. We added some spot colours by getting a bright, colourful throw for the cream-coloured sofa, added some coloured scatter cushions around the room. We hung a bright coloured curtain on the window - brought in some spotlights and "up lighters" and brought in pictures of happy, couples and in less than a week, and at no big cost, had changed the whole look of the place and the energies, too.

The whole house had been transformed and now it all looked bright, attractive and full of energy. It had a nice balance of yin and yang energy. A couple of weeks later she called me to tell me that her parents had found an ideal partner for her.


- Readers can send their questions to Bilkis Whelan at Tabloid: fax 04-3429720 or e-mail tabloid@gulf-news.com. Alternatively, you can visit her website www.bilkiswhelan.com