Wind chimes, mirrors and flutes are often the first thing people associate with Feng Shui. Here is how useful or detrimental these can be.
Wind Chimes
A metal wind chime creates metal sound. This is useful in some areas of a building as it helps clear and diminish some types of negative energies.
However, for a wind chime to have a positive effect, firstly, it needs to make a sound. If it does not pick up any breeze, there will be no benefit. Secondly, the sound should be beautiful to you. It is no use if it irritates or annoys you.
These conditions can make wind chimes difficult to work with. Far too often I’ve seen wind chimes tied up because they were annoying, or others hanging quietly in some corner.
Furthermore, if wind chimes are hung in areas with a certain energy combinations they can cause night mares and illusions. And in other areas, its movement can agitate negative energies even further.
Unless you know the energy blue print of your space, you need to use your intuition and remove the wind chime if you sense it creating more problems.
A metal chiming clock is often a better solution to bringing in beneficial metal sound – one of these 80 or so year old clocks where a hammer hits a real metal gong every 15 or 30 minutes, or modern versions of these.
As long as you like the sound, these clocks will help handle the negative energies present, and you don’t have to worry about it. It makes this sound without fail a few times every hour.
Mirrors
There are many misconceptions about the use of mirrors in Feng Shui. Firstly, the mirrors used in ancient China were not our kind of mirrors. They were made of bronze and reflected light. In that way they were a good source of metallic light energy, which does help curing some negative energy.
Mirrors today are made of coated glass. They visually double everything and with that make a room more active and spacious. They are useful in bringing in a good view, or to open or brighten up a room.
For that reason, they should not be used in a bedroom reflecting the bed. We don’t need more active energy there, but a quiet space for sleeping.
Mirrors should also not be used to deflect negative energy. A mirror cannot dissolve the cutting energy brought about by a ‘poison arrow’ such as at a T-junction. In fact, to quote Feng Shui Master Joseph Yu, the head beam of cars coming towards the house may be reflected to the driver and cause an accident.
Flutes
Flutes, because of their shape, belong to the Wood element. Currently, there are only very few areas in a building where the wood element is beneficial – and many areas where it can cause agitation of negative energies or weakening of positive influences.
If placed with one of the negative Earth energies, it can bring irritation, misfortune, arguments or lawsuits. If it is placed with the most radiant Yang energy, it can reduce the wealth potential. Placed with the most radiant Yin, it can lead to injury, especially of young children.
As there are such few places where flutes are useful, I am not a great friend of them.
As you can see, unless you know what type of energy is present in each area of your home or office, it is difficult to know how to best decorate it. To find out what types of energies you have in the different areas of your home or workspace requires a professional Feng Shui analysis. Short of this, you need to trust your intuition.