Feng Shui Necklaces

Five emperor coins, worn at the neck rather than hung at the door. Old Chinese coins are round with a square hole, the round standing for heaven and the square for earth, so to wear them is to carry a small balance of both....

The phurba, worn at the neck rather than kept on the altar. A ritual dagger from Tibetan Buddhist practice, the phurba's three-sided blade stands for cutting through the three things that cloud a clear mind: ignorance, attachment, and aversion. Worn as a pendant, it...

A Pixiu (貔貅) coiled around a ring of black obsidian, carved edge to edge. Obsidian is volcanic glass, born of fire and cooled in an instant. Long worn for protection and grounding, it is the stone reached for when the day pulls in too...

A jade gourd, narrow at the waist and round at the base.The hulu is a calabash, dried and hollowed, once carried by physicians and wandering monks to hold medicine and water. Its shape became its meaning: a wide mouth that draws things in, a...

A small jade fox, curled with its tail around itself.The nine-tailed fox of Chinese folklore is a shapeshifter, clever and charming and never quite pinned down, kept as a charm for allure and for the sharp kind of intelligence that reads a room before...

The Tiger of the Chinese zodiac, carved in cinnabar beneath its seal character. Cinnabar is the fire-red stone of the Chinese tradition, long worn to guard vitality and keep good fortune close. Its colour alone was considered protective, the red that meets whatever the...

Obsidian, cut into clean geometric facets. Volcanic glass formed when molten rock meets cold air, obsidian has been worn for grounding and protection for as long as people have carried stone. This version trades the carved figures for a simple faceted form, the kind...

A pixiu carved in matte obsidian, hung on an adjustable beaded cord. The pixiu (貔貅) is the wealth guardian of Chinese feng shui, a winged creature said to feed on gold and silver and, having no way to let it out, to keep every...

A pixiu crouched on a ruyi, carved from one piece of obsidian. The pixiu (貔貝) is the wealth guardian that takes fortune in and has no way to let it go. The ruyi (如意) it rests on is the curled sceptre whose name means...

The laughing Buddha, carved in black obsidian. He is Budai, the wandering monk of Chinese folk tradition, taken as a form of Maitreya, the Buddha still to come. The open mouth and the bare belly are the whole point. He is kept for good...

A dragon in obsidian, rising through cloud over the sea. The carving is the old motif of the dragon over the four seas, 龙腾四海, the creature of the east and of rain, kept for ambition, authority and rising standing. The figure is polished to...

A dragon coiled across a tablet of smoky, see-through obsidian. The dragon is the one creature in the Chinese zodiac that never lived, and the only one that ranks with emperors. It stands for ambition, authority and the kind of luck that comes to...