Feng Shui Charms

Guan Gong, standing, carved in wood behind a pierced frame. Guan Yu was a general of the Three Kingdoms and became Guan Di, the god of loyalty and righteous protection, kept by shopkeepers, police and anyone whose word has to hold. In the car...

A column of brass bells on a red cord, tassel below. Bells are the simplest metal element object in feng shui. Hung at a door or a window, they move the air that has gone still and announce whoever comes in. Strung in a...

A brass bell, five coins and a tassel, made to hang at a door. In feng shui, the sound of metal is used to move air that has gone still and to mark a threshold, and a bell by the door does both each...

A carved wooden figure on a knotted cord, made to hang from your keys. Peachwood is the wood the Chinese tradition reaches for when something needs guarding. Peach charms hung on doors at New Year long before paper ones did, and a piece carried...

Six aluminium tubes hung from a black disc, sounding in a light wind. In feng shui the chime is a metal remedy. Of the five elements, metal is the one that cuts and clears, and a metal chime is hung where air has stopped...

Twelve metal tubes on a turned wooden disc, made to ring in the wind. In feng shui a chime is a metal element object, hung where the air has gone still or where a threshold needs marking: a front door, a balcony, the path...

Your zodiac animal on cinnabar red, in a brass case that turns. Cinnabar is the red mineral Chinese tradition has used for protection for longer than it has used ink, ground into the pigment of temple doors and the paste under a seal. Here...

Five brass bells under a pagoda roof, hung from a bagua. In feng shui the wind chime is a metal element object, and metal is the element that moves things along. Hung where air passes, a doorway, a window, the end of a corridor,...

A brass zodiac disc, a turning coin set into its back. The twelve animals each take a year in turn, and carrying your own has been a habit in Chinese households for a long time, most of all in the year it comes round...

A peach wood plaque carved with one of the eight trigrams. Feng shui reads a house as a square, and a floor plan with a corner cut away, an L-shape, a recessed entry, is said to be missing the part of life that corner...

A whole dried gourd on its own vine, tied at the waist in red. The hulu (葫芦) is the oldest container in Chinese life, a bottle before there were bottles, and in feng shui it keeps that job: a narrow mouth and a wide...

A prayer wheel holds a written mantra inside its turning drum. In Tibetan Buddhist practice, each turn of the wheel is counted as a recitation of the mantra coiled within it, a way of carrying intention through the day without words. Spinning it is...

The phurba is a ritual dagger, not a weapon. Used in Tibetan Buddhist practice, its three-sided blade represents cutting through the three things that cloud a clear mind: ignorance, attachment, and aversion. The handle stands for wisdom. Together they make a tool for clearing...