'Fang' shui: The art of rearranging home furnishings for your cat
- Alison Bowman, Special to The Chronicle
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Americans can't get enough feng shui these days. Despite this ancient Chinese art form's esoteric demands on our most personal, private spaces, which, by the way, all need to be torn down and rebuilt, well, we just can't pass up a concept -- a wisdom -- that confirms what we already knew: The best response to life's thorny problems is to redecorate.
My own meager attempt to apply a little feng shui around the domicile hit a few snags named Brody and Panther. Ancient Chinese wisdom may rule your roost, but my housekeeping is largely dictated by a couple of fur dragons on paws. I see now that what determines the order of my life furnishings can more accurately be called fang shui.
Feng shui: The art of finding happiness by rearranging your home based on ancient Chinese tenets.
Fang shui: The art of finding happiness by rearranging your entire life for your cat.
Feng versus fang
Let me start by acknowledging that cats are not born enemies of feng shui, which actually approves of cats and other companion animals because they "stir up the chi." Chi is the life force that flows through a place, and feng shui, as far as I can tell, is all about managing its flow. You don't want the chi to stagnate; neither do you want it to rush through your pad too fast. Cats, in their normal day-to-day activities, help keep the chi moving around, and that, Martha Stewart, is a good thing.
However, other feng shui advisories seem to preclude a catted environment, and I am forced to conclude that the feng shui folks never actually shared their cave with a couple of fang-faced chi wranglers. One example is the seemingly simple suggestion to put fresh flowers in key locations around the home, a move that could fix your health or help you win the lotto, depending where you place them. But anywhere I place fresh flowers that isn't out of reach of los gatos can guarantee only one outcome: a huge, wet mess when my flower-fascinated cats knock them over. Is this what they mean by "stirring up the chi"?
Similarly, thriving plants on one's work desk are said by feng-ies to make your career thrive. I wonder, however, what plants with bunches of cat-chewed, dying leaves portend. Like the flowers, all my plants are placed where the cats can't reach them. Fang shui in action.
Water sports
Keeping goldfish is another questionable feng shui prescription. The goldfish is said to absorb their owner's bad energy, and if you have a real bad day the fish might even croak. I figure every day would be a bad day for the poor fish with my cats tormenting it. A more likely cause of death would be ulcers, heart attack or a direct hit.
Besides goldfish and flowers, cats and feng shui share other likes in common. Take flowing water. Herman Panther, a 16-pound glossy black brick of a cat, is so gaga for the plumbing that he can be found in the tub at any hour, staring at the pipe, waiting for the elusive water creature to slither out. Turn the faucet on and his paw becomes a water-slaughtering machine, pounding the slippery stream into chop suey.
Brody, a tabby Maine Coon, also enjoys inexplicable water habits. He stands with his front feet in his water bowl, lifts a forepaw and shakes it, baptizing any nearby ankles. While I like the idea of getting a peaceable table fountain (good feng), I fear that I would come home one day to find the thing bone-dry and gasping, the house flooded and the cats collapsed nearby (bad fang).
More cat arranging
I have to admit, most feng shui principles are over my head and beyond my capacity. In my crowded quarters, rearrangement to accommodate the chi is largely out of the question. I have about 6 square feet of surface space that is not traversed, spelunked or rappelled by my cats (at least not on my watch; however, I occasionally find evidence of feline forays into even these off-limit spaces). And even these surfaces are endlessly inundated by receipts, notes, spare change, half sticks of gum and minutiae that finds its way in the door on the great chi stream of life.
Oh, what the hell, maybe an octagonal mirror here, a wind chime there is all it would take to turn things around. I've already rearranged my entire place for my cats; what can a few more changes possibly set me back? Sure, the chi's flow in my house may be somewhat convoluted in spots, but at least I know exactly where it all ends up: the same corner of the bathroom where all the cat fur collects.
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