As the season of festivities comes to a close, and the stream of celebrations slows to a trickle, Yasmine El-Rashidi looks into how you can keep that joyous spirit in your home all year long I vaguely recall smirking several years ago when I first heard the term Feng Shui. And I smirked even more when I listened to a very dear, very alternative, friend speak about colour therapy and awareness. It should come as no surprise, though, that colour affects mood and spatial arrangement affects energy. When we look around and objectively assess the way we choose to organise, live and accessorise our lives, both colour and the arrangement of objects play critical roles. We wear blues because they are peaceful; whites because they evoke calm; and we stay away from yellows and reds at certain times because we find them too loud or too striking. Or at least some of us do. "Colours say a lot about who we are as people and our personality types," says Rachel Whiteburg, a holistic healing practitioner who recently moved to Cairo. "There are those who are assertive, there are statement makers, there are outgoing people and dreamers." Indeed, most holistic healing books and Web sites clearly define the worldly personality types and the colours they are most commonly associated with. "The statement maker, whose colours are red and black, is assertive, daring, and energetic," writes Robin Lennon in Home design from the inside out. "Expressive and dramatic: Magenta: Passionate, gregarious. Expressive: Yellow: Creative, busy, bright, cheerful, experimental.Casual Expressive: Pastels, pink: Approachable, gentle, loving, soft, artistic. Earthy: Green, khaki: Casual, comfortable, nurturing, friendly. Traditionalist: Navy, green: conservative, classic, persevering. Intuitive: Periwinkle, mauve: Searching, in transition, artistic. Sophisticated Outgoing: Gold: Thoughtful, considerate, a good negotiator." The colours and their healing powers stem from Ancient Egyptian mythology. Healing with colours was said to have been founded by the Ancient Egyptian God Toth. Later, it was advanced by the Arab physician and disciple of Aristotle, Avicenna (980-circa 1037). Using colour to treat, he believed that red moved blood, white and blue cooled it, and yellow reduced pain and inflammation. He would prescribe red flowers to cure blood disorders, and yellow ones and sunlight to reduce pain and inflammation. Since ancient times, colours have been used as physical stimuli, medicinal cures, and beauty enhancers. Manuscripts from early India, China and Egypt show there were complete systems of colour science used by healing priests. In both Ancient Egypt and Greece, people used specific colours in temples, often in conjunction with music, to regenerate the body. In fact, the combination of music, colour, astrology and numerology all formed part of the teaching that was then known as the "mysteries". These colour beliefs, however, may not always hold true. While yellow is theoretically meant to make you feel bright, some people may find the colour far too loud. "It gives me a headache," says Ghada Abdel-Razeq. "I could never live with yellow. It would make me feel ill." Instead, she has opted to live with pastels; baby blue, lilac, off-white and pale peach. "I find those colours much more relaxing." Pink, however, which helps express the gentle and soft, does not quite fit on her agenda. "Pink also makes me sick," she laughs. "Uuuurgh," she expresses through a tightly screwed-up face. Not everyone quite fits into the color personality rainbow, but it is, however, surprisingly spot-on. In classrooms and on university campuses around the United States, colours are assuming increasingly important roles. "Our library was over six floors," says Kari Kamel, a graduate of the University of Chicago. "Three floors were painted a burnt orange, and three were blue," she continues. "Nobody could study on the orange floors. After about 15 minutes, they would lose concentration. You would find everyone on the blue floors." The orange, eventually, was painted over. The high school she attended in Michigan was much the same. The rooms were painted pale colours -- pastels -- but the sports team uniforms were strikingly bright. "The way the school was painted was to calm kids," she says. "And our athletics' uniforms had to be strong colours. But because state regulations said you had to wear white when you played at home, our shirts had big red stripes down the sides, so they were really more red than white." Red, like black, is a good colour to wear if one wants to portray that assertive, confident -- slightly aggressive even -- edge. In law firms around the United States, attorneys are required to wear colours that exude assertiveness. This idea is catching on in other parts of the globe. "When I worked in law," Kamel continues, "we weren't even allowed to wear grey." That is not surprising. Grey, colour therapy experts have concluded, is neither white nor black, so it is considered in- between and indecisive. With colour, one must be decisive about likes and dislikes. Conforming to societal norms regarding conventional colours will not do one much good. "Generally, the belief is that neutrals such as beige, ivory, tan, and grey are symbolic of sophistication -- while bright colours (or certain colour combinations) are garish and uncouth," Lennon writes. "Neutrals and whites are considered a mark of understated elegance. Too much, too bright, too bold -- is often construed (by the public or the experts) as being a sign of poor taste." It is often hard to discard public polls on taste and strike out bold. "I kept to neutrals before because I felt they would induce peace and calm. I was influenced by what I had always done, and what you see in magazines because it looks nice," says Scarlet Roberts, a British resident of Cairo. "I just painted my lounge orange! It was going to be muted at the beginning, but something in my head clicked and I had a change in my outlook on life, and I found that I needed to express myself. I was inspired by a painting I have. Calligraphy of warm colours." Her changed outlook on life is now complimented by her changed lounge, which has transformed an atmosphere of seeming suppression to one of joy and light. Orange adds optimism and life. Purple, as another example -- the highest spiritual colour -- helps with healing and those in transition. But while everyone has a visceral response to colour, and the vibrational energies of it affect your moods, behaviour and mental well-being, it is important to remember that what is right and best for one person is not automatically right and best for another. "It comes close though," says Whiteburg. "The problem is that a lot of people aren't really in tune with their relationship with colour. They may like the look of a colour, but the actual dynamics of the effect of various colours remains elusive. It's a construct of society. They are conditioned from birth to associate certain colours with certain things. It takes work to see things otherwise." With Feng Shui (pronounced Fung- shway) -- which is the ancient Chinese art of placement to alter the "feel" of a place -- things are much the same. This Eastern art, which has been around for six thousand years, has surged in popularity around the world. Designers and architects are tuning into the importance of placing specific objects in relationship to their surroundings to counteract the nonproductive (sha) energy, and enhance the good (chi) energy. Feng Shui, in essence, is a sort of acupuncture for the home. And even to the most non "alternative" of personalities, the principles of this ancient belief make sense when one compares it to a public water system. "Water flows through the system regardless of how the pipes weave beneath the ground and in and out of your home, but the quality of the water pressure you receive relies totally on that flow being smooth, uncluttered and logically designed," Lennon writes. The goal, then, is to place furniture and objects in your home in a way that optimizes energy flow. There are some basic principles. The entry to the home is one of the most important aspects of a living environment, as this is where energy enters. It should be bright, airy, uncluttered. If the front entrance opens into the kitchen, for example, digestive disorders, problems with intestines or weight issues can ensue; a condition cured by hanging a faceted round crystal in the middle of the kitchen. If the living room, for example, is the room that you and your family use the most, then place things in the corner that you value, or are symbolic representations of what you are trying to pull into your life. For those that do much work at home, the shape of the furniture is also considered important. To achieve good feng shui in the study, it is recommended to use a rectangular/ oval-shaped desk with rounded corners on an angle facing the door, as this is the most commanding position of the room, thereby giving you the edge you need to attain success. And for the bedroom, it is commonly known that the bed should never be placed directly in front of the door. The list of do's and don'ts is endless. "There is so much," says Whiteburg, "and it takes time to really get attuned to the energy of a place. At first I was slightly sceptical, but it is fact that some places feel good and make you relax and others don't. When you walk into a room that is designed according to the principles of Feng Shui and colour awareness, you feel the difference." For those that have their doubts, of course, there is only one thing to do, and that is to try it out. Many of us are constantly re-arranging and re-decorating our bedrooms and homes -- nothing ever quite feeling perfectly right. Maybe, after all, there is a good reason why.
