hi all

I am just getting my feet wet and I'm not exactly sure where even to start. Any suggestions for me?

I'm a Realtor in MA. I became interested in Feng Shui after marketing a condo that was feng shui. I didn't know it at the time, but I did know that I felt very calm and that my blood pressure felt as though it went down everytime i walked into her condo.  I want to do that for my home and help my clients do it when trying to selltheir home. I figure it can only help!

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Feng Shui: The Complete Guide to the Art and Practice of Feng Shui

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui: How to Apply the Secrets of Chinese Wisdom for Health, Wealth and Happiness

These are 2 very good books by Lillian Too to start. They will help get you off and learning. There are several schools of thought with FS but see which one sounds best for you. Most important is to learn and understand the 5 elements. After that, 8 mansion, then flying star, then 4 pillar if you so desire. There is no order really just what you find fits better for you. Just note, there's so much contradiction out there on schools of thought and even within same school. Go with what feels right to you. And you don't have to decorate with only Chinese theme (unless you want to).
Happy learning!   silkconcepts

Hello,
I'm just start my study to Feng Shui By myself that beceause I live in Syria and we don't have any master or teacher in our country, though, can you help me to fine a usefull books as eastern in english because our region is the near east.
Best regards

I too have limited resource where I live. The idea of Feng Shui is not even mentioned. I came across it by accident after praying long and hard for something to help me with my life and marriage.  I've been muddling around with many sites, books and e-courses.  Much of what you'll find is contradicting. What I've found is it's important to learn the following:

5 elements (get very intimate with these)
8 Mansion (for the personal aspect)
Flying Star (for house's aspect)
BaZi aka 4 Pillars (for a more complete personal addition)

Lillian Too has many books that are very helpful. Basics to Feng Shui along with the others I mention in the previous post have been very helpful for me. Eva Wong has a very good one for Flying Star but it varies slightly from LT. Flying Star Feng Shui from Stephen Skinner is another very good one. There are many out there but I suggest checking out your local library to see if you can get them before you purchase. Amazon.com has a lot of great deals on used books. Also check out the forums on geomancy.net and Lillian Too's wofs.com   Hope this helps.

Hallooo!

After reading and puzzling through dozens of books on FS for the past ten years or so, I find that some concepts are a little tricky to tackle at the very beginning: Flying Star is one of them, as it requires quite a bit of calculating.

My advice for a beginner is:

- Do not be concerned at first with the differences in teachings. In time, you will get to keep that which you find most useful and still applicable to you in the long run (bear in mind these concepts are many millennia old and a few are slightly out of sync with modern living: learning to tell superstition from truth is another tricky bit).

- Start with the School of Shape, just to learn to look around you with FS eyes. Master Lam Kam Chuen has a great introductory book, "Chinese Science of Feng Shui", by Gaia books. Then he takes you a bit further with his "Your Personal Feng Shui", also from Gaia. These two books are beautifully illustrated and you can easily understand how the energy flows by looking at the pics.

- When you are confident about knowing your 5 elements and your 4 animals, you can start taking the 8 directions into account. Lillian Too is by far the most prolific author on FS, but I recommend you to start with "Essential Feng Shui", by Rider (although by now you can find it under many other publishers, I guess). This is one of the most complete FS books you can find, nearly a FS bible by itself. One little thing, though: L.Too is a really enthusiastic applier of FS and can lead you to get a little obsessed with following everything exactly to the letter. Just breath and relax... There is no such thing as the perfect dwelling, unless you make it yourself.

- Before going on to the more complicated Flying Star stage, another beautiful book for beginners to look at FS and the 5 elements from a wider point of view (including your personal health, changes throughout life, etc) is Jon Sandifer's "Feng Shui Journey", by Judy Piatkus, London. Only those who really know what they are talking about can manage to explain it in such a simple and entertaining way (btw, in case you get carried away into 9 Star Ki, like I did, he has another great book on the subject called "Feng Shui Astrology", also by Piatkus).

- When you feel ready to really dig your elbows down, Eva Wong's "A Master Course in Feng Shui", by Shambhala, is just the thing. Mind you, you must feel really awake and keen to tackle this book.

I have read many other books on FS. Curiously enough, most of them written by western authors. While a few of them have a great mastery of the subject (like Sandifer), I find many only kept to those essentials they felt they could deal with. Some of them left out the 8 directions, which I feel is really central to this art, even if you do not tackle them first thing. So I am not including any of them here. In fact, I only included those I kept after reading and rereading a few dozens.

Another interesting parallel art to FS is Vastu Vidya, the Indian version, which I believe is as old as Chinese FS (give or take a few hundred years). Unfortunately, I only got to read one book about it, written by a western decorator, so I have no way of knowing how knowledgeable she is on the subject. Books on Vastu have only appeared in the last few years and there aren't many authors available to the western world.   : I know! I will ask at the Vedic forum in case someone can recommend books by good authors on the subject!