“[The professional] will not tolerate disorder. He eliminates chaos from his world in order to banish it from his mind. He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
We rolled into the driveway, tired from the 4 1/2 hour drive home from the family lake house, but relaxed after our last getaway of the summer. Everyone piled out–Mark and I, the boys, my mother, the dog.
I was looking forward to getting the laundry done quickly and reestablishing order in the house and in our routines prior to the start of school in a few days. It had been a good summer, not too scheduled (for once), including a lot of quality time with family and friends.
The others went inside. By the time I got to the threshold, I heard their groans and gasps. My stomach tightened.
Water does not belong on wood floors. Water is not supposed to be dripping through the ceiling. But water was doing both of those things in our foyer.
Mark was already upstairs in the boys’ bathroom, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The culprit was a half-finished leaky faucet fix. Mark had removed the faucet cartridges before we left, but hadn’t yet replaced them. Although he had turned off the water supply to the sinks, a slow leak somehow continued for the five days we were gone, filling the vanity and seeping down to the foyer ceiling below.
I emptied the linen closet of towels to sop up the water from the floors. After slashing the bubbles of pooled water in the ceiling and finding a bowl to catch the leak under the vanity plumbing, the dripping finally stopped. The wood floors were salvageable. The foyer ceiling was not.
Leaks and other plumbing problems play a strong role in Feng Shui principles, as they symbolize a loss of wealth. The faucet had been dripping for months, in fact, and I had told Mark that my Feng Shui reference book, Feng Shui Quick Guide for Home and Office, by Carol Olmstead, warned that leaky faucets “symbolize prosperity, wealth, and abundance dripping down the drain.” Case in point, the $900 worth of drywall replacement we have before us.
Not only that, the ruined ceiling is a serious crimp in my style. The mess in my entryway is a major source of negative energy (chi), causing me to feel not only unsettled, but also irritable and unfocused. My head will remain as messed up as the ceiling until it is fixed.
Feng Shui tells us that our foyers should be designed to attract the flow of positive chi. As the first area we see when we walk in to our homes, everything in the foyer should lift our spirits. Whether one “believes” in the methodology or not, it makes perfect sense from a practical standpoint. (As a sidenote, I recently heard that some people think Feng Shui is a religion, which is certainly not the case!)
Fountains or pictures of flowing water are recommended for the foyer as symbols of positive energy movement. I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect Feng Shui photo of a streambed filled with briskly flowing water, but it apparently wasn’t enough to fend off the power of leaky plumbing.
So this week, as I celebrate the start of school, I will also be celebrating the repair of leaky faucets and the foyer ceiling, all of which will restore my sense of order, secure my sense of abundance, clear my head, and, hopefully, enhance my inspiration.
Do you have your own stories of your wealth dripping away? Consider leaving a comment!
Steven Savage says
So a couple of years ago, I was finally at a point in my marriage where I was finally able to go snowboarding….this was a huge deal for me because I hadn’t been snowboarding in over two years..so i come back to my car after a fun day on the slopes only to find 19 missed calls and 15 voicemails from my wife….not a good thing! it was the damn cat! apparently he was hurt and it was going to cost 600 bucks to save his life. We had the money at the time which was rare in our young marriage and so my wife did the right thing and had the cat saved…….the $600 bill turned into a $1200 bill almost over night….the leaks didn’t begin until after our kitty camw home…i went to work the day after he came home and walking into work, a colleague pointed out my shirt was wet….living in the north west and it being the winter, i thought no big deal, so i go in my very small office and say goodmorning to my neighbor who says the same thing about my shirt being wet, i said yeah i know, and he said i don’t think you understand, you kinda smell like cat pee buddy! My poor sick little kitty had leaked all over the clothes i had laid out for.work the night before….the little bastard!
Martha says
Ouch! Your wealth leaking away with vet bills AND your work clothes getting leaked upon. Double whammy! Glad the kitty is OK, though (and hopefully he’ll have even more lives now). I think a separate blog post about the money we spend on our pets is somewhere in my future.
Bill Apablasa says
Martha,
While I take no pleasure in your leaky faucets and ceilings, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your post! The amount of Feng Shui lessons you packed into your story is a testament to your writing and teaching skills. I’m already looking at my house differently. Thanks for your wisdom! Looking forward to a lot more! Bill
Martha says
Thanks, Bill! In a future post I’ll talk about the other side of the equation. Some Feng Shui practitioners believe that floods symbolize something positive — a cleansing or clearing out of negative energy, making room for new possibilities. This is not my first flood, and I can honestly say that something positive has come out of each one. Stay tuned!
Emma says
That is the last thing you need when you return from holiday!! Poor you :-( I could literally feel your pain on reading that. It’s like leaving all the wonderful feelings of a relaxing holiday behind you upon entering the threshold of reality!! I hope you managed to sort it…Incidentally, wow, your About section is amazing. You’ve been and done so much! Lots of colourful life experience xx
Martha says
Thanks for your comment, Emma. These are always good opportunities to practice presence (which I’m better at with floods than I am with parenting). Since I know you are an Eckhart Tolle fan, you’ll understand what I mean when I talk about taking action where you can and letting go of the rest. The whole thing was fixed in a few days. The situation (there are no problems, just situations) inspired a blog post. And I had been meaning to get that rug in the foyer cleaned anyway!
Leigh says
A first time home owner, I came across your post when seeking both solace and feng shui info about what I have come to name “leaky bathroom syndrome”. Tonight when my foot hit the wood floor at the doorway to my bathroom I heard a swoosh and water squirting out…turns out water is under the wood floor in my bedroom and hall due to a leaky bathroom sink. Thing is, I find that all my bathrooms (rentals, apartments, and even kitchens) have had chronic dripping toilets, faucets and the like. My search into Feng Shui is to inquire both into solutions as well as root causes—what is going on I’m my own energy that attracts this drain of energy and abundance? Any how–your post was just what I needed tonight! I love your perspectives, antidotes and way with words.
Martha says
Hello Leigh! Sorry for the delay in responding. For some reason I didn’t receive a notification of your comment. I am so sorry about your leaky bathroom syndrome. And boy, can I relate!! Did you read any of my other posts about my water troubles? (Check out “How to Listen When Your Land is Crying”) Have you sought out the help of a feng shui consultant? Both of the women I’ve worked with are able to advise remotely. Carol Olmstead at http://fengshuiforreallife.com and Bridget Saraka at fengshuibybridget.com are wonderful resources whom I can highly recommend. Good luck! And hope to you’ll stop by the blog again! ~ Martha
Donna says
I have 2 dripping taps for months now and I notice everything that can go wrong as gone wrong. Our money flow has gone down hill we have had nothing but bad luck. I have someone coming out to fix it all so I am hopeing all will go back to normal. I will keep you up dated.