Objects — Feng Shui Knowledge Database

The most widely used placement object — read by the tradition as a concentrating and brightening element.

The most argued-over object — used to deflect, to enlarge, and to return what is aimed at a space.

The eight-trigram mirror hung outside a door — the tradition's best-known deflecting object.

The standard living wood object — used where a space is described as needing growth or upward movement.

The standard moving-water object — used where a space is described as needing circulation.

A water object that carries living contents — water element with the addition of movement and life.

A sound object — traditionally read as metal, and placed by the element rather than by the noise.

A figure from popular practice rather than from the classical sources — read as a contentment object.

A pair of guardian figures placed at an entrance — one of the few objects with a genuinely classical pedigree.

A composite creature — dragon head, turtle body — combining two of the four celestial animals.

A plant object carrying a prosperity reading — one of the most common household plants in the practice.

A succulent with round leaves, read through the shape-and-name association the practice uses for plants.

Round coins with a square hole — read as metal, and as the heaven-and-earth form.

The dried gourd — a health object in the practice, and one with a long classical association.

A winged composite creature used as a protective and gathering object.

A composite auspicious creature with a genuinely classical pedigree.

A light and colour object — the fire element applied as illumination rather than as flame.

A living wood object whose form is the point — the tradition reads it by shape as much as by element.

The architectural guardian — the object most securely documented in the building tradition itself.

The money toad — a prosperity object of folk origin with detailed modern placement rules.

A feather object read as protective — one of the older household objects with a documented use.

A metal sound object — the traditional instrument for clearing and for marking a threshold.

A water-and-plant object carrying a purity reading, and one of the most documented symbols in the tradition.

A remedy of the modern practice — salt, water and coins, used to absorb rather than to deflect.