When family physician Kristin Lorenz asked Ellen Schneider, owner of Spirit Feng Shui, to take a look at the essential energy that flowed through her home, she got some bad news.
The area of love and marriage turned out to be a piece of dirt outside the house.
"I knew we had to work on that," says Lorenz, the single mother of a son who'll start college this year.
She added a deck under a mature loquat tree, which helps to contain the life energy that the Chinese call chi (pronounced "chee") that is believed to permeate all living things and inanimate objects.
Lorenz then put in a wall fountain, a wrought-iron table and potted plants to enhance the chi balance that practitioners believe creates good fortune in health, wealth and other aspects of life.
Now "it's a wonderful spot for sitting and being quiet," Lorenz says. "I'm ready to stay in that area."
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Feng shui consultant Sheri Bootman had a different problem. Her backyard opened to the desert, allowing chi to drain out of her property.
"The goal is to have the energy stick around," Bootman says, so she added a wall of plants in the ground and in pots to provide a feeling of containment.
As outdoor living spaces become more popular, attention given to the ancient Chinese idea of chi flow and the balance of yin and yang — opposites such as light and dark, negative and positive — makes them more inviting and spiritually healing, believers say.
"Feng shui is the art and science of arranging the environment to create safety, comfort and relaxation," says Michael Bamba, co-owner with Eric Cuestas-Thompson of Those Feng Shui Guys. "It pulls you through positive aspects of your life."
Modern interpretations of feng shui dictate that specific areas of a home or property hold strong chi for specific life aspects. For example, the southeast corner is believed to affect prosperity.
For the most part, feng shui principles that consultants use for interior rooms also apply to exterior living spaces such as sitting areas and outdoor kitchens.
Those principles include keeping areas clean and uncluttered; incorporating the elements of water, fire, earth, wood and metal; and placing possessions in appropriate places.
For instance, Cuestas-Thompson says that wood and fire enhance chi in the health area, so you wouldn't put a pool there.
Another example: You don't want your back to the door in a room. Similarly, you don't want patio furniture arranged so people's backs are toward open landscape.
Outdoor areas have their own challenges, such as more open space from which chi can flow out and vegetation that needs constant attention to keep an area neat.
But to people such as Lorenz, the effort is worth it.
"In a climate like what Arizona has, you have the ability to spend a lot of your living time outside," she says. "I believe nature and being outside is healing. Why not maximize the capacity of that healing space with feng shui?"
» Resources
• Sheri Bootman Designs, 544-0882, www.fengshuiflower.net.
• Spirit Feng Shui, 721-9305.
• Those Feng Shui Guys, 245-6057, www.thosefengshuiguys.com.