Review: Feng Shui by Davina Mackail

Feng Shui: Create Health, Wealth, and Happiness Through the Power of Your Home is a book written by Davina Mackail. A practicing shaman and consultant, Mackail uses her knowledge of feng shui to help her clients maximize the potential of their living spaces to not only improve their livelihoods but their prosperity and joy too. She also encourages and works with them to empower themselves in their journey. As we learn through the novel, feng shui is more than just a home improvement philosophy. It is a richly complex life-way with origins that extend back to ancient China. It is an approach that mixes several different disciplines, all of which originate in China and can be traced back throughout its history.

Mackail opens the novel first with a brief telling of how she came across feng shui. She details the life she led as a miserable telecomm consultant who was always traveling for work. If she wasn't traveling internationally, she was also commuting from Leeds to Cambridge. Her recounts of being miserable in her office are all too relatable to any person who has struggled to create a space that feels like home and has commuted to a job they were less than enthusiastic about. Her frustration was enough to make Mackail desperate to find a way to shake up the routine that she was locked in and change her way of approaching space and home. She details the story of how she encountered feng shui philosophy while she was abroad in Hong Kong and how it inspired her to take up learning the life-way and how it eventually led her to become a practicing shaman in the practice. She details the struggles she had finding information on it in English, and how she learned to incorporate ancient Chinese mystical practices.

What I appreciate about this novel is that it is easy to read and Mackail does a tremendous job at showing how feng shui is not only a philosophy that works for any who wish to incorporate its elements into their daily lives...but also how it is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese spiritual practices. It is worth checking out for a number of reasons. 1) You can learn about the ancient Chinese philosophies surrounding homemaking and how to use the power of your home to improve your well-being. 2) You can learn why it is still practiced today and why it is still referenced even in hardline secularism that exists across China. 3) You can learn practical skills and perhaps implement them into your daily life.

Learning about the spiritual practices and customs of other traditions and cultures is essential to fostering diversity and inclusion. Even now as we speak there are people who are implementing these techniques, using ancient wisdom that has worked for generations. Some of these methods are amazing for those who have a habit of developing clutter or who have trouble keeping themselves organized. Perhaps one of the most core concepts of this entire work is chi. It is a life-force, an energy that flows through all things..animate and inanimate. It is also a catalyst for all the changes that are happening around us. Understanding chi and how it flows in relationship to you and the space around you is pinnacle in building any space that feels like home. While I was reading this I even began to see tips and tricks to help me live in communion with any space that I dwell; and how to use it to build my prosperity. I was especially intrigued by how all the different factors come into play and basically serve as a formula to create the best version of a space that you can call your own. In the end, I found that the author was sharing spiritual insights that would benefit anyone.

One of my favorite quotes from this book goes:

Our homes are the most intimate external expression of who we are.

Some knowledge of ancient Chinese beliefs and customs are certainly an added bonus but not necessarily required. Mackail does an amazing job weaving us through the tradition and how it became a worldwide phenomenon. She also shares some of her own personal story as well, which largely references her life living either in Hong Kong or in England. I appreciated the insights she brought to the table and it was definitely fun for me. One of the things that we learn through the novel is that there is plenty of room for interpretation and lots of different ways to go about making a space your own. However, we also need to be aware of the methods we choose and how we can maintain a balance of energies in our home.