FRESHMAN ELECTIVE: DORM ROOM FENG SHUI

Author(s): Erica Noonan, Globe Staff
Date: August 21, 2003
Section: Globe NorthWest

      In the dwindling days before leaving Carlisle for her freshman year at Wake Forest University, Kylie Duff found herself staring down a favorite poster of her synchronized skating team, the Haydenettes.
      This oversized photo represents the sport to which she has devoted 13 of her 18 years, and the beloved team for which she gave up other normal extracurricular activities for teenagers. It's no coincidence this poster hangs in a particular corner of her bedroom. This area - according to the ancient Chinese study of the natural environment known as feng shui - is Kylie's "career" corner, and it reflects the 2003 Concord-Carlisle Regional High School graduate's most treasured accomplishment.
      Kylie knows she could be decorating this spot with symbols more representative of her future ambitions, like a Wake Forest decal or the job offer she has received to teach skating to North Carolina children between her university courses.
      But feng shui dictates that anyone trying to use its philosophies to achieve balance, harmony, health, and wealth make any changes wholeheartedly, and Kylie just wasn't ready to pull down the poster.
      "I just can't bring myself to do it," she said last week, as she finished packing for school. "Maybe when I come home for Thanksgiving."
      Feng shui, which became widely popular in the United States in the late 1990s, is generally considered a decorating and philosophical strategy for adults. But Kylie is one of several local teens experimenting with the practices with the help of Mary Roberts, a Carlisle feng shui consultant who is pioneering a practice for high school and college students called "dorm chi."
      Feng shui centers on the recognition of life energy, or chi, which enters most rooms through the major doorway, Roberts said. A door and doormat decorated with optimal colors and images can make a big difference to a college student in a crowded dormitory.
      This summer, Roberts offered free workshops for teens at the Gleason Public Library in Carlisle. During a recent class, a dozen students in their sophomore and junior years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, Trinity College, Boston University, and other schools learned how to feng shui their dorm spaces, even when a room is shared with one or more roommates.
      "Chi energy exists in the objects around us. Everything is connected and we are connected to the objects. What kind of message, positive or negative, are they giving us?" Roberts asked the students.
      She displayed photos of the bedrooms of young people who had used the principles. Kylie, for example, divided her space into an eight-section "bagua" map of career, knowledge, family, wealth, fame, love and marriage, creativity and children, and helpful people and travel.
      In her "knowledge" corner, Kylie placed her high school mortarboard and a graduation photo. Her "fame" corner contains more Haydenettes photos, skating trophies, and honors.
      In order to create such order, Kylie said, she cleared out an enormous amount of childhood clutter. "Like any teenager, I have a lot of stuff, but I didn't even realize how much," she said. "I like the way the room feels now, as if everything had a place."
      Roberts said her "dorm chi" concept took off when her son, Greg, had a friend in dire need of a way to fulfill a community service requirement for graduation. Roberts helped the young man coordinate a feng shui workshop especially for senior boys at Concord Carlisle High School.
      At first there were some smirks and eye-rolling among the boys in reaction to such a touchy-feely subject, she admitted, but the program was a complete success.
      "They loved it," Roberts laughed. "Even the football players." Over the past several months, Roberts has consulted for local students at Middlesex School and Harvard Business School; she offered her consultation to Kylie, a next-door neighbor, as a graduation gift.
      Any young person can easily apply the bagua to whatever space is available, even if it is just a small corner of desk, she said.
      College students, in particular, should take measures to ensure peaceful sleep by positioning their beds correctly and taking care to place computers, cellphones or their chargers, and other electronics within 8 feet of the bed, and using a battery-operated alarm clock when possible, she said. Computer and television screens should be covered when not in use.
      Many teens plaster every wall surface with snapshots of friends as reminders of fun times. But Roberts contends these photos contain the life energy of the people and activities they represent and can disrupt sleep if too many are placed too near a bed.
      "People and opportunities come through the mouth of chi. What kinds of people and opportunities are you trying to attract and how do you invite it in?" Roberts said.
      Although college students may not have settled on a profession, a career corner can be devoted to hobbies, goals, and ambitions. The love and marriage corner can be redeployed to accommodate their friendships, dating life, or family relationships, Roberts said.
      Roberts, a former elementary school music teacher, said she embraced the concepts behind feng shui after having her home reorganized in 1999 by a feng shui consultant she met in a yoga class.
      She knows that the practice of feng shui has been derided in some corners as New Age nonsense, but points to its personal positive effects. During a massive de-cluttering of her attic last spring (a spot identified as a source for higher aspirations, she said), she disposed of many boxes of old teaching paperwork. The simple action, Roberts said, helped ease her out of her old career and launch the dorm chi lectures.
      "When I did [the cleanup], the dorm chi really started to flow," she said.
      She plans to write a book about how young people can easily apply feng shui to their busy lives by arranging their possessions in a way "that's completely relevant to them."
      "Dorm chi is about helping students with a transition, identifying what they will be letting go of and what they will be embracing, especially when what they will be embracing is a question mark in many ways," Roberts said.
      Roberts believes that even high-schoolers can benefit from a room organized according to feng shui principles to reflect short-term goals like acing the SATs, winning a role in a school play, or making a varsity sports team. A well-organized studying space with positive energy can even help students get into the college of their choice, Roberts said.
      Roberts reports that after she placed a tall plant in a corner of her living room devoted to family athletic accomplishments, her son went on to a stellar lacrosse season. (The connection is unprovable, she admits.) Although she hopes Greg will consider some of her dorm chi ideas for his room at the University of South Carolina this fall, Roberts said that aside from getting her son an air purifier and a battery-operated alarm clock, she can't impose her will.
      In fact, overenthusiastic parents should not inflict feng shui on their kids because the sacred practices can only be adopted by a completely willing participant, Roberts said. Kylie Duff, for example, will make the changes in her "career" corner when she is ready, and not before, Roberts said.
      Kylie agreed, but said she is more preoccupied with making the transition from her own spacious room in Carlisle to a 10-by-14-foot room in Winston-Salem, N.C., to be shared with a freshman from Kansas.
      While Kylie said she would like to take the principles of feng shui with her to college, it may require a bit of getting-to-know-you before she springs the bagua concept on her new friends. "It may be a challenge to introduce this," she joked. "I may wait awhile before I bring it up."

Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.

SIDEBAR
BOOKS ON FENG SHUI GEARED TO TEENAGERS
Recommended feng shui reading for young people, according to Mary Roberts:

* "Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life: How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness" by Karen Carter (Fireside Books)

* "Teen Feng Shui: Design a Space That Works for You" by Susan Levitt (Inner Traditions)

* "Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui" by Karen Kingston (Broadway Books)