Adding feng shui to a house with a backyard that has a downward slope can present some challenges. A backyard that slopes away from the house can drain energy from your finances, health, career, and other areas of your life. When you apply a few feng shui tips, you can see drastic changes and improvements.
Downward Sloping Backyard Is Undesirable
You may have heard that a sloping backyard is considered undesirable in feng shui applications but have been unsure why it is. If your backyard slopes down away from the house, the land formation carries everything away from your home including prosperity, good luck, and wealth. This sloping away literally allows anything coming to you through the back entrance to be carried off and downhill.
Logic of Reasoning
If you consider your sloping backyard by applying logic, you will realize that water will drain and run from the highest point to the lowest. This means if you were to experience a heavy rainfall, the earth that supports your home in the backyard could deteriorate and even possibly create a mud slide that would take you down the slope and to the bottom of the hill.
Best Solution for a Downward Sloping Backyard
The most obvious solution is to correct the downward slope of your yard. You can do this by erecting a retaining wall and backfilling the yard with dirt to create a significant alteration of the backward sloping. If this isn't feasible, you can add a few feng shui elements to assist in correcting this problem area.
Feng Shui Elements and Cures
If your home doesn't have a dramatically dangerous backward sloping that would suggest you need to move but a gradual one that doesn't currently present water problems when it rains, then you can benefit most by adding a few feng shui remedy elements to your home and back yard.
Weathervane or Attic Fan
Place a weathervane or attic exhaust fan that rotates about to move air out of the attic or a similar object on your rooftop. This drags the chi up from the slope toward your house.
Tall Tree
Plant a tall tree that is at least the height of your roof to raise the chi from the sloping backyard to your house and the roofline.
Spotlight
Install a spotlight on the ground so it shines up at the roof. Again, this lighting from the ground to the roof helps direct chi to your home.
Rice Bowl Boulder
Place a large rock or boulder at the point where your yard begins to slope to create the illusion of a mountain supporting your backyard. A bowl-shaped rock is considered an imagery of a rice bowl which symbolizes wealth and abundance.
Portrait of an Ideal Feng Shui Backyard
The ideal feng shui backyard should be slightly higher than the front yard, but not so much that there's a danger of water running back into the home. You need to be sure there is proper drainage so the rainwater won't flow directly into the house. With the backyard land slightly higher than the front you can be sure the chi energy will flow easily in and around your home without any obstructions to slow or rob the house and you of positive chi energy.
Mountains and Hills
A mountain, series of mountains or hills in the back of the home, far enough away to not pose any landslide hazards is the ideal protection for a home since it represents the dragon and possibly the tiger. Both considered guardians and protectors.
How Land Formations Affect Your Home's Feng Shui
While many people consider feng shui applications are designed to be implemented inside of their homes, it may surprise you to learn that feng shui began as a philosophy concerned about the land. The land formation and what surrounds your home are far more important in feng shui than how the interior of your home is arranged.
The Exterior Of Your Home Is Important
The reason the exterior of your home is so important is that a mountain that rises only a few feet from your front door can't be moved. If your home was built in the path of dried-up creek bed that hasn't flooded in a hundred years, feng shui can't alter the course of nature when that hundred-year flood occurs again. Feng shui addresses these issues and more, which are found in the actual land and its formations surrounding your home. Energy flows over and through the land either as hills and mountains or as actual water that flows around mountains.
The Logic Of Feng Shui
Feng shui is not so much a mystical art form as it is a logical way to assess possible risks and dangers in siting a home. For instance, if you thought the dried up creek bed might flood once more, you'd never knowingly build your home in the center of a potential raging flood that would wash it down the mountain. A logical thought process would determine that a mudslide or avalanche along the mountain slope just outside your front door could bury your home. So when examining feng shui principles you need to keep in mind that the majority of them are logical and concerned with safety and well-being.
Living With Your Downward Sloping Backyard
If you are trying to remedy a feng shui house and backyard sloping down, you can follow these suggestions to help transform negative chi and attract positive healthy chi to your home.
