Your fireplace represents the feng shui fire element in your home. A mirror above your fireplace can encourage positive chi energy when you follow some simple rules. Elements are an important component of good feng shui and are the key to creating a balanced space. Understanding how these elements interact in a room can help you to place the most-beneficial mirror over your fireplace.
Why a Mirror Above a Mantel Is Good Feng Shui
Hanging a mirror above the fireplace is a simple remedy to bring harmony into a room that is overwhelmed with fire energy, as mirrors represent the water element and can dampen the fire energy. Understanding the cycle of feng shui elements can be helpful in placing a mirror to bring positive chi energy into your home.
How to Hang a Mirror Over a Fireplace
The primary focus of feng shui is to invite and move beneficial chi energy around and through your home. Every detail of your home can be considered auspicious or inauspicious depending on its location and surroundings. By using the bagua map of Western Feng Shui, you can identify the sector in which your fireplace sits. Each sector on the bagua map represents the most auspicious energy in that space and the element associated with it. The fire element is the essence of a fireplace, so it's important to balance the strong fire element to bring harmony to its surroundings.
Place a Small Mirror Above the Mantel in the Fire Sector
The Fame and Reputation sector is governed by the fire element, and a fireplace in this sector is a natural addition. If there are a lot of wood elements, such as furniture and plants, in the room to fuel the fire, the addition of a small mirror over the fireplace shouldn't douse enough fire to make an impact and can retain the positive chi energy for fame and reputation.
Hang a Mirror Above Metal Sector Fireplaces
A fireplace located in the Helpful People and Travel and the Creativity and Children sectors of your home can create disharmony. These sectors are governed by the metal element, while the fireplace generates the fire element. In the destructive cycle of the five elements, fire destroys metal. The easy remedy for a fireplace in these metal element sectors is to place a mirror over the fireplace. The water element in the destructive cycle extinguishes the fire element and balances the energy to enhance positive chi.
Put a Large Mirror Over the Mantel in Wood Sectors
The Wealth and Prosperity and Healthy and Family sectors represent the wood element. Wood feeds the fire. However, the wood element exhausts the fire, and the fire element exhausts the wood element. When a large mirror is introduced over the fireplace, this cycle is interrupted, since the water element feeds the wood element in the productive cycle.
Create Neutral Energy in Earth and Water Sectors With a Mirror
A fireplace located in the Knowledge and Self-Cultivation and the Love and Marriage sectors, which share the earth element, is auspicious as the fire element produces the earth element. When a mirror is added above the fireplace, the water element would potentially destroy the fire element, except the earth element destroys the fire. This destructive triangle negates any harmful reaction that introducing the mirror might have, so it creates a neutral energy.
The career sector is ruled by the water element. A fireplace in this sector isn't harmful, as water destroys fire in the destructive cycle. Adding a mirror over the fireplace will activate the water element for this sector, and enhance career luck.
Avoid Inauspicious Reflections
Since the energy of a mirror is very powerful, anything reflected in the mirror is doubled. This can be very beneficial for such things as a dining table for doubling abundance. However, there are some things you don't want reflected by a mirror over the fireplace. These include:
- Column or post: A column or post is considered a poison arrow.
- Another mirror: This creates an imbalance in chi energy since it bounces energy back and forth between the two mirrors, entrapping it and causing a chaotic stream of energy.
- Sharp corners: The corners of furniture and walls are poison arrows.
- Bathroom: This is an inauspicious room where clean water is transformed into waste water.
- Front door: Chi energy enters through the front door, but a mirror in the foyer will bounce the chi out of your home.
- Kitchen: More specifically, the mirror should not reflect the stove/oven/range since these produce fire. Reflecting kitchen flames is believed to encourage a kitchen fire.
Create Auspicious Fireplace Mirror Reflections
The things that are good to be reflected in a mirror over the fireplace include a crystal chandelier, nature, water, and food on a dining table. Placing fresh flowers on the mantel will double the vibrant auspicious energy associated with such reflections.
Mirror Shapes for Good Feng Shui
Another way to introduce an element into your fireplace mirror usage is with shapes. In feng shui, shapes represent elements. You can enhance positive feng shui by choosing the right shape for your mirror over the fireplace.
- Round or oval: Both round and oval symbolize metal and are auspicious in Creativity and Children, and Helpful People and Travel sectors.
- Square: A square frame represents earth, and enhances chi in the Love and Marriage, and Knowledge and Self-Cultivation sectors.
- Triangle: The triangle represents fire and energizes the Fame and Reputation sector.
- Rectangle: A rectangle symbolizes wood and adds beneficial chi to the Health and Family, and Wealth and Prosperity sectors.
- Wavy lines: A wavy line represents water and helps chi energy flow in the Career sector.
Choosing a Fireplace Mirror for Feng Shui
Most fireplaces are already in place when homes are purchased, but you can easily improve the feng shui of your space with the right mirror. While rules are helpful in choosing a mirror that's beneficial to your home's chi, the style of your home and your own taste should be your first consideration. Because feng shui is founded on energy, placing a mirror above your fireplace that you don't feel good about can douse any positive chi energy you may have gained by its placement..
