Tag Archives: Nature

Front Walkways

The walkway off the main street that places your house number is an important consideration when reflecting upon your living experience and wanting to change and enhance it.  It is also an important consideration when landscaping your front yard!   It’s placement and design is an important aspect to consider in balancing the influences of life giving or life draining  experiences in any areas of your living experience.   For example view this pictures and notice the lines or edges of the pathways and notice if which ones are calming and which ones are stimulating.

Walkways:  the pathway of your experience

Your pathway is the first opportunity to welcome you and the community to your home.  It is the first influencing factor in considering placement.  The ideal walkway would reflect soft corners and flow resembling that of a slow moving and calming waterway.  Water is considered to be an influence of abundance, well being and good luck.  The straight sharp edges are reminders of fast moving arrows that are unexpected and attacking in nature.  In Asian cultures a straight pathway is considered a secret arrow and the source of rushing negative energies.

A curved walkway would be considered yin, while a straight edged would be yang. To soften the hard edges of a yang walkway, plantings can be used on either side to create soft edges.

Read more on Yin/Yang


If you are longing for a personal consultation please inquire privately:
renee@insideawareness.com.  Renee Lindstrom offers:

Indoor & Outdoor Landscape Life & Wellness Consulting & Coaching which enhances relationships, emotions and flexible movement awareness!
Workshops and Events

Read more on landscaping articles integrating concepts!


Landscape Conversations – Blocked Pathway!

2015-06-21 10.40.36

LANDSCAPE CONVERSATIONS

Renee Lindstrom  & Guest Writer ~ Dyan Grant Francis

  • Observations Written by Renee Lindstrom,
  • Personal Perspectives by Renee Lindstrom &  Dyan Grant Francis individually

*Make sure you read comments under postings as Dyan and Renee start a conversationIMG_20150715_120044

Observations

This is a tiny earth shaped house on a corner lot.  The front door projects out from the main house design.  A second projection on the side of the house may be creating a missing corner in the floor plan.  The peaked roofs are the shape of the fire element and the white trim is metal.  The brown and yellow of the house are earth colors.   The windows represent water.  This highlighted rectangular shapes in the door and window shutters represent wood. The mail box is metal, the house number is prominently displayed and there is a light on either side of the front door.  The front steps are adobe red brick.  Sculptured trees are featured in the landscaping.  

Read more on the the 5 elements


Personal Perspectives by Renee Lindstrom

The front door is a feature in the design of this house and considered an enhancement.  I  find it  curious that  the plants have been allowed to grow over the front walkway eliminating the pathway to it.  The steps up to the front door  are a welcoming red,  yet not visible.  To get to these steps one must walk up the driveway, turn onto a smaller path to walk along the front of the house and past the windows.   The side pathway is not accented and not easily noticeable.  The house number is displayed enhancing the front door feature and there is  balance  provided by  the lite on either side of it.  This balance is extended to  the plantings on either side of the original front walkway.

This cute house is well cared for and inviting until your eye travels to the the confusing walkway.  It could represent the residents need for privacy and less attention, yet the design draws attention!  When considering the five elements the landscaping and house elements are warming and leans toward the 5 element nurturing cycle.   Fire over earth in design with metal features and well balanced windows representing water.  The featured rectangular shapes on the door and window shutters, and the landscaping draws in the wood element.

The front door enhancement is in the placement of helpful people and career areas while the missing corner reflects the area of spiritualism or higher knowledge.  The overgrown front sidewalk could reflect an attempt to slow down these areas from too much activity,  or now, with the overgrow the experience could be stagnation in these areas.  This house number adds up to a 4 and reflecting on the meaning of this house number which in numerology represents hard work, organization, predictability and being conventional.  It is a masculine number and represents hard edges not unlike the appearance of the number itself and this house!  This house number represents order, tidiness, straight lines, sharp edges and control.

Read more on the meaning of house numbers….

                                                          Renee Lindstrom


Personal Perspectives by Dyan Grant Francis

Front Yard entrance to property

This appears to be a well kept property with little clutter or overgrown vegetation.  The front door is obvious and a prominent feature of this house because of it’s slight projection from the basic shape.  Without accurate measurements however, it is difficult to say if this projection creates a ‘missing corner’ which needs to be corrected. In this case, the bushes and trees have the effect of creating a more unified front aspect to this house even if their placement does not accurately define the corner..

A straight sidewalk leading to the front door would create a ‘secret arrow’ of rushing sha (negative energy) directed from the busy roadway to the centre of this house.  The plantings and re-configuration of the walkway help to minimize the impact.  The optimum would be to have a winding pathway leading to the front door.  This can be done with curved flower beds on alternating sides of the straight sidewalk however the residents have chosen to move the sidewalk entrance.

Regardless, the choice of paint colours and topiary shrubs bring swift attention to the front door creating some confusion.  This attention would have been amplified without the changes in the entrance to the property.  Not knowing the intention of the owners, one can only surmise about their desired outcome.

The earth features of this house – yellow ochre paint and low flat aspect give it a grounded feeling which is somewhat at odds with the prominent wood shapes, like tree trunks, on the front door and the rectangular windows.  The wood and earth elements are in conflict in the diminishing cycle of the 5 elements.  The addition of a strong fire element would bring the two into the nurturing cycle of wood – fire – earth and bring a more balanced sense to this house.

When identifying shapes in the landscape, it is important to have guidelines but also to be aware of you preferred perception.   For example, the square (earth) and the rectangle (wood) are both shapes with 4 sides and right angled corners, however

–   A rectangle has right angle corners, with opposite sides being parallel and equal in length

  • A square has right angled corners with opposite sides being parallel and all four side being equal in length.

These have been made more prominent by the use of the contrasting white paint increasing the diminishing cycle of these elements.

To have a calm and nurturing home it is desirable to increase the harmony and balance in your surroundings through the use of colour, shape and placement.


If you are longing for a personal consultation please inquire privately:
renee@insideawareness.com.  Renee Lindstrom offers:

Indoor & Outdoor Landscape Life & Wellness Consulting & Coaching which enhances relationships, emotions and flexible movement awareness!
Workshops and Events


More on:

Language of Nature: 5 Element Shapes

Human learning intelligence began with nature and association.  Sacred geometry, letters, shapes, symbols, math, musical notes and more began with nature shape association.

five elements - shapes

five elements - shapes destroying cylce

See examples of five elements from Renee’s garden

Language of Nature with 5 element perception

Introducing the 5 elements through the lens of landscape this past week deepened the realization of how these elements are culturally integrated into the perspectives of some eastern cultures.  This is not reflected so much in our Western Cultures and is a learning curve. Reference to elements is even made in professional assessment reports and their cycles in the east.  Also an eastern physicians will assess patients based upon characteristics of the 5 elements.

Here  are some examples of these elements through the shapes and colors from my garden:

BeFunky Collage Wood 2

BeFunky Collage - FireBeFunky Collage Earth

Metal

BeFunky Collage - Water 2

Join us June 10th to discover more about Nature in Harmony and Disharmony!

View more element landscape pics 

June 10th – Personal Landscape in Harmony or Disharmony

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Oneness Wednesday – Church of Truth
The topic of  Personal Landscape in Harmony or Disharmony ​will introduce how ​natures ​landscape ​stimulates personal and individual experiences of health and well-being.  ​This event may deepen ​ ​or validate your ​inner knowing of how your natural landscape ​ effects you​ and enhance awareness of how the landscape is your experience.  There is no separation.  This will include exploring how to incorporate the symbols of wood, fire, earth, metal and water into your own tool kit for cultivating your own landscape experience.  This evening deepening process ​ will be  through dialogue, vision, intention
and action ​.  ​
By Donation – 111 Superior Street

June 3rd – Embracing Elements of Nature

BeFunky Collage 5 elements

Oneness Wednesday – Church of Truth​
Embracing Elements of Nature will focus ​on introducing the symbolism of natural elements of nature’s landscape.  You will learn how to identify these symbols in ​y​our surroundings​, the elements you are drawn towards and the elements you thrive in.​ This evening’s event will include a presentation style introduction and engage you creatively in an activity.
by Donation – 111 Superior Street
Oneness Wednesdays in June:

Exploring Empathy Nature with a creative Medicine Wheel Installation

Pictures of an indoor Medicine Wheel Installation by Inside in October, 2014 for exploring 4 Aspects of self with a template representing a cycle of life.  The four quadrants of the wheel represent the four seasons, four cycles of day & night, four parts of self and connection to natures elements.

Combining reflection to the elements in this cycle of life with an empathy talking circle encouraged a deeper personal sharing.  The circle format supported inner leadership and a deepened sharing that created an empathetic field and safety.

If you are interested in reading more on the Medicine Wheel I would recommend Buffalo Woman comes Singing by Brooke Medicine Eagle.  Brooke Medicine Eagle was in Victoria, B.C. in 2001  at the University of Victoria as part of the Prophet’s Conference.  I enjoy sharing that Brooke also studied Feldenkrais, directly with Moshe Feldenkrais!

Have your own Medicine Wheel Event!  Connect for more information on this walking map of consciousness and explore an empathy nature talking circle.