Environmental metaphysics

Environmental metaphysics is the metaphysical exploration of environments and their impact on people and animals. Metaphysics in this case is used in the newer use of the term "subjects which are beyond the physical world."

Much of what is currently being used in the field of environmental metaphysics is being labeled Feng Shui. Feng Shui is the Chinese term for Chinese practices made popular in the 1990s in the US during the initial trend of exploring the metaphysical effects of Design. In fact, however, many of the practices are derived from a number of other countries including India (Vaastu Shastra), Japan (Kaso), Europe (Geomancy), Native American and African Shamanic views and ritual practices, as well as Balinese methods and view of space clearing, Hindu views on prana, and Tibetan Buddhist principles and practices.

The field of environmental metaphysics also often incorporates principles and practices from a number of other more modern fields and groupings including aromatherapy, art therapy, sound therapy, studies in symbols from Jungian psychology and other sources.

Energy
One of the core principles of environmental metaphysics is the idea that there is an energy or energies in the universe. The Chinese view these energies as yin (passive) or yang (active).

These energies may be referred to as prana in Hinduism or qi (or chi) in Taoism or as ki in Japanese.

In the Tibetan Buddhist book Shambala, Way of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa the concept of drala is discussed. "Dralas [are] in the rocks...trees...mountains... a snowflake or a clod of dirt. What ever is there...those are the dralas of reality. when you make that connection...you are meeting the dralas on the spot." (p. 105) "The basic definition of Drala is 'energy beyond aggression'." (p. 108)

Elements
Spiritual traditions from China, India, Tibet, and Europe all reference natural elements in their considerations of the process of working with the environment. They do so in differing ways, but some of the ideas correlate. For example, the Chinese use a system of five elements which are used in Feng Shui, acupuncture, astrology, and Chinese medicine. Jewish mystics and Europeans reference the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) in their rituals, astrology and other applications.

Methods
Methods used to determine the 'vibrations' or 'energies' in a space may include: dowsing, applied kinesiology, using 'spirit guides' or the help of 'spirit ancestors' [1], and intuitive methods [3].

Popular use
Increasingly environmental metaphysics is being practiced as an integrated part of work in a number of other fields including architects and designers who work with the design of spaces, and also therapists and healers working with the impact of the spaces on their clients. Many practitioners of alternative medicine (for example, Reiki) and alternative therapy modalities (resonance repatterning, processwork, and other body-mind systems) use environmental metaphysics as part of their work with clients. It is not uncommon to hear a practitioner suggest 'smudging' to a client (a Native American method of using the smoke from a burning piece of sage brush to cleanse the 'vibrations' of a space), or to hear them recommend a particular type of Tibetan incense or Hindu incense as a way of raising the energy in a home or office. [5]