Feng shui loves open spaces within living spaces like rooms and foyers.
Any structural obstruction can affect how energy naturally meander, emit sha chi, and the worst part is that they more often than not, cannot be removed.
Sometimes going pillarless is not an option due to structural integrity, leading budget architects and builders to go for practicality instead of aesthetics. Homeowners then end up with ugly pillars and vertical beams right within the premises of open spaces.
Form school
In feng shui, these afflictions of home interior forms are commonly referred to the “pierce through the heart” sha chi (穿心煞).
Where these unsightly pillar reside in the house will determine which life aspects of the household will suffer from it’s detrimental effects.
When it is in the living room, wealth luck would be violated and bad luck can befall the patriarch including bad health.
When it is in the kitchen, the matriarch can become temperamental and suffer from bad health, while her luck would also take a beating.
If it sets up shop at the front balcony, the careers of residents would tumble. There would be little opportunities for advancement.
Should it be built at the rear balcony, then the bad luck would wreak havoc on the children of the house. If a couple is trying to conceive, then descendants luck would be difficult to call on.
The association of rooms to life aspects can be found here.
The gist of it all is that according to form school feng shui, a standalone pillar in any area would negatively impact the life aspects that that space represents.
But that’s not all as we have yet to factor in the trigrams, or bagua map, of the house.
Trigrams
The 8 trigrams each govern a particular life aspect too, and they can also directly represent a specific household member.
For example, if one such lonely pillar stands at the northeast sector, then young men will suffer from bad luck. Constantly facing obstacles at work, at home, in school, and in personal development.
Should the pillar find it’s way into the southeast, then wealth luck might suffer as this is one of the default wealth areas of the house. Daughters can be victimized, especially the eldest one.
Do refer to the meanings of different trigrams to assess how such pillars can affect the household.
Health aspects
This can seem a little freaky to some, especially those who are new to feng shui.
But very often, we continue to be astounded by how bad health can be directly reflected in feng shui afflictions in specific areas of a house.
For example, a father of a household who is suffering from heart problems might find that there’s a bad feng shui affliction (maybe a standalone pillar) right at the southeast sector of the living room. Or when the mother of a household suffering from stomach problems have afflictions reflected in the northwest of the kitchen.
So if there are family members at home with health issues that don’t seem to go away, do check out whether the associated areas of the house is afflicted with poison arrows.
Directions and representations of body areas can be referenced here.
Standalone pillar remedies and cures
Now that you know what types of harmful effects sha chi like standalone pillars can cause, surely you must remedy them if they indeed exist in your home.
But first, it must be made known that there are two common types of standalone pillars.
- Those that are rounded; and
- Those that are cornered
The rounded ones pose a significantly less threat to feng shui compared to square or rectangular ones with sharp corners.
Sometimes, circular pillars can be so benign that they are left to be by feng shui masters. But angled ones must absolutely be managed, remedied, or cured.
Mirrors
Mirrors are some of the most multi-tiered objects in feng shui that can be used for various constructive purposes.
In this case, installing a mirror on the exposed pillar can help visually “remove” it from the premises.
When going this route, one must be mindful that the upper segment of the mirror must be at least above the head to be effective.
When working with mirrors, one must also be wary of stepping into the pitfalls of mirror placement mistakes.
Wallpapers
The idea of pasting wallpapers on the pillar as remedy is based on helping it to blend into the walls of the space in the background.
This is so that from some view angles (maybe from the front door entrance) the pillar can be unnoticeable unless a resident makes an effort to see it.
Lighting fixtures in the space would play a critical role for this cure to be effective.
Paintings
By hanging paintings on the pillars, a homeowner would be greeted by the artwork instead of the hostile “sword” through the heart.
This is can turn a negative connotation into a good one.
Landscape paintings of mountains would be a good choice as they are generally auspicious, and places a mountain of protection between the pillar and you.
Other types of paintings to consider include flowers, calligraphy, fishes, etc.
Plants
One of the favorite remedies for standalone exposed pillars are potted plants.
Place them at the pillar, especially it’s corners.
The taller the plants are, the better. However, do take note not to allow the plants to be at an excessive size compared to the living space.
Even with smaller plants at knee height, they do provide some protection… which is better than none.
Build a cabinet
This is a very conclusive cure to effectively remove a pillar once and for all in a space.
By building a cabinet as an extension to the pillar, the pillar is essentially converted into a wall. It would the feng shui affliction would therefore be eliminated from the premises.
The cabinet should be at least above head-height.
If fabricating a custom-made cabinet to install along the pillar is too tedious a task to take up, then just shift a cabinet to the pillar to erect this “wall”.
Even if the width dimensions and design don’t match, it still plays a long way towards alleviating this feng shui problem.
To take it one step further some homeowners would only use feng shui dimensions for such fixtures.
Partition divider
If none of the above mentioned remedies cannot be implemented, then maybe you can set up a room partition or divider wall to hide the standalone pillar.
To close this discussion, standalone pillars are unsightly, take up valuable space in open areas, and have detrimental impact on feng shui.
So when buying a house do look out for them and think about remedies before going ahead.
And if you are building your house from scratch, do make it a point to remind your architect to leave them out altogether.
