Book excerpt: Clear instructions for incorporating this Chinese art into your personal environment to create balance and prosperity. The Feng Shui Companion is a user-friendly handbook for anyone interested in employing the ancient Chinese art of geomancy for creating balance, harmony, and prosperity in their personal environment. Feng shui, the Chinese words for wind and water, is a time-honored system of rules, concepts and principles that explain how our lives are pragmatically and spiritually linked to our environment. As the author shows, based on his own experience, these principles can be implemented at little cost in both new and existing buildings, often with significant improvements to the physical and financial well-being of the people who live in them. Just a simple change in the placement of furniture or the addition of a plant to a room can have a noticeable impact on an individual's life. With expert summaries of the key feng shui concepts, the author provides clear instructions for creating a place in which you want to spend time rather than one in which you are constantly trying to escape because "something doesn't feel right." Unlike other books on the subject, The Feng Shui Companion details specific ways to incorporate feng shui principles into your own home or work space. The author shows how just a few seemingly inconsequential and inexpensive changes in both new and existing structures can have enormously positive effects.