Tracey Mackenzie never really wanted to be a feng shui consultant.
"I studied art in college. Feng shui was something I studied for eight
years and it worked very well for me," she says. "I started doing it with
some of my friends. I was happy puttering around and selling my paintings
now and then."
But Mackenzie's friend felt she should at least lecture on the subject,
since it was something that she was good at. She did, and one thing led to
another, until finally she found herself in business as a feng shui consultant.
"The favorite thing for me is when you're doing a project from A to Z.
When you're doing it from the bottom up and not using an existing facility,
then you have total creative power over the whole project. I think that's
great because for me it's a creation -- it's not designing.
"The end result can be so beautiful," she says. She also notes that it's
enjoyable because of "the beauty and the simplicity in everything and the
total harmony that you can achieve. You're constantly striving to achieve
an incredibly peaceful state in a very busy atmosphere. It gives you a lot
of creative control."
Control isn't always all that it's made out to be, however. Take, for example,
a recent project that Mackenzie was working on. "I had a client who wanted
everything to be environmentally friendly. And he liked to do things in a
big way," she says.
His first tall order was bamboo flooring. "I had to order the flooring
in from overseas. The first shipment got drowned. It was so waterlogged we
couldn't use it." She ordered again, but nature was just not with her.
"The ship the second shipment came in on had to go through a typhoon to
get here. That shipment was wet too, but we were finally able to dry it using
special kilns."
Even after being dried, the bamboo still had flaws. And Mackenzie's flooring
crew had to go back in and repair some areas that had not fit properly.
Still, Mackenzie's glad she woke up one day to find herself a feng shui
consultant. "I encourage everyone to go into feng shui. It's a fun thing and
I find that it makes a very harmonious natural environment, which I promote,
and which I think is good for all of us."
She also adds two pieces of advice for anyone considering the field. "Getting
everything in writing is very important. And I wouldn't advise the meek to
go into it. Be aware that it's not something that you can be soft about."
James Jay is a co-director of a training center for prospective feng shui
consultants in Nevada City, California. "When we started in the
late '80s, nobody had heard of it that we knew," he says.
"And when we decided to make a career of feng shui in the early '90s, most
of what we did was education because people didn't know what it was. That's
how we built our practice to be about education. Now we've reached a level
where we're doing a lot more training of people than actually going out and
doing consultations."
But they do still do consultations in both the U.S. and China. "We go to
China about twice a year and we have a training program in China. The purpose
of that program is to teach an immersion program -- students immerse themselves
in the culture that invented the art," he says.
"They come away not only knowing basic concepts, but with a feeling for
what they are striving to achieve. The feelings that they gain in a different
environment evokes something different inside of them and that often can help
them in their future design practices."
Jay says he's seen a change in the people who are coming to his center
for training. "We get a wide range of people. Those looking for a career change.
They are in corporate situations and they want to do something they feel is
more along with what their heart really desires to do," he says.
"In the beginning, it seemed like we were getting mostly massage therapists,
but recently we're getting more design professionals -- interior designers,
architects, even a few people from major construction firms."
Why are more people moving to careers in feng shui? "It's a very rewarding
career because you're dealing with issues within people's homes that they
don't always look at as ways of unblocking their own growth. And it's rewarding
in the sense that you're helping people," says Jay.
"It may take a while to get started, but I would tell anyone that if they
are looking to help people,...that if they want to be in a career that helps
them and helps create really nice, beautiful environments for people working
with artistic design and a sense of harmony and balance,...if those are the
types of things that really turn someone on, then I would recommend it. And
it's a field that is really untapped so far."