Curing common outdoor stairway dilemmas

Stairways leading to the front door, whether short or long, are an important aspect of your entryway. Reading the energy of your stairway is easy with your Feng Shui thinking (and feeling) cap on. If humans can flow easily and freely up and down the stairs, so can energy and income. The ideal entry stairway is wide and easy to ascend, not too long or steep, and free of sharp turns. The stairway is stable, with complete risers (the vertical parts of the stairs) and a solid hand rail.

Following are some common entry stairway problems and their Feng Shui solutions.

Long Stairway

A stairway that's a long trip up to the front door has definite energetic liabilities. This type of stairway is common to second floor apartments or duplexes accessed by exterior stairs. Such a stairway makes it difficult for energy, income, and you to get to your front door. The energetic effects can include difficulty resting or getting home. And you may end up traveling or being gone a lot. Steep stairways can also make opportunities more difficult to come by.

If the average person who visits you gets a bit winded climbing to your door, your stairs are probably too long. Curing them can counteract and improve the negative factors. The suggested cure for a long staircase is to wrap an artificial green vine around the stair rail from the bottom all the way up to the top. (If the staircase has no rail, recommendation is installing a good one.) Ideally. the vine should reach the doorframe itself. The lively green energy of the vine adds health and vigor to the climbers, helping compensate for the long journey upward.

An alternate cure is to run pin lights (small holiday lights - white is good, multicolored is better) along the same path. The lights guide the energy up the long stairway, feeding the front door. (Light represents the energy of attraction as well as radiant energy itself.)

Missing risers

A riser is the vertical section that connects one stair (the horizontal part you step on) to the next stair up. Your toe points to each riser with every step unless the riser is missing or broken. A stairwell with missing risers potentially promotes the loss of income and life energy (chi) to the house and its residents. As energy ascends the stairs, it slips through the riser gaps, like water through a leaky bucket. As your feet are energetically connected to your career, missing risers can trip you up, both physically and in your life's work. On a practical note, missing risers are a safety issue. Twisted, sprained, or broken ankles and feet are bad personal Feng Shui. Additionally, they hurt.

The cure for missing risers is straightforward and usually involves a carpenter or tradesman. You need to physically fill in or replace missing risers in your stairway. After completing this task, you can feel more solid and complete in life as well as every time you ascend or descend the stairs. Feeling solid and complete creates beneficial energetic effects that flow directly into your practical life.

Stairway with a turn

A right-angle turn on a front door stairway creates an energy jam, robbing you and-your home of vital chi. (If an actual robber stood at your door and stole your wallet every time you passed by, you'd do something about it pretty darned quick! Yet most people allow these Feng Shui robbers to steal their chi day after day, rarely doing a thing about it.) An excellent cure for a right-angle stairway is to place a healthy potted plant on the landing at the turn. The living chi of the plant nullifies the negative influence of the turn, attracts chi, and boosts the energy on its way to the door. Be careful that the plant doesn't block the way; otherwise, you've compounded one problem with another.

Missing or rickety banister

A problem banister (one that gives at all when you grab it) creates unsafe feelings and lack of control in life. Also, subconscious uncertainties may creep into your mind for no apparent reason. The remedy is easy: Repair a rickety banister or install a good solid handrail that supports you completely when you hold it.