Dealing with Driveway Issues

Your driveway is the main source of energy and societal chi — connections, money, and helpful people — for your property and home, and by extension, you. Your house is also fed energy by the front walkway. (If your house doesn't have a driveway, the main source of energy flowing into the property is the front walkway.) If you live in an apartment, the ease and accessibility of the path you take to the front door of your apartment is what counts. You should know ideal driveway conditions then help you cure your drive if you have any of the problems detailed here. When energy flows freely onto your property and into your house, life feels much smoother, and more flowing.

Positive driveway conditions

The best kind of driveway is one that is flat or slopes gently upward, and is slightly winding, rather than arrow-straight or convoluted. (Though a short straight drive leading to the garage as found in many homes is fine.) The driveway should be smooth-surfaced rather than bumpy or difficult to navigate. The house and front door should be clearly visible from the front entrance to the property (the beginning of the driveway at the street). And the sights you see when driving up to the house should be uplifting or inspire positive feelings:

Problem driveway conditions and their solutions

Problematic driveways include steep dries, blind drives, shared drives, cracked or broken drives, and driveways that face a neighbor's drive that is wider or goes down. So consider a few common problematic driveway scenarios and their Feng Shui implications and cures.

Steep drive going up or going down

If your driveway goes down steeply, your house is probably below the road. In this situation, when leaving the house — whether for occasionally or for work each day - is difficult because you tend to strain to climb up and out of the property each day. The effect is subliminal yet real. This situation can generate career difficulties, not to mention the practical problems of leaving the driveway itself. A cure is to place your trusty energy generators along the drive to help move energy up to the street. Energy generators include lights, windsocks, and wind chimes. These cures also help protect the house from excess energy that can roll down the drive and impact the house.

Being above the road is generally better than being below it. However, a house sitting high above the road typically has a steep drive leading up to it, which fosters two kinds of problems. First, energy has a hard time getting up the driveway to the house, making it hard for people and energetically hard for money to reach you. Second, whatever energy (money and people) does make it to the house has an easy time rolling back down the drive and being lost.

A good cure for a drive that descends sharply from the house down to the street is to place bright lights on each side of the drive where it meets the street. Another cure for a steep drive going up to a house is the same as the cure for a steep, descending one — activates the driveway with windsocks or other motion stimulators. (Generally, a house sitting above the road is in a good position. Problems arise when a house is very high above the street, with a steep driveway.) The solutions given here are specifically to cure driveway issues.

Blind drive

In Feng Shui, a recurring principle is to be able to see what's coming towards you in life. A blind drive is one that prevents you from seeing who or what is approaching as you leave the site, and this constraint creates a psychological blinds spot as well as physical security issues.

For a good cure, you can place a large convex mirror near the end of the drive so you can see the approaching street traffic as you come down the driveway. (Larger mirror is the better.) You may need one mirror on each side of the drive to see the traffic coming from both directions.

Problematic neighbors' drives

A neighbor's driveway directly across from yours can affect you negatively if the driveway is wider than your drive or if it slopes down and away. If the neighbor's driveway is larger than yours, the opposing drive can eat part of your home's energy supply. If the neighbor's drive slopes down and away, you get the same effect: The opposing drive drains chi away from your property.

The solution is to mount a large convex mirror — a 24- to 36-inch mirror works well — above the garage door or at another position that's in line with the opposing drive. The mirror counteracts the effect of the larger driveway, pulling needed chi into your property. The same cure works for either opposing drive situation.

A shared driveway

A driveway shared with one or more other residents can affect your site by lessening its inflow of energy. A shared drive is one used by more than one residence, or a drive that leads to your house and also splits off to go to another home. If you share a driveway with a neighbor, you can mount a bright light (on a pole and the taller, the better) at the place where the neighbor's drive splits off from yours. The light marks a clear division between the two driveways. The light helps prevent the loss of chi (which translates to money, opportunities, health, and more) from your home and life. If you put lights on both sides of your drive at the splitting point, the cure is even stronger.