The ancient Chinese Feng Shui compass known as Luo Pan is a tool to identify the Bagua of your house. What is Bagua, you ask? Well, let’s decipher it together. Two words culminated into one, in Chinese ‘Ba’ means eight and ‘Gua’ means areas. So together, bagua are the eight key areas of your house. Each area has some attributes associated with it, which can be activated with colours, elements or shapes. 
An antique Feng Shui compass
Here, you enter the feng shui compass directions that experienced masters and feng shui experts generally practice to identify the best sitting or facing directions in your home. it is a circular or square piece of wood painted in red or yellow. Inscribed with Chinese symbols, each compass ring has different information that helps experts tell you what the directions mean in your home and how you can activate the energies for best results.
Reading: Compass feng shui directions
While Western compasses have the needle pointing north, the feng shui compass typically has the needle pointing south. compass notations are 0 degrees (north), 90 degrees (east), 180 degrees (south), and 270 degrees (west).
how to take a feng shui compass reading
Start at the front door of your house to get the Feng Shui compass readingStep 1: Start at the front door of your house- outside the home, facing the houseStep 2: Hold the compass pointing towards the front doorStep 3: Write the direction you catch in the compass and at what degreesStep 4: Take a few steps backwards or forward and find the magnetic direction and the degreesStep 5: Review the average degree of the three readings facing out the front door
See also: Feng Shui for Everyday: Cul-de-sac Houses – Spirit of Change Magazine | Holistic New England
note: there should be no large pieces of metal around the compass as this could alter the readings.
orientation and seating directions of your home
facing direction is the facing direction of your house. according to feng shui compass directions, this direction is generally where the front door is located. it could also be another direction depending on how your house is built. your home address is the one that commands the most yang energy in your home.
The seating direction is usually the back of the house. Understanding these directions and the location of these degrees in the house is particularly important to understanding the flow of chi in the house. How energy passes from one corner of your house to another is very easy for a person to identify if they know how to use a feng shui compass. Remember that the front and back doors of your house should never be exactly in line with each other. that would mean that positive energy enters your house but goes straight out the back door. Now you wouldn’t want that, would you?
While this can be left to the experts to identify housework directions to sit and look, what you can do in the meantime is take steps to place objects in the correct direction around the house. You may not need a feng shui compass, a normal compass will very well indicate the directions of the rooms and the different areas so that you can place the objects correctly.
key compass feng shui tips
See also: How to Find Your Feng Shui Wealth Areas: 5 Popular Methods
some of the most common points to remember are:
– a house should not be built on a cliff, on the side of a hill or next to a bridge- the most auspicious of all feng shui compass directions is facing south , which is excellent for absorbing chi in the house and harmonizing it.
Having a fountain in your house in the north direction is going to be great for your career
– if you work with plants or water, it is essential to take into account the direction or quadrant of the house. for example, the north direction is related to the water element which is key to your career prosperity. therefore, you can place a fountain on that side of the house to experience abundance.
– to balance yin and yang principles, add lilacs or hydrangeas to your home garden