Seasons are very meaningful in feng shui, and the fall is one that is full of prosperity and good fortune symbolism. In the west, many homeowners like to decorate their homes with decorations of fall and around harvest themes.
The look and feel of these decorations are one of abundance and prosperity, but they also bring great feng shui and augur good fortune for your home and family.
As a time that typically represented the harvest, the fall is a seasonal representation of the full bounty and abundance of the growth of the year from the spring and summer seasons.
Unlike the Lunar New Year, the emphasis isn’t on the new beginnings of the year but on the reward of the fruits of our labor in the months preceding fall.
The Chinese have many fall symbols and incorporating these around your house is a great way to bring in the energy of the abundant fall season and welcome the change of the seasons and acknowledge a year of efforts and the harvest of those efforts, as well as attract good fortune and symbolize wealth and prosperity.
Display chrysanthemums for health and wealth.
The mum is one of the four noble plants, along with the bamboo, orchid, plum blossom. Mums have been cultivated in China for over 3,000 years, and are highly revered for their combination of beauty and strength.
The chrysanthemum is a symbol of long life and represents an easy retirement.
It’s the flower that represents the fall season because this is the time when it naturally grows and comes to blossom. Like the flower that blooms as the temperatures begin to drop, its bright petals are considered healthful and its sturdy stems representations of physical stamina and strength.
Display mums to welcome the harvest of the year, symbolizing all you have accomplished, and to welcome good health and recognize the bounty of your efforts.
For wealth, display bright gold and yellow mums, and for success display red mums. Place them indoors and outdoors, particularly by your front door where they can welcome abundant good fortune.
Pumpkins symbolize gold from the earth.
A pumpkin and other gourds typically ripen and glow like the setting sun in the autumn. To the Chinese, pumpkins represent drawing the gold energy from the earth into form, making them a favored symbol of the wealth gods.
In western markets, bins are full of pumpkins in every size, color, and shape. Each one offers bountiful and abundant symbolism of happy families, wealth, and the attraction of further prosperity.
In fact, the pumpkin is favored for its symbolism of successful and thriving children.
Displaying the pumpkin represents the ability to manifest more wealth, be prosperous, and attract riches and family fortune.
Display these in the east for family luck, southeast for wealth luck, southwest for the luck of the mother, west for the luck of children, and northwest for the luck of the father. In the north, pumpkins symbolize career progress and business success.
Add bowls of fall fruits.
The fall is the perfect time to display the fruits of the season. Add bowls of apples, persimmons, and pears. These beautiful fruits each hold a special place in Chinese symbolism.
Pears represent vitality and health, apples symbolize peace, happiness, and contentment, and persimmons represent good luck in business affairs. Sometimes called a Chinese fig, persimmons are symbols of everlasting and auspicious luck.
Gourds bring good health and ward off bad luck.
In the west with the specter of Halloween and the haunting of ghosts, gourds make the perfect representation of bounty and good fortune. For millennia, gourds have been fashioned into vases because gourds made fitting holders for wine and other items.
In Chinese lore, gourds were believed to hold the elixir of immortality and dispel negative intentions.
Because a gourd held the elixir of life as well as medicine and wine, and because their name was a homophone for protection and good fortune, gourds have the ability to transform luck and by displaying them you bring blessings to your home.
The next time you see a bag of mixed gourds in the autumn, filled with mini pumpkins and funny-shaped gourds, snap it up and add them to your kitchen counter to represent harvest, symbolize good fortune and blessings, and protection from evil spirits.
Nuts represent abundance and blessings.
Two of the favored nuts that represent blessings are the walnut and the peanut. Peanuts symbolize prosperity because they often look like the number eight, considered one of the most auspicious numbers associated with wealth.
Peanuts are also a symbol of birth, continuous growth, and multiplying luck.
All nuts are considered auspicious, but walnuts are a favored nut for the fall. A favorite in Chinese cooking, walnuts are highly prized in China as a nut. Although long thought of as a nut that represented flirtation, walnut shells have long been favored for jewelry and have come to represent family harmony.
