Dervilla Griffin is a Cork-based Feng Shui consultant in demand all over the world. She tells
Sharon O’Reilly-Coates how her work can alleviate sickness and even money worries
Houses have personalities. That’s what Dervilla Griffin believes. Like a cuckoo popping out of a clock, she leaps into a room. But her apparent normality doesn’t fool me.
Houses speak to her for heaven’s sake! She talks about the “vibrations”` of houses. A Chinese magnetic compass is as familiar to her as a knife and fork. She admits to being “at one” with buildings.
“We all have gifts Sharon. Mine is I have empathy with buildings”.
Yet Dervilla, an ex-private eye born in Co Tipperary who runs Cork’s Feng Shui Matters, counts doctors, solicitors and engineers, health clinic bosses and entrepreneurs among her many clients. And it seems the art of matching people with their homes is paying off for her.
Feng Shui? I hear you cry. I haven’t heard of that since the ‘80’s. Isn’t that all about wind chimes and sticking mirrors on walls? Dervilla is almost changing colour with frustration.
“Feng Shui is not about moving your furniture or changing your colours. It goes beyond that. It is about understanding the personality of a building. It’s about feeling the energy and changing the vibration.”
Pop Feng Shui abounds out there and it makes her cross, she says. “Like who told half the country to paint their front doors red? If there is bad energy at the entrance, it just intensifies it”.
Wind chimes should never be used either unless there is upturned soil as it can invite spirit, according to Dervilla. As for mirrors? Keep them out of bedrooms. The energy bounces around and creates a disturbed sleep.
In the last few years, Dervilla has cleared the energies of more than 50 homes, with sleep deprivation and money worries being the most frequent problems. Much of her work is repeat custom as energies change each year and a review is needed.
In the last few years, her business went global. She surveys the rooms of clients in Sydney, South Africa, Tehran, Spain, France and Saudi Arabia to resolve concerns around everything from dwindling creativity to perennial sickness. She advises new business as well as householders on extensions and new builds. To do so, she needs the birth date of each family member, the age of the house and how the house sits in a landscape. All this, she can glean via Skype.
“Technology is great, but it’s no substitute for being on site and feeling the energy. I can predict if a couple will have problems and put measures in place to prevent it. I can stop sickness visiting a home and prevent existing sicknesses from worsening. Sickness is stopped by balancing the horoscope of the house with the person. There are eight types of house, depending on the direction they face. There are eight types of person depending on date of birth. If these types match, the house is a good fit and minimal remedial work is needed”.
A recent client was a GP’s wife whose family were regularly ill.
After half an hour sitting with Dervilla, I felt positively serene. She’s like a solar panel absorbing the energy of those around her. This is fine if you’re happy, but if you feel sad, she could cry.
“I’m so sensitive. I pick up on everything”, she explains. “I was like it even as a child”.
Her intuitive gift even helped her to pick her husband of 15 years, Donal, a tennis coach and photographer. “I knew the minute I saw him on the tennis court that we were going to be married.”
I’m moving house so I had Dervilla over to look at the planned purchase. First question is: “When were you born?”
A bit personal. I blurt out my birth date, wishing it was more recent. She asks my stunned husband the same thing. “Thought so, you’re the same energy. That explains why you were so comfortable together when you first met”.
My reason for the consultation was simple. Our family is moving after nearly 20 years and it had suddenly struck me. Hang on a minute. We’re all healthy and happy here. Maybe we’re suited to our current house?
Okay, I give out about clutter and the greenery that pervades the windows, but we have underlying smoothness here. Nothing too jarring. Would it be the same with the new period property?
Hours after she first entered our house, armed with her Luopan compass and head lamp, the 44-year-old emerged victorious. A blend of scientific measurements and intuition helps her reach her initial findings. Add to that a week spent in her log cabin at Leemount working on her report and voila – she’s ready to present her work.
According to Dervilla, a protective mountain (something like a raised rock feature) is needed at the front of the house and a giant waterfall (a water feature) at the back. Heavy metal objects, like a brass statue, were also recommended for rooms where she had detected bad energy. She also advised where best to position beds, what rooms would be best for creative endeavour and what colours to avoid on walls.
“Real Feng Shui taps into energy at a deeper level. It matches the house to its occupants. All personalities should be in harmony.”
But one factor alone makes her unique as a Feng Shui consultant: “I rely heavily on my intuition, she says. “If science is telling me one thing and I feel another, I will go with what I sense”.
So how did a Presentation Convent girl from Clonmel break into such an unusual profession?
Initially, Dervilla followed her father, Larry’s footsteps and worked in private investigation. Her ability to read situations and people proved useful and she even set up her own private eye agency.
A change of direction took her into pharmaceuticals, where she spent eight years as a purchaser. But it was a comment from a group of Chinese she met in Sydney in her late 20s that pulled her into Feng Shui.
“They said my energy was very aware and I should consider Feng Shui. I took their advice.”
After studying under four Feng Shui Masters in Beijing and at the American Institute of Feng Shui in California, she set up Feng Shui Matters in 2008.
She says she’s forever learning.
- According to Chinese pentology, which includes Feng Shui, Chinese medicine and acupuncture, each person is made up of a combination of elements. These are fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. Your birth date dictates the combination. The elements affect our needs energetically in a home.
- Feng Shui, in its simplest form, is about matching your personal birth elements to the house, which has its own horoscope.
- In Feng Shui, each house is broken down into nine quadrants, each of which has distinct characteristics, depending on the location and direction.
- Feng Shui consultants try to sense and feel the energy and the affect it has on us.
- Don’t follow paint trends. Very few energies can take it.
- Keep entrances clear, especially around doors and hallways, to prevent affecting the flow of chi. In feng shui, your front door is called the “mouth of chi.” Bring good energy into your home by keeping it clean and well lit.
- Always declutter before employing a Feng Shui consultant. Clutter is stuck energy.
- The type of remedy needed varies from year to year. Energies are moving all the time and annual reviews are needed.
- Plants bring vibrant chi into a home or working environment.
