Tips on New Year’s Eve and Day for a Successful Beginning

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Tips on New Year’s Eve and Day for a Successful Beginning

As we welcome 2025, the dawn of a new year brings the promise of fresh beginnings and boundless hope. It’s a time to pause, reflect, and envision the path ahead—an opportunity to embrace change, chase dreams, and rewrite the story of our lives with renewed determination. As the New Year invites us to let go of what no longer serves us, to nurture the seeds of possibility, and to move forward with hearts full of courage and optimism – here are some suggestions you can do on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to ensure a successful beginning.

New Year’s Eve:

  1. Open up your front door and symbolically sweep out the energy from the year.
  2. Clean Up Your house so the energy of the new year flows unrestrictedly.
  3. Stand in the center of your house. This is the heart of your home. Clear your mind of any negative thoughts you might have. You might need to forgive someone or yourself.
  4. Ring a bell several times. Light sage or sandalwood incense. Just let the year go.

New Year’s Day:

This day sets the chi for the entire year so don’t pay bills – don’t argue with your family- don’t perform these negative patterns. Maybe call your family and friends and tell them what they mean to you. Perhaps you travel on this day.

  1. Before you get out of bed choose the word you say sets the chi, choose wisely. Could be love, service, prosperity health. What do you need? What do you want? Speaking this word out loud is powerful.
  2. Pick a theme song that represents the year you want.
  3. Be grateful. Maybe write a list of all the things you are grateful for.
  4. Wear something that makes you feel abundant – setting that chi.
  5. Surround yourself with people you love and who love you.

In this blank canvas of 2025, may you find the inspiration to create a year filled with purpose, growth, and joy.

I am sending y’all so much joy, prosperity, good health, and above all love for this year and always!

Are you wearing the best colors for you? Each of us has a power color based on the five elements and the day we were born. Sign up for my email list and provide me the day, month, and year of your birth and I will send you your birth element and power color!

5 Things You Can Do During This Yin Season

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The crisp, white snow has smothered summer. It appears as if someone has laid a sparkling white sheet over what was once summer and put it to bed. I love winter. I love the hot chocolate with marshmallows melting into the whipped cream, snuggling up with a fire burning, blankets draped over me, and most of all a brilliant book.

In winter and as the world becomes cold, we go inside. Nature tends to freeze and die and there is a stillness like no other time of the year. It is in the deep stillness that gives us a moment to look into our depths, reconnect to our inner being, and embrace the darkness that surrounds us. 

This is the season that we celebrate holidays, eat and drink, and go to parties with our friends, but it is also the season where our inner world is most accessible because winter is represented by the water element, the most yin of all the five elements. This is a time of contemplation and reflection. 

Here are a few things I do during this yin season:

  1. Practice self-acceptance –  for me, this means spending five minutes a day looking in a mirror at myself and I don’t criticize what I see.
  2. Listen and recharge – Listen more to others and listen closely to what your heart might be saying. It is a time of receiving, not doing.
  3. Drink lots of water – in this yin season we lose a great deal of moisture out of our bodies so it is important to hydrate.
  4. Dream – we all have ideas and dreams and this season allows us to slow down and have these thoughts germinate as if we were planting a garden. Nurture these images and allow them to develop and grow naturally. Do this and see what sprouts in the spring.
  5. Serve – so many are in need during the winter. Perhaps gather coats for the homeless shelter or make a pot of soup for the older people in your neighborhood. Each season provides us all with unique chances to help those around us.

Are you wearing the best colors for you? Each of us has a power color based on the five elements and the day we were born. Sign up for my email list and provide me the day, month, and year of your birth and I will send you your birth element and power color!

Feng Shui for Father’s Day

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Feng Shui for Father’s Day
Sam’s wedding day

I love a holiday that focuses on thanking someone for all they do, and Father’s Day is at the top of my list.

Barry and August
Barry and August

In Feng Shui terms, the Northwest sector of your home relates to the masculine energy of the family, which is the farthest left-hand corner. So, a gift might be a gold metal turtle to put in the corner of whatever room it is at your home. This signifies longevity and protection to the patriarch and family wealth. 

The helpful people section of the home is in the front right-hand corner, and fathers are certainly that. Perhaps in this section stand in honor of this masculine energy, this father archetype in your life, and give thanks, offer a prayer on their behalf. And, perhaps add a vibrant green plant in this area symbolizing their health and wellness.

Dad with Dam
Barry and Sam

Is your dad a gadget geek, a craft beer enthusiast, or an eco-friendly urbanite? Does he like to dive into a book or spin a few old records? Or is he more in tune with nature and the outdoors? Give some meaningful thought to his passions. I like to give experiences over things so perhaps a gift certificate for a round of golf or a weekend of hiking in Sedona. You know what this giver of the wisest of wise advice really likes. 

Food is a big deal in my family so making a special lunch and dinner complete with their favorite desserts is always appreciated.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers, grandfathers, stepdads, fathers-in-law, and anyone who fills this critical role. And especially to all the dads they didn’t have to be. And a huge happy Father’s Day to our Barry! Our boys have loving hearts, compassionate spirits, and humble natures due to the direct example that he has shown our boys their entire lives. Wishing all the dads a heartfelt Happy Father’s Day!

Have any Feng Shui questions? Feel free to contact me at michelle@michellecromer.com and sign up for your Power Color. Visit me on Facebook at Michelle Cromer Creating a Meaningful Life.

Harnessing the Energy of Gaia to Your Vegetable Garden

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Harnessing the Energy of Gaia

When it comes to a good Feng Shui garden design, the size of your garden is not the main criterion. It is wonderful to be surrounded by a big, lush garden, but if you only have a small space to work with, you can still create a good Feng Shui vegetable garden design.

To Feng Shui, a flower garden is a great deal easier. It is much easier to say ‘Plant a purple flower here’ than ‘Plant a purple vegetable here’. There are many more choices with flowers. So I was inspired to Feng Shui my own vegetable garden and to help you do the same.

feng shui garden design

Ultimately where you plant your vegetables depends on many things such as where the sun hits the garden, what was planted there the year before, what will be the best vegetable for your area of the country, etc. That doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate the five elements. A vegetable garden inherently has the elements of Feng Shui already — Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire, but all must be present and in balance in a Feng Shui garden. The universe is made up of these elements working together to create a harmonious, welcoming, space, and you want to reflect that in your garden.

Garden cropWorking with Feng Shui colors is a great way to emphasize various Feng Shui rhythms in your garden. In Feng Shui, color is used according to the five elements theory, and you can bring healing harmony, and joy to your garden by choosing colors that emphasize specific energies, such as the fire energy in the color red, the color of a tomato; or the healing earth element in the color of yellow squash.

In designing your garden, be sure to allow gently curving pathways for chi, or energy, to flow smoothly. Straight lines are rarely present in nature, so use relaxing, flowing shapes and pathways for your feng shui garden. Garden accessories like wind chimes are a wonderful addition to any garden, as their gentle sound creates healing feng shui vibrations in the air. There are a variety of wind chimes on the market, from metal to bamboo, with various symbols, colors, and numbers of strings. While each element of the wind chime design is important, in particular, the sound of the chime is always a deciding factor.

For me what Feng Shui does, if nothing else, is make me examine different aspects of my life by examining the environment, in this case, my garden. I don’t know if putting a particular object in a specific direction can really make a difference, but, the connection I experience from Gaia, Mother Earth, and getting my hands in the dirt grounds me in a way that nothing else seems to.

Never underestimate the healing power of quiet moments of grounding yourself in a garden.

Have any Feng Shui questions? Feel free to contact me at michelle@michellecromer.com and sign up for your Power Color or visit me on Facebook at Michelle Cromer Feng Shui.

Balancing your Backyard with the Five Elements

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balancing your backyard with the five elements
Since your garden and your backyard are an extension of your home it is also important to make sure to balance these areas with the five elements. Here’s how:

Earth Element1. Earth Element: We all have a lot of earth in our backyards and gardens due to the soil and the colors of the earth and the shape of a square. This area always reminds me of the energy of the goddess Gaia, Mother Earth which is life itself, the very soil that sustains us. Every culture has a version of this goddess. The Greeks call her Gaia from the Greek word “ga” which means land in the ancient Greek language and is sometimes spelled with a “ge” which is where we derive the word geology and geography. I learned in Peru that the Incas called her Pacha Mama. This goddess is so old she predates writing.

2. Fire element: This element can be brought in with a fireplace or fire pit or with the color red, orange, or pink in flowers or the shape of a triangle.

balancing your backyard with the five elements3. Water Element: many of us have pools that represent water or you can bring in the color blue in flowers or furniture or the shape of curves.

 

4. Wood element: Often times we have outdoor furniture made of wood or we all seem to have lots of trees. The shape of wood is the rectangle which might be shutters or perhaps you can bring in the colors of wood, browns, and greens.

5. Metal Element: Round is the shape of wood which can be in tables or planters. I have metal statues in my backyard representing the material itself and metal can also be in the color white.

When we balance the energy in our backyards we also balance the chi and the yin and yang within ourselves.

Have any Feng Shui questions? Feel free to contact me at michelle@michellecromer.com and sign up for your Power Color or visit me on Facebook at Michelle Cromer Creating a Meaningful Life.

Michelle Cromer