Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Home, Your Life & Your Planet by Norma Lehmeier Hartie

From the Publisher

Shows the reader how to create a beautiful, non-toxic and natural home and workspace; a sanctuary that will support, invigorate and nourish them to enable the reader to flourish in all aspects of their lives--while being kind to the environment. There are hundreds of resources and information providing eco-friendly and safe construction and building materials and household goods. Clearly written, cleanly organized, and enthusiastically presented, this is an unusual and eclectic addition to anyone'ss home improvement library. Perfect blend of the practical and the magical to help us recapture the simplicity that modern society has stolen away.

Fearless Reviews

Clearly written, cleanly organized, and enthusiastically presented, this is an unusual and eclectic addition to anyone’s home improvement library.

Midwest Book Review

Design consultant, gardener, and chef Norma Lehmeier Hartie presents Harmonious Environment, a guide to transforming one's home into a life-affirming sanctuary, by harnessing the principles of Feng Shui, applying the Four Elements based on one's birth date, color, Vastu, energy work, and other factors. From practical tips for eliminating clutter to replacing harmful products with eco-friendly ones, a how-to guide for dowsing one's house, embracing the spirituality of honoring mother earth, tips for flower arranging, and much more. Tips, tricks, and techniques for promoting metaphysical harmony abound in this compassionate guide, which also provides numerous references to where assorted toxin-free and "green" products can be obtained. Recommended reading for anyone seeking to revitalize their living space.

Jim Barnes - Independent Publisher

We can all use more harmony in our lives, and this book delivers a helpful assortment of what the author calls 'Harmonious Adjustments,' designed for achieving the harmony, peace, and beauty we all strive for. A perfect blend of the practical and the magical to help us recapture the simplicity that modern society has stolen away.

Robin Farrell Edmunds - ForeWord Magazine

The author takes numerous products (from air fresheners to toilet bowl cleaners) to task for their smorgasbord of unpronounceable toxic ingredients, offering instead a list of eco-friendly alternatives. In the chapter "Eating for a Harmonious Body," she shares fifteen pages of favorite recipes. The book's second section highlights earth-based spirituality ("about following your own intuition") and the Medicine Wheel, used by Native Americans to deepen the understanding of self. The four temperaments types are explained here: for example, earth people (the color green) are patient. Hartie describes how it's helpful to use the Bagua Map (the sacred octagon used in Feng Shui, which contains nine Guas representing such life areas as career, love, and health) to enhance the different rooms of a person's home. These are perhaps the most fun and easily read chapters. She talks about chi, the life force energy or breath of life within everything, and how it needs to flow through one's home unencumbered. According to her philosophy, adding elements of air (wind chimes), water (birdbath), fire (outdoor lighting), and earth (plants) enhance the life force. Part three describes putting these pieces together; part four is a forty-five-page list of resources, including websites. Seven pages are reserved for note taking.
"Harmonious Adjustments" provide principles to help individuals get started on their creative journeys. As Hartie notes, the practice "is based on the belief that if it feels and looks good, it is good."

Yuka Mizushima - Armchair Interviews

Worried about what your family is being exposed to? Are you hoping to increase your wealth or find love this year? Trying to decide on the best color to paint your walls? If you answered "yes!" to any of these questions, then Harmonious Environment is a must read.
The goal of this book is to create positive energy both in your home and your life and to be kinder to the earth. Hartie is a design consultant, chef, gardener, and healer. She shares her professional and personal experiences with the readers, i.e., homemade earth-friendly cleaning products, tasty recipes for carnivores and vegetarians, etc. She recommends that after reading this book, you apply the process in the following order:
1. Remove toxic products from your home and garage
2. Clean, declutter, clear and organize your home
3. Buy/use environmentally friendly products
4. Learn how to use place objects (furniture, mirrors, etc.) to manifest change in your life
The relationship between people and the Earth is an important part of Harmonious Environment. To remind ourselves of this interconnection, Hartie recommends bringing the natural world into your home. Some ways to do this include displaying rocks and minerals and using houseplants as pollution busters.
Hartie uses Harmonious Adjustments (TM) that combines "the best principles of Feng Shui, the application of the Four Elements based on your birth date, color, Vastu, energy work and good design." I've read a few Feng Shui books in the past, but the author's clear instructions and enthusiasm has given me the confidence to actually try this at home.
I liked how the author reminded me to use this book as a guideline but to also trust myintuition. Do what looks and feels right for you. I also liked how the Resource section listed all the suppliers, organizations and further readings mentioned throughout the book.
Even if you aren't interested in Feng Shui, this book has valuable information about becoming an informed consumer and living a more eco-friendly life.
Armchair Interviews says read Harmonious Environment and get ready to change your life!

Anna Jedrziewski - New Age Retailer magazine

Drawing on her background in design, holistic healing, gardening, and cooking, Norma Lehmeier Hartie has compiled an eco-friendly guide for turning a home into a nurturing sanctuary that resonates with the positive energies of the earth. Despite the tremendous amount of information that the book contains, it is extremely readable and well organized.
Harmonious Environment begins with the practical. Section one is an encyclopedia of both outdoor and indoor pollutants with workable suggestions for reducing both. This section also covers negative energy and how to determine its source and clear it from a space. In the second section, Hartie presents a concise, but respectable, explanation of earth-based spiritual practice, including use of the medicine wheel in conjunction with a simplified system of feng shui. In part three, she offers instruction for putting the information in the first two sections into practice and encourages the reader to rely on her or his own intuition and sense of fun. The last section is an extraordinary collection of resources with contact information for organizations, product suppliers, and teachers. There also are suggestions for additional reading. Harmonious Environment would be a terrific starting point for a monthly study group. Almost every chapter has plenty of information for intensive discussion and will provide a solid platform for the presentation of related books and sidelines.

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