Akiela Hope

We are so­cial­ist by na­ture, 'at home is the name and lim­ing is the game.' We love to en­ter­tain; we are a wel­com­ing bunch of peo­ple. But what are the mes­sages we want to con­vey to our vis­i­tors; seren­i­ty, wis­dom, wealth, or unique­ness? Do you know by adding a sim­ple stat­ue, in and around the home can do this? Take for in­stance the Phoenix. It's a leg­endary sa­cred bird, which ex­em­pli­fies fire, beau­ty, ever­last­ing life, and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Just as the bird has the abil­i­ty to self-re­gen­er­ate when wound­ed, so too can hu­mans in di­verse sit­u­a­tions. In Asian tra­di­tion, the phoenix as well as hu­mans ex­udes qual­i­ties such as: virtue, du­ty, hu­man­i­ty, re­li­a­bil­i­ty and prop­er be­hav­ior. The phoenix sym­bol­izes strength and has ap­ti­tude to tri­umph over all things.

Then there is the drag­on, when it is paired with the phoenix 'the pre­fect uni­ty', is said to bring good for­tune. This union; the 'ying yang' union, can with­stand any­thing and to­geth­er they pro­duce blessed off­spring. Ac­cord­ing to Sa­van­nah Fran­cis, Au­thor, Ezine Ar­ti­cles, in Feng Shui, if you are a sin­gle man or woman look­ing to unite and find true love - sym­bols of the drag­on and phoenix paired to­geth­er should in­crease that 'vi­bra­tional' en­er­gy of strong re­la­tion­ships in your home. The drag­on alone, char­ac­ter­izes man­li­ness, he dis­plays en­er­gy, force­ful­ness, su­prema­cy, a roy­al leader; he is seen as an au­thor­i­ta­tive be­ing. In Eu­ro­pean cul­ture the drag­on is feared, whilst in Asian cul­ture, it is deem com­pas­sion­ate.

With the Japan­ese cul­ture how­ev­er, the crane (a bird) is an­oth­er stat­ue used. It stands for strength, hon­or and loy­al­ty. Plac­ing two cranes in­side the home es­pe­cial­ly for mar­ried cou­ples, gives con­stant re­minders of loy­al­ty to­wards each oth­er. Japan­ese al­so be­lieve that fold­ing one thou­sand (1,000) origa­mi cranes will ma­te­ri­al­ize your great­est wish.

RIGHT: Im­age cour­tesy, H. B. Camp­bell � Siroc­co Trad­ing

Lim­it­ed (Dis­trib­u­tors of An­tique Asian fur­ni­ture)

The di­ver­si­ty of asian fur­ni­ture

In the west, fur­ni­ture has tra­di­tion­al­ly been made of wood and met­al but west­ern de­sign­ers are now man­u­fac­tur­ing in the east and pro­duc­ing items de­signed to con­form to west­ern homes and life styles. Pieces are made of un­usu­al ma­te­ri­als such as cane, co­conut shell, rat­tan, wild vines, shell, moth­er-o'-pearl, mir­ror glass, as well as wo­ven syn­thet­ic cane which are weath­er proof and UV proof which is suit­able to our cli­mate and per­fect as out­door fur­ni­ture. Tra­di­tion­al Asian fur­ni­ture is made for their home mar­kets and al­so sup­plied to the West. The fur­ni­ture be­ing made for the West­ern mar­ket is mod­ern and func­tion­al and blends well with our west­ern wood­en fur­ni­ture. Beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture and ob­jects are com­ing out of Asia � In­dia, In­done­sia, Chi­na and the Philip­pines fus­ing the best of the east and the best of the west.

Oth­er stat­ues used for your home

The ele­phant:

Strength and as­tute­ness. An im­age of an ele­phant be­ing rid­den de­picts hap­pi­ness.

The tiger:

Is revered as the king of the wild an­i­mal king­dom, and is a sym­bol of roy­al­ty, courage, brav­ery and fear­less­ness.

�2 Trin­i­ty Med­i­ta­tion Shrines

�2 Mon­ey Frogs

�2 Ter­ra Cot­ta Stat­ues

�2 Gold­en Hen Stat­ue

�2 Mi­ni Chi­nese Zo­di­ac An­i­mal Stat­ue

�2 Bud­dhas

�2 Ak­shob­hya Bud­dha

�2 Com­pas­sion Bud­dha

�2 Hun­gry Bud­dha

�2 Med­i­cine Bud­dha