Welcome to ON BEAUTY, a monthly feature highlighting creative, like-minded people who inspire us.

It’s rare to visit a friend or family member’s home without taking in a signature scent. It can be a candle, a home fragrance, laundry detergent, or even food. And to Meghan Wallace James, the Los Angeles-based Feng Shui consultant, a signature aroma is a reflection of who you are.

That said, Meghan is a woman most passionate about the energetic and aesthetic metaphors of space, style, and sex and practices the art of Feng Shui. Her modern take can be viewed as therapeutic, and even at times, poetic. Here, Meghan divulges her journey to Feng Shui, why sex should be part of the lexicon, and the importance of curating altars in your home.  

How did you get into Feng Shui? 

There’s no formal Feng Shui accreditation. There is a guild and I call it the wild west of wellness. Anybody can call themselves a Feng Shui consultant.

I crafted my modality with many bits and bobs, patience and time, and bold experimentation! For me, it was about trusting my intuition and quietly observing natural patterns. Listening to my home and to my possessions. Reading a ton and feeling safe enough to incorporate the resonate gems of knowledge. Granting myself the freedom to change my mind. Playing with others; asking big questions; requesting blunt feedback. Moving four times in four years, to four vastly different homes and embracing the opportunity to Begin Again.

How did you come to craft your version of Feng Shui? 

There’s a gentle depth to what I do. That’s my intention. It’s this nuanced transmission where, ideally, I empower a client to do what they need to do. I feel I can turn people on to understand how to dialogue with space in a whole new way. It’s much more empowering than superstitious. I have an innate gift of seeing blocks, both literal and metaphorical, and understanding how to remove those blocks with beauty. With the boulders lifted, my clients manifest their aligned desires with speed. 

I see Feng Shui as a tool for manifestation—for being our biggest, best selves in the world—with a stylish home as an elegant byproduct. And those who find me have been deep into their work and are asking for a Tipping Point. Feng Shui is an awesome Tipping Point.

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When I started this work, I was experimenting with my mom friends and I could tell who was fucking their husband and who wasn’t and who wanted to and who didn’t.

Where does your specialty lie when it comes to Feng Shui?

It’s what I call high-level poetry. I feel I can turn people on to understand how to dialogue with space in a whole new way. It’s much more empowering than superstitious. I know you know what to do here. Here are some starting points and we also unlock a new way of seeing space.

I have an innate gift of seeing blocks, both literal and metaphorical, and understanding how to remove those blocks with beauty. With the boulders lifted, my clients manifest their aligned desires with speed.

Tell us about your signature session, “Turn On.”  

I come to your home, physically or remotely, and we deep dive in terms of space, style, and sex. We walk throughout and around to co-create quite a long list of to do’s. At the end of our journey, we circle back, and I instinctively know the top three to five action items that will completely open you up and completely Turn You On. 

The remaining list is a great tool for those moments when we need to transmute chaotic energy and stop a spin out. Why get wasted and text your ex when you could blast some tunes, deep clean your garage, and get a download on your next career steps? This work feels good and looks great; ’tis cathartic fun for all. 

Many have me back for an annual reset, for a deep refresh as an opportunity to peel off another layer whilst simultaneously integrating the blessings that have been called in (new jobs, new partners, new babies, new homes).

What makes your take of Feng Shui and manifestation unique?

It’s modern, it’s sexy, and it’s empowering. It’s not didactic and not superstitious. I want everybody to maintain their sense of style. I’m not an interior designer. I don’t want to comment on people’s interior design. But I want there to be a rhythm and harmony. To me, rhythm and harmony, life, health, order, all of these things trump the Bagua, the Feng Shui map. There’s a lot of pragmatism in my approach.

Firstly, I don’t confine my Feng Shui application to the realm of space. Rather I expand my scope to incorporate personal style and sexuality as natural complements. 

Secondly, I am a pragmatist. Feng Shui gets a bad rap of being elitist. As an engineer-turned fashion designer, and as a single parent, I am well versed in efficient, sophisticated, and affordable solutions. 

Thirdly, I find it wildly chic to live below your means, to keep a small footprint, carbon, and otherwise. I plant mature trees in each client’s name, as a one time karmic offset as they donate and release their excess. Moving forward, I ask them to take a private vow of conscious consumerism. We vote with our dollars. By investing in modern heirlooms and in delicious open space, we become vortexes for wealth. 

Why does our space play a role in sex and relationships?

Sex creates life and you want to circulate that energy. We can create life by having plants and beautiful produce and children and animals, but there’s a huge tenant of Feng Shui, which is polarity, yin and yang. The attraction of the opposites, that’s also sex incarnate. It’s missing the tension. In fashion, when something’s a little out of balance or a little bit wrong, it’s more interesting. So that tension I feel makes us feel more alive. That’s sexy to me.

When I started this work, I was experimenting with my mom friends and I could tell who was fucking their husband and who wasn’t and who wanted to and who didn’t. I realized sex had to be a part of the lexicon if I was going to get to the root of why we were there. We’re talking about the home and we’re talking about life and flow. A beautiful home is a byproduct of life and flow. 

That said, space sets the stage for our lived experience. When we mirror our inner work upon our outer world, we have an integrated expectation. 

I seem to be especially gifted in helping folks manifest lovers and love. As sex is the energy that creates life, and Feng Shui is an art form of circulating living energy, the two are intrinsically linked within my practice. 

A musing for the reader: How could your bedroom feel more like your favorite hotel suite?

How does scent play a role when working with a client?

I think scent tells us so many things that we’re not even cognizant of. It is a subconscious thing. I talk about sex, style, and space because they reflect who you are and they communicate so much. It’s really interesting to play with a signature scent in terms of your style as well as your home and to shift it with the seasons. I don’t think it needs to be overpowering. It can be gentle. I use these metaphors of dating for scent. Right away, if you like someone’s smell, it’s just another layer of communication.  

Every human and thus, every home has a unique smell. A home filled with gorgeous, living energy has a delicious natural fragrance that subconsciously communicates harmony. It will attract like energies. Spacial pheromones! 

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Sex creates life and you want to circulate that energy.

Can you give a concrete example of how you recommend to shift and circulate energy? And what were the results? 

I recently had a remote client who was looking to regain some of her energy, as she had been feeling quite depleted and sick since moving into her home. As soon as we opened our session, I could see that all of the energy in her home was entering through the front door, racing up a steep staircase and promptly exiting the property via a second story window... thereby depleting the home of fresh vibes. 

I advised an immediate rearrange of an upstairs room to stop the energy leak, which she did then and there. We then fine-tuned the rest of her home, focusing on her office and bedroom. Within days she saw incredible shifts, and before three weeks had passed, she had received a promotion complete with an assistant and global travel, a new lover in the form of a hot fireman / Japanese rope bondage savant, as well as an opportunity to invest in a lakeside weekend property with her family - all in addition to feeling more energized and organized. You cannot make this stuff up! Again, we do this work to align with our higher selves, to be out in the world, not to stay home compulsively cleaning.  I was raised in an academic household and cynicism is my natural inclination. However I witness too many undeniable changes occurring in lives around the world, so I am a wholehearted believer. It continues to be a great honor to play a role in empowering people to harness and channel their authentic power. 

Favorite Ritual?

I’ve been experimenting with altars in my home. I was a minimalist for so many years and to have this living layer of stuff that serves no purpose other than joy and intuition and manifestation has been really fun for me. 

Also, on a monthly basis, I’ve been going to different bookstores around the city and extending my library and trying to get more unusual periodicals, zines, magazines, and books. I’ve been keeping the books front and center in our home and adding to them. The books are underneath the altar with no TV so that I can get lost in the print world again. I’m reveling in it and spending more time reading. One son reads and one son is learning to read. A lot of my nights are quiet with music and candles and books and that’s been really fun to share with the boys.  

That said, so much of my work is trying to get people off their screens, live their life, and not have selfie corners. I talk a lot about incognito alters in my work. Your beauty shelves are an altar to beauty. It’s a curation of objects that are set to cultivate energy and manifest things. 

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I see Feng Shui as a tool for manifestation - for being our biggest, best selves in the world - with a stylish home as an elegant byproduct. 

Favorite scent?

I was wearing In Fiore Night Queen all summer. Then Kerrilynn Pamer of Cap Beauty gifted me Fumée d’Ambre. That’s what I’ve been wearing for fall. I also love vetiver and I like to diffuse a mix of balsam fir and frankincense in the home.

Tips for long haul flights?

Bring a good book and wear real clothes. I like to be dressed in real clothing on the plane. It makes me feel put together. All these people in their pajamas with their pillows, that’s not okay with me.

Favorite beauty food?

Biodynamic wine and spring water. I’ve been drinking Live Spring Water and I love it. It comes in glass bottles with sacred geometry. I love wine and coffee and I feel like the spring water lets me get away with murder. 

What’s your vice?

The same thing, wine and coffee. I strongly believe in daily anchors and it’s part of my Feng Shui practice as well. But I love to start my day with coffee and end my day with wine. I don’t want to live in a world where I say vice because I don’t even really believe they're vices. They are very human to me. 

Do you have any charms or talismans?

I don’t have any physical charms or talismans, but I’ve been attracted to the symbology of ouroboros. It’s been in my dreams a lot as I’ve been building my brand. It’s the cycle of death and rebirth. It’s the snake eating its tail.