
In a world where architecture is often reduced to blueprints and aesthetics, Alex Stark sees something far more profound—an opportunity to harmonize space with the unseen forces of nature, energy, and human potential. As an internationally recognized consultant, advisor, and teacher, Alex merges the ancient wisdom of Feng Shui and Native American Geomancy with cutting-edge design principles to create environments that foster healing, creativity, and transformation. Whether shaping a home, a corporate headquarters, or a wellness center, he understands that the way we shape our spaces ultimately shapes us. With speaking engagements at prestigious institutions like the Smithsonian, the University of California at Berkeley, and the European School of Feng Shui, Alex is a sought-after thought leader in his field. His teachings invite us to view our surroundings not just as physical structures but as dynamic entities infused with energy, intention, and potential. In this Mystic Mag‘s interview, Alex Stark unravels the mysteries of geomantic design, the power of sacred geometry, and how we can transform our everyday environments into spaces that heal, inspire, and empower.
How do you balance the ancient principles of Feng Shui and Native American Geomancy with modern design and architectural practices?
Feng shui, Native American Geomancy, and modern design have become more interconnected than most people realize. In fact, the last 20-30 years have seen increasing acceptance of these practices, with an overall trend toward a more holistic interpretation of our living and working spaces. This has been fueled in part by growing awareness of the environmental impact of the building industry, but a greater willingness in the public towards a more spiritual interpretation of space has also played its part, with greater and greater acceptance of subtle forces in our everyday environments.
Although the public tends to see this mostly in yoga, spa, and wellness design, it has been most thoroughly embodied in the medical setting, with radically better standards for natural light, vegetation inclusion, and even spiritual spaces such as meditation gardens and labyrinths. Reduced exposure to technology has also been embraced. Today hospitals and medical clinics are looking and feeling more and more like spas or retreats.
This trend is spreading to all areas of design. Even land development projects have in recent years also included more conscious interpretations of construction into their programs and design strategies, with a more respectful approach to nature and conservation.
The challenge for practitioners like myself is to continue to push the envelope by adding a deeper understanding of space into the architectural design process. For that reason, I believe firmly in the education of the design community, as well as the developers, government planners, engineers, and builders with whom we collaborate on a day to day basis. Working as a team, I am convinced that we can go much further in creating modern spaces that are closely aligned with our personal, collective and natural energies.
In your experience, how can the design and placement of spaces facilitate personal and institutional transformation?
There are two aspects to this.
One is the placement of the spaces in relation to surrounding environments such as roads, infrastructure, geology, other buildings, and terrain. Feng shui and geomancy in general looks at these influences as the foundation for the power of a site. How the energy in the land flows towards, into, or away from the site, for example, can determine whether the space will support transformation or potentially impede it. Roads that are too aggressive, land that is too steep, buildings that are too tall, and many other factors also play into this.
A second aspect is the internal configuration of the space. Some areas within a space can be more conducive to financial progress, others to personal growth or spiritual transformation, others to community or team building, and so on. Locating the correct area within a space for any given goal is one of the greatest contributions of feng shui and geomancy to our knowledge of space.
What type of services do you offer?
We are a consultancy that provides a range of offerings, with an emphasis on feng shui, dowsing, geopathic stress analysis, and earth healing. I was born in Peru and have trained with shamans from Latin America, so I also include Native cosmology and rituals into our process when the situation requires it.
Because all members of our team have architectural backgrounds, we tend to attract projects of a large scale that include complex architectural challenges. Yet, we also strive for a personal touch, as it is axiomatic from our point of view that the individuals or communities involved in these projects be empowered in order for the space to be vibrant and dynamic.
In part because of our background in Native American cosmology, we tend to include a spiritual approach to our work, with a commitment to the healing and revitalization of Nature. For this reason we also tend to work in close collaboration with agronomists, arborists, ecologists, permaculturists, Bau-biologists, and developers interested in a holistic approach to land uses.
What specific elements do you prioritize when advising on the design of healthcare facilities to promote healing and well-being?
The single most important factor is the inclusion of nature. Our bodies are designed to heal and flourish in a highly complex context of interrelationships with the natural forces that surround us. This includes all living organisms, terrain and topographies, the vast energies within the earth, cosmic forces streaming into our planet from outer space, and the spiritual context within which we live. Including these and actively seeking their participation in the healing space is what sets our practice apart from conventional architecture.
For example, the inclusion of gardens or views of gardens will have measurable impacts on healing: shorter recuperation times, less use of mediations or painkillers, and better medical outcomes. In some countries, hospitals and hospices even provide individual garden spaces attached to rooms so that the patient can access nature directly. Use of more natural materials and reduction of excess technological components is another important factor which has been gaining momentum over the last decades.
Understanding of earth energies is perhaps the area of geomancy that has only recently joined the conversation with the medical setting. The forces in the land, its flows, location of vortices and power spots, are all important in promoting or disrupting the healing process. Identifying and locating these vital earth components is therefore paramount in any healing design.
From the Omega Institute to international schools of Feng Shui, what is the most important message you aim to convey to your students?
I never get tired of telling my students that whatever problems we have to solve, we cannot do it without the support and participation of Nature, our ancestors, and our communities. It is the combination of natural knowledge and the ancestral wisdom embodied in practices such as Feng Shui that will guide us through the current crises, as it did in earlier times.
What is your long-term vision for how disciplines like Feng Shui and geomancy can evolve to address contemporary global challenges like urbanization, climate change, and societal stress?
Feng shui and geomancy come to us from an ancestral time that was vastly more respectful of nature and our reciprocal relationship to her. It could be said that many of the stresses we are currently experiencing have been caused by a continuous and long-standing degradation of that relationship. As our respect for nature diminishes, we become less and less aware of its inputs and our bodies lose their natural ability to understand and benefit from the planet’s healing and creative forces. After some time, it becomes “normal” to build on sacred land, to dam the power of a river, or to excavate or mine without regard to the life and well-being or our relatives in the animal or vegetable kingdoms.
My long term vision is for an interdisciplinary approach that looks at the built environment as a co-creative process in which Nature and the ancestral wisdom of our forbears take priority. The challenges are clear: we have to reverse centuries of habits that have accepted wholesale destruction of the biosphere and replace them with a new consciousness that uses ancient principles such as those in Feng Shui and geomancy as the foundation for a more respectful approach that embraces stewardship of the Earth as our fundamental role as a species.
On a personal level, we must also honor our relationships to the Earth and our ancestors by right livelihood, a sense of wonder for all that is, and by the gratitude we display in everything we do.