Dear Lillian,
It's been a great pleasure reading about feng shui through your book Basic Feng Shui. I have just arrived from the UK for a visit and am going to try to implement the basics of feng shui to my cottage in England when I return. The only thing is, it's really small and I have a question as to how to place my bed in our master bedroom.

At the moment, our heads face the wall immediate to the bathroom, literally next and parallel to the bathtub (the wall separates the two room). Because it's a smart room, I don't know how best to move our bed around. We have built-in wardrobes adjacent to the foot of our beds (east) and the bedroom door is opposite to the wardrobe. Also, the bedroom window is on the south watt.
And that is the only window in the room.

To put it roughly, the door will 'cut' into our bed if we move it into a northward direction.

I am a metal Rat born in 1960, and my British husband is a fire Rooster born in 1957.

Is there any way we can better position our bed according to feng shui principles?

There are lots of questions I'd like to ask, but that is the main issue troubling me for now. We should be going back to the UK by the end of this month. I hope you can help. Thank you kindly.

Yours Sincerely, Yiok Leng Lee

Dear Leng Lee,
Yours is a universal problem. At least you live in a cottage. For people who live in small apartments, the constraint of space is even more severe, so I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. The best way to handle the positioning of the bed in a tiny bedroom is to try and sleep with your head pointing to one of your good directions and this you would already have determined from Basic Feng Shui. Now, if in tapping into your good direction' you 'break' one of the other rules of feng shui, that cannot be helped. If your head points to a window, sleep with the curtain drawn each night. If your bed shares a wall with the bath tub, peace an additional layer to the watt - a suitable painting or cloth divider, for example. As for the wardrobe, that's not a problem if the door is kept closed. As both of you belong to the west group, it should be easy to get your Feng Shui to work equally well for both of you.

Dear Lillian,
Firstly, I would like to say that I have been a subscriber of your Feng Shui World magazine for several years and own a number of your books.

I read with interest your response to a recent 'letter of the week' in Weekend Mail.

I, too, am a collector of clocks (wall & standing types) both mechanical and battery- run. I have clocks in my two halls, dining room, kitchen, washing areas, study and all bedrooms - basically my entire house.

But none of my mechanical clocks are functional (as I normally do not wind them), and are used for decorative purposes only. The hands of all these clocks are set at figure '2' and '10' to create a 'smiling face'. All my battery-run clocks are functional.

Your comments please. Are they still not suitable from a Feng Shui standpoint?

Thank you, Geoffrey

Dear Geoffrey,
Thanks for your support. I hope you continue to benefit from my books and our magazines. I love writing them and hearing how they have helped, in some way or other, to alleviate problems.

As for clocks if collecting them is your hobby and it gives you pleasure, then you should stick with it. When it comes to 'symbolic' objects, it is our own minds and expectations that play the biggest role in the significance of the object. So, although to the Chinese of the old days, clocks signified the irreversible passage of time and were thus frowned upon, we live in the modern era and have the luxury of holding an alternative view. In any case, clocks these days come in so many yummy styles and designs and their faces look so beautiful that we do not need to associate them with death and anything so somber. So keep correcting them and let them be a source of joy to you. We use feng shui as a tool to better ourselves and our circumstances- without letting it force us to change our lifestyle to too large an extent. That is the best way to approach this living skill.

Dear Lillian,
I wish you a wonderful life!

I've been practising feng shui over the past few years based on your books, and I've enjoyed great results. But recently, I've been facing a problem with my food industry-related business, as well as other matters. I also work in the oil and gas industry.

Recently, I moved into a new house whose main door faces the southeast 1 direction (my previous house's main door faced the northeast. My wife and I both belong to the east group. After moving to our new house, we began encountering problems regarding our business, financial matters, and our personal relationship.

I was born in the year of the Rooster (1969) and my wife was born in the year of the Dog (1970).

I'd appreciate your advice on the matter.

Sincerely, Joshua

Dear Joshua,
It would seem that the new house is bringing you severe problems and it could be because it is a west group house, or one facing a west-group direction. Please go back to my basic books on directions and check to see if this is what's working against you.
Next, also check the annual chart and see whether your main door, your bedroom or your kitchen area is afflicted in anyway. Sometimes, when the annual feng shui is bad, the effect can be so severe as to set you back several years. That is why attending annual feng shui updates such as my Feng Shui Extravaganza is so important.

There is a time dimension to feng shui, so you simply must check this out, and see if you need to quickly install remedies and cures. I am certain you will find out what is wrong once you check it out. Get the World Of Feng Shui's 2007 Almanac Calendar, which will help you to sort this out. Please do it quickly, as the 2008 calendars are out now and we are in the process of discontinuing the 2007 almanac. Yet, there are still four months left to this year, so please don't delay. If you need cures, you must get it done soon.