I admit it, I'm a temple junkie. Growing up in England, I visited every church and cathedral I could find. When I visit a new place or country, I ignore the usual tourist destinations and head for the most sacred places I can find. And during my 20 years of living in Bali, I didn't make it to all 20,000 of the temples but I had a darn good try.

So being in Singapore recently for a few days, I took the opportunity to revisit a beautiful little Hindu temple in Ceylon Road, tucked away in the back streets of the Tanjong Katong area about 20 minutes from the airport.  It's called Sri Senpaga Vinayagar temple and is dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, known as the Remover of Obstacles and the Lord of Beginnings.

I arrived at 6.00am and sat on the spotlessly clean granite floor watching the entire purification ritual conducted by the priest and his assistants in preparation for the morning puja. Using billowing flames of camphor, jars of cleansing water, Sanskrit ritual words and a temple bell, the Ganesha statues were purified and then adorned with brightly coloured garlands of flowers. It was very well done.

For me the best bit was when the musicians struck up, one man playing a loud drum and the other a delightfully raucous instrument that looked a bit like an oboe and sounded like a shrieking elephant. It was utterly chaotic and wonderfully mind-numbingly loud.

Being a bell connoisseur, I wasn't so impressed by the clanky, monotonous bell the priest used, which sounded more like a street seller's cart bell than a religious artefact. But I was fascinated to see that even a bell of that poor quality did a reasonable job of purifying the space and summoning the presence of the deity. Without the ritual it would have had no effect at all, but within the context of the puja, it worked.

If you're ever in Singapore and would like to experience this yourself, read these guidelines for visitors, but don't worry too much about dress code. We went in regular western clothes and didn't feel at all out of place. Many of the Indian devotees were also dressed in western-style clothes. Just be sure to take off your socks and shoes before entering and leave them outside.

It's an exhilarating way to start the day, and a really good way to experience the best of India without actually going there.

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Quite a few people have written to ask me about travel plans, so here's what I know so far.

In the coming months, Richard and I plan to spend time in Northern California, Northern Italy, Poland, Germany and the UK.

In Germany and the UK we'll be conducting a short advanced Space Clearing training with a small group of registered practitioners, such as the lovely bunch pictured here. We already have a nice big house we can use for this in Germany and are now looking for one in the UK.

If you have such a place (ideally with 4 or more bedrooms, somewhere within a few hours of London) that will be vacant and available for us to use for a week some time in April, May or June, please let me know. We're happy to pay for professional cleaning after use, and of course you'll received it back in a beautifully space cleared condition! It's much better for me to conduct these advanced trainings in an actual home rather than a public meeting space because it gives the practitioners a much wider arena to develop their skills.

I'm also looking for a similar house in Northern California (4 or more bedrooms) some time between April and July, for an advanced Space Clearing training for US-based practitioners.

Richard and I already have a great place to stay when we visit Poland.

So that just leaves Northern Italy, which I've never been to before. We're looking for a writer's retreat kind of place there so that I can get on with my new Space Clearing book. Somewhere quiet, with a good internet connection is really all I need. We plan to just hire a car and drive around until we find it.

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I started using Twitter as an experiment last year and must say I've come to like it very much. It allows me to stay much more in touch with people and gives me instant feedback to the newsletters I send out. And the 140 character limit means I only get short, to the point comments or questions from people rather than long rambling emails.

To give a couple of examples of the feedback to the newsletter I sent out recently:

"Best of luck. Since you have a world of choices, I'll be so interested to learn where you settle...and why."

"Wishing you all the best. Hope you and Richard LOVE Californa - exciting times!"

There are also the more puzzled comments, such as:

"I can't believe you are leaving Bali. You talked about it so much in your books."

I don't even need 140 characters to reply to this. It's simple: I've been in Bali 20 years and I'm done. Life changes. It's time to move on.

If you haven't yet tried Twitter, follow this link to see how I'm using it...

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A bit like London buses that you wait for and wait for and then three of them arrive all at once, I just heard that another new edition of my Clear Your Clutter book was published last month.

It's the Swedish translation, Rensa i röran med feng shui, available at bookstores in Sweden or at Bokia and other online stores. The ISBN No. of this new edition is 978 9174240627.

And before you ask - sorry, I don't have any free copies of the book to give away as I did recently with the new German, Dutch and Danish editions.

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Following my offer to send free signed copies of the new Dutch and Danish editions of Clear Your Clutter to the first four people to ask, some people have been emailing me to see if I have free copies of the book in other languages too. Well, I had a look and yes, I do. I also have 4 copies of the revised German edition.

So I'll be happy to send a free signed copy of it to the first four people to email me before Feb 28, 2010 to ask for one. Please be sure to include your name, address and phone number (required for shipments from Bali).

And please don't email to ask about any other languages. I absolutely don't have any more books to give away. My house is now so empty it's starting to echo!

More information about the new book

Update Feb 16, 2010: Yikes, they went fast! All four copies were claimed in just 5 hours.

Update Feb 21, 2010: Thank you for all the emails but I have no more copies of this book to give away. I only had four copies and they went to the first four people to request them.

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The first ever Dutch translation of my Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui book has now been published, and I will send a free signed copy to the first four people to email to ask for one. Just send your full name, address and phone number (required for shipping from Bali).

You'll need to be quick, though. I'm leaving Bali at the beginning of March to move to the USA. I'm travelling light so won't be taking them with me. This offer ends 28 Feb 2010.

More information about the new book

Update Feb 19, 2010: All four free copies have now been claimed.

Update Feb 21, 2010: Thank you for all the emails but I have no more copies of this book to give away. I only had four copies and they went to the first four people to request them.

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Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui book has just been published in Danish under the title Ryd Op I Dit Rod: Og Bo Bendre med Feng Shui.

The publisher is Bogans Forlag, it's available from www.bogan.dk and from bookstores in Denmark, and the ISBN number (to make sure you don't accidentally order the original 1998 edition) is 978-87-7070-505-2.

I'm told the Danish translation of the first edition was excellent so I'm hoping this new edition will be good too. The only bit I can understand is the quote from Elle on the front cover that says, "En perle af en bog", which I'm pretty certain means "A pearl of a book".

I have four copies of the book here, which have arrived in slightly battered condition (just the edges of the cover). If you're OK with that, I'll be happy to send a free copy to the first four people to email me to request it. Please be sure to include your name, address and phone number (required for the shipping form). This offer ends Feb 28, 2010.

Update Feb 16, 2010: It took just 8 hours for all four free copies to be claimed. They will all be sent out tomorrow.

Update Feb 21, 2010: Thank you for all the emails but I have no more copies of this book to give away. I only had four copies and they went to the first four people to request them.

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You sit down in a restaurant. You expect a clean table, not one with other people's food spills still on it.

You order your food. You expect clean plates and eating utensils, not ones encrusted with previous customer's meals.

You move in to a new home. You expect a clean space to give you a fresh start. But if anyone has lived there before you, this is usually not what you get. You get the equivalent of a dirty table or plate, imprinted with the energetic residues of the previous occupants to some degree or another.

In Feng Shui, this is called 'predecessor energy', and clearing it is one of the principle uses of Space Clearing.

If the building is a fairly new one and the previous occupants were healthy and happy there, then the imprinting is probably lightweight and not such a problem (continuing the restaurant analogy, the equivalent of a few crumbs that can be easily brushed aside with a simple Space Clearing ceremony).

But supposing you move into a place where the lives of the previous occupants did not go so well (think terrible food with cockroaches crawling all over the restaurant - sorry to be so graphic). Failed relationships, financial difficulties, chronic health problems and many other human woes may be imprinted in the walls, and after you've lived there for a while and got soaked in the imprints you'll very probably start to experience similar issues yourself. The history of predeccesor energy tends to repeat itself.

People in this situation often lament, "It all started going wrong when we moved here". Yet unless they know about feng shui, they rarely put 2 + 2 together and realize the problem may be the house, not the time period they've been living in it.

Moving to a new home is one solution, although an expensive and time consuming one. If there are serious feng shui design flaws, or if the building has serious geopathic stress or electromagnetic fields creating health hazards, then this may be necessary. But if it's just a matter of clearing out predecessor imprints, a deep and thorough Space Clearing ceremony will do the job.

If you're in good health, you can do the ceremony yourself, following the 21 steps in my book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui. Otherwise call in the services of one of the professional space clearers I've trained. Though I say it myself, they do a brilliant job, way beyond what you could do yourself.

To give you an example from my own life of how Space Clearing has helped, Richard and I were in Sydney recently for two months and rented four different self-catering apartments during that time to experience living in different parts of the city. Each had substantial predecessor energy of one kind or another when we arrived, which initially made us feel like we didn't want to stay there. But Space Clearing cleaned them up immediately. Even I was suprised at the difference the ceremony made in the last place we stayed in, which had sen quite a bit of usage and initially looked to be beyond redemption.

These were not cheap rentals, by the way. We paid a good rate for them and they were generally well furnished and fitted out. But rented places have imprints of hundreds of previous occupants and these were as saturated as they come.

The beautful thing about Space Clearing is that it allows you to clean up the energies of any place you live in so that you can truly have a fresh start there and make it your own. There's no need to live with someone else's leftovers ever again!

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I'm setting up everything here in Bali before I leave so that Space Clearing products will continue to be available through the spaceclearing.com online stores based in the UK and USA.

And better still, for as long as their current stocks last, the stores will be holding the new lower prices that were introduced for many products in December 2009.

During challenging economic times, it’s more important than ever to maintain the energy of your home and workplace so we’re keeping all our prices as low as possible to to help you do this :-)

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It's the end of an era. I'm leaving Bali. After 20 years, I've done every amazing thing I came here to do and am ready to move on.

My husband, Richard, feels the same way. We've therefore decided not to wait until our house (pictured here) has been sold. We're leaving our loyal Balinese staff to look after it, placing the sale with a trusted agent, and have reduced the price substantially to speed up the process as much as possible. My hotel and conference centre was sold last month so there's nothing now to keep us here at all.

Our first stop will be California, USA in March 2010, and then Italy, Germany and the UK, where we have various things we want to do. We have no firm plans after that. We'll let everything unfold as it will.

I have to say I'm REALLY looking forward to living in the West again. It feels fantastic to be on the move.

I don't yet know when or where I'll be teaching workshops in future but I'll make announcements in newsletters as dates and locations are decided. I'm not ready to schedule anything for a while, though. I'm taking a break first, enjoying some rest. Richard and I first need to establish a new home base and then our new life will emerge from there.

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