Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

Do you need a media and activism break? I do! In no way have I stopped speaking up for clean, renewable sources of energy, and the hubris of oil. That’s ongoing and firm.

At the same time, I strongly feel that this epic opportunity for humanity to learn needs to be commemorated with positive images. This is a spill that must be remembered always. Not only in a worldly sense, but in a sacred way. The repercussions are far from over and we must honor every single living thing that’s been damaged, and will continue to suffer.

In January of this year I started a photoblog, where these photos were first posted (scroll down to see other photos). It’s a nature-based endeavor to understand embodiment, a sister path to spirituality, and the spirituality of nature herself, as well as creative pursuits. My relationship with the lens is an old one, now reborn.

I offer the following as ways to ease your mind and heart, motivate your commitment to intelligent future-mapping, and balance the glut of images from the Gulf and BP logo redesigns out there in the collective. Make sure you also absorb the full significance of the quote below as well. (Clicking the images will show them in full size.)

Oil-free -- The Memory © Pamir Kiciman 2010

Oil-free -- The Memory © Pamir Kiciman 2010

When the first chakra is disconnected from the feminine Earth, we can feel orphaned and motherless. The masculine principle predominates, and we look for security from material things. Individuality prevails over relationship, and selfish drives triumph over family, social and global responsibility. The more separated we become from the Earth, the more hostile we become to the feminine. We disown our passion, our creativity, and our sexuality. Eventually the Earth itself becomes a baneful place. I remember being told by a medicine woman in the Amazon, “Do you know why they are really cutting down the rain forest? Because it is wet and dark and tangled and feminine.”

– Alberto Villoldo

And I give you the following as a mental focus and Heart intention. Use it daily, share it widely, print it and paste it everywhere. This disaster isn’t limited to location or time. It’s global, ongoing and breaks time.

Mental focus and heart intention for the Gulf of Mexico

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free, but your support is needed. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

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There’s no time like the start of the year to plunge headlong into conservation issues. The United Nations thinks so too. Read on to find out why.

But first let’s talks about dolphins. “Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans…” reports the Times Online. Their intelligence has been well documented. What’s new about this reporting is even more confirmation about what kind of intelligence dolphins have. And, for me, the most crucial point:

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

And:

The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions…

And:

The scientific research…suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals…

Enough said.

Species are disappearing, have been disappearing at an alarming rate for quite some time now. ScienceDaily reported in October ’08 that “Earth is in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of both plants and animals, with nearly 50 percent of all species disappearing…”

To find out the current classification of threatened species, visit IUCNRedList.org.

The dolphin news isn’t about extinction, but the ethics of the relationship humans have with Earth’s other lifeforms. Whether we recognize all species as “individuals” or not, as the ones endowed with self-reflection we are being asked to act.

That’s why the United Nations is launching the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) on Monday, January 11 with a special celebration in Berlin.

The 2010 IYB is promoting some important messages. First, humans are part of nature’s rich diversity and have the power to protect or destroy it. Second, biodiversity is essential for sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us all with health, wealth, food, fuel and the vital services our lives depend on. Third, human activity is causing the diversity of life on Earth to be lost at a greatly accelerated rate; but we can prevent this loss. And fourth, we have made some achievements to safeguard biodiversity but we need to do much more and we must act urgently.

The fact of the matter is that biodiversity is closely linked to our own survival, if we were to ignore all its other significant aspects and narrowly focus on one alone. Find out more about the International Year of Biodiversity here and here.

You may also take these quotes into your Heart contemplation:

• There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. –Robert Wilson Lynd
• Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. –Cree Indian Prophecy

I will be on Mind of the Magi show by Dr. Michael Holt on Wednesday, September 30, at 2 pm EST.

You can call in or listen online. You can even listen via iTunes. Visit this page to learn more:

Here’s the description of this particular show:

Weekly show on Natural Medicine, Hypnotherapy, NLP, Nutrition, Fitness with Dr. Michael Holt the founder of the Magi Institute of Natural Medicine and his special guests Pamir Kiciman to discuss Reiki.

Pamir Kiciman is a Soul Whisperer and Life Enrichment educator, and founder of Oasis Reiki. He specializes in Original/Classical Japanese Usui Reiki Training. He has worked in a variety of environments in 15 years of teaching, including time spent at Imperial Point Medical Center in South Florida. Pamir has also conducted Reiki Training at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Nursing. Recently, he was selected as a Featured Voice on Intent.com. Pamir has spent the last 15 years training himself and others in subtle energy, intentional healing, holistic health, meditation, spiritual psychology, nonduality, and world wisdom traditions.

Above all else, Pamir is dedicated to being a catalyst for a transformation by bringing soul and the teachings of Oneness to the forefront in individuals and in society at large. Pamir educates people through various channels, including his own Reiki Help Blog.

Reiki is most popularly known as a hands-on healing art, which it is in one of its applications. Hands-on Reiki is in fact rooted in spiritual discipline, the basis of which is meditation. Usui Sensei taught specific meditations. Similarly, Reiki is known as energy healing, which it does facilitate. What’s often missed, however, is that before energy can exist there first has to be consciousness. It is by participating in this primordial consciousness that Reiki fulfills its true purpose for practitioner and recipient alike.

And, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again: An annual nonprofit event, it aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year’s topic is focused on Climate Change, by unanimous voting.

The Reiki Help Blog has participated for the last two years. In 2008 the topic was poverty and I posted about the availability of clean, potable water to all populations of the world.

In 2007 the topic was the environment and as one of the earlier posts on this blog, I’m quite proud of this entry.

Climate change is not new to this blog. As stewards of our environment and spiritual practitioners, we are the only ones who can really do something about it!

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I’ve always been a city-dweller and nature-lover. Not a nature-lover as someone in sandals to be made fun of, but really receiving solace and power from natural spaces. Before my ‘official’ awakening, Nature was my main source of a greater reality. Today, I continue to have deep reverence for her and speak on her behalf on this blog, and in various avenues of activism.

This isn’t about granola. It’s about humanity’s symbiotic relationship with Nature. Nature was here first. Planet Earth is Nature. There was only earth to walk on before cobblestones and later concrete and asphalt. We accept that roads and tall buildings are our normal environment; that’s all we’ve known. But what’s under our feet?

When we’re in a parking lot, our thoughts aren’t about what was there before (a meadow, a stream). Our thoughts are about, “Is she leaving so I can park closer?” When we enter a structure of glass and steel we don’t think, “I wonder if there was a stand of trees here?” We think, “I hope the line isn’t long at the bank.”

We are disconnected from our home. Not the one with a mortgage, but the one that enlivens us and is one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever had the privilege to receive.

Reverence, love and gratitude for Nature has also been part of all the enduring teachings we have had access to throughout history.

In an attempt to get closer to Japanese culture and thinking so that my understanding and passing on of Reiki is enhanced and grounded, I started reading a delightful book:

Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth by Stuart D. B. Picken.

Shinto is Japan’s native spirituality, born of the earth. It was there before Buddhism and permeates Japanese society even today. It’s a nature-based teaching and practice that is accessible to everyone. I want to share the very clear lens on Nature that’s available through this natural tradition.

In Shinto, observation (kannagara) is the first step. Picken writes:

Look at nature, looking beyond either its beauty or the scars caused by human activity. Ponder anew the mystery of creation, growth, and sustenance, as well as nature’s capacity to to heal and renew. Wonder at the infinity of the cosmos. the myriad of stars and planets, and the unique position of the earth that permits the delicate balance for life to exist. Consciousness of the great flow of the cosmos is awareness of kannagara, the movement of the divine within us and around us. Observation with an open mind helps purify our vision.

There are specific meditations in Shinto which Picken presents as “litanies” that he has written specifically for his book. There’s such truth and inspiration in these passages, and unfortunately I can only quote a few, and excerpts at that.

“In Shinto rituals, earth is the most basic of the elements. Earth is celebrated in all its fairness and beauty and in its power to feed and support life through growth and development.”

Think of how earth was conceived of as a mother and revered for her fertility, her abundant gifts, and her ability to nurture and support life

Shinto took its clues from everything around, which before industrialization was all natural. If it was there in such beauty, power and self-existent, it had to be sacred. Therefore, Shinto is non-conceptual. It’s the spirituality of place. And one of the major elements of Japanese ‘places’ is all the great waterfalls of these islands. Waterfalls are used as misogi, purification.

“Let us think of the waterfall as a concentration of beauty, power, and energy united in endlessly renewing flow”

The Litany of the River includes many truths:

“Identity amid impermanence is what gives a rivers its name

“In the depth and width, the river reminds us of the difficult expanses of life that must be traversed”

Trees are greatly honored. A shimenawa (thick twisted rope) is tied around trunk to show its sacredness.

Trees teach us about growth

They also stand for shelter

They are, like water, living organisms

Ponder the meaning of growth and development

Think of how we know nature through our senses, our eyes, our taste, our sense of smell and touch, our awareness and deep intuitions

Stones, wind and lightening, and fire also have litanies in Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth, the reading of which alone brings one closer to the natural environment that is still our home, despite pervasive and intrusive technology.

The final litany in the book is dedicated to mountains. From a Reiki perspective it’s revealing to learn that Tendai monks had a discipline called Sen-nichi-kai-ho-gyo: Running 1000 days around the peaks of Mt. Hiei “to extend and enrich the human capacities.”

Think of the idea of ascent for purification and enlightenment to a sacred place for communion with the divine

. . . Think of how it remains unchanged yet changes its mantle with the seasons

Think of it as the home of life, the source of the river, and the shelter from the winds

The way these litanies move you to a new appreciation of our lost connection with Nature is remarkable. The book’s core message is found in these two sections which are repeated in all the litanies:

Our senses have been dulled and dimmed, and we see earth not as the environment of our life, but as a tool to be used

Our senses are blind to its mystery and meaning

Our senses need purification that will enable us to see nature as our teacher and guide

And:

In opening ourselves to nature, in seeking its purification, and in hearing what it has to teach us, may we find enlightenment as we share in the fusion of ourselves with the universe that brings us back to the divine that is within the human

The final question for all of us, as Picken puts it so clearly is: “The worlds of the sociosphere and the biosphere seem very far apart. Can they meet?”

They must meet.

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This is my tribute to Earth Day. It was written in 2001 and has been polished up a little. At the time, I read an article about Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and had known very little about these trees until then.

The majesty and uniqueness of Giant Sequoias immediately grabbed my imagination and heart. I was transported to a hypersensitive state of feeling for and communicating with this species, especially the specific tree mentioned. At the time I had no previous interaction with any variety of redwood at all.

It wasn’t until some time later that I was graced with the physical presence of these trees at Muir Woods in Marin County, California (there are some Giant Sequoias there although most are coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.)

When I finished reading the article, I immediately sat at my computer and wrote the following. It wasn’t the first or last time that I experienced interspecies communication.

Make sure you read the end part as it has a message for all humanity.

Photo by Kevin Grahame

In 1852, during the California gold rush, a lone hunter was chasing a wounded grizzly bear into the forest, when he stumbled upon the Giant Sequoia redwood trees. That he was chasing a wounded grizzly was not a good start. The sacredness with which Native Americans regard Giant Sequoias, to the point of not even touching them was about to be shattered.

These awesome trees have a lifespan of up to 2000 years, the most ancient being 3300 years old. They have continuously existed since 100 million years ago, outlasting the dinosaurs. The largest stand over 300 feet tall, and their trunk at the base can measure as much as 32 feet in diameter. Their physical presence is undeniable, pointing to a presence of another variety altogether.

The hunter will remain nameless, although his and those of other misguided souls are known. Let’s call him Mr. Hunter. The boss of the gold mine camp can be Mr. Greed.

Mr. Greed seized opportunity at a time when the land was obviously exposing its riches. The land is abundant and provides for humanity’s needs. It was created for us to stand on and to live. Gold. Trees. What a miracle! The land gives freely, but humans aren’t free. Mr. Greed is a profiteer, but we’ll get back to him in a moment.

It’s saddening that Mr. Hunter couldn’t even use the input of his senses to be deeply moved by these trees, let alone have a spiritual perception about their true value. He could’ve gone down in history as one who discovered a natural marvel, an expression of Nature’s creativity. Instead he’s merely prey for my writer’s indignation and horror.

Take a breath! Take a moment and bask in the wonder of such a sight. Take your hat off, sit and experience such majesty. Mr. Hunter, could you have been given a greater opportunity to understand Life?

Can you imagine the moment he stumbled on these ancient ones? Can you feel the silence of these trees and the environment they dominate?

Feel the pristine quality of this place.

The height of this arbor cathedral.

That he was able to find his legs to get back to camp is a small miracle of its own. Not one such tree, but acres and acres, with all other life forms contained and thriving.

Divinity in bark.

Was Mr. Hunter scared? Was he excited? What did he feel? How long did he stay before returning to camp?

Did it ever change him in some fundamental way?

All that’s certain is that camp boss Mr. Greed and everyone else were duly informed and rushed they did to gaze with their own eyes. Of course that would be the only choice.

What words did Mr. Hunter use to describe his discovery?

At the time, no one knew that Giant Sequoias are almost indestructible. Their bark is fire-resistant, strange as that is for wood, and because their root systems spread over nearly an acre of soil, they’re able to survive the most terrible of droughts.

Mr. Greed, unlike Mr. Hunter, was a man of deeper thought, and clearly saw a way to riches by making the site of the discovery a tourist attraction.

Discovery Tree, so aptly named but mistreated, was to be the mascot of these ancient ones at the hands, mercy and intelligence of this band of men. Not having TV or any other technology, Mr. Greed brilliantly decided to take a massive slab of Discovery Tree with him on a traveling freak show as a way to advertise the site.

We have progressed since then, because these majestic trees can now be toppled down in whole acres and the land forced to comply to a profit agenda by something called clear-cutting, but that’s another story.

In Mr. Greed’s time, who lives on in many disguises, there wasn’t any tool strong or long enough to make a dent in Discovery Tree’s fireproof bark.

Think about this: Nature made a tree, a form of wood that has a fire-resistant outermost layer!

Brains were doing overtime and the solution was to hire miners to drill holes with long metal augers as wide as a man’s fist, a workingman’s fist.

After twenty days of drilling, there was a circumference of holes around the tree. Such is humanity’s indomitable spirit, that it just won’t give up!

Remember: 20 days of drilling. Fist size holes. Fireproof bark.

When Mr. Greed’s affluent invited guests came for the crowing victory, Discovery Tree still refused to fall.

It remained standing for another two days.

It chose to make its exit with a dignity befitting Its species and broke the grove’s profound silence one lunchtime when the idly curious were away.

The thunderous shudder of Its fall reverberated across the Earth and millennia, both as a warning and as an announcement of the first Sequoia Saint to ever grace our memory.

Trees, creatures, plants and knowledgeable peoples all over heard it and shared in the silence following such a mighty crash. It was and is a sad moment whose lesson is still haunting modern society.

This story is very much alive today and sadder than ever. Mr. Hunter and Mr. Greed have been replaced by the gaping mouth and endless stomach of consumerism. The Machine has replaced augers.

However, that’s not why I wrote this. I’d like to dwell on Discovery Tree. Who was It? What did It feel? How is It doing now? Continue reading “The Sainthood Of Sequoias” »