Reiki Help Blog

Exactly one week ago, Oasis Reiki (yours truly) and several practitioners I’ve trained shared Reiki at Barry University’s Health Fair, in Miami Shores Florida. The fair was put on by the Division of Nursing.

Our booth was very popular with a constant stream of people all day. Demand was so high that at times it felt like having a few more hands would’ve been extremely helpful. There were five of us there and most of the day we had to seamlessly continue with the next person.

The only real break we got was when the whole fair had lunch. Even then we talked about Reiki and I answered some questions that puzzled practitioners.

It was interesting that before lunch things were a little chaotic insofar as organizing recipients, sticking to first come first served, and crowd patience wasn’t always available.

After lunch, the wait became self-organized! People signed in of their own accord and waited in proper order by the table given us.

This was the influence of the divine energy of Reiki, building up through the morning and really filling our corner, spreading out from there with its balance and harmony.

When I got there first thing in the morning, the thought that appeared independently was: Reiki is the way of gentleness. It is a corner of peace in your life.

This proved to be true all day, starting with the first two practitioners to arrive thanking me for Reiki on their traffic-less morning commute. One also reported: “the night before, during and after I was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace, love, happiness, sweetness, and eternal gratefulness.”

One highlight moment for me was when I felt the movement of an expectant mother’s baby. We helped people who were seeking relief from:

• knee pain
• shoulder and neck tension
• high blood pressure
• digestive disorders
• high cholesterol, headaches
• cataracts
• all over pain
• cervical concerns
• getting ready for surgery
• lower back pain–”amazing how it can work right through a chair”
• rapid heartbeat
• sciatic nerve pain
• low energy and so many more

One practitioner shared this:

One of the last receivers sat on the chair looking a little nervous and incredulous about Reiki. He stated he had lower back pain and high intraocular pressure. I left it in God’s hands…when I stood in from of him to focus on his eyes, a cold, practically tactile and almost painful sensation went through my hands. It was so physical that my eyes opened and I saw how his expression changed to a surprised and excited one (his eyes were closed). The sensations decreased in intensity and when they stopped completely I finished the session. When it ended, he was excited to know how Reiki works.

We also saw a high amount of:

• life, work and school stress
• worry
• mental confusion
• family tensions
• grief
• relationship anxiety

One practitioner shared this:

I intuited some sadness, loss, and even scattered energy. Those who were emotionally hurting made me feel more awareness of LOVE flowing through me. I knew they needed healing and wanted it to be powerful for them.

What else can we learn about life, being human and Reiki from this day? Well there’s nothing quite like a good Reiki story. Let me tell you some more, for Reiki’s benefits are far-reaching. One of my practitioners is in nursing school. She’s overworked and her time isn’t her own. Yet:

Later my mom and I spent some time together and she commented how she had been stressed and worried, sad, with a migraine the whole day but suddenly realized she’d changed to a calmed, more positive state with no more headache. She insisted it was my presence. She told me that this state had lasted the rest of the day. Maybe I just felt so blessed with the Reiki experience that I could still transmit healing without conscious intent. I not only felt calmed for the rest of the day but very “awake” too. It’s so easy to “fall asleep” and become connected to this world, that trying to remember to be conscious is very hard and “work” for me. Today, after all that Reiki, I was very awake.

When the fair was over and all other booths had packed and left, we still had a waiting line. Slowly chairs became empty and we starting folding up our stuff too. None of us disagreed that it was an intense day.

I felt great at the end of the day, with a lot of energy and very peaceful. I prayed and gave thanks for this blessing. Since this was my first time giving Reiki intensively, to so many people, I was worried about having enough energy to do this. How little did I know…the more I gave, the more energy I felt!

All in all we gave Reiki to about 125 people, maybe more. Like I said it was intense. Yet so worth it:

Yes, it was rather intense. I did indeed feel peaceful and honored to give Reiki. I felt like time flew! I felt joyful while doing it, and since.

And:

All I want to do, all I ask the universe is the opportunity to help others through love. My dream, my purpose, what I want to do the most, was realized today. I felt this the entire time to the degree that I was almost euphorically happy!

This is the efficient beauty of Reiki. The giver and receiver are both enriched. I wish there was more to report directly from those that sat under our hands. Mostly it was nonverbal, but faces all expressed the mysterious wonder of each brief encounter.

There was the physician who wants to integrate healing with allopathic medicine. There was the woman who waited patiently for me to finish with someone else to find out how we know which areas are troubling the person. There was the young student who simply said, “I really liked it!” but it was her face that I can’t convey here: those words came from a sincerity of soul. There were multiple thanks from the organizers. Then there were moments like this:

One of the ladies I gave Reiki to spoke no English. She was so sweet and spiritual. She communicated with me the whole time using her eyes (this communication occurred with several of the receivers). After the session, she desperately wanted to tell me something. I tried and tried to understand what she meant until I got it…”You prayed for me but I also prayed for you” meaning she knew somehow I was praying for her inside and that she will pray for me too.

What else can be said? It took me a week to distill this experience and I feel so much has been left out. May silence now convey the rest.

“When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.”

–Rachel Naomi Remen

Related:
Anatomy of a Reiki Training

Update 7/31/08:
This Reiki outreach has been mentioned in The Reiki Digest, a regular roundup of news about Reiki from around the world.

As previously announced here, Oasis Reiki (that would be me) held Shoden/Level I Reiki Training at Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, in Boca Raton, Florida. I can’t rave enough about the space that has been designed there for a nursing program deeply rooted in caring. So first let me share a slideshow. Please read below to get a real sense of what transpires in Reiki Training.

Reiki is a way of living with wisdom and compassion. It’s a way to reclaim your authentic self. To move out of the past, return from the future and live fully awake in the present. Reiki shifts your paradigm too, revealing the many layers of reality. It helps you find energetic integrity. Reiki heals the human condition. It transforms your consciousness so you can be your true self. Your heart and mind become unified and you’re empowered to walk in peace. Reiki brings you what you need. Through the years, I’ve witnessed with inner joy and gratitude everything student practitioners share about their Reiki training experiences. These are nothing less thanpoetic and I’ll now attempt to convey some measure of what I was privileged to witness this past weekend.

An ocean, cloud and light was received. Plans changed many moons ago came to completion and an ordination was received. Tears inspired by sheer beauty flowed. Peace was tangible. Never before reached depth in meditation was commonplace. After lunch heartburn relieved completely. Back pain healed. Several first-time spiritual awakenings. The courage to face things one doesn’t want to. A young person’s talent validated. Success affirmed. Shoulders lightened. Realization of inner powers. Wonder. Recognition.

And hugs. Heart on heart hugs.

Always heart on heart hugs.

Updated July 2, 2008

An early testimonial:

“…Now that I have had a little time to reflect and absorb, I want to thank you for being YOU and what you brought to me this weekend. I can already notice changes in me, there is a deepening sense of calm within, much more energy both physically and spiritually. It has been both a fulfillment and rebirth of sorts. I am different, I am one with myself, and my surroundings. The teaching and empowerments brought through you this weekend are amazing. Thank you for thus far guiding and teaching me. The teaching and tools you brought to me will continue to aid and guide my journey…”

–J.G., West Palm Beach, Fla

Recently Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) posted a quote from his Manual of the Warrior of Light, to which I commented. This morning a piece I wrote last year is tugging at me. Here it is:

Soul as operating system

Soul is the human being’s operating system. Your computer has an operating system that makes it work. Additionally, it has specific software for e-mail, documents or graphics. And all of it works together with the hardware of drives, monitors and keyboards.

Your soul is your operating system. One kind of software you have is the ego. Another is the mind, or wetware, which includes the brain and the nervous system. The physical body is of course your hardware.

It can be easy to miss the soul, because unlike Windows or Mac OS, its logo is much muted. It doesn’t shout out its presence when you look in the mirror. When you look in the mirror, you see a round or square face, perhaps a crooked nose and full lips. And your face needs to be shaved, or made up, your hair needs combing and your body covered in clothing.

What covers your soul? Is it your skin? Perhaps you think your soul is elsewhere, waiting in some standby mode while your body gets used up and your mind gets more and more lost. When, helpless at last you die, you’ll be reunited with your soul. Is that what you think?

You can’t deny your physical body, it’s so there, all your senses tell you it’s alive. You’re able to experience your feelings and emotions everyday too. And you have enough self-awareness to track at least some of your thoughts. “I’m a thinking, feeling, breathing being,” you say. And you are!

Yet without your operating system what would you be, what would animate you? We bandy about this word “soul.” We talk about soul music, soul kitchen, soulful, soulmate, and good for or feeds my soul; it has soul, or what a great soul. Certainly, soulfulness can infuse daily experience: going below the surface, finding depth, meaning and connection, being inwardly warmed by intangibles. We tend to seek such moments, but too soon, a deadline or crashing chore closes the opening, the entryway, and the expansion of our set perceptions skids to a halt.

The moment is then gone, it disappears, perhaps to appear never again. But the soul doesn’t go away, it doesn’t disappear or disconnect. In fact, soul is always present. It beckons, guides, and experiences all you do, feel and think. Soul is inseparable from you. It commiserates all your losses and cheers all your successes. Your every pain and sorrow is a chance for your soul to befriend you more. Your every joy and celebration is forever cherished by your soul.

Without the soul, you’d be hollow, rudderless, without wisdom. Your eyes would be dull; no evidence of light in you would exist. Your skin would be sallow and your voice mechanical. You wouldn’t display even simple intelligence. You’d be unoriginal, without qualities and talents. You’d have no power, no love, nothing to give and receive. You’d always be hungry, never sated, interminably bored and irremovably sad. Beauty would elude you and you’d be perpetually tortured. You’d be collapsed and invisible and no breath of life could give you dimension.

Since none of these are true, for you are reading this and it stirs you, and since soul is the very source of your being, then surely your forgetfulness and indifference are harmful to you. You attend to a thousand insignificant things a day, thinking that the damage would be too great if you didn’t. Yet to soul memory, you give only a random glance.

Yes, the soul is shy and sensitive. It is subtle and plays hide-and-seek with us. It prefers a rarefied atmosphere. Always approachable and willing to build an aware relationship with you, its language is intuition. Intuition bridges the gap between the soul and the ego’s thoughts and sensations. Of fine vibrations not found in the material realm, its colors are gossamer, not merely pigment hues. The body is usually not conscious of the soul, but the soul is aware of the body. Soul is present from the very pinpoint of conception and continuously directs the shaping and growth of the physical form, and the individual. The soul commands certain cells to become brain or muscle tissue. With conscious intelligence behind it, the body develops in symmetrical fashion.

The soul’s nature is pure bliss and wisdom. Human intelligence models soul intuition. To illustrate progressively: the soul’s directing intelligence creates mind, then the senses, then the body.

Since soul comes first, it makes sense to put it first in our life. As soul has the blueprint for the body, it has the blueprint for your entire life. It is an awesome databank that contains all of your potential and the power to actualize it. Ever watchful, it is an insider helping you understand life, your place in it, your work here, opening the right doors, creating the right circumstances, meeting the right people to bring to fruition your purpose. Soul is your essence, your very spark of life. It functions as a wellspring of all your qualities and talents, inspiration and creativity, your uniqueness. It is a map, a resource, a GPS, a ray forever lighting your way through the eons.

All you have to do is get quiet, get close, and be open and willing enough to hear your soul whisper its harmonics to you. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll have come home to the hearth where it’s warm, blissful, loving and eternal. Thus, you’ll find yourself and all suffering will be gone. Go now and receive the blessings of your soul.

No weapon can pierce the soul; no fire can burn it; no water can moisten it; nor can any wind wither it.

–The Bhagavad Gita

© Pamir Kiciman 2007

I just love how online technology is able to bring such intentions forward.

Don Alverto Taxo, a Quichua elder and Iachak (community leader/healer), speaks of the ancient prophecy of the eagle and the condor meeting to bring a new harmony into the world. Don Alverto invites us all to trust the universal human intuition to bring greater harmony into our lives, and to seek after life’s deeper meaning. (Video below…if you have an email subscription, click to the original post to view it.)

From Joseph Chilton Pierce, author of “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg”:

Molecular biologists have discovered that the heart is the body’s most important endocrine gland. In response to our experience of the world, it produces and releases a major hormone, ANF that profoundly affects every operation in the limbic structure, or what we refer to as the “emotional brain.” This includes the hippocampal area where memory and learning take place, and also the control centers for the entire hormonal system.

Neurocardiologists have found that 60 to 65% of the cells of the heart are actually neural cells, not muscle cells as was previously believed. They are identical to the neural cells in the brain, operating through the same connecting links called ganglia, with the same axonal and dendritic connections that take place in the brain, as well as through the very same kinds of neurotransmitters found in the brain.

…in other words, there is a “brain” in the heart, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body, to the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. About half of the heart’s neural cells are involved in translating information sent to it from all over the body so that it can keep the body working as one harmonious whole. And the other half make up a very large, unmediated neural connection with the emotional brain in our head and carry on a 24-hour-a-day dialogue…

The heart responds to messages sent to it from the emotional brain, which has been busy monitoring the interior environment of dynamic states such as the emotions and the auto-immune system, guiding behavior, and contributing to our sense of personal identity. The emotional brain makes a qualitative evaluation of our experience of this world and sends that information instant-by-instant down to the heart. In return, the heart exhorts the brain to make the appropriate response….

…Meanwhile, biophysicists have discovered that the heart is also a very powerful electromagnetic generator. It creates an electromagnetic field that encompasses the body and extends out anywhere from eight to twelve feet away from it. It is so powerful that you can take an electrocardiogram reading from as far as three feet way from the body. The field the heart produces is holographic, meaning that you can read it from any point on the body and from any point within the field. The intriguing thing is how profoundly this electromagnetic field affects the brain. All indications are that it furnishes the whole radio wave spectrum from which the brain draws its material to create our internal experience of the world.

“…we now know that the radio spectrum of the heart is profoundly affected by our emotional response to our world. Our emotional response changes the heart’s electromagnetic spectrum, which is what the brain feeds on. Ultimately, everything in our lives hinges on our emotional response to specific events.

What does it mean to be a Healer? The Healer is first a unifier. This can be at a political level or in the psyche. When it comes to healing, old definitions no longer fit. Definitions are broadened or altogether discarded. Why? Because the Healer personifies change. Change, and spiritually it’s more about transformation; change of shape, the shape of how you see yourself, the world, the cosmos.

The Healer represents an inclusive model. At its highest, this means that there’s an embodied realization of the Oneness of All That Is. This is a state of enlightenment. But it need not be other-worldly. At the social level it means including other. Of course this can only be engendered by the solid knowing that life is from One, undifferentiated source where there is no separation. This meta-level knowing must also be turned into healing action where other dissolves.

Let’s look at the Healer outside the confines of a healing context for a moment. Can anyone be a Healer? Yes. Anyone who has integrated and embodied a non-materialistic worldview, and this informs their understanding is a Healer. If you see the person in front of you as being six feet away, someone other and separate, if you highlight your differences in age, gender, race and social standing, then it’s a fragmented, dualitistic worldview that only leads to a limited embrace, very quickly threatened by ‘me and mine’ positioning in the frail mind.

Can you accept that the person in front of you reaches beyond the limits of his or her skin? Can we grow our understanding to know that they are not contained in their skin or defined by it, that the space between two people is illusory?

In reality, that is non-material reality, there’s a common ground of connection and unity between two people which is the Healer’s domain. In that domain we share humanity, resources, power, love, burdens and life.

The Healer’s worldview also comes into play in the relationship between human and Nature, which includes all its systems and life forms. The predominant approach is that the world outside of us is just that, outside! It is yet again, other.

Whether human or environment, when viewed as other the responsibility of kinship is so easily and callously discarded. The natural care of the heart is shut off and we enter destructive patterns of dominance, consumption and profit.

Just as we’re dependent on every single human that cohabitates this planet with us, we’re dependent on the planet itself, and it is dependent on us.

Symbiosis is the Healer’s virtue and strength. To install this lens over the eyes of the heart is the work of love and love at work.

It is love that reveals to us the eternal in us and in our neighbors.

–Miguel de Unamuno

to be continued…

Today I’m grateful for the gifts of acknowledgment. Being acknowledged is so vital to our health. From the little things to the more substantial, being seen and heard is healing, fulfilling, completing and restoring. While my sense of self isn’t based or dependent on others, existing in a vacuum is possibly one of the most difficult human conditions.This is relative of course and there are degrees of difficulty. Recently it has been asked how significant global warming is to someone who can’t feed themselves. I acknowledge the reality of that. This person’s primary objective is to secure food. Yet bringing visibility to their plight, having the world say, “we know about you” betters their condition, comforts their heart and eases their mind. (By the way, decreasing global warming is one way to restore the conditions needed for the fecundity of crops and water. The disenfranchised are the worse off when it comes to climate change.)The difference is dropping food rations from the air in an impersonal way, compared to sitting with people, hearing their story, meeting their family and having them see the “face” of help and concern.

No matter the circumstances, acknowledgment is a powerful form of love. Be generous in your big or small acknowledgment of family, partners, friends, neighbors, colleagues, coworkers, and even when interacting with strangers.

Sometimes acknowledgment is an act of bravery. It requires one to go against the tide, to stand up for or admit something. Unless there are people willing to take such a risk, individuals, families, nations and the world continues to suffer. Acknowledgment is a powerful change agent.

When we see and hear others, we see and hear ourself. Our stories unite and each becomes enriched. We realize we share humanity and this leads to understanding, which fosters compassion. Acknowledgment is a mirror that eliminates “other.”

Acknowledgment is a way of knowing, not merely a nod or a tip of your hat. It’s connective. It weaves a fabric of knowing which holds and cradles us. It’s a form of selflessness that leaves our individuality intact. Essential life information and meaning are imparted to us when we see and hear others. Our sense of self deepens and expands because acknowledgment jumps over divisions of economic status, race, language, culture, and belief. It even reaches across species.

And there the vacuum fills itself, the isolation ends.

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, “Selected Poetry“

This is part of Nneka at Balanced Life Center’s 2007’s Season of Gratitude. My first post in the series is here.