OpenSky is a new way for people like me to bring people like you products I know and believe in, that I can personally recommend.

You know who you are! Anytime you ask me where I got something, my answer is usually, “Online…” It became a running joke, remember?

Well it’s real now. Teasing time is over. The “Something Exciting is Coming” badge has become a countdown clock, and you can begin shopping in my store right from this blog on August 10.

OpenSky allows me to bring you products in a personal way. Instead of reading a stranger’s review of an item you need, or seeing a random rating of stars next to it, my shop will be full of items I’ve handpicked, and come from suppliers you may not know about. And since we’re leading similar lifestyles, this is a win-win.

I’ve been shopping ethically and consciously for 15 years. It’s not always easy to spend your money in alignment with your values. My priority has been to buy products that were the least toxic to my person and my home, and to support suppliers that have a small footprint. After my son was born, these concerns became even more acute.

Take the CaliBowl for instance. It’s BPA-free! Made from food-grade Polypropylene, it’s durable and shatterproof, with partially recycled materials.

The "Mighty" CaliBowl

It also has a nonslip bottom that really works! Believe me, my son is strong and he couldn’t budge it.

You don’t get this kind of personality and relationship when you go to any other online retailer, or big-box store. It’s an impersonal, dry experience, and who wants that?! Products in my store will be preselected for you for their utility, quality, dollar value, and the values of the people who make them.

Soon my store will go on its own page here. I’ll be highlighting the best of the best in individual posts too, like the CaliBowl which is even “mightier” than what’s been mentioned!

Please remember that my blog is about “help” and “care.” As you know, the blog has always included material related to “green” living, environmental issues, conservation and climate change. These are in alignment with living and practicing spirituality and Reiki. So is shopping in a way you can feel good about! As always, regular topics will continue to be explored.

If you happen to be a supplier of awesome products or are interested in selling from your own store, I heartily encourage you to follow the links.

In the meantime, pancakes anyone?

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Expression

Recently I started a PhotoBlog in addition to this one. Neighborhood Being was the first one posted. Currently I’m exploring care for the Earth through mostly B&W digital photos. Photography is an old love of mine, together with theater (you can read about that here). I really needed this avenue of expression, so I just began. Sometimes it’s that simple.

It would make me very happy if you joined me over at Pamir’s Photos.

Community

The Reiki Help Blog is a community. In the previous post I shared a couple of thoughts on community specifically, but really the core subject matter of this blog, spirituality and healing, is about community. We’re on the path of improving our internal and external community.  We are a community of practitioners. The Sanskrit is satsangha, which means the “company of truth.”

A community is interactive. My posting here would be much more meaningful for all of us if you chirped in on a thought or story that moves you, that resonates. We learn from sharing, in ways that aren’t available when it’s only one-way. I encourage you to go ahead and use the comment section for each post, adding your color to this community.

And if you’re having thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, consider this:

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

–Marion Wright Edelman

Reiju

For nine months last year, I shared monthly Reiju with my larger ‘virtual’ community. This year, I’ve made the Reiju page public (click here) so that more and more people can benefit. It’s also linked at the top of each page. If you need help or know others who do, stay up to date on when Reiju is shared and get on the list of names.

And as you’ll see on the Reiju page, it’s a fine example of shared learning from a large community, using a blog’s ability to leave comments.

Donations

Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free. This is an appeal to invest in the substantial resource this blog has become. Invest with more than your reading of it, but by also participating as mentioned above, and contributing to its continuation.

Any amount is appropriate. You may donate when a post brings value to you, or you may donate a larger sum for the lifetime value you get as a subscriber. Large or micropayments are both gladly received.

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.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

1) It’s the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. Last year, I posted extensively on the significance of this day and how it can be made the most of. Click here to read all the details and resources.

This year, I’m including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s Message on the International Day of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament. The video is below. (If you’re an email subscriber, you’ll have to click through to the blog to view it.)

2) There’s a wonderful organization called Avaaz. The organizers and everyone they call to action like you and me simply want to bring sanity back to the world.

On September 21st Avaaz has organized a Global Climate Wake-Up Call! There are many types of events: phone-call flash-mobs, The Age of Stupid film premiere screenings, mass rallies. There are worldwide events and you can go here to find one near you.

3) Finally, it’s the third night of the Nine Nights of the Goddess or Navratri.

Three new heavenly (Satya Loka) forms of the Goddess are to descend during this year’s Navaratri. These three Goddesses are Ayur Devi, Amrita Lakshmika and Anuradha Kramana Saraswati. These Goddesses will rule the Golden age that will start in 2012, but as a planet we can accelerate this consciousness now.

Anuradha Kramana Saraswati will be in charge of the new science and technology. Ayur Devi will revive Ayurveda and siddha medicine. Amrita Lakshmika will bring in a new economic system that will bring prosperity to everyone.

The Goddess descends into the earth for only 9 days. This year this 9 days fall on September 19th – 27th. There are three dominant Goddess categories that are known as Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

Ayur Devi is a form of Durga, who represents power to destroy negativity in the form of poverty, laziness, fear and evil and criminal tendencies.

Amrita Lakshmika is a new Lakshmi who is predominantly the energy of luxury, wealth and material power.

The third divinity is Anuradha Kramana Saraswati, the Satya Yuga Saraswati. She is in charge of inspiration, motivation, discrimination, knowledge, music, fine arts, science and technology.

They each share three nights of the nine nights of the Goddess called as Navaratri.

There will be a live telecast from India of the rituals performed on the 3rd, 6th and 9th days.

Homa to Ayur Devi – September 21st, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM
Homa to Amrita Lakshmika – September 24th, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM
Homa to Anuradha Kramana Saraswati – September 27th, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM

Each Goddess has 3 nights dedicated to her. It starts with Durga, continues with Lakshmi and ends with Saraswati.

GODDESS DURGA: During Durga’s time you worship Durga with a red flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Dhum Durgaiya Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

GODDESS LAKSHMI: During Lakshmi’s time you worship Lakshmi with a pink flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Shreem Lakshmiyai Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

GODDESS SARASWATI: During Saraswati’s time you worship Saraswati with a white flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Aim Saraswatayai Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

–from Astroved.com

This video from enlightened Siddha master Dattatreya Siva Baba adds much regarding the new forms of the trinity of Goddesses:

I started the Reiki Help Blog two years ago on August 2, 2007 by posting this:

“Needing & getting help

I really love what and how I contribute. Basically I spend my days making it easier for someone to do something easier, or improve a situation or challenge. And Reiki allows me to do so without strain or depletion, and in a way that liberates the person being helped to be self-reliant, independent and self-governing after the help takes hold. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Learn more.”

Blogs are like dog years in how quickly they can grow and mature. This blog has about 120 posts. According to FeedBurner which started tracking a month later on September 7, there have been 6,401 views on 51 items and 1,995 clicks back to the site on 48 items. Not as prolific as some blogs, but FeedBurner numbers aren’t all that reliable and I didn’t start using Google Analytics till much later, well into the second year. For instance Analytics is already showing 10,529 views.

When you’re online, numbers are simply part of the experience. Otherwise, my intentions in starting this blog are made clear in this post five days later on August 7, 2007:

To serve…

The original prayer is creation itself. As created beings we are a prayer onto our own. Prayer here means the lived experience of sacredness, not its usual religious context. Sacredness isn’t confined to one aspect of life. Sacredness has always been the single thread that runs through life. Sometimes this thread is visible, consciously enhanced and cultivated. Sometimes it’s invisible and purposely ignored.

The call is that no matter what we’re primarily engaged in, there’s opportunity to serve the people around us. This could be a service of education, financial help, empowerment, consciousness-raising, healing, community, family matters, the elderly, the disabled, the homeless, the addicted and so on. Within our respective fields also, even in seemingly unrelated environments such as business, service is readily available for seeing eyes.

To serve is a simple process of feeling and understanding suffering in ourselves and others.

Our feet are in the dust, i.e., the earth element. Our hands are at the level of the heart, the seat of compassion. Together with the feet, the hands carry out action or service once we’re willing.

There’s nothing we can’t overcome, personally or collectively, but we must become master blenders of the dust and the sacred, spinning at the precise pivot point of Divinity in expression and action.

Service became a way of life for me after my own healing from the small, self-involved self of pleasure and pain.

The Reiki Help Blog is an extension of all that I am. It mirrors the teaching that I do with people I help. It’s a community for all of my Oasis Reiki practitioners. And it serves the wider community of spiritual practitioners seeking consciousness and healing.

What the Reiki Help Blog Covers

Often the subject matter is Reiki, but not all the time by any means. Green living and the environment are covered. Consciousness in the meditative and contemplative sense is a popular subject. I review related books, CDs and DVDs as healing resources. I even posted brief reviews of some of the favorite children’s books my son and I have enjoyed together.

A good way to browse the archives is to click whatever interests you in the categories listed on the homepage of the blog. This brings up a range of posts.

One of my ideas for the next phase of this endeavor is to post perhaps more frequently and note shorter thoughts.

I thank all my readers and commentators and all who have stopped by. I hope you’ve been helped and inspired.

Since this is a Reiki blog, below is a list of the flagship Reiki posts that flesh out the ins and outs of this amazing teaching.

• Modern Reiki – A full understanding
• Reiki As It Is – The finer details
• The action of Ki in Reiki
• Usui’s Precepts: The living tissue of Reiki
• Generating Compassion with Reiki Distant Healing
• Reiki ’symbols’: To or not to?
• Reiki semantics: Are you on autopilot?
• Reiki lessons from a Samurai
• Reiki for business people

You may also select the Reiki and Reiki 411 categories to find other nuggets.

Another great way to catch up on all the content here is to simply read the posts included in the Must Read category.

Please do let me know how you’ve enjoyed the Reiki Help Blog by leaving comments on the posts that move you.

Peace to you in all your experiences…

Reiki Help Blog has a 2-year birthday coming up on August 2.

I haven’t been posting as much due to other commitments, but have some great content coming up soon.

The Twitter update posts are an experiment. I tend to share many nuggets in the microblogging platform of Twitter and wanted to find a way to collect these. We’ll see…

As part of the the birthday celebration, I’ve been highlighting past content that is significant and that may have been missed or is worthy of a revisit. More of these will be highlighted. For now, please read the following and leave your comments:

Soul bravery
Environment
Heart Advice to a caregiver
Reiki share at Barry University Health Fair
Soul as operating system