My Weekend

Well, I'm pretty much caught up on Shadow Shot Sunday and Wordzzles and it's gloomy and snowing hard outside - we are supposed to get at least 8 inches, I think - so I thought maybe I'd share a little bit about my weekend. Afraid it's a bit garbled. A lot happened over two days and as you know already, reiki is hard to explain. It's more experiential. But I'll try to share anyway because I have nothing else much to talk about today.

My thanks to Shannon. She took a lot of wonderful pictures (all of the ones here today). I can't really share any of the workshop shots without violating people's privacy so you will get mostly cats and objects and a picture of me and my mad scientist eyebrows hidden behind a cup of chai tea.

My friends Nate and Dan had long asked me to teach them Reiki but although I had shared information about the concepts, we had never set a date. Then sweet Shannon asked me to teach her and in the way of kids wanted a "when." This was the push I needed to set a date and it became my Christmas gift to my friends. Originally I expected four but ended up with six. Wow. What a joy! And how terrifying. It's been at least 12 years since I've attuned anyone to reiki and my inner demons had a grand party at my expense. I didn't sleep well for the two nights before the workshop. My brain went wild with "what ifs" and "you cant's." (Too bad I didn't remind myself of the reiki principles listed below, eh?)


I always have a bit of trouble with the second one. Worry is second nature to me. And I had a brief struggle with a one/two combo since everyone (except Rosalie) was very late the first day and I had truckloads of material to get through. I discovered there is still quite a bit of my mother lying dormant in my psyche, though, to be honest the anger part (such as it was) was more anxiety. I made a big joke of "yelling" at all of them for being late and got it out of my system and pretty much threw my schedule out, only to discover that I had built in so much time that we quickly caught up with my schedule anyway. Just for today I will not worry. Such good advice.


So anyway, we began the day with some sharing, did a meditation on and talked about the above principles and then did the first attunements. (Attunement? What's that?) Well, an attunement is a ritual that formally "turns on" the reiki connection. For people like Melli (hi, Melli), let me say that I believe Reiki is God's Love or Unconditional Love and I believe that everyone on earth has the capacity to channel it with or without attunements. I think tuning in to Reiki is like turning the dial to a specific station on the radio. It's all radio waves, simply a different band width or frequency, so to speak. Attunements don't put anything into the recipients - at least not from my perspective - they help turn the switch on for what God has already put there. So anyway, the attunements aren't strenuously physical for someone who can stand and walk, but for me it was quite an adventure and I was worried that I would fail my friends. But then I reminded myself that God/Spirit would never punish them for my failings... and He/She/It didn't.

The rest of day one involved practicing - first self-healing, then working on each other. One of the best things about reiki is that you can use it on yourself... and when you share with others, the energy moves through you as well, so you also receive at the same time you offer the energy to someone else. At the core of what I teach and believe is that we ourselves are not the healer. We offer ourselves as channels and what happens is between God and the recipient. It's unfortunate that so many humans put up barriers to receiving this unconditional gift from God. I love working on animals because they have the wisdom to just open their hearts and being to love when it comes their way.

We had a lovely lunch break in the middle of the day with vegetarian chili that Rosalie made and other good things that the others brought. It was a long day. They didn't leave until almost 8:30. I don't know about them, but I was as tired as I've been in a very long time. I felt almost too tired to get up and go to bed, which I did at 11:00 - incredibly early for me.

Sunday was a much easier day. We started with sharing and a meditation, had two more attunements and practiced sending reiki energy long distance. I was slightly less exhausted on Sunday but very tired indeed! It's so much fun to watch people experience the feeling of this warmth and love moving through their hands and open to the potential to be of service to themselves and others in such a pure and simple way.

Angel and Tara Grace, of course, felt a need to participate. Tara is in one of her talkative phases - and sang to us quite a bit. Angel decided that a nice loud toy that she ordinarily never plays with would be the perfect background for the quiet of meditation time.

It felt wonderful to share something that is such a profound and precious part of my life with people I love. Magical as it is to use (or really be used) by this sacred energy to help others, it is even more miraculous to be able to pass the gift along to others. And now I have a wonderful pool of six people who can send reiki energy to ME when I need it. How cool is that!