The Power of Rest

        You know how in December I extolled practice in Practice Makes Perfect?  Well, just to prove that I love both sides of any argument, here is the benefit of rest.  In January and most of February I have caught every little thing that is going around.  Let's just say I have experienced enforced rest first hand.
       One thing I have noticed over the years is that if I take a week off the more intense class that I take with my mom each Friday, the next week I come back stronger and more flexible.  A month off does not have the same effect (too bad!). In all my studies, I have never seen or heard anyone mention it.  I was beginning to wonder if it was all in my mind. Finally I have an explanation and a reason to sit around enjoying Christmas (or whatever illness crops up).

     Pavel Tsatsouline has lit my inner darkness with his book,
Relax into Stretch : Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension.  Let's just start off with, this book is hilarious.  He has this "just go for it" attitude and keeps calling the reader comrade.  For a Navy woman from the Cold War, this is just off kilter enough to really please.
     But I digress, we were talking about the power of a few days off.  He says "motor-learning experts know that a skill tends to improve after a layoff, the so-called reminiscence effect.  Multiple repetitions of a drill, a rock climbing technique, a reverse puch, a split, or a deadlift, forms what Russians cal the dynamic stereotype, or a 'how-to manual' of this movement in the athlete's nervous system.  You learn to perform exactly as practiced- the form, the force, the range of motion, etc.... If you lay off stretching, your brain gets a chance to forget your limit.  This is the essence of ther reminiscence effect.  Once your own personal record has been erased, you are ready to train for a new one."
      I was completely surprised last week when I returned to vigourous practice.  Even though I had a hard time breathing, my not only was I stronger, but also each movement was deeper.  It was great.  I'm just wondering how long I have to lay off to forget how tight my hamstrings are... Happy stretching. :)

Peace Amidst the Storm

Just a quick observation for a Monday afternoon.   I was sitting with a friend working on her website.  She was reading a long piece  and as she spoke, I noticed over her shoulder a bird bobbing in my pine tree, right outside the window.  It has been very windy, so the branch was moving several feet up and down (and all around).  When I put myself in her place, all I could think was how queasy I'd be in her shoes.  I'd be clinging on for dear life with my wings flapping wildly to keep my balance.  Yet here is this house finch, a tiny little bird who did not move a muscle.  She just sat calmly in the tree.  She moved so little, she hard to see. (The picture at left is actually of a cardinal that I took a month ago, the tree was moving too much to take a good picture.  I had lots of blurs to choose from).
      This tiny bird was so at home in her surroundings.  The tree was going crazy in the wind, but there he calmly sat, way out on the limb, just riding the pitches and heaving.  All I could think was, when you are doing something that is in your nature, there is no hardship, tasks come along easily.  In reiki, we call it surrendering to the flow of energy.  In yoga, we soften the skin while the muscles are performing difficult tasks.
    I am always so grateful to have reminders about just going with where life takes me, rather than trying to control the uncontrollable.  When the tossing gets too much, it is time to fly to safer ground for a while.   After a brief rest, send me more, I love a challenge!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A little love note to you, my reader

      In the past year of writing this blog, I have tried to provide a place where people interested in personal growth and alternative healing can find some interesting observations and new techniques.  There is an undercurrent, however, that can only be felt on this side of the computer.
      I get satisfaction from writing. I have always loved it, but a blog is so much more.  Though we may have never met, with each visit to the blog, each comment, each private email, you have made my life so much richer.  I'd bring you flowers and candy, but these things pass.  Instead, I give you gratitude.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.   Pam

Honoring My Teachers by Becoming Myself

    "Family doesn't stand on ceremony."  This was on some tv show I saw in the past week. I jotted it down, then promptly forgot the origin.  Nevertheless, this quote describes where I am living right now.  It's a good place.
     In 2012 I had the good fortune to attend two ongoing reiki gatherings hosted by others.  Both were in their homes and instantly I felt like family.  It was a great.  Due to scheduling conflicts (or sometimes my reluctance to leave my home when I've (finally!) got nothing going on),  I have not been a regular attendee.  In those few visits, however, what I have learned from observing others is priceless.
     Anything that you are working on is a growing and changing organism.  Your reiki practice is no different.  Though each session begins with a prayer to be merely a channel for the healing energy of reiki to flow through, as your practice develops, the channel changes.  It may widen or deepen or merely change shape.  So, the same issue in your client will be approached differently depending on where  (or maybe who) you, the practitioner, is today.
      Observing other's techniques has allowed me to realize there is no one 'right' way.  Like all students I admire my teachers, both those I have met and those whose books I have read.  There is a point however where it is important to take their teachings and make them your own.  Stop trying to fill their shoes and instead wear your own (after all, they fit...).  To push my metaphor a bit further you need to take a look at my shoes, not a normal pair in the bunch and when I forget to put them on, I'm barefoot (hate to say it, but I have had clients come to my house and forgotten to put on shoes... aak!).
      Without thinking about it deeply, my sessions have begun to change, molding to my way of doing things like comfortable shoe.  I was never one to use the hand positions, though I teach them in each reiki I class.  Immediately they felt wrong to me like I was being someone else.  But more and more, each session I do less and less thinking and just spend the time being, submitting to a Higher Power.

imagine this as the aura before...

...and this is after.

        A few weeks ago the most interesting thing happened in a session.  I found myself 'combing' my fingers through my client's aura.  It felt like I was removing pebbles that made the flow of energy rough.  I began in one small spot, with each pass through making the area worked longer and longer.  As my fingers passed through new areas, it felt like there was 'resistance,' though they were just passing through air.  It was fascinating!  By the time I finished the energy felt smooth and even.
   This is the reason for our continual reference to honoring our teachers and their lineages in both yoga and reiki.  Everyone is our teacher if we just keep our eyes open.  I leave you, as always, with the sanskrit word  that means "the divine in me honors the divine in you."  Thank you to all of you, my teachers.  Namaste.

Make One Person Smile Today

today's ridiculous flowers

      I had a (hopefully) wonderful post mostly prepared, but somehow it just didn't feel right.  Thought I'd give you a picture of my ridiculous flowers and a few quotes.  What you can't tell from the picture is the colors are wildly unnatural.  There is even glitter on some of the flowers.  They make me so happy.  I never said I had class (my husband would tell you I am a cheap date).
      This is my vision of gratitude.  Start simple.  It is easier to be grateful for the sunrise or hot water on demand (or brightly colored flowers) than to come up with the big stuff.  There will always be a friend with cancer, the young child dying from a horrible car wreck, a fight with your spouse.  This feeling was captured completely in a book I just finished, In the Company of Others by Jan Karon.
        In a conversation about mothering challenging children, Father Tim, the main character, says "Healing (comes) as little drops of water, and never the mighty ocean when you need it..."  My crazy flowers were one of the drops of water that lift my heart every time that I see them.
         Over the past few months, I've been thinking and praying and meditating a lot.  This fall my youngest will go to college and like many soon to be empty nesters it is a good time examine where I am and what I am doing.  Over and over I get the feeling to be myself.  Be playful, be open, be creative. Don't worry, don't overplan, just relax.  Father Tim captures it again when he says "Wherever I am, He supplies a parish."  If I make one person smile today, my work is done.  God bless whoever sprinkled the glitter on my crazy flowers. :)

Catch a Little Something

the fungi on the forest floor have a purpose

     This year has been the year of passing illness around.  Usually, I'm the one who is nursing others, but I've caught both the stomach bug and an UR infection since Christmas.  I'd also be the first to tell you that illness is not a good thing (and reiki can fix that!).  Turns out I'd be wrong.
      On Tuesday, I was at the top of a ladder helping to decorate for our dinner dance.  I couldn't figure out how to plug in the lights.  This is the time you know it is stupid for me to be on the top of a tall ladder (plug, duh).  By Wednesday morning my voice was completely gone (those of you who have met me or taken my classes know what a tragedy for me that is!) For both Wednesday and most of Thursday, I had to cancel almost everything.  Again something I hate.
    Not a situation for joy, one would think.  It is amazing how reducing your life to it's basics can be so pleasurable.  I did everything that was in my power to accomplish and it was good enough.  Sure the body was not happy, but life in the mind is great!
     I was reading recently that the average executive's weekly to do list would take over 350 hours to complete.  My to do list was reduced to only the around the house and for the family stuff (don't want to pass this around).  All of it is crossed off and it's only 1:40.
    The other advantage to reducing the to do list is how much easier it is to eat, sleep and rest so you heal faster.  My friends have been sick for weeks.  I'm hoping to break the pattern.  Anyway, if you feel like you are coming down with something, see if you can make it into the gift that it can be.  Blessings, Pam

(...another good thing from being  a 5'2' walking, talking column of mucus is how it clears the mind.  I had my weekly meeting with a friend today and could not remember the question I had posed in turmoil a few weeks ago.  Now, I know this is not one of the recommendations from the Buddha, but going through a box of tissues a day tends to focus one on the present rather than in the past... I feel like a completely new person, fully present, now.  Who knew?)

Ask a Higher Power

      A few days ago, I was walking in our little patch of woods after a lovely snowfall (if you ever can't find me, go look in South Fork Park by the creek. I'm probably in my favorite place).  Over the years that we have lived in our house, the wild areas have slowly been carved away, becoming condos, nail salons and ice cream parlors, but one last stretch by the creek remains.  It is a great place to go to just be (and sometimes meet your neighbors and their dogs).
     As I walked along enjoying the crunch of the snow and the occasional branch dumping snow on my head,  I noticed the tracks in the snow in front of me. The human tracks strode ahead straight and strong, but the dog's went go straight along for a while, but then wandered from side to side. Did a dog just lack the moral fiber to push forward?  I didn't think so.  There seemed to be a rhythm.
     It became clearer the longer I looked. The dog's tracks would waver as he looked up at his master's face just to check in.  They had walked this path many times before, but he would do whatever it takes to please, so he had to keep looking at his master's face to check in.
      We have so much to learn from dogs.  When we are unsure, or even just walking along, why not ask a higher power for advice and guidance?

     In the middle of this revelation, I stood on the bridge feeling alone. I've been putting together a blog for my friend who sits down with pen and paper (and sometimes a question) and writes what the Lord speaks.  Lets just say I've been a bit envious.  My prayer was like a toddler stamping her foot and saying "Me, too!"  (or "Hey, where's my divine revelation, Buddy?")  My answer was immediate.  In the middle of the snowstorm, when nothing else was moving in the forest, a cardinal flew onto the branch, right beside the creek.
       I have always seen the Divine revealed in nature and in those around me.  I seek answers in my time at the creek and in being alone in the physical world.  When I sit down, my brain never stops. (It's why I am such a good meditation teacher, I've made (or am making) every mistake in the book.  You learn a lot of work-arounds.)
       Here I had it. Two answers.  What to do with them?  Here are a few things I came up with:

1. Define your Higher Power- define it if just for today, it can change tomorrow or even in the next moment. Pick your favorite name- God, Jesus Christ, Ascended Masters, Great Celestial Beings of Light-  there is help waiting to be called on, don't go it alone.
2. Release Expectations- You can't be the question and the answer at the same time (drat!).  So define your question and let it go.
3. Listen-  For me, this is the hardest part.  The good thing is that if we manage even a few moments, God manages to slip in.
4. Get some help- Find a meditation or yoga class, find some prayers that you like, take a walk in the woods.  There are so many ways, just try something new each day.

     On the way back home, I noticed this rose bush.  It was cold and snowy outside and the wind was blowing hard, but there it was, full of possibility.  There are buds along the stem for next spring and at the very tip, the first leaves had unfurled.  Now, these leaves may not make it to the spring, we have harsh weather here in Kentucky, one day it is 65 degrees, the next only 7.  Those first leaves and the buds behind them reminded me of all the attempts I have made over the years to listen.  One is working for me now, but when it stops, there are many more behind it to nourish me in the future.
     An interesting thing happens when I ask for help.  Life doesn't alter, but my feelings about it change.  Usually I feel clearer thinking and less attached to the outcome of my decisions.  It's like suddenly I get the "long view" and realize that it's all just 'stuff.'  I embrace my inner Buddha nature easily. As an added side benefit, my posture improves and I breathe better- who could ask for more?