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.

Ta-Da! -sana: Opening to Grace

     Does it ever feel like God is trying to get you to understand something?  The longer you don't get it, the higher the volume goes?  I have been having that month. It all began with a song....

      For my next song in voice lessons, I was assigned My Soul is Thirsting (Psalm 63) by Steve Angrisano.  This is a video of the author teaching a group the refrain.  Now I just love the psalms.  They express every emotion from love to rage to hate to envy to longing.  There is a psalm for every situation.  It makes me feel a little less alone in the dark nights, others have been here long before me and found a way out.
     I played around with the song.  First just learning the tune, then practicing different aspects. But, I didn't really think about it much. So, God ups the ante....
    Two weeks later I took a great weekend of yoga from Sianna Sherman (posts about her video and some of the lessons learned).  One of the things she mentioned several times is that with each inhale the body is healing (in reiki we would say 'releasing blocks').  It stuck in my mind.  I just could not make sense of it.  If I get better with each inhale (and I have quite a few inhales under my belt), why am I ageing? It feels more like I am creating blocks rather than releasing most of the time.

Window at Peaceful Meadow Retreat.

    I ruminated on the thoughts about thirsting for God and healing with each inhale, turning the puzzle pieces over and rearranging them in my mind.   On Saturday they suddenly came together.  It reminded me of this picture.  We had taken several pictures in a row of this window.  Most were fairly dark and did not capture the feelings we were looking for.  This one was the third of five exposures.  The interesting thing is it was the middle picture.  In this one photo, you can see the grace that is always there.

source

     Our souls thirst until we open the doors to let God in. He is always there waiting. Each inhale heals the body if it is made with an open heart.  Each inhale in anger, hurt and shame creates ill health or dis-ease.
     I spent an hour on Saturday going through my computer, trying to find a picture of someone with an open heart.  I couldn't find a single one.  We all see the camera and shy away.  People cross arms in front of their bellies or round their shoulders to hide.  When I mentioned this at the Reiki Share on Sunday, Lorna Barrett,  a fellow yoga teacher told me how she teaches this to her students.  In your mind imagine that you are a gymnast who has just completed a major routine.  Spread the fingers and toes and open your heart up to the grace all around you.  Stand tall and Ta-Da! in tadasana.


P.S. If you want to experience this great teaching style first hand, Lorna's classes are at the R.C. Durr YMCA in Burlington, KY Monday and Wednesday at 11.

Dowsing for Dipsticks: or 5 Affirmations for Using Your Pendulum

      Dowsing can be so difficult.  You get the pendulum (or sticks or other implements of destruction).  You buy the book (or check out a million books from interlibrary loan).  Let's just say I was a very slow learner. Should you want to embrace my pain, here is a bit about my journey in a January blog post.  Rereading it, I don't think I expressed how absolutely abysmal I was.
     We had a great reiki share today, and dowsing was one of our focuses.   When we talked for a while about problems and hiccups in learning to dowse, it turns out that most of us had similar problems.  First of all, when we feel uncomfortable with something, we usually find a way to make it go away.  Almost everyone kept losing their pendulum.  Most people also expressed difficulty in setting aside the ego (or desire to have the answer expected be correct).  
     This being said, remember the first questions to ask when you dowse:

•  "Can I?" (is this dowse-able?)
•  "May I?" (do I have permission?)
•  "Should I?" (is this in my and my subject's highest and best good?).  It's 

  So, in true Law of Attraction and Louise Hay fashion, we turned them into affirmations.  Here are 5 affirmations to help you become more confident in your dowsing.

• I can always find my pendulum
• I clearly get the correct answer, easily and quickly.
• I dowse myself truly.
• My ego steps aside when I dowse.
• I am connected to my Higher Power.

   Write them on the bag you keep your pendulum or crystals in.  Put them somewhere you notice daily.  Make dowsing a part of your life.  These affirmations can ease your passage.  I wish I had known everyone else struggled at the beginning.

The Force is Strong in this One

               So, you’ve taken your first reiki class, now what to do with your new found abilities? And when do you start feeling the reiki like your teacher said you would? And what about the next class level?

                Expanding your reiki capabilities is no different than any other skill.  As Lily Tomlin said when asked “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice!”

                I heard the best piece of advice yesterday from one of my students.  We were talking about learning to use a pendulum and the importance of daily practice.  Her suggestion was link it to a habit.  It can be anything you do daily from brushing your teeth to washing the dishes to scooping the cat box. Decide you will do a bit of reiki each time you make the bed.  Actually, I use the reiki to clear the bed as I make it each morning and the basement as I clean the cat box.  Put reiki into the food that you cook.  Start small with just one habit, give the reiki each day for two weeks then expand as far as you like.

                One of my favorite ways to practice is to pick one thing in my life that I would like to support, or change for the better, and give it reiki for 10 minutes a day.  This practice began last year during the Lenten season and completely remade the relationship that received the reiki.  What a gift that was.

                Like-minded people make doing anything easier. Find a reiki share.

  It is one of the few places where you are not the only crazy person in the room.  It is an opportunity, with little or no cost, to both give and receive reiki, not just whatever friends and family members you can talk into a session.  Each person uses reiki in their own unique way so it is a great way to learn other techniques.

                Years ago, I left my Reiki 1 class slightly irritated about the ease and confidence of JoAnn, my teacher.  It felt so unapproachable and progress so intangible.  Now using reiki is like breathing, an automatic thing that can be done intentionally.  Someday I may just practice reiki in Carnegie Hall.