As humans we all have the ability to channel healing energy, and to offer what some call “laying on of hands.” Life force energy is (as the term suggests) what animates us. It is a universal energy, a sacred river that moves us and moves through us. Reiki is one name for this sacred universal life energy.

To be human is to be a healer. When we place our hands on another with a loving touch and with listening, caring intent and heart, we are offering this energy. We can intentionally invoke it. Whatever you wish to call it, this energy helps to calm our minds and bodies, ease pain, help our bodymind to come into harmony with itself so that true healing can take place. We have all served as healers for one another, and have received healing in turn. There are many ways we help one another in this way!

We have the ability to channel this healing energy. We can tune in to it — attune to it more deeply — and activate this loving and creative force in a number of ways. The art and practice of Reiki is one way is to directly engage with this universal life energy for the purpose of healing.

Photo by Javardh. Unsplash.

In Reiki training we not only learn a practice around giving healing energy to others and ourselves too, as well as ethics, but we take part in what’s called an “attunement” — a small ceremony in which, as far as I can tell, literally brings us in tune with this healing energy. To me, it seems very much like tuning the strings on my harp. When I tune my harp, the overtones leap out, becoming much more audible, the music much more rich. In the process of our Reiki training, we slip into a more precisely tuned state with it . We ourselves become an instrument, allowing this loving energy to flow through to relax and move through our clients in the way they need.

This energy is sacred, intelligent, and causes no harm. You may serve as a conduit for this energy, but you are not the director of it. Reiki energy will go where the healing needs to take place. As we become more experienced, we’ll sense where and when to move our hands to facilitate this exchange.

Reiki is such a beautiful form of healing, and so very versatile. I love offering Reiki when I give herbal remedies to another: I will use Reiki to bless the tinctures and teas I give. I’ll give Reiki to my client, to the plants who contributed to the herbal remedies, to the situations or the hurts or illnesses or sorrows that my client is seeing me about. I use Reiki to help harmonize a client to their medicines, to their situation, to help ease and replenish their nervous system so that the innate intelligence in one’s body may find its way to steadiness.

I love offering Reiki with sound and music (harp, song, rattles, drum, flute …).

And I love offering it in the form I was taught: using a certain sequence of laying my hands on or over a person, listening and feeling into what my client needs, what my intuition and the energy in my hands in relation to them is telling me. Beauty shines in the silence and in the practice. Insights and replenishment emerge for my client, and an uncoiling takes place that allows something they need to flow.

I began practicing Reiki in 2003. Few days go by when I don’t offer Reiki somewhere — to family members, to a friend in distress, to the land, the plants, to those who are suffering … I combine it with prayer and blessing. I practice Reiki when I realize I’m not listening deeply enough, when I become anxious or confused, when I don’t know what to do next. Reiki for me is like a “rescue remedy” in those times, bringing me into grounded, clear, and kind space, helping me to open to what really surrounds me, and then, in the appropriate moment, discern a next step.

My Reiki practice has helped me to become a more compassionate person, has helped me, at times, to embody a true healing presence if only for a moment. Reiki has allowed me to be of service to small miracles, and to sometimes witness large ones.

I’m so delighted to resume offering Reiki training on Vashon-Maury Island.  I’d love to share this gentle yet strong, poetic, and grace-filled form of healing with you so that you can offer it not only to those you love and to that in the world you love, but also to yourself. If you’re interested in being updated about classes, please contact me here.