I attended the memorial service for one of my reiki clients and said a prayer for her beneath the gaze of this beautiful statue at St. Brendan’s Church in Los Angeles. I had the privilege of working with Cora twice as she battled cancer. Knowing her was an honor. Reiki relieved some of her discomfort, and eased her release from the physical body. Rest peacefully, now free from pain, sweet Cora.

Thanks to yeaiknow for posting it.

A mural with a message of peace by Shepard Fairey at the corner of La Brea and 2nd St. in Los Angeles.

Fierce Santa Ana winds tore through Los Angeles a couple of nights ago. They picked up suddenly and unexpectedly and wrecked havoc. Earlier in the day, I had opened all of the windows in my reiki room to invite in fresh air and to clear the energy. When I came home, the curtains were billowing toward the center of the room. Everything was in disarray. Three Bird Signs cards had been blown from a shelf and overturned. Something told me to notice this and to pay attention. It was as though the wind had given me a reading. The cards were: Kingfisher – Determination (reversed), Flamingo – Balance, and Egg – Birth.

I was lucky to attend a gathering of reiki healers this weekend and received reiki from several supercharged hands at once. During the short but powerful treatment, I saw he word “always,” just like that, in white lower case letters suspended in an overcast sky over the shoreline. I began repeating the word in my head over and over, trying to determine what it meant. Slowly the letters separated and morphed into “all ways.” When I searched online to see if anything turned up, this Bible quote was the first result. It is a beautiful message for me right now, who has been meandering a winding road.

This film is breathtaking. Thank you to Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive of Islands and Rivers, you have given every person who watches it an experience of a lifetime!

Starlings are an important totem for these two women. Starstuffs provides a description of the bird as an animal totem:

“Starling teaches lessons of group etiquette, social standing and family relations and how you appear to the world in those relationships. He will show the nuances of the art of communication and vocalization which needs to be clear and expressive. It’s time to speak your voice…Starling will teach much about sensitivity to others and working as a unity either in this world or another and will instill a sense of protection and hope.”

Thank you, Lauren. Everyone who reads your blog post will imagine you winning an Oscar, directing even more affirmative energy to that dream!

Photo by Lauren Bair

Image by atomicity via Flickr

Barack Obama is in Los Angeles this evening at a fundraiser near my home. Major streets in my neighborhood are barricaded, diverted cars are crawling up and down my street trying to find an outlet. There is a lot of honking and yelling as tempers flair. Helicopters are circling overhead, police sirens are screaming by at regular intervals.

I was scheduled to give a reiki treatment tonight to someone whose health really needs support. She drove several miles through traffic to get to me, only to find that when she got to my neighborhood, she was not allowed to cross a major street, even on foot. I tried to walk to her so we could meet and perhaps sit in a park, but I was not allowed to cross. She was forced to turn back and trudge through gridlock to her home.

I walked back from the clamor and chaos of our city streets to the peaceful sanctuary of my home. The windows had been opened to invite fresh air and fresh energy, I had cleared and saged my reiki room, dressed my massage table in clean sheets sprayed with lavender and geranium. I wished that my client had been able to make it here, I so wanted her to be greeted by this calmness after her ordeal.

I pondered the meaning of her being so barricaded from receiving treatment. She told me that I am her “last hope.” She has tried everything else. I assured her that I am not her last hope, reiki is the beginning of new hope and new possibilities for healing. I sent her distance reiki and well wishes for an effortless return trip. We’ll try again Wednesday.

“Stop! Don’t go that way!” a little guiding voice replied. “Take a deep breath and be surrounded by light. Trust in divine perfection. What if this is EXACTLY what you needed?” I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply several times, allowed myself to be grounded, let the ugliness drain from my body, and regained my calm. I shed the energy of others, the need to feel their emotions, the desire to take on their burden when it was not my burden to bear. Feeling sympathetic pain only hurt me and helped no one.

The crying stopped as abruptly as it had started. What if this IS exactly what I need? I put my faith in the idea that this is exactly where I am supposed to be, exactly what I am ready to face, exactly what I am strong enough to overcome with grace. This is the next lesson to be learned. It was a relief to change the wording of that phrase. It allowed me to feel gratitude and strength instead of pain and fear. This is right. Right now.

This is the most lovely and uplifting film I have watched on YouTube. Tanya Davis’ lighthearted yet profound poem about the virtues of feeling comfortable in solitude is illustrated with birds, hearts and sunshine. The notes played on her electric guitar and harmonica lonely and hopeful. It gave me nostalgia for a favorite childhood book, If You Are Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow by Cooper Edens, which was my go to when I needed cheering up.

I commit to living an extraordinary life.

I seek out new experiences and avidly explore my interests.

I overcome challenges with confidence and grace.

I am able to accomplish everything I can imagine.

I trust that life is unfolding exactly as it should.

This is me and Tuesday Thomas, the Reiki Master who has taught me so much.

An introductory reiki workshop I taught last weekend caused me to reflect on how I first experienced reiki and my first reiki attunement. I could not have guessed then, that a few years later I would be a reiki master and teacher. At that time, I couldn’t even imagine a day without pain and emotional fatigue.

In 2004 I was going through a health scare that took me to County Hospital once a week for several months of blood work and injections of chemicals with scary names. I was totally depleted physically, mentally and emotionally. I had lived with chronic back pain from sports injuries for years, and this period was an all-time low.

In an effort to take time for myself to do something fulfilling, I enrolled in an Ayurvedic medicine program at Dancing Shiva in Los Angeles. I hoped to unlock some ancient knowledge that would tell me what to eat, drink and do to regain my athletic vigor and spirit.

It was there that I met Tuesday Thomas, whose healing work has been a blessing in my life. I didn’t know exactly what she did, but I was compelled to ask for her help. She took me to a nearby park for a tarot reading that opened the blinds on all the windows of my life that had been shuttered against a storm. The cards described every way I had been holding things in, bottling up emotions, not speaking my truth, literally holding my breath and holding on for dear life. Great change was ahead, and I would need to invite playfulness and light into my life. (At least that is how I remember the reading from this distance and perspective. At the time I didn’t know what the heck any of it meant, but I remembered the fool and a burning tower and death.)

Tuesday told me that she was a reiki master. I had heard about reiki from a good friend, and had the vague idea that it had to do with hands and light. I felt darkness inside, and desperately wanted that light.

When I arrived for my reiki treatment, a birthday gift to myself, Tuesday sat with me at her kitchen table and showed me how to draw Cho Ku Rei, a symbol used in reiki healing. She brought me to a chair and put her hands on my shoulders. With my eyes closed, she wrote on my palms, blew softly on my head, burned sage. I experienced a flood of images, like movie scenes projected on my closed eyelids. It was all very unexpected and disconcerting. She had me lie on her table for a reiki treatment that was so soothing, I felt like I had gone into outer space.

I sort of understood that Tuesday would be giving me this thing called an attunement, but I didn’t really know what that was. She told me that afterward I would be able to give myself reiki anytime by placing both hands on my body. I can divide my life into before that birthday reiki attunement, and after. It was an initiation into the direction the rest of my life would take.

After that, I gave myself reiki as often as possible and found it to be an amazing relief. My back felt better, my health issues finally resolved, I was happier and more able. My weight stabilized at the ideal weight I carried in high school (when I hated my body!). I noticed how reiki helped my husband during migraines and reduced swelling from knee and ankle injuries. Reiki taught me to listen to the messages my body was sending about what it needed to be well, it taught me to listen to and follow intuition. Reiki was the catalyst and the ongoing support my body, mind and spirit needed to heal itself.

Decades of damage don’t disappear in a day. I continued to give myself regular reiki, and eventually continued my studies and attunements with Tuesday at monthly gatherings. I received reiki treatments from her at times that I felt my body was in a crisis of letting things go. By 2007 I was playing in a weekly soccer game. By 2008, I was able to hike the entire mountainous North coast of Spain. By early 2009, I could say that I felt happiness and gratitude every single day and knew that giving reiki to others was what I wanted to do with my life. I received my Reiki Master/Teacher Level Attunement that year.

Receiving a reiki treatment or an attunement is an experience unique to each individual. It is not a miracle cure, but in my life it has been a miracle. I was grateful to be able to give myself daily doses of reiki. My improvement was not drastic or immediate, but slow and consistent over time (fitting for my taurus nature). My body was able to heal at it’s own beautiful pace. I did not have to deal with all of my emotional and mental baggage at once, but released, and continue to release, each self-defeating pattern as I am ready.

Today I am grateful to be able to offer that healing potential to others who are ready to let go of toxic attachments and release what is being held within the body. I am happy to work with people who are ready to move forward joyfully in life. I provide reiki treatments and attunements in a tranquil therapy room in my home. I also enjoy teaching workshops and giving free reiki healing to those in need. Please contact me if you are interested in learning more about reiki or my practice.