September 2010: A chance to look at the last year

In the past month, I have had the opportunity to look at some major life issues:

• My parents are selling their house.
• The relationship with my brother needs nurturing.
• My healing practice has been quieter than normal.
• My house needs fixing.
• My plans to move to the West have slowed to a halt.

I keep wondering why spirit has asked/shown me whether I need to be here now, in the D.C. area for a longer time, to meet new students, to continue with my clients, to have some time to connect to God once again in the power of the silence.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur have come and gone and I see that the year past showed me that some things I thought had long been taken care of need care instead. I feel like I have lost my parental center and that my guides won't recommend a course of action to me but ask me to choose one and ask their help instead.

In the coming year, I want to find myself moving forward gently, but not with hesitation; getting some of my outstanding "loose ends" cleaned up; living from my heart, not my head. Take a day at a time, I guess.

I taught a Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki I-II class in Phoenix and finished up a Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki Master/Teacher class with Mike Hilwig, one of my students who has moved to Arizona to follow his healing path. Before the classes began, I drove up to Sedona to take a hike to Bell Rock, one of the most powerful vortexes in the area. This one seems to awaken me to a new direction, to get me unstuck, and to clear my energy. Results: clear sinuses, renewed energy, good classes.

Back to Arizona for Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki

I am heading back to Arizona, this time to Phoenix, to followup on my earlier Master class in June for one of my students, Mike, who wasn't able to complete the full scheduled class then. Mike is assisting me at a Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki I-II class to follow his makeup session this weekend at his and his fiancee Andrea's house in Phoenix.

Arizona is like a breath of fresh air to me, the energy seems to lift me up, the sun cleans out all the East Coast mildew and my lungs seem to be twice the size they are here in Maryland. I definitely feel like it has become a second "retreat home" for me over the years, especially Sedona.

I am planning on driving up to Sedona tomorrow (I get in at 1:30pm and have some time to play). The mountains up there seem to be calling me to come back, take a hike, get some sun, and let some of the sadness of the past year go. Why the sadness? Well, let's just say that plans are like caterpillars, some of them become butterflies and some of them are just dead pupae. I have had a few dead pupae this year and need to focus on the butterflies that have flown, rather than those that haven't developed.

How to stay in a place of light? For me, sometimes the answer is to go within in meditation or healing or speaking with an inspirational friend or Master and sometimes...you just have to get out of town and go to a happy place. That, for me, is Sedona.

I call out to the guides and to God to be there with me and help me find my center once again, to spread my wings and be in a place of love, truth and light. Let me walk the path of Gratefulness once again....

I remember once again the Gokai or Reiki Principles:
Just for Today-
I release all anger.
I release all worry.
I am grateful.
I work hard.
I am kind to all.

Retreats: Good for the Soul

We just returned from Sedona, Arizona, where RCGW hosted a Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki Master/Teacher workshop. Conventional wisdom seems to be lately that people just want the basic facts, that they don't want to pay for the "fluffy" things such as scenery, meals and lodging. Sedona convinced me once again that a place and an experience are far superior than just the foundational "facts." Left is of Cathedral Rock, where we did an attunement.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Mikao Usui, the founder of the Usui System of Natural Healing (aka Reiki in the US) went to a mountain when he decided he needed a place to connect. I know that we can connect to any place on the earth from any other place (that's the principle we learn in Reiki II classes), but, to my mind, there is really something special about being in an energy vortex and having a learning experience while you're there.

I return to the DC area and realize that my spirit is coming back to the joyful level it was at the last time I was in Arizona...that was five years ago and way to long!

We went to three vortexes as part of the class (Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, and the Church on the Rocks) and I added another two with Terry Tindall, one of my students, the day after the class when we hiked to Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte. This view in picture two is of Bell Rock from when we were at the Church on the Rocks.

Sedona in May is a beautiful time: the wildflowers are blooming, the temps are variable, the skies are clear and there aren't gobs of people. It felt so good to breathe the fresh air, walk in the sunshine, and experience the joy of beauty in nature, combined with spirit...and a bit of shopping.

Congrats to Terrence Tindall, Marcia Thomas, and Iris Yu, who completed the workshop and are now SSR Master/Teachers. Mike Hilwig completed through Facet VI and is now an SSR VI Practitioner. I will be returning to complete his training in September 2010...stay tuned for the dates which will most likely be along with an SSR I-II class the last weekend in September.

Arizona Insights

I'm back from Sedona. I like to think of it as the anti-Washington, the place where conflict is non-existent, where drivers are polite, where people are nice, the sun is bright, and the energy uplifting. I wasn't disappointed this trip, even on the drive up from Phoenix.

I went there to teach a class with my partner, Steve, and an assistant, Krystal. We had four students: Mike, Iris, Marcia, and Terrence, aka Terry. The class was in Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki and included instruction in all of the seven levels or facets of the system.

We stayed at a lovely rental house called Red Rock Escape on Navahopi Road, about four blocks from the main street of Sedona. It was four blocks from my Karuna Reiki (R) teacher, Laurelle Gaia's shop, Peace Place. We visited the shop a couple of times. It has a large store, healing center, and class room area. We were only able to visit with Laurelle and her husband Michael briefly because they had a business trip the next day.

I incorporated natural sites for attunements, including Cathedral Rock, Airport Mesa, and in a walk with Terrence Tindall, Bell Rock. We also did attunements in rocking chairs on the front porch and in a lovely back yard with adirondack chairs. The class included the following exercises:

• Reiki Regressions - I was regressed back to a lifetime I had as Richard Douglas born in Louisiana in 1850 and died in 1931 in Atlanta, GA. In that lifetime, I worked very hard as a lawyer and felt that the work had not taken advantage of many opportunities to connect with family or other people in a more helpful way. Other students were regressed or progressed to early or future times using the Shining Everlasting Flower of Enlightenment symbol from SSR.
  
• Deep Aura Cleansing - We learned how to clear attachments from the aura using energy fields and the Shining Everlasting Living Waters of Ra symbol from SSR.
  
• Healing Attunements - We incorporated the SSR attunement energy to transform attached blocked energies.
  
• All Love/SKHM - We used meditation techniques and moving techniques from the All Love/SKHM system developed by my teacher Patrick Zeigler.

In addition to the above, the students did LOTS of healing, had five attunements, and gave each other multiple attunements in the 42 different variations of the SSR system.

I hope to do an SSR I-II class in Arizona at Mike and Andrea's house in Phoenix, AZ in September. I'm really looking forward to being back!