Home

I arrived home on Friday, filling my time with the Reiki sessions for those I had rescheduled to help pack my parents and a HUGE Usui Reiki II class on Saturday and Sunday, March 13-14.

It had been a long time since I taught such a large class and it was a pleasure to co-teach it with my colleague and student, Reiki Master/Teacher Lu(cille) Shifrin. Lu prefers Lu to Lucille, but I'm reminded that Lucille means light and she was indeed a light for me.

I see that the path Reiki has built for me is one of light, one of connection, focus, and harmony, very much unlike the past week. Indeed, in the teaching of Usui Reiki II, we focus on these themes by working with symbols borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism to represent individual energies used in healing. I have chosen a path very different from the one my family has chosen; I seem to be less affected by losing material goods. I guess this is true because I'm more focused on spiritual ones that are harder to lose. This isn't a judgement (or maybe it is) of my family's own values, just a comparison of how my home is here versus my home in Minnesota.

I really do love what I do, even with missed appointments, up and down finances at times, the uncertainty of self-employment; I love to be in an atmosphere of growth, transformation, and a release of pain.

Thanks to the following students who joined us this past weekend:

• Randi Altman
• Summer Stevenson
• Carrie Williams
• Rebecca M
• Dan Hitchcock
• Linda Arvin
• Melissa Arvin
• Ida Kingsberry
• Irene Boone
• Andrew Johnson

Lu Shifrin has now completed her RCGW Certification to teach Usui Reiki I and II classes here at the center and will be teaching an already full Usui Reiki II class the first weekend in May. I am so grateful that she adds her strength to RCGW's. I also want to thank Krystal Jordan for her assistance in leading our two RCGW Reiki Student Clinics this past week while I was away. I am so lucky to have these souls of light in my life!

Second blizzard of February 2010

It's February 10, 2010, two feet of snow are in development in Maryland with about 18 inches on the ground so far. Yesterday, my Dad called me from Minnesota to tease, "is this the guy who moved South to avoid the snow?"

I have several pictures on my cellphone, but am not particularly technical, so for this posting you probably won't see them. Suffice it to say that our beagles, Lucy and Toby, aren't tall enough to walk through it without jumping up, and they are 13" and 15" respectively.

Steve is listening to Scarecrow and Mrs. King on his computer; our wi-fi network, newly-installed the day before the storm, is working fine...

One of my clients called me today looking for a remote session. Reiki and other methods have this available to help people with or without a telephone intermediary. I am thinking seriously about doing more remotes, or distant reiki, as they are usually called, to keep my practice thriving when clients can't get out. If the weather is indeed changing as Healing Angel Michael talked about in my last post, it may be time for Reiki Masters to develop better ways of teaching and healing distantly, with a quality training technology that lets people be interactive at a distance as well as hands-on.

Steve and I have not done much towards our move to Colorado in the past couple of months. So, spirit brings Colorado snows to us. Looking at the snow, I am thinking I will need to get more comfortable with my Yin energy, the energy of receiving, listening, meditating, being quiet and attracting. Living in the Washington, DC metro area for so long (26 years at last count), I have gotten very good at being "productive". I put the word in quotes because I refer to the action of being active, rather than necessarily being effective. If you are doing activity that is what is important in this area, even if the activity doesn't seem to do much for you. People here work till they drop and then they collapse into zombies watching television or taking sleep meds to quiet their minds for five hours to try to fill up a bit before doing it all again.

I am changing my pattern now. I am regularly meditating, asking spirit to show me, rather than telling spirit to direct me. I am working towards a pattern of health, rather than recreating a pattern of chronic illness as so many of my clients have. I am looking at causes that may go back to many past lifetimes where I died from lung ailments. In this lifetime, when my own lungs seem to be very tight, that is the very time I need to look at my life.

I don't know if this entry is very inspirational or just the ramblings of someone caught in the snow. Either way, it feels really good to sit in a comfortable chair, hearing the roar of the wind outside with a warm beagle lying next to me with her head on my leg. Right now, we have power, we have had eggs in the basket for breakfast and Earl Grey tea, we are safe, warm and loved. Right now is the most important time for us to live. Right now is the eternal time in which all life really happens.

November...a Month of Quiet Gratefulness

November 2009 has been a month of quiet gratefulness for me. It has been a chance to catch my breath, to host small, intimate classes, to explore my need for rest, spirit, and connection to others.

My parents and family have been talking to me lately about the transition my parents are going through, mostly due to some changes in health recently. I hear all sides, but I'm not really there, so the feeling of powerlessness arises that can really drain the energies, if not worked on. I know that there is little I can do other than to offer comfort. Health issues due to aging can be the hardest ones, since you assume that the trend is towards eventually transitioning from the earth plane to the other side. I have also had some health issues this month that have forced me to rest, reconnect with my home, puppies, and breathing...slowly, in and out, in and out, filling with the life-giving air and letting the old air go.

I now have a "wi-fi" connection that lets me blog at Panera and this feels very 21st century, very hi-tech, very "connected". But am I really connected OR am I sharinng a space with others who are connecting to their own worlds? We share coffee and bagels, I watch an old man adjust his pants in front of me, the fire is burning, someone next to me fiddles with his bills, another man is watching a movie, someone else is reading a book. Are we really connected here? We have the semblance of being "together" but we aren't interacting with one another at all.

With Reiki, I try to help my students to truly connect with themselves and others. Connection in this case means touch, energy, questioning and sharing impressions, and "holding space" for another's healing process. Even in someone who is presumably healthy, there is room for healing, a movement back to increased wholeness.

I had asked my guides whether November was going to be a good month and received the message that December would be wonderful...such is the case with rest: it's needed, but doesn't seem to fill the coffers. I was a bit freaked out that I had such quiet this month, but now I see that I have been given a gift, the chance to see how things have evolved while I was too busy to pay attention fully to them. What I see is that I need to make room for the earth and daily maintenance tasks as I quest for greater and greater energy experiences. I need to do the laundry, shop for and fix meals, pay the bills, clean the house, take care of the dogs, etc. When I don't do these things for awhile, they feel like they mount up in an overwhelming mound of stuff that I feel is too much to handle. I just need to do a bit every day and let go of the worrying.

This Thursday, when I join Ridgely and Amy at their Thanksgiving dinner, I will invite my spirits and friends energetically to join us in thanking our creator for the opportunity to see how things have evolved while we were busy doing other things. Thanks for the time to find stillness once again.