Reiki

It's hard to believe I've gone through 70 odd posts without mentioning Reiki. So here we go, Reiki is a 2,500 year old Tibetan healing modality based on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of the Medicine Buddha. Reiki consists of two Japanese kanji Rei - universal or spiritual and Ki - life force energy. It's a chakra based system of energy healing, based on the premise that the practitioner of Reiki taps into the universal matrix of energy that surrounds all existence. Energy healing in general is based on the premise that disease in the body is caused by blocked emotions, in chakras or meridians - meridians being energy channels, and chakras are large intersections of energy channels in the body. Reiki is kind of a spiritual Roto-rooter that unblocks.

I was first exposed to Reiki while in massage school, and to say that I was resistant is quite the understatement, I sat in the front row of the presentation arms folded and glaring the eye of doom at the presenter. Quite frankly, I thought the whole energy deal was crap and nonsense. Which just goes to show what I know. So I sit through a talk on the subject, then all folks in attendance are instructed on how to offer one another Reiki. I was working with my friend Ro, receiving Reiki, when one of the presenter came around and put one hand on me and one on Ro. I can be a little prone to hyperbole but it was a life altering experience for me. Not being a very kinetic sort, I was surprised that I needed to jump up and down for about 5 minutes just to get back in balance. And most notably of all, Reiki banished the insomnia that I'd been dealing with for 20 odd years. I was most surprised to start sleeping 5, 6, 7 hours a night for 6 or 7 nights a week. Used to call it a good week when I get 3 hours a night, 4 nights out of 7. So this new sleep pattern was quite deluxe.