March 28, 2005

8:39 p.m.

First Level Certification

Well, at least the upload banners page is no longer a big white blank. It's a big white blank with the friendly message, "Hold on a sec!" in the top corner. D'land hasn't had it easy these last couple of weeks. Forgive 'em.

Meanwhile, I had my first level Reiki certification today.

It was amazing.

I'd say "It was unbelievable," but it was completely believable, like a puzzle piece that falls perfectly into its spot with no question of it belonging anywhere else. I knew I was supposed to be there, my teacher knew it, we were both ready to proceed.

The session took about six hours, including a break for lunch. There was a certain amount of text learning involved, the history and definition of the art, etc., but a lot of that will also come later in remedial reading and study. The main events of the day were the attunement, and the actual healing treatment I was taught to give.

For anyone who doesn't know what Reiki is: it's an ancient healing art that originated in Japan. It involves the practitioner channeling energy, which is infused with the divine or higher consciousness, and the intention to heal, into and through the receiver's body, usually at the chakra points. This can be done with our without actually touching the person. It's passed down in a lineage. My teacher can trace her lineage back to the original guy. There are about 30 different kinds of Reiki right now, and slightly differing schools of thought among them regarding things like divulgence of the healing symbols. (There are now people who have published them in books, to which some others object. Ostensibly it's because they don't want anyone to "do harm" with them, but I think it's more that they shouldn't be watered down and rendered casual by observation and use that isn't reverent.)

What's a healing symbol anyway? That's what each "attunement" is about -- opening the student up to a particular symbol and, sort of, vacuuming out their insides (spiritually speaking) so all that energy can flow through in a torrent.

Which it does, believe me.

The symbol was cast behind me, over my head, and then drawn into my hand (not with ink, just with a finger) during the attunement. I felt like a large, invisible, painless drill was whirling out a big channel that started at the top of my head and went about down to my waist at first. It caused me to cry a lot. A minute later it continued down to the bottom of my torso, which caused me to laugh a lot. I just couldn't believe all the space that was in there. It was like my shoulders weren't even meeting in the middle. It was wonderful.

After lunch and some more text, she put me on the table and showed me how to give a healing treatment, step by step. In the course of this, she found some blockage that she said had to do with a past life event... we talked about that and it seemed strongly to have to do with my bipolar ex boyfriend who died... warrior stuff and wounding and control. It's very interesting that in two weeks I'm going on this silent retreat to deal with issues surrounding that man, as well as a couple of others (puzzling dead father, nimwit Will). Anyway, then I got to do the healing thing on her, and... it was fun! It was so delightful. It felt cool (though she assured me I may or may not feel anything during any given session, ditto the recipient), it felt right, and by the end of it all I was so exhausted I came directly home and crashed for a while.

I have books to obtain and charts and stuff to pore over. "This is my new life!" I thought to myself. "It's begun!" I'm a student again. It's a good place to be.

NOW, my job is to get my hands on as many people as I can, and practice, practice, practice. I can do it on myself, too; in fact she recommended I do a treatment every day. It requires some concentration and a little ritual, but it's easy. And of course there's that big well inside me now that's full of life force.

I feel quite different from the way I felt twelve hours ago.

I don't know if this feeling will persist, but she assured me it's flowing whether I'm aware of it or not. That's the cool thing about Reiki. It's just there, now.

I have tomorrow off, thank heaven, and then I'm gone for five days, recording and gigging. Mostly right now I'm looking forward to a good, whole night's sleep.