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Reiki. What is it and what is it not? That is what I have been asking myself for most of my life.

From the age of thirteen I was always interested in any thing spiritual – the tarot, angels and astrology. I had my first reading at fourteen and the first thing she said to me was ‘Do you know you are a natural healer and very psychic?’ I said ‘yes’ to the psychic bit but had no idea what she was talking about being a healer.

I started to sense spirit around me in my early twenties and I was still being told ‘you’re a healer my dear’. I thought ‘OK, I am a healer. Now what? Someone please explain to me’. But no one ever did – not until four years ago.

The loss of my baby grandson made my spiritual side come more to life than ever before. I was looking for answers big time and I found them in a lady who was my saviour and then became my teacher. With her help I learnt Reiki and am now a Reiki Master, practitioner and teacher. I love helping others get to their dreams. ‘Oh why did I leave it so long to do the work that I love’?

For those of you who do not know what Reiki is – it is a ‘hands on’ healing technique rediscovered by a man called Master Mikao Usui in the 1800’s. One day some students asked him about the healing methods used by Jesus Christ and whether he would be able to carry out such a healing for them. Usui was stunned and unable to answer these questions. On that day, Usui resigned his position and determined to find the answers of this mystery. His journey led him to America where he went to the university of Chicago and became a doctor of theology, but he still couldn’t find the answers he was looking for.

He travelled to North India where he studied the holy writings. He then later returned to Japan where he discovered some Sanskrit formulas and symbols in old Buddhist sutras which seemed to hold the answers to his questions. Realizing he had found the key to the healing, he began to meditate and came to the conclusion that he should proceed to a sacred mountain called Mount Kuriyama, about seventeen miles from Kyoto. He would commence a  twenty-one day fast and meditation in the hope of gaining contact with the level of consciousness the Sanskrit symbols had been written on in order to determine the truth of their contents.

Usui carried out one of his meditations on this sacred mountain. Kyoto is the former capital of Japan, a place with a thousand temples representing a whole range of deities. Mount Durama is also important from a martial arts perspectivem being the place where mountain spirits – tengu – are said to have given the secrets of fighting to the Samurai. Morihei Usheiba, founder of Aikido often took students to the mystical Shojobo valley to train.

Translated from the Japanese, Reiki means ‘spiritual energy’; it can be described as the energy of everything. To work with this energy is to experience life at its fullest, to be one with all that can be seen and not seen. A lot of people are afraid of Reiki but there is nothing to fear. It is a wonderful experience and everyone has a different experience – from feeling the heat from my hands to seeing colours and seeing their loved ones that have passed over to the spirit world.

We have seven main chakras that run down the body that are called;

• The Crown
• The Third Eye
• The Throat
• The Heart
• The Solar Plexus
• The Sacral
• The Root Chakra      
  

The chakras connect the spinal cord, the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system with our subtle body of vibrational energy called the bio electromagnetic field or aura. Chakras coincide with the body’s endocrine system. Each charka has an influence over the endocrine glands and internal organs n that part of the body where the charka is located. Sometimes their influence covers a broader area.

Chakras draw in divine life force energy (also called ki, chi or prana) from the Universe and distribute this vital energy in the physical glands and organs in the body and throughout the bloodstream and nervous system for optimum health and well being.

Reiki enters the body of a practitioner through the crown charka. From there it flows to the heart charka where it is transformed. It then flows through two energy channels that run from the heart charka across the chest towards both arms. The energy then runs down through both arms into the palm charkas and the fingertips from where it can be passed onto another person.

Love and Light

By: Marie Hickford

www.medicinelady.me.uk