Friction creates heat.

Heat=Climate change. Here’s the latest in the state of affairs.

After my last post which was somewhat hopeful about climate change, the news has been less so, with a lot of equivocating. Not all is lost, yet, but certainly the big commitments that are needed from governments and businesses aren’t materializing.

The New York Times reported on Oct 20 that, “With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming.”

There’s a sense of overwhelm because as usual we started too late in taking measures to mitigate climate change. Vested interests want to only do the minimum, which is how we got here in the first place. According to NPR, “President Barack Obama’s visit to China next month is not likely to yield a separate accord on countering global warming…”

There’s quite a bit of talk about investing in clean energy, its technology and potential for job creation and revenue. Where this talk leads is up in the air. Bloomberg reported recently that, “Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and donate $100 million to an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers.”

Developed and developing nations are squabbling over who must pay for measures to mitigate this threat we’re all facing. The New York Times is posting such headlines as Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It, and NPR reports EU can’t agree on how much climate aid to give.

Fortunately, this isn’t the only news in climate change. Blog Action Day which took place on Oct 15 generated 31,000 trackable blog posts in 155 countries. The Reiki Help Blog was one of 13,000 participating blogs, and news of the event even made CNN.

There’s also similar people-based action on climate change featured below. Why is this important?

Two reasons:

1) There has to be a groundswell of citizen voices, demands and actions, for leaders aren’t stepping up.

2) Behavior, psychology and the mindset can only be changed by massive commitments to mitigating this monster.

A disturbing story on NPR had this to say: “…a new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press shows a big jump in the number of people who doubt the reality, the cause and the risks of global warming. Last year, for example, 71 percent of those polled believed the Earth was getting warmer, regardless of the cause. This year, 57 percent believe that – still a sizable majority but a 14 percent drop over the course of one year.”

This, despite a recent study linking climate change to worsening of diseases.

Adam Corner has an insightful reason why this is so. In an astute piece he writes, “But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle – psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.”

Apparently even in the good old United Kingdom people “don’t feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise.”

That’s why an organization I’m recently enamored of, 350.org, is one with which I strongly encourage you to become involved.

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis–the solutions that science and justice demand. Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.

Our focus is on the number 350–as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number–it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year.  This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009.  We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.

Here’s a video of that Oct 24 global event The 350 Movement: October 24, 2009 – The Day the World Came Together (for email subscribers.)

COP15 starts on December 7, 2009. That’s my son’s birthday. He will be eleven.

He has always wanted to be a scientist. Climate change will have to have been long handled by the time he gets to be one, but I know his contributions will be great, wherever they are.

Lately he’s been into mystery novels and told a career person at school he wants to be a PI. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear! Maybe he can out climate-deniers’ real agenda or out dirty energy users (hopefully neither will exist by then).

COP stands for Conference of Parties, and it will be occurring for the 15th time. To put it into context, COP8 took place in Kyoto, Japan in 1992.

COP15 will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s in fact the United Nations Climate Change Conference to renegotiate Kyoto’s replacement, as it expires  in 2012 and has always been too lenient.

Back to my son for a minute. In 2050 he will be 52.

The group [Climate Action Initiative] took the upper-range targets of nearly 200 nations’ climate policies–including U.S. cuts that would reduce domestic emissions 73 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, along with the European Union’s pledge to reduce its emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 — and found that even under that optimistic scenario, the average global temperature is likely to warm by 6.3 degrees. (Washington Post.)

Recently I watched a 60 Minutes piece on the last great migration of large animals, the wildebeest. I don’t know that my son is going to be able to live in a world where he can witness such a natural phenomenon. My first feeling was to put us on plane to Africa to see it for ourselves.

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again. The Reiki Help Blog is participating for the third year. Previous themes were Poverty and the Environment. This year the focus is Climate Change, a subject that’s very much part of the past content of this blog.

There has never been any really good arguments or evidence disproving global warming which is now already happening and heading toward critical levels.

When the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, the report it issued really silenced all other voices. Well, there are a few still. Leo Hickman of the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper recently reported about a TV ad paid for by an oil industry lobbyist telling Americans “more CO2 results in a greener earth.” Video of ad (for email subscribers).

This kind of unconscionable lobbying is part of the fray, as infuriating and puzzling as it may be. The fact of the matter is, “…recent scientific assessments have outstripped the predictions issued by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007″ as reported in the Washington Post article linked above.

These figures can be seen on ClimateInteractive.org.

We have yet to appreciably mitigate climate change, but the bogeyman has morphed. What’s different is that it’s now topical in a highlighted, urgent manner, with focused international attention on it. If that will be enough is anyone’s guess. Is it too late to take action? Perhaps. One thing is for sure. We can’t not take action. That would be collective suicide, and we’ll have grossly failed in the substantial stewardship that has been bestowed on us as the most “evolved” species.

In September, secretary general Ban Ki-moon organized the UN climate summit meeting at which Obama spoke clearly and assertively “to make the United States a leader in the global arena on global warming” (New York Times). It’s well worth reading his entire presentation, even just to see how much has happened in the U.S. response to this challenge (finally). There’s movement, much more precise, frequent and targeted movement than before.

Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe. No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out. -President Obama, New York, Sept. 22, 2009

And with December’s COP15 summit in Copenhagen occurring around the same time and region as the Dec. 10 Nobel festivities in Oslo, environmentalists have even greater hope: “Now that we know President Obama will be in Scandinavia in December,” says the WWF’s U.S. climate-change director, “expectations are even higher that he will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in person to usher in a fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement.”

Following his speech, Obama also greenlighted the EPA’s “new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities” (New York Times).

September’s New York summit also gave “a strong boost to the negotiations over a major international treaty” (The Guardian). According to The Guardian’s online reporting:

Although the political leaders must devise and implement the right policies to guide national and global emissions trajectories, it is the private sector that will be the main engine in the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

In that respect it was very encouraging that 181 investors, collectively responsible for the management of more than $13 trillion in assets globally, launched a statement in New York last week to support a global agreement on climate change. The Leadership Forum for business leaders, which ran alongside the summit, also highlighted a tremendous variety of innovative ideas from within the private sector for the low-carbon transition.

Also in the private sector, Apple became “the latest company to resign from the United States Chamber of Commerce over climate policy” (New York Times), precisely because the chamber opposes EPA rules above. Encouragingly, three large utilities have also resigned from the chamber — Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon.

And one of the most encouraging displays of political will has come from Norway, which “said it may reduce greenhouse- gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, the most ambitious target proposed by a developed nation” according to Bloomberg.

The pledge puts Norway ahead of the 27-nation European Union and Switzerland, which have said they’ll cut emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2020 if a new United Nations treaty to fight global warming is brokered in Copenhagen in December. -Bloomberg

Everything is looking toward Copenhagen in December, which is fraught with considerable challenges. To list all of them would require a scholarly work. Being informed is critical and vital, especially about climate change.

I strongly encourage you to spend concentrated time with the following resources:

1. Keep track of the COP15 treaty at 350.org.
2. Find out who’s representing your country at COP15 and what they think at AdoptANegotiator.org.
3. Petition your representative to support a climate treaty that will reduce carbon emissions at WeCanSolveIt.org.

On the same 60 Minutes broadcast that brought the story of the threatened migration of the wildebeest, another eye-opening story was exposed about coal ash. You probably have never heard of coal ash and may believe electricity is clean. Well, watch the segment.

I physically became depressed after watching those two segments. It was a whole-body sinking. I was depressed for my son, the Earth and humanity.

In matters of such scale we can no longer expect leaders of any stripe to do all the work or even do the right thing. Truth has been concealed, spun and ignored again and again.

We must be personally involved!

In the weeks leading up to December, climate change will be regularly featured on this blog and starting with this post I urge all of you to become engaged in this call to action here with your comments and ideas, in your own lives, and by becoming educated, clicking through to the many resources that will be linked.

If you are new here or haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe via email. You can also friend me on Twitter.

The following came to me around the same time as the message from Bear, previously published.

The Eagle am I soaring the heights. My friend the Mountain also sees what I see. We speak often when I come home after a day’s survey. My survey yields troubling results. I see an erosion of values and priorities. I see humanity dominating but not ruling fairly the family of Life. War and injustice have become the way of humanity, so far have you trodden from the Good Road. You wage war on Nature and your own kind. The being that Great Spirit created with a thumb and ability to reason, has failed its mission and is lost.

I also see that there are wisdom-bearers amongst you. You are a minority but don’t underestimate your influence. You are placed carefully in various spheres of society, bringing the teachings of a higher mind to the affairs of Earth. There are still places where when you look up to the sky it is clear blue and clean. There is, however, a murky layer of misdeeds and suffering that the human eye doesn’t see. It is a collective, unclean energy generated through ages of greed, anger, lust and misuse of power. The wisdom-bearers hold the ballast, the balance and the way out.

Come to my lofty height and take heart, for you are full of courage. This is a time of testing and initiation. The wisdom you hold is to be claimed and your full power returned to you. This is the task of bringing honor back to Life and all its expressions. Those of you who remember honor and share it with yourself and others, it is your time to rise. This you do out of Love.

And The Waters had this to say:

I am the spirit of the Waters of the Earth. Come to me for clarity and for depth. When you are mired in confusion and can’t get below the surface, reach any of my shores. Whether you can get to a lake, ocean, creek or simple canal, visit with me. Gaze at my surface and calm your mind. Watch my sister the Wind dancing across and let me take the troubles out of your heart. I cleanse and renew. I recharge and reestablish flow.

You can call in or listen online. You can even listen via iTunes. Visit this page to learn more:

Here’s the description of this particular show:

Weekly show on Natural Medicine, Hypnotherapy, NLP, Nutrition, Fitness with Dr. Michael Holt the founder of the Magi Institute of Natural Medicine and his special guests Pamir Kiciman to discuss Reiki.

Pamir Kiciman is a Soul Whisperer and Life Enrichment educator, and founder of Oasis Reiki. He specializes in Original/Classical Japanese Usui Reiki Training. He has worked in a variety of environments in 15 years of teaching, including time spent at Imperial Point Medical Center in South Florida. Pamir has also conducted Reiki Training at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Nursing. Recently, he was selected as a Featured Voice on Intent.com. Pamir has spent the last 15 years training himself and others in subtle energy, intentional healing, holistic health, meditation, spiritual psychology, nonduality, and world wisdom traditions.

Above all else, Pamir is dedicated to being a catalyst for a transformation by bringing soul and the teachings of Oneness to the forefront in individuals and in society at large. Pamir educates people through various channels, including his own Reiki Help Blog.

Reiki is most popularly known as a hands-on healing art, which it is in one of its applications. Hands-on Reiki is in fact rooted in spiritual discipline, the basis of which is meditation. Usui Sensei taught specific meditations. Similarly, Reiki is known as energy healing, which it does facilitate. What’s often missed, however, is that before energy can exist there first has to be consciousness. It is by participating in this primordial consciousness that Reiki fulfills its true purpose for practitioner and recipient alike.

And, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again: An annual nonprofit event, it aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year’s topic is focused on Climate Change, by unanimous voting.

The Reiki Help Blog has participated for the last two years. In 2008 the topic was poverty and I posted about the availability of clean, potable water to all populations of the world.

In 2007 the topic was the environment and as one of the earlier posts on this blog, I’m quite proud of this entry.

Climate change is not new to this blog. As stewards of our environment and spiritual practitioners, we are the only ones who can really do something about it!

With this in mind, I started the Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP). I’m curating these stories. This project started back in June with two remarkable stories of Reiki working in human lives.

Then came yet another eye-opening testimonial, this time showing oxygen saturation increasing during Reiki on a hospital monitor. The Reiki Stories Project is open to everyone who has a story to add. You may email it to me or leave it in comments below.

Please make sure you read the previous entries in this series.

Last Friday, a woman I work with was hit by a forklift. The driver spun around very fast & didn’t see my co-worker standing there. The fork lift blades hit her foot and knocked her over. Her shoe strap broke, thank God, so her foot flew out of the shoe. The shoe was stuck under one of the blades and could not be pulled out without lifting up the blades. Needless to say, she limped away from what could’ve been a fatal accident.

All I wanted to do was get my hands on her foot, but there were too many people around her. I gave her Reiki with my eyes. Fortunately, when she returned from the hospital, I heard her in the supervisor’s office. I went in and saw her trying to hold her foot up while filling out paperwork.

I went in, put my hands under her foot to keep it elevated and began giving her Reiki. Then, I moved one hand to the back of her knee for support. I didn’t tell her what I was doing. Her body started to relax and her eyes closed slightly. Then, she said, “Your hands feel so soothing. You know, I should probably do one of those Reiki sessions with you.”

“Hahaha! We are doing one right now (I thought to myself).” Anyway, I haven’t seen her until this morning. I asked how she was doing and she said, with a big smile, “Great!” she said, “Listen, I have to tell you something. I always bruise. Anytime I hit something, I bruise. I’ve been watching and waiting for my foot to turn colors. Remember how swollen it was? My family can’t believe it. No bruise! It’s fine. I can’t believe it.”

–C.C., Miami, Fla

Recently I reviewed an excellent book on Shintoism on this blog. This is a nature-derived teaching and practice. There’s also quite a bit of environmental and ecological content here.

For the first time I also shared a channeled message two postings ago: The Error of Ways for all of humanity.

There it explains that I’ve been a conscious channel for fifteen years. One way that messages come to me is through interspecies communication. A substantial example of this can be found in The Sainthood of Sequoias.

Spread out over several posts, I’ll be sharing messages I’ve received from the Natural world that started coming in around 2002.

THE BEAR

“I am Bear and I hibernate for long periods of time. You call this meditation. I also love honey. You call this bliss or joy. Many have lost the capacity for joy. There are a great many reasons for killjoy. There are a great many reasons for misery and heartache. I used to have stomping grounds without limit, as did my brethren. My numbers thrived and all was good. But I see that humans hurt more. My medicine is introspection in the cave of my being and this you have forgotten. This you must practice in community again. In every community, every day. Gather those who are rushing, destroying, hoarding, blaming, hating and not listening. Gather them in a group embrace of introspection, a timeout to revision what your society could be.

“Humanity is disconnected. Your thinking is askew. Fear is rampant and decisions create hurt, not laughter or prosperity. Decisions at all levels, communally and globally are decisions based on hoarding wrong power to alleviate fear and gratify shallow goals. Bring those who misstep to the energy or mindfield of nourishment from the real Source. Help the disconnected ones hear the wisdom of their inner being.

“There was once a man who sold his wares. He was a decent man and lived simply. Someone took his business away from him by manufacturing more of what he made by hand and selling it for a lower price. He couldn’t eat. Neither could his family. He felt ashamed and angry. They took his land too and his home. This happened to all his neighbors and they rebelled, naturally. His neighbors went underground and waged battle. But this man went to nature and sought solace there. In the cave of his being he saw another way.

“When he came out of hiding, he waged battle too, but with reform and justice, not weapons and bloodshed. He’d discovered the power to change minds and hearts, first in himself through introspection, then in others, even his onetime enemy. In the end everybody won and his neighbors honored him as did his foe.

“Bring your people under one roof and help them collect themselves. Help them pick up the debris of their being and piece it together again. You will find that this is possible and brings peace.”

1) It’s the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. Last year, I posted extensively on the significance of this day and how it can be made the most of. Click here to read all the details and resources.

This year, I’m including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s Message on the International Day of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament. The video is below. (If you’re an email subscriber, you’ll have to click through to the blog to view it.)

2) There’s a wonderful organization called Avaaz. The organizers and everyone they call to action like you and me simply want to bring sanity back to the world.

On September 21st Avaaz has organized a Global Climate Wake-Up Call! There are many types of events: phone-call flash-mobs, The Age of Stupid film premiere screenings, mass rallies. There are worldwide events and you can go here to find one near you.

3) Finally, it’s the third night of the Nine Nights of the Goddess or Navratri.

Three new heavenly (Satya Loka) forms of the Goddess are to descend during this year’s Navaratri. These three Goddesses are Ayur Devi, Amrita Lakshmika and Anuradha Kramana Saraswati. These Goddesses will rule the Golden age that will start in 2012, but as a planet we can accelerate this consciousness now.

Anuradha Kramana Saraswati will be in charge of the new science and technology. Ayur Devi will revive Ayurveda and siddha medicine. Amrita Lakshmika will bring in a new economic system that will bring prosperity to everyone.

The Goddess descends into the earth for only 9 days. This year this 9 days fall on September 19th – 27th. There are three dominant Goddess categories that are known as Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

Ayur Devi is a form of Durga, who represents power to destroy negativity in the form of poverty, laziness, fear and evil and criminal tendencies.

Amrita Lakshmika is a new Lakshmi who is predominantly the energy of luxury, wealth and material power.

The third divinity is Anuradha Kramana Saraswati, the Satya Yuga Saraswati. She is in charge of inspiration, motivation, discrimination, knowledge, music, fine arts, science and technology.

They each share three nights of the nine nights of the Goddess called as Navaratri.

There will be a live telecast from India of the rituals performed on the 3rd, 6th and 9th days.

Homa to Ayur Devi – September 21st, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM
Homa to Amrita Lakshmika – September 24th, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM
Homa to Anuradha Kramana Saraswati – September 27th, 2009	8:30 AM till 10:30 AM

Each Goddess has 3 nights dedicated to her. It starts with Durga, continues with Lakshmi and ends with Saraswati.

GODDESS DURGA: During Durga’s time you worship Durga with a red flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Dhum Durgaiya Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

GODDESS LAKSHMI: During Lakshmi’s time you worship Lakshmi with a pink flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Shreem Lakshmiyai Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

GODDESS SARASWATI: During Saraswati’s time you worship Saraswati with a white flower and petals. Chant the mantra “Om Aim Saraswatayai Namaha” 108 times. Offer incense, candlelight, and fruits.

–from Astroved.com

This video from enlightened Siddha master Dattatreya Siva Baba adds much regarding the new forms of the trinity of Goddesses:

I spontaneously started channeling fifteen years ago when I first began meditating. It was Kuan Yin who visited, to my great honor. I had a friend living in China at the time who mailed me a white porcelain statue of Kuan Yin after hearing my loving praise of her. This statue is 18 inches tall and fairly substantial. It arrived unannounced one day in my mailbox, together with a giant batik of Kuan Yin. These items still decorate my home.

My friend didn’t tell me she was sending it. The statue was unscathed in its journey from China, and it wasn’t even wrapped that well. That’s what Goddesses do. They show up in your mailbox in all their splendor.

I’m a conscious channel, meaning I hear, know and experience all that is being transmitted at the time, and remember it once it’s finished. I’ve channeled several well known beings, and some that were personally significant to me. For some years now, I haven’t formally channeled.

Before I stopped, it was communicated to me that I’m an integral part of the message, shaping, interpreting, vocalizing and embodying the transmission. And later messages were all from Spirit, not a particular being, as is the one I share here.

I haven’t taken this blog into this arena until now. Since March of this year, I’ve been sharing monthly Reiju / Community Healing / Life Alignment. There are two hundred names on the sign up sheet. Click here to find out more.

The following came through during September’s Reiju which was conducted on 9/9/009. You can search online about the significance of this date. I hope it moves, informs and helps you.

The Error of Ways

There’s greatness in you. A greatness that comes from being here in this time of shifting. The shift is felt in lots of ways, and is often disguised under turbulence. Don’t be fooled by this. This is only the surface effect. What lies underneath is harmony.

A shift in the error of ways is bound to throw up a dust storm, a debris cloud. This error of ways is longstanding, entrenched and deep in the subconscious of humanity.

But deeper still in human memory and DNA lies truth. The truth of egalitarian ways, ways that honor life and others and fellow beings. The tree is your fellow being, the person to your left or right is of the same origin.

The error of ways is a deluded departure from the heart to the brain, from spirit into matter, from unity to strangers. It is the way of ego, of smallness.

This now is a time of Heart. Those with the biggest and strongest Hearts will usher in the shift. Those same don’t fear the turbulence, recognize it as an effect only. This is the greatness you have inside. You don’t buy the temporary. Your greatness comes from an ancient memory of harmony.

You were born for this. It doesn’t matter what your life looks like, your bank account, your health, your relationships. What matters is you’re here and have chosen a peaceful way, a way that recognizes it’s bigger than you. You are not your symptoms, but the light that shines in spite of them.

You are great. This now is the end of greed, of duplicity. This now is the coming forth of supernatural generosity and gifting. The Earth is bestowed with a garland of generosity. You are here to decorate every living thing with it. To give life new fragrance. To dress life with the colors of sublime love, the chromatic splendor of true light.

The shift wouldn’t be a shift if it was business as usual. It’s precisely because there’s chaos and uncertainty that you know there’s change. When a wrecking ball takes down an old building, it’s not pretty. The error of ways has gone so far that only a great crashing, a tumbling of huge magnitude will make an impression, and way for the enlightened.

The enlightened prefers to whisper, gently suggest and let free will and choice pick it up from there. This is the norm and it still operates. When you meditate or heal, the enlightened is in subdued mode, waiting for the guidance to take hold in you.

Many of you have also known that even on an individual basis, the enlightened will pick up a jackhammer to let you know something’s got to give. There’s a major mess in your life, then with your action and cooperation, order returns.

So much so when the error of ways is global and doesn’t only threaten society but the very planet on which societies exist: The inescapable necessity of the shift has to be communicated in stark terms for it to take hold, for society to stop the madness.

Stop the madness of plundering natural resources, abdicating human and animal rights, amassing obscene fortunes, pushing the planet to the brink, allowing hunger and poverty, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, turning your health over to pharmaceuticals, war mongering, genocide, personal and cultural aggrandizement. Stop.

You are great because to a large degree you have stopped. You. There are much bigger forces at play and at times it seems your stopping the error of ways is having little to no impact. Stop this thought too.

You are forerunners. Wayshowers. The ballast. If it weren’t for you, it may already have been too late for this planet. Your power may be unnoticed in the halls of earthly power, but it’s recorded in eternity. And this is eternity delivering a wallop to the power holders and brokers.

If you weren’t a transition-maker, you wouldn’t be here, be in the exact circumstances you’re in. Don’t undervalue your place, don’t get caught up in the symptoms of your life. You’re doing your own work too, and some of it is messy. But greater than any of it is the work of ages being done by you and through you.

The only school for this work is lifetimes. The only degree is evolutionary motive. This is not your first commencement!

–Spirit through Pamir Kiciman 9/9/2009

This summer the Reiki One-Liner passed the 250 mark. It goes out only on weekdays, so that’s 50 weeks of a unique form of discipline and practice.

Initially I started writing these to educate my social network about Reiki. Very soon it became a rich way for me to consider the depth and breadth of Reiki.

Each writing reveals a new facet, usually not thought of before. Or, as I interact with Reiki, share it and teach it, watch it working in others and receive Reiki stories, it reveals new facets. Here’s one coming to me right now:

Reiki is a shining gem with endless facets.

There are four previous posts of 50 Reiki One-Liners each. Reading these as a list can become meaningless.

A Practice:

What I suggest is to go through each post one at a time, including this one, and write down your favorite few. These may be your favorite because you feel a certain way when you read them, or it points to a truth you love, or a truth you need.

Then, select one of and take it into meditation. Post it on your mirror or computer screen. You can also journal about it, using the one-liner as your prompt.

When you’re done with your initial favorites, visit the posts again and select another handful to grow into even more facets of Reiki.

Reiki One-Liner^SM

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are 50 new Reiki One-Liners:

1. A diagnosis is local. You are nonlocal. Reiki brings this home.
2. A powerful showering of Light is a major facet of Reiki.
3. All-healing Love is a primary color in Reiki.
4. Has your life gone awry? Reiki will reset it in away that serves you for years to come.
5. Healing stored negative emotions and energies is a main benefit of Reiki.
6. In face of unchanging symptoms, Reiki brings an abiding knowing.
7. It’s not only symptomatic healing Reiki provides; it can heal an entire life.
8. Reiki *hears* you without filters.
9. Reiki accelerates your evolution.
10. Reiki activates all your immune systems: physical, psychological, and spiritual.
11. Reiki allows while you grow to your next tier.
12. Reiki brings your worrying into perspective and keeps you calm.
13. Reiki develops a self-healing psychology hiding under all of your symptoms.
14. Reiki doesn’t address only the here-and-now, but the then and later, and the timeless.
15. Reiki eases the experience of being infinite in a finite world and fulfills it to the highest degree.
16. Reiki emerges who you are in the most natural, no-excuses way.
17. Reiki engenders the pure awareness that’s not based on thoughts and emotions.
18. Reiki heals the person and thus the extended life of that person.
19. Reiki helps you incarnate fully so you can really do “this” and live the sacred too.
20. Reiki helps you listen to life with your whole being, not only your head.
21. Reiki helps you see the essence of yourself and others.
22. Reiki helps you sit in your belly (hara) and handle life from there.
23. Reiki helps you suspend judgment and levels personalities.
24. Reiki increases your Light quotient.
25. Reiki is a provider, teacher and wayshower of compassion.
26. Reiki is a two-way elevator between Heaven and Earth.
27. Reiki is constant and fail-safe.
28. Reiki is integrated with life, not locked up in the intellect.
29. Reiki is the energetic equivalent of oxygen.
30. Reiki is the radical realization that your umbilical cord is intact and has only changed form and scope.
31. Reiki is the spontaneous cascade of Love.
32. Reiki lets you solidly know there’s healing available despite symptoms.
33. Reiki merges the you living in linearity with the You that envelopes time/space.
34. Reiki opens the sacred space within that can also be a liveable place without.
35. Reiki provides a lifeline in times of personal or global crisis.
36. Reiki provides a steadiness of heart and mind.
37. Reiki reminds you to settle in the belly (hara) when the mind overthinks.
38. Reiki removes the heat and burn of anger from your mindbody.
39. Reiki reveals the value of honesty in all you are and do.
40. Reiki shows you how to be humble without compromising yourself.
41. Reiki shows you the umbilical cord you have to the sun, the cherry tree and the rain.
42. Reiki soothingly buffers you when life’s upsets visit.
43. Removing excess baggage, outmoded ideas and clutter happens naturally in Reiki.
44. Strong immunity means integrity. Reiki takes you there.
45. Symptoms are information, not who you are. Reiki solidifies this knowing.
46. When life is pressuring you, Reiki acts as a relief valve.
47. When nothing works, Reiki still does.
48. When walking the path and doing the work, Reiki is an unmatched wayshower and aid.
49. With Reiki you gain access to healing a pinpoint or the whole tapestry.
50. You are the link between the healed and unhealed. Reiki gives you the courage to embrace the healing long buried.

I’ve always been a city-dweller and nature-lover. Not a nature-lover as someone in sandals to be made fun of, but really receiving solace and power from natural spaces. Before my ‘official’ awakening, Nature was my main source of a greater reality. Today, I continue to have deep reverence for her and speak on her behalf on this blog, and in various avenues of activism.

This isn’t about granola. It’s about humanity’s symbiotic relationship with Nature. Nature was here first. Planet Earth is Nature. There was only earth to walk on before cobblestones and later concrete and asphalt. We accept that roads and tall buildings are our normal environment; that’s all we’ve known. But what’s under our feet?

When we’re in a parking lot, our thoughts aren’t about what was there before (a meadow, a stream). Our thoughts are about, “Is she leaving so I can park closer?” When we enter a structure of glass and steel we don’t think, “I wonder if there was a stand of trees here?” We think, “I hope the line isn’t long at the bank.”

We are disconnected from our home. Not the one with a mortgage, but the one that enlivens us and is one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever had the privilege to receive.

Reverence, love and gratitude for Nature has also been part of all the enduring teachings we have had access to throughout history.

In an attempt to get closer to Japanese culture and thinking so that my understanding and passing on of Reiki is enhanced and grounded, I started reading a delightful book:

Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth by Stuart D. B. Picken.

Shinto is Japan’s native spirituality, born of the earth. It was there before Buddhism and permeates Japanese society even today. It’s a nature-based teaching and practice that is accessible to everyone. I want to share the very clear lens on Nature that’s available through this natural tradition.

In Shinto, observation (kannagara) is the first step. Picken writes:

Look at nature, looking beyond either its beauty or the scars caused by human activity. Ponder anew the mystery of creation, growth, and sustenance, as well as nature’s capacity to to heal and renew. Wonder at the infinity of the cosmos. the myriad of stars and planets, and the unique position of the earth that permits the delicate balance for life to exist. Consciousness of the great flow of the cosmos is awareness of kannagara, the movement of the divine within us and around us. Observation with an open mind helps purify our vision.

There are specific meditations in Shinto which Picken presents as “litanies” that he has written specifically for his book. There’s such truth and inspiration in these passages, and unfortunately I can only quote a few, and excerpts at that.

“In Shinto rituals, earth is the most basic of the elements. Earth is celebrated in all its fairness and beauty and in its power to feed and support life through growth and development.”

Think of how earth was conceived of as a mother and revered for her fertility, her abundant gifts, and her ability to nurture and support life

Shinto took its clues from everything around, which before industrialization was all natural. If it was there in such beauty, power and self-existent, it had to be sacred. Therefore, Shinto is non-conceptual. It’s the spirituality of place. And one of the major elements of Japanese ‘places’ is all the great waterfalls of these islands. Waterfalls are used as misogi, purification.

“Let us think of the waterfall as a concentration of beauty, power, and energy united in endlessly renewing flow”

The Litany of the River includes many truths:

“Identity amid impermanence is what gives a rivers its name

“In the depth and width, the river reminds us of the difficult expanses of life that must be traversed”

Trees are greatly honored. A shimenawa (thick twisted rope) is tied around trunk to show its sacredness.

Trees teach us about growth

They also stand for shelter

They are, like water, living organisms

Ponder the meaning of growth and development

Think of how we know nature through our senses, our eyes, our taste, our sense of smell and touch, our awareness and deep intuitions

Stones, wind and lightening, and fire also have litanies in Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth, the reading of which alone brings one closer to the natural environment that is still our home, despite pervasive and intrusive technology.

The final litany in the book is dedicated to mountains. From a Reiki perspective it’s revealing to learn that Tendai monks had a discipline called Sen-nichi-kai-ho-gyo: Running 1000 days around the peaks of Mt. Hiei “to extend and enrich the human capacities.”

Think of the idea of ascent for purification and enlightenment to a sacred place for communion with the divine

. . . Think of how it remains unchanged yet changes its mantle with the seasons

Think of it as the home of life, the source of the river, and the shelter from the winds

The way these litanies move you to a new appreciation of our lost connection with Nature is remarkable. The book’s core message is found in these two sections which are repeated in all the litanies:

Our senses have been dulled and dimmed, and we see earth not as the environment of our life, but as a tool to be used

Our senses are blind to its mystery and meaning

Our senses need purification that will enable us to see nature as our teacher and guide

And:

In opening ourselves to nature, in seeking its purification, and in hearing what it has to teach us, may we find enlightenment as we share in the fusion of ourselves with the universe that brings us back to the divine that is within the human

The final question for all of us, as Picken puts it so clearly is: “The worlds of the sociosphere and the biosphere seem very far apart. Can they meet?”

They must meet.

Today, I received a proof positive type of story from a brand new Level I practitioner I trained only 2 weeks ago:

“I want to share with you what has happened recently. My Mother is in the hospital and she was on a machine that measures oxygen intake and when the number falls below 90 it beeps and flashes a red alert. The nurse said that if it stays below 90 and especially if it gets into the 70-75 range and stays there it is not good, and they would have to intervene with other maybe drastic measures.

I was in the room when the alert sounded and it stayed like that for almost 7 minutes, and the nurse was concerned. I then placed my hands on her chest and tried to stay very neutral and remembered what you said about not doing anything and just let it flow.

At first nothing happened and I just kept doing it without expecting anything. After maybe 2 minutes the machine stopped beeping and the count went over 90 and stayed like that.

When I took my hands off it went back down, and when I put my hands on her again the count went to 98 and stayed there even after I took my hands away.

I know it was Reiki and I felt the energy flowing and I just kept trying not to have any conscious thought that I was doing anything, even though it was an amazing thing to see and I was very thrilled.

My Mother felt better and I have been doing that everyday. When I placed my hands on her she let go of all tension and I felt it leave her whole body like she was exhaling all stress and tension. This was the most amazing feeling to be a part of and I had never experienced this before and I was just stunned! Wow!…

I am so grateful to have found Reiki and I want to thank you for your guidance and introducing me to this beautiful Reiki.”

Blessed be!

What has Reiki shown you of itself?

Today we have ‘gurus’ and ‘pandits’ in every field, especially technology. Karma is mentioned on a popular bumper sticker, and used loosely in everyday conversation. It’s a complicated and complex subject.

I’ve found the following from one of the most respected Buddhist teachers dispensing dharma (look it up!) today, Pema Chödrön, to be very helpful. It avoids some of the more esoteric aspects of this involved teaching and presents a practical approach.

Please let me know how it has put things into perspective for you in comments below. (The bold sections are my highlighting.)

When something happens to us that we find really painful—an insult, a physical ailment, the loss of someone we love dearly—the Buddhist teachings train us to understand that we have just been given an opportunity to repay a karmic debt…The karmic understanding need not be religious nor an occasion for guilt. In fact, it can allow us to act without being guilt-ridden. Anything I cause someone else to feel, either pleasant or unpleasant, resulting from my words, actions, and activities, I myself will feel sooner or later. What goes around comes around. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it comes back in the same form, but somehow anything I’ve caused someone else to feel, I will feel at some point in the future. This system applies to good feelings as well, but my focus here is on the karmic repercussions that cause us to settle the score.

Therefore, when something unpleasant happens to me, I know it is a debt coming back. I have no idea what I did, so it’s not something I have to feel guilty about…I have no need to go into the history of how I got here. I just say, “I am feeling this.” At this point, I have a chance for the buck to stop here. This stimulus does not need to be the cause of evening the score in the usual pain-causing way.

Instead, at this point you can apply a meditation method that would circumvent the habitual score settling. Whatever practice you use, the point is to stay with the underlying uneasiness and lean into it. Connect with the natural openness of your mind. You can feel at this point that “this debt has just been paid.” At that point, there isn’t going to be any further debt to somebody else or to yourself, no further repercussions from this exchange except further awakening, further connecting with the natural openness and intelligence of mind, further connecting with warmth and loving-kindness toward yourself, further connecting with compassion and love for other beings. Those are the kind of results that our uncomfortable situations could give birth to…

Many people have stories like this. They put someone through something and then they experience it themselves, and somehow they know that they are paying back a debt. It has nothing whatsoever to do with punishment. It’s more like a law of physics. There’s no one punishing you. There is no master planner making sure you get it. There is no vengeance. It is just a principle that you sooner or later start to feel in your bones.

This approach to settling the score is that whenever something bad comes your way, it is always an opportunity for further healing. When things happen to you that you don’t like, you can either open the wound further or you can heal the wound. Instead of getting strongly hooked into thoughts like “I don’t like,” “I don’t want,” “It isn’t fair,” “How could they do this to me?,” “I don’t deserve this, or “They should know better,” it’s possible that you could train yourself so that the natural intelligence becomes stronger than your reactivity.

For most of us most of the time, our emotional reactivity obscures our natural intelligence. But if we become motivated to start contemplating the approach of seeing pain and discomfort as opportunities for healing—for becoming “one-with” and bringing people closer rather than splitting—our intelligence actually will get stronger than our emotional reactivity. If we take those opportunities for healing, the momentum of the intelligence will gradually start to outweigh the momentum of the reactivity…We’re not talking getting rid of the experience of getting hooked. We’re talking about when you get hooked, what do you do next? There’s a choice. The Buddha teaches us that we are always at a crossroads, moment by moment. We have the intelligence to make a choice, so let’s educate ourselves about what the implications of our choices are…We could choose to open the wound further, creating more suffering for ourselves and others, or we can choose to heal the wound.

The question we usually ask ourselves at this crossroads is, What will soothe me in this moment? The habitual response is that what will soothe me is to get what I want, to have my needs met, to get even, to straighten this all out so I come out with what I need. But we have seen what this choice leads to. We need to cultivate that other choice.

The choice I have been talking about doesn’t preclude resolving conflicts where parties have been in the wrong…Unfortunately when we see all this suffering we want fast results. Once again we might act on impulse and out of emotional reactivity, but if we look at the many examples of people trying to heal and settle the score in the intelligent way, we see that it takes time. The results are slow in coming, but from the larger perspective of natural intelligence and openness and warmth, the process is as important as the result. You are creating the future of the planet by how you work with injustice. You may not see it before your eyes immediately, but you are repaying a karmic debt…All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do…

This presentation had specific challenges. First I wasn’t sure how well-known Reiki is to the ITP community, although I knew there was some Reiki awareness (the founder of PDSA is a Reiki practitioner and Reiki played a major role in her complete remission.) Secondly, ITP is of unknown origin and without any medical cure, and potentially fatal.

ITP is an autoimmune disease. I chose to address the human being living with ITP, which is exactly Reiki’s own approach; no matter the symptoms, Reiki heals the person.

The title of my presentation was “The Healing Power of Reiki.” Fairly standard, but I really wanted to expand our definition of being human, and wellness, and this venue created a great opportunity to do so. The first clip is the opening of my 45 minute talk.

The first idea we can explore is that the physical immune system is not the only immune system we humans have. The psychological and the spiritual are also components of the human immune system…And, physical immunity is greatly influenced by psychological and spiritual immunity.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

My presentation goes into quite some detail about our three basic immunities. The physical immune system is fairly well-known and understood, so I focused on psychological and spiritual immunity, and how these can actually determine our level of physical wellness, and at the very least mitigate ill health so a full life is still possible.

A basic understanding of Reiki is that it balances or rebalances a person on all levels: physically, psychologically and spiritually. In other words, Reiki finds within you, or returns you to homeostasis.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

There much more depth and detail to this presentation, and other portions will be rolled out here in the near future, so keep watching this space.

Most importantly, please let me know what you think by commenting here. Include what kind of information you need or are most interested in, where you need the most help and how the Reiki Help Blog can serve you better. I’d appreciate this and ultimately it will serve you by allowing me to post relevant material.

I started the Reiki Help Blog two years ago on August 2, 2007 by posting this:

“Needing & getting help

I really love what and how I contribute. Basically I spend my days making it easier for someone to do something easier, or improve a situation or challenge. And Reiki allows me to do so without strain or depletion, and in a way that liberates the person being helped to be self-reliant, independent and self-governing after the help takes hold. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Learn more.”

Blogs are like dog years in how quickly they can grow and mature. This blog has about 120 posts. According to FeedBurner which started tracking a month later on September 7, there have been 6,401 views on 51 items and 1,995 clicks back to the site on 48 items. Not as prolific as some blogs, but FeedBurner numbers aren’t all that reliable and I didn’t start using Google Analytics till much later, well into the second year. For instance Analytics is already showing 10,529 views.

When you’re online, numbers are simply part of the experience. Otherwise, my intentions in starting this blog are made clear in this post five days later on August 7, 2007:

To serve…

The original prayer is creation itself. As created beings we are a prayer onto our own. Prayer here means the lived experience of sacredness, not its usual religious context. Sacredness isn’t confined to one aspect of life. Sacredness has always been the single thread that runs through life. Sometimes this thread is visible, consciously enhanced and cultivated. Sometimes it’s invisible and purposely ignored.

The call is that no matter what we’re primarily engaged in, there’s opportunity to serve the people around us. This could be a service of education, financial help, empowerment, consciousness-raising, healing, community, family matters, the elderly, the disabled, the homeless, the addicted and so on. Within our respective fields also, even in seemingly unrelated environments such as business, service is readily available for seeing eyes.

To serve is a simple process of feeling and understanding suffering in ourselves and others.

Our feet are in the dust, i.e., the earth element. Our hands are at the level of the heart, the seat of compassion. Together with the feet, the hands carry out action or service once we’re willing.

There’s nothing we can’t overcome, personally or collectively, but we must become master blenders of the dust and the sacred, spinning at the precise pivot point of Divinity in expression and action.

Service became a way of life for me after my own healing from the small, self-involved self of pleasure and pain.

The Reiki Help Blog is an extension of all that I am. It mirrors the teaching that I do with people I help. It’s a community for all of my Oasis Reiki practitioners. And it serves the wider community of spiritual practitioners seeking consciousness and healing.

What the Reiki Help Blog Covers

Often the subject matter is Reiki, but not all the time by any means. Green living and the environment are covered. Consciousness in the meditative and contemplative sense is a popular subject. I review related books, CDs and DVDs as healing resources. I even posted brief reviews of some of the favorite children’s books my son and I have enjoyed together.

A good way to browse the archives is to click whatever interests you in the categories listed on the homepage of the blog. This brings up a range of posts.

One of my ideas for the next phase of this endeavor is to post perhaps more frequently and note shorter thoughts.

I thank all my readers and commentators and all who have stopped by. I hope you’ve been helped and inspired.

Since this is a Reiki blog, below is a list of the flagship Reiki posts that flesh out the ins and outs of this amazing teaching.

• Modern Reiki – A full understanding
• Reiki As It Is – The finer details
• The action of Ki in Reiki
• Usui’s Precepts: The living tissue of Reiki
• Generating Compassion with Reiki Distant Healing
• Reiki ’symbols’: To or not to?
• Reiki semantics: Are you on autopilot?
• Reiki lessons from a Samurai
• Reiki for business people

You may also select the Reiki and Reiki 411 categories to find other nuggets.

Another great way to catch up on all the content here is to simply read the posts included in the Must Read category.

Please do let me know how you’ve enjoyed the Reiki Help Blog by leaving comments on the posts that move you.

Peace to you in all your experiences…

Reiki Help Blog has a 2-year birthday coming up on August 2.

I haven’t been posting as much due to other commitments, but have some great content coming up soon.

The Twitter update posts are an experiment. I tend to share many nuggets in the microblogging platform of Twitter and wanted to find a way to collect these. We’ll see…

As part of the the birthday celebration, I’ve been highlighting past content that is significant and that may have been missed or is worthy of a revisit. More of these will be highlighted. For now, please read the following and leave your comments:

Soul bravery
Environment
Heart Advice to a caregiver
Reiki share at Barry University Health Fair
Soul as operating system

If Reiki were a tree, its trunk would be the meditative teachings of Reiki; hands-on Reiki would be one limb; and the precepts Usui left behind would be Reiki’s living tissue. This was explained in great detail in a previous post: Modern Reiki.

Today we’ll look at Usui’s Reiki precepts again. Since they are the living tissue of the teachings, it’s important to dwell on these simple words again and again. Not only dwell but bring them into full focus in our lives. The translation used here is:

For today only: Do not anger—Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others

Let me first quote from the previous post:

Without anger, conflicts would be resolved and new ones circumvented. Without worry, fear would end and we wouldn’t exacerbate suffering. Humility is respect and the willingness to include all viewpoints. Honesty; would there be a worldwide financial crisis if there was honesty?

And compassion. Compassion is both a prerequisite and condition of enlightenment. In compassion there’s no separation, no other, no stranger. Compassion is the true democracy! Enlightenment is a state of Oneness. If there’s compassion, there’s understanding and appreciation. Compassion unifies and in that unity we find enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn’t only a spiritual pursuit. There can be enlightenment in government, technology, business, science and social systems.

In delving deeper into these simple words, we have to consider that translation from Japanese, a language based on ideograms,  leads to rich interpretations; aphorisms are pithy and packed with meaning; and such concepts are layered in meaning.

Copyright Usui-Do Eidan

For today only: We mostly understand a day to be 24 hours in the Gregorian calendar which defines our lives. This is fine for what it is.

However, here we’re considering ‘today’ as also ‘this moment,’ ‘this duration,’ ‘this task,’ this activity,’ or even ‘this interaction.’

If you’re serious about your Reiki practice as a spiritual one, a path not only a healing practice or worse a modality, then you understand that it’s lifelong.

A life and a path is made up of moments. Before you’re intimidated by what is asked of you, stop, breathe and take a moment to consider both how fleeting and how endless it is.

You don’t have to master For today only, today.

Do not anger: Anger is an afflictive emotion and we all have it. It’s hurtful to those it’s directed and to person who is angry. It creates suffering for everyone. Sometimes righteous anger is justified, but in the end anger is never skillful or successful.

Anger heats up the mind and it makes mistakes, and anger shuts tight the heart. With and overheated mind and closed heart you’re a danger to yourself and others. Anger can also escalate to rage.

Whereas if a higher feeling state like love is cultivated, when it escalates it leads to bliss!

I feel Usui isn’t only saying don’t let anger prevail, but also heal your anger. This is a major undertaking. Anger is pernicious and insidious. It hides under layers.

Start today with some smaller angers and move onto bigger ones.

Do not worry: Let’s start with the worst case scenario…when worry escalates it becomes fear and/or anxiety. Worry as it is hangs around, niggling away and ruining your outlook as well as inner environment. Worry is powerful in its constancy. It’s a mindset that traps and holds hostage.

It holds hostage your physical, mental and spiritual energy without any purpose. For instance when faced with a dangerous wild animal, fear has a purpose. Escalated fear and ordinary constant worry which are baseless cause more harm than do good.

Worry is a creation of the mind and indicates that your mind is leading you, instead of you leading your mind. The mind is powerful but worry is an unskillful use of its power.

Be humble: Often recommended, seldom understood. Every other avenue that influences daily life tells us to be loud, boastful, self-aggrandizing and to stand out. We cringe at humility. It seems weak and wimpy.

It’s actually a fearless act to be humble because all self-promotion is really a way to hold fear at bay. And it goes further to change your orientation to non-ego. In fact humility is another way to stay in the present, for today only…If you’re not ego driven then the trappings of ego aren’t there either which removes fear and limitations.

Be honest in your work: On one level this is integrity, which starts inside with yourself and extends to all your expressions in your life and the many ways you touch people.

‘Honesty’ in this sense also means consistency, commitment and sincerity, and these apply to your spiritual ‘work.’ Transformation is real. It’s available and occurs, but not without the practitioner partaking daily in the teachings and practices.

And if the ground of your being is transformed from ‘honest’ practice, then the work you have outwardly in the world will be honest as well.

Be compassionate to yourself and others: This is the big one isn’t it?! It also brings the others full circle.

Compassion is a win-win, skillful means always. It’s inherent whenever Reiki is practiced. In fact, Reiki practice teaches about compassion in a visceral way; it’s felt and its qualities are understood.

Compassion leads to understanding which leads to unity. In unity we find a greater degree of enlightenment because we feel “at one.” Feeling one with yourself, others, the environment, the cosmos and the Divine is one quality of enlightenment.

Fortunately with compassion you don’t have to be enlightened to feel and benefit from it, and help others through it.

Compassion blesses everyone equally. It can remain as such or for the dedicated practitioner, compassion can lead to unity states of consciousness, which in turn deepen compassion.

How do you contemplate, engage and learn from the Reiki precepts Usui Sensei placed at the core of his teachings?

An overlooked aspect of health is a sense of wellness despite symptoms. Even with an ongoing condition, it’s possible to be functional and happy in daily living. Every person has a set of principles, a foundation to live by, which brings meaning and purpose to life. Sometimes this foundation becomes a little shaky. Reiki is a way of living that brings back a sense of peace with oneself and harmony with one’s surroundings. It provides wisdom in here-and-now difficulties and is a resource of empowerment in one’s responses to challenges. Life is full of questions and many of the answers are available without having to go outside an individual’s own scope. Reiki is a teaching that accesses innate wisdom and intelligence, as well as compassion, which propel a vision of one’s potential. We will explore how this bedrock is part of the human experience and how it’s always accessible, as well as how to keep the access open during challenging times.

The above is the synopsis of the presentation I gave at the Platelet Disorder Support Association’s (PDSA) annual conference this year.

PDSA was founded by Joan Young to tell others about ITP.

“ITP, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as immune thrombocytopenic purpura, is classified as an autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease the body mounts an attack toward one or more otherwise normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign by the immune system and eliminated in the spleen, or sometimes the liver. Because this process removes platelets from circulation, people with ITP have a low platelet count or thrombocytopenia.” (PDSA website.)

“Idiopathic” means having no known cause.

Joan was one of the beautiful people I met at the conference, and she is a Reiki practitioner. Reiki was one of her choices in returning to wellness literally from the brink and staying there.

A healthy platelet count ranges between 150,000–400,000. During the course of the weekend I met wonderful people who have a platelet count of 30,000–50,000.

“About 30,000 platelets per microliter of blood is considered a ‘safe count,’ one that is high enough to protect against bleeding in the brain in most cases.” (PDSA website.)

However, I also heard story after story where counts crash and people literally have to be “rescued.”

I met one lady in her sixties who, as far she knows, has been living with ITP since the age of thirteen and her count is 6000–8000 in all those years. She has refused any of the available conventional, medical treatments.

Another person who has also refused treatment and has used homeopathy in six years of living with ITP, ranges between 19,000–22,000 platelets.

Many do accept the available medical treatments and experience varying degrees of success.

One of the points I made in my presentation was to not become a diagnosis, a platelet count, so I don’t want to keep listing numbers except to illustrate that the cause of ITP is unknown, as is its cure.

This is a daily reality for a girl, age 13, who was still so very happy to have recently acquired a three-wheeled bicycle. Falling, bumping into things, or hard sports are a no-no.

“Most people with ITP experience spontaneous bruising. Some find they have petechiae (pe-TEEK-ee-ay), tiny red dots on the skin caused by broken blood vessels or leaks in a capillary wall. If your platelet count is very low you may have other bleeding symptoms including blood blisters on the inside of your cheeks or blood in your urine or stool. In general, the more bleeding symptoms you have, the lower your platelet count.” (PDSA website.)

All the visible bruising I saw was subdermal and quite large and obvious. Saturday night there was a party and a steel band. One lady I’ve known for some time told me it was about the only place she could wear a sundress and nobody would think her bruises were odd, or draw other wrong conclusions.

Despite knowing her story quite well previously, this revelation really touched me and brought home what it’s like to be living with ITP.

One person who opened up to me after my presentation, had lost a child to ITP and started another support organization that works together with PDSA.

A rare disease is considered to be one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans.

“The incidence of ITP in children is estimated at 4.3 to 5.3 per 100,000 children per year. Since children with ITP usually recover, the prevalence of childhood ITP is about equal to the incidence. The incidence of adult ITP is from 1.6 4 to 6.6 5 per 100,000 and the prevalence is approximately 9.5 cases per 100,000.” (PDSA website.)

In May of this year, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a program to produce new treatments for rare and neglected diseases. This is a drug development program only, but still perhaps a step in the right direction.

More will be posted here about my participation at the conference. I’m waiting for video of my presentation. Keep watching this space…

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In fact telling your story is the genesis of healing and growth. These personal stories collect to form a bigger landscape of the shared human experience. As C.S. Lewis has said:

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

We start there, unraveling the pain. This is the backstory. What’s ultimately healing and transformative is when we weave a new story, whether it’s personal or global. The transcendent story is the one that serves us best.

The transcendent story unites us and reveals the deepest mysteries of life.

It’s with this in mind that I’m starting the Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP). In 15 years of teaching Reiki, time after time it’s practitioners and receivers of Reiki who show and tell the most illuminating aspects of Reiki. Sharing Reiki stories is an amazing learning and validating experience. It deepens this path.

The Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP) is open to everyone. Please add your stories in comments on this post, or go to contact (top right) and email me. You can share anonymously, or with your initials and location, or full name and location. Share as many as you like over time. Stories will be curated by me and may be lightly edited.

Your Reiki story will be held in sacredness.

We begin with two stories from my own student practitioners. This first one is from someone who has been practicing Reiki for quite some time. I was recently interviewed and it prompted this sharing. Again, when we share and talk new associations are formed and we’re all elevated.

Pamir, your answers in that interview are beautiful and timeless. I even feel they are coming from your higher self. The most important part for me is that of shifts. I experienced a shift. I always loved everything around me and would even secretly talk to plants and animals. But I experienced a shift that came from great suffering to see my path more clearly (my desire to help people). So, my love and compassion was always there, but the decision to do something about it came later.

“It’s the emergence of all that you are, instead of only facets of a personality.” (From the interview.) This shift also brought an awakening to discover who I am and my ‘purpose.’ Of course, these realizations are still in progress since like you said, “I’m still awakening.”

My mom has been sick lately and I have been worried for her since she won’t go to the doctor or even admit she doesn’t feel good. Last night I took all my quartz and let myself be guided by them. I had never done anything with them but just have them in my room beside the picture of Paramahansa Yogananda.

I first filled a pot with water and put salt and Reiki’d it, then placed a quartz inside, then cleansed it with Jakikiri Joka-ho (a method for purifying inanimate objects). This I did with each of the stones. Then I placed them in a circle and put a card with my mom’s name and location and sent distant Reiki (crystals aren’t classically involved with Reiki). Finally, I placed the card under the biggest quartz which I feel was the one guiding me through it.

My mom called me this morning and said “I didn’t want to scare you but I have been very sick lately and today I simply woke up feeling healthy and strong.” All the pain she had disappeared and the vomiting stopped. Also, in a very odd way, $2,500 was sent to her today (and we really needed the money).

Like always, I want to thank you for being the tree for so many us who need you,

Namaste

This next one is a very recent excerpt from the 21-day report after Reiki Training I have in place to serve as a vehicle of accountability (both ways), and to further mentor my practitioners. What’s noteworthy about it is that even after a lifetime of habits and mental patterns, a mere 21 days of Reiki practice can have such solid benefits:

21 days looks like too little time, when you already have lived more than 16,000 previous days during your entire life. You can ask yourself how much more can 0.13 % of your existence do for you? Maybe nothing, but perhaps there was already a light switch waiting on the wall, and then the 21 days came as a space to do nothing else but turn it on.

To tell you the truth Reiki was not something that I was looking forward to practice before a couple of month ago. For the last couple of years I was too busy keeping myself entertained in a way not to see the falling bricks from the walls of my home. But finally the walls gave way to gravity, leaving me in the middle of what used to be my securities…now in ruins. That’s when I started feeling the need to clean up and rebuild and I started looking at one of the only things that was still standing there: Myself. Then, Reiki came to me.

When I first started the twenty minute meditations, my whole being jumped into it with great joy, it was something longtime missed and well needed, mostly for my never silent mind. I haven’t stop doing it, sometimes once, sometimes twice a day, and not precisely because I am doing it so well, but because of the opposite…With the hope of maybe one day being able to find the bottom that shuts down all the thoughts from my head, allowing the light to fill up the empty spaces.

I practice both Hikari no Kokyu-ho at night and Gassho Kokyu-ho in the morning (two Reiki-specific meditations taught in Level I). The first one opens me to the universe, the second one centers me into myself. In spite of the constant escape attempts from my mind, both have been slowly making things change around me. I can see the difference, I feel a lot lighter, I don’t worry that much, I don’t find myself immersed in the foggy cloud of day dreaming as much as I did before.

I started to visit some situations in my past, seeing them with other eyes and better understanding. Now I am more able to forgive myself and I am not letting others fill me up with guilt. I am finding great joy in things that I am rediscovering such as dancing.