Reiki Day 1

[Transcribed from paper journal dated 3 Oct 2009]

During my Reiki I class, my teacher had us set a psychic shield before we were attuned. Included in the imagery was a drain for disposal of negative or harmful energies. At first I thought of this like a ventilation hood in chemistry labs to vent away toxic fumes, but that seemed too aggressive to me in multiple ways. Then it came to me that the drain is like a piscina, a basin in a church with a drain that goes directly to the earth, used for washing or disposing of consecrated (blessed) items.

The idea behind a piscina is that sacred wastes need to be treated with respect and go to nourish the earth rather than be junked with the other contents of a sewer. The revelation to me was my negative and harmful energies need to be treated with respect. Firstly, it is wise to respect anything powerful enough to cause serious harm, and secondly these energies are part of me, therefor deriving from something sacred, therefor sacred in and of themselves.

Later, after attunement, we were doing our first healings. I finished the first healing awestruck. Doing Reiki is like stepping into the stream of God's love for this precious child. How you see the recipient afterward is forever changed once you have had this glimpse through the lenses of God's eyes. The first time I was a chalice bearer at communion was like this, too. I had never realized how precious the elements truly are until I was the one sharing the cup with other beloved souls. I had received communion innumerable times before - even shared elements passed around. Likewise I have received Reiki numerous times over numerous years.

Ideally, the recipient would understand s/he was the next pipe in the channel to take the blessing to the rest of the world, but somehow we never really recognize that in our gut until we've dipped a toe in the waters further upstream.