"I love Dia de los Muertos, because it feels...I don't know...reverent or scared somehow. But I hate Halloween; it seems the only purpose of it is to scare people and eat candy."
This comment came up in a conversation I had this weekend with a young woman I met at a retreat. Like me, she is a European-descended white American. And also like me, she grew up feeling disconnected from her own cultural lineages. For me that disconnection caused me to feel drawn to rich traditions from non-European cultures. It seemed my conversation partner had the same experience.
"Have you heard of Samhain [pronounced Sau-wain]?"
She hadn't ever heard of the Celtic celebration of the cross-quarter between Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice, which falls on October 31. And so she definitely didn't know that every aspect of what became secularized and monetized as Halloween--from pumpkins and candles, to candy and costumes--actually holds special and reverent meaning within the European spiritual traditions surrounding the seasonal wheel.
The "melting pot" of American culture often disconnects us from our cultural roots, which can cause us to feel lonely and lost, and also to grasp onto traditions that are not our own in the desire to feel rooted in ceremony and meaning, as is our human need. This grasping without relationship can cause a lot of cultural appropriation, and weird blending of disparate cultural traditions in ways that dishonor those traditions.
It's long been my observation that this is how western Reiki came to be the wild mash-up of cultures that I first encountered a dozen years ago, and have spent the past ten years unraveling. The question of how to be in good, right relationship with the system of Reiki in it's authentic form, while also bringing in other traditions and lineages that are meaningful to me, is one I have lived and walked with for many years.
It is an important question for all of us western Reiki practitioners and Reiki-curious folks who seek to be lineage-bearers of this tradition to spend serious time with.
I was recently invited to share my journey with these questions on the Recovering Wholeness Together podcast, where we explored strategies Reiki folks can use to come into and maintain integrity with the system of Reiki while also weaving in aspects of our own lineages and passions. Find it above, and join the conversation!
Blessed Samhain, Friends!
Weaving Webs of Connection in Times of Fear
This morning I woke up with such a strong feeling of connection. Connection to you, to my community, and to my own life pulsing in the deep recesses of my bones. With this feeling fresh in my mind and body, I remembered that connection is always the medicine to isolation. I am so grateful to be with you in practice with the system of Reiki that gives us direct access to deep feelings of interconnection, and to a web of life much wider and deeper than the fear of this moment.
Read moreOur Focused Mind is a Superpower (Even When Our Mind Struggles to Focus)
On the flip side of the most challenging aspects of our personality, our minds, our ways of being, we often find our superpowers. Practicing Reiki from it's origins has helped me deeply see and embody this, to hold the seeming contradiction of loving myself as I am, and also seeing the ways I can leverage those challenges into something powerful, something magical.
Read moreAll Reiki Folks Need to Know This (Japanese Imprisonment Day of Remembrance)
Honoring a difficult history, and it’s ties to the system of Reiki, as we honor the Japanese Imprisonment Day of Remembrance.
Read moreUn-Learning Systems of Oppression in Our Reiki Practice
Many of you reading this are, like me, engaged and invested in the realm of transformation and healing for yourself and others through a wide range of methods and practices. For me this is primarily through the system of Reiki. I want to encourage us to talk more openly about the fact that, even in our sincere intention to bring healing into the world, it is entirely possible for us to unknowingly duplicate systems of oppression and harm within our practices.
And let’s talk about the fact that there are pathways out of these systems. Pathways back into integrity with the practices we love. One of these pathways is to cultivate a trauma-informed lens within our practice.
Read moreCompassion & Accountability When We're Wrong
Photo by Elisa Stone
Have you had this experience before? Your intuition urging one direction, but you choose another? Or perhaps you did follow what you thought was the voice of your intuition, but instead it was the voice of an old fear or limiting belief, and it led you astray? Sometimes the outcomes of such intuitive mishaps are inconsequential. But sometimes they are not, resulting in harm to ourselves or others.
Read moreFollow Your Intuition (Or Hurt Yourself Trying Not To)
I want to share some things I've learned about intuition, that magical resource of knowing things beyond reason that each of us carries, whether or not we know how it speaks or how to listen to it.
Read moreHow Do I Know It's My Intuition Speaking?
Photo by Elisa Stone
Do you ever have an impulse about something, but you aren't sure whether it is your intuition talking to you (and therefore valuable to follow) or something.....else? Something like old fears, limiting beliefs, the residue of trauma, or the influence of others? How do we know that an impulse is trust-worthy, especially those that feel risky, but could lead to something right and good?
Read moreGrowing in the In-Between
Spiritual practice is not always beautiful, not always easeful, and does not always feel good. And its not meant to. A spiritual practice, like Reiki in its original Japanese form, is meant to bring us into the messy, dark, pressure-filled spaces of our being. Because, just like the cocoon for the caterpillar, it is within these dark and difficult liminal places that transformation and true connection becomes possible.
Read moreWhy Would Someone Come for a Reiki Session?
Our human system—the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body—is designed to heal itself, and is in fact in a constant state of correcting imbalances, clearing out toxins and seeking wholeness—a state we call “healing.” And at the same time, as we live our life we are constantly impacted by forces in the world and within ourselves that interrupt or reverse this healing process. The practice of Reiki creates a container, flooded with energy resources, within which our whole system can deeply engage the process of healing that we are built for.
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