28 Dec The Gift of Presence & Connection

I’d like to share stories of two special people I’ve met as a Reiki Practitioner through two amazing programs. These are programs you may wish to refer to a Reiki Practitioner you know who would like to contribute – or for someone who may wish to receive Reiki through their programs.

Gratitude and Grace
“All is well in the world”, this is Pamela’s* response more than once when I asked her how she is feeling after her Reiki sessions. She received Reiki for free through LifeSpark Cancer Resources, a Colorado non-profit. Participants in the program receive eight 60 minute Reiki or Healing Touch sessions at no cost. With the exception of Thanksgiving holiday, Pamela and I met weekly for Reiki. During this time, there were ups and downs with a week long radiation treatment in the middle. I learned that Pamela led a therapeutic program for cancer patients. While she herself was coping with her own cancer recurrence – this was her second time coming back to LifeSpark – she was helping others going through the same.

No matter what was going on, Pamela always shared a smile and expressed appreciation for LifeSpark and Reiki. Inspired and humbled am I by her examples of self-care and compassion, her grace and unwavering connection to a higher power/Spirit. I can recall a session when her intention for her Reiki session was to receive peace from the constant worry of her test results being good or bad, and how this would affect the course of her future. Before leaving me that visit, she shared that she felt she received the peace she was seeking, and it came in the form of a Biblical passage she knew that brought her comfort. She expressed gratitude for this with a relaxed smile on her face. On the day of our last session together, I was deeply moved by words she wrote in a card she gave to me that said, “Each time I left a (Reiki) session, I had such peace and I just knew everything was going to work out and be okay.”

Seeing Beauty
“Oh we’re going to have some fun!”, is what Jack said to me after I expressed a shared interest in talking about philosophy and the Transcendentalists. Jack was a patient with Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care requesting a companion for socialization and to receive Reiki. Living with complications due to liver failure for some years, I was informed that it was uncertain how much time he had left. Some days he was alert, others he was asleep and disconnected. I met him a few days before he passed on, and on the day of my visit he was alert and talkative. I learned that he was a retired middle school English teacher. I read to him parts of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, which was easy to read because he had reformatted Walden entirely in his own book which he typed and printed “to read the poetry in the prose”, he said. Under big blankets Jack was wrapped. His bare arms poked through and moved animatedly as he spoke. His eyes wide, smiling as he spoke about how grateful he is for his life and the experiences he had.

Referencing parts of Walden, he spoke about how blessed we are to live in this world and how we can easily get distracted from life’s beauty. At one point he asked, “Read to me this section, as it has had meaning for me my entire life.” As soon as I found it, I looked at him in astonishment and shared how meaningful it was for me: for too many years to count, I have kept a version of it posted on a refrigerator magnet in my kitchen.
Here’s the section I read:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment:
that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
He will put some things behind,
will pass an invisible boundary;
new, universal, and more liberal laws
will begin to establish themselves around and within him;
or the old laws be expanded,
and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense,
and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
In proportion as he simplifies his life,
the laws of the universe will appear less complex,
and solitude will not be solitude,
nor poverty poverty,
nor weakness weakness.
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.
  ~ Walden by Henry David Thoreau

(These are the words on my kitchen magnet: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”)

Having read and talked for just under two hours, we were both surprised how quickly time went by. I asked if he might like Reiki. This was his first session and he asked the same question most people ask, “is there something I need to do?” No, I said, there is nothing, only to be open to receiving.

Jack seemed to drift into sleep during his session and woke slightly when I told him I would leave him to rest. He said, “I feel very peaceful.” When it was time to say goodbye, he asked if we could hold hands. I stood over his bed, my hands in his. Jack closed his eyes and I looked at him while we shared the moments with no words passed between us.

Reiki Blessings,

VISIT MY BLOG PAGE

*using different names to protect privacy