Where It All Began

Sometimes things come together with a synchronicity that cannot be denied. I had already planned to visit my eldest who was studying abroad in Japan when I felt the call to study Reiki. I was at a place in my life where despite finding success as an author: winning Georgia Author of the Year, and speaking regularly at different writer’s functions, it was not bringing me joy. I was missing that connection with spirit. Although I do consider writing to be a function of spirit, I had lost touch with that aspect of it as well. I knew I needed to make a change but wasn’t sure in what direction I was being led.

I prayed and meditated on it and long story short, I remembered the profound connection to spirit that I’d found when I’d had Reiki years before. I was attending a school where they taught tai chi, yoga, qi gong, and also taught Reiki students. After tai chi practice one day, the teacher asked if anyone would like a free healing so that the Reiki students could practice. I raised my hand, and when the lady began she told me her teacher asked that she do hands off Reiki so that she could feel the energy. I closed my eyes as she practiced, then, bam! I felt what I could only describe as an electrical current pouring out from between my eyebrows. I gasped and the practitioner asked if I’d like to share. When I told her, she said this was my third eye and the energy was unblocking. I knew then, Reiki was for real!

Fast forward many years later, and as Divine synchronicity would have it, I finished my Reiki 1 training a few weeks before leaving for Japan to visit my 22 year old who was studying abroad in Chiba, located on the outskirts of Tokyo. A few train rides, and a sweltering walk through some neighborhoods to the small Buddhist cemetery of Saihoji Temple is where we found the grave and memorial stone of the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui (1865-1926).

The stone was erected by his students in the 1927 and tells the story of a man who’d lived among monks who were amazing healers, yet, their gifts were draining them. He traveled, prayed, fasted, and researched the sacred texts for a method of healing that would not drain the practitioner; thus Reiki was born! Along the way, he was also mayor of Tokyo, a scholar, a business man. He wore many hats, like many of us do. To be standing at the final resting place of someone who’d given the world such a gift was a sacred moment for me. Just like Usui’s journey led him on a winding path, mine did too. So it is, and I am grateful.