Reiki retreat

Went to a Reiki retreat on Saturday.

There were six of us.

We did a heart sutra meditation. I sensed a presence and wondered who it was. I opened my eyes to look and saw no one. I closed them again and felt the presence. I saw six young men in flannel shirts and overalls, standing in a semicircle, glaring at us. I opened my eyes and looked at the other women, to see if any of them sensed or saw the men. Everyone looked relaxed. I closed my eyes and saw the men; I sent love to them and they disappeared. They reappeared. I sent love again; they disappeared and stayed gone.

The leader asked us to look deeply into our hearts; she asked us what our hearts looked like. I instantly got a vision of a parlor in a farmhouse in Kansas. Pink upholstered sofas and chairs, big soft things, Victorian furniture and furnishings. Lamps with hanging crystals. Is that Victorian or deco? The farmhouse was surrounded by golden fields of wheat. My heart is a pink Victorian parlor in a farmhouse in Kansas.

We did Reiju: attunements. Martha and I practiced the method we learned from Inamoto Hyakuten Sensei. We asked for orbs, and several of us took photos. As we were performing the Reiju, Martha looked up and gasped: a sundog. A rainbow halo around the sun. A couple of people reclined on the grass to look and take photos. They saw dots of light moving around the sun. They took photos and a video, and captured the orbs. They were colored, and had tails of color.

Then we did Reiki. We set up a table outside on the lawn, in the shade. The temperature, humidity, and breeze were perfect in the shade.

gassho

4 days scurrying silently around the monastery: got to get to class/bathroom/meditation; meet someone: gassho and bow

your job

Talked with a friend yesterday. He doesn't love his job, and he's always loved his jobs, bosses, and coworkers. Now he doesn't. He plans to work there for a year so he doesn't have to pay back his moving bonus, but then look for something better. He figured out that he doesn't care what kind of company, but he wants a boss with brains and vision, coworkers who work hard because they love their jobs, and a place where you work for a mutual goal, not just busy work. 

sharing

shared Reiki with people with cancer yesterday, so lucky: doing it again today. Sensei's teachings keep popping into my mind.

When I say lucky, I mean me, for being Reiki. I don't mean to diminish the struggle and pain expressed by the clients. Yesterday there were tears. People were grieving, were experiencing pain, were struggling with the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.

I hope our clients found some relief with Reiki. I hope they felt balanced after their sessions. I hope they experienced insight, had less pain and stress, and felt happier. That I get to be part of this, part of someone's health experience, part of someone's life- I feel lucky.

Reiki retreat

Mikao Usui Sensei's birthday, 150th anniversary
4 day class with Hyakuten Inamoto Sensei
at a Zen Buddhist monastery in NY
in 1200 acres of woods, on a lake, elevation 3000 feet
met so many amazing Reiki practitioners from USA, Canada, and Japan

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seals

Floating logs, half submerged, in the bay.

I sat on a granite boulder and looked at the blue water. Sun was hot on my shoulders but the breeze was cool and damp. The logs moved.

A square head poked up. A spotted gray arch rose wetly and disappeared. And the other.

I watched the seals for half an hour. 

flat earth

The earth is flat and there's a giant waterfall at the edge of the ocean.

At least that's how it seemed today. I sat at the beach, the Atlantic Ocean. There was a flat hard line of dark blue where the water ended, white sky above. A sailboat there, sail like air, boat invisible in the water.

A long lonely stretch of dark blue, one boat. 

teaching a teacher

I recently spent 20 hours in class. As a student. I learned a lot.

I learned about teaching.

First was 12 hours, split in three sessions, on communication and self-care. These are topics I teach to nursing and Reiki students. The delivery was verbose PowerPoint slides; two instructors read the slides to us for 10 of the 12 hours.

Second was an 8-hour class on laboratory values. The delivery was verbose PowerPoint slides; the instructor read the slides to us for 8 hours.

All the instructors were smart, skilled, compassionate, and experienced. They had a plethora of important information in their heads and hearts. But. Their delivery was at either end of a super-cute-adore-me and monotone continuum. They read PP slides to us. They cut off audience questions and comments, saying "I have a lot of content to cover." They ignored, alienated their audience, who were also smart, skilled, compassionate, and experienced. Their content delivery method assaulted and insulted the learners.

This is what I learned:
* reading PP slides for hours, in a monotone, is an assault on the student
* if you focus on content rather than student, you risk alienating student
* it's more important to engage the student than to cover every single bit of content
*
* teaching is a skill
* answer questions, encourage pertinent sharing of info
* interact, engage, excite the learner

There were ten students at the lab class: 5 RNs, 3 NPs, and 2 physicians. The NPs were: 2 nurse midwives and one pedi-psych NP. The RNs were 1 ICU RN from Colorado who was able to share a few fascinating facts about high-altitude care (before being shut down by instructor), 3 hospital nurses, and me.

The lab class instructor read PP slides to us. She listed common lab tests and read to us how to remember normal values, and a few facts about the tests. Why do I need to remember the normal values? I don't. They are listed alongside the found value on computer screens. One no longer needs to memorize normal values. One will memorize them anyway if used daily. Why spend my valuable time telling me how to memorize?

I learned that I already know facts about the lab tests.

This is what I wanted to do in this class. I wanted to get into small groups with the other incredible students and do case studies. Give me a list of a patient's lab values and let us interpret, form a picture. Interact with others.

Instead I sat in a room with 9 intelligent and experienced healthcare professionals and never spoke to them. Never learned from them.

The communication/self-care class: best part was role-playing. That was interactive and engaging. We all woke up for that.

Adult education: engage the learner.

teaching Reiki

I love to teach Reiki to a person with cancer. I want the person to see that he/she has dignity and worth ~ has something to give back, something of value to share with others.