meditation

My students keep asking me for meditation.

OK.

Yesterday I sent them to beds and stretchers. They doubled up, cuddled up to the manikins, or simply laid their heads on a table. I turned out the lights. We stretched and breathed. They closed their eyes and slowed down.

I talked to them slowly. Told them this:
Rest, breathe, relax.
Imagine there is an egg of light around you.
What color is your egg of light?

Imagine that you're tiny inside your egg, floating around.
Rest, breathe, relax.
Imagine that your egg is enormous.
Imagine that you are a drop of water, floating in your egg of light.

Be a drop of water. Be rain. Rain into the ocean.
Be a wave.
Rest, breathe, relax.

The sun shines on you and you evaporate.
Now you're air.
Be a breeze. The wind.
Blow over the land.
Blow into a forest fire.

Be fire.
Burn away what you no longer need.
Burn til you reach a marsh.
Become earth.
Rest, breathe, relax.

Be earth.
Provide fruits and vegetables.
Eat.
Be you.

Wake up. 

weird energy

Someone said last night at the Reiki Share that energy is weird right now.

Is it?

There's the election. Anxiety and anger. Sexism, racism, stupidity, lies, and greed.
End of semester: stress there for sure.
Winter coming. Drought.
Earthquakes, fire, fracking, oil pipelines, animals dying.

Is the weird energy: fear?

The Reiki principles tell us not to anger or worry.
What about fear.
Is fear a step beyond worry?
Just for today, don't be afraid.

Put your energy in love. Feel peace, connection, light, and warmth.
Forgive someone. Forgive yourself.
Hug lots.
Love.

my dream

My dream is that we all wake up and remember that we're connected.

Soldiers drop their weapons and embrace. Greed ends. Earth rests, rejuvenates, burgeons with new life. Whales rejoice. Peace and love. 

therapeutic presence

How to witness, support, facilitate, and validate.
And not advise, translate, interpret, and say how great you are.

Reiki is easy. Well, the sharing part. The walking the principled path part is harder. Sharing is easy. I place my hands and open my heart to love. I go to my happy Reiki place, and marvel at the spiritual connection with universal life force energy.

Sharing Reiki is easy. Being a therapeutic presence is difficult.
How to be therapeutic?
Listen.
Shhhhhh..... just listen.
Ask open-ended questions. "Tell me more."
Ask, "What does that mean to you?"

Ask, don't tell.
Don't tell someone how to feel, don't offer advice or interpret another person's experience. That's your ego. Your journey, your stuff, your baggage. Set all of that aside and be present for another person.

Be a therapeutic presence. Listen, love, support. 

timeline of an upper respiratory infection

Monday, Day 1: Slept 10 hours, woke several times in the night with sore throat. I blow my nose and the mucus is orange. I might be getting sick. I go to work. I feel progressively worse as the hours tick by. I end the day with fever, chills, and shooting pains. I sleep 14 hours.

Tuesday, Day 2: I wake and feel completely fine! I go to work. By the end of the day I realize I'm not fine. Sore throat is back. Headache too. Sinuses. I go home early and sleep 10 hours.

Wednesday, Day 3: Sick. I call out of work. The virus moves down to my chest. How many ibuprofen can I have in one day?

Thursday, Day 4: No voice. Went to work where my coworkers backed away from me in horror and concern as they begged me to go home.

Friday, Day 5: No voice. Wheezes. Stayed home. Stepped outside to get the mail. Neighbor stopped to show me his new puppy. Spasm of coughing. Neighbor backed away from me in horror and concern and told me I work too much.

Saturday: Day 6: Day 3 of no voice. Coughed up nebulas of olive green mucus.  Smudged the house with sage that I picked up in New Mexico in July. Opened all the doors, inside/outside, cupboards, and closets. Trails of pungent smoke. Out with illness, in with wellness.

Months ago my friend Denise planned a birthday surprise for our friend Betsy. We told Betsy to save the date. Denise and I bought three tickets to a Broadway national production of Rent. The three of us have the best times together. We talk, laugh, and cry. Mostly laugh. I'm a Rent-head. I listened to the sound track every day for a year. I know all the words to all the songs.

Denise and Betsy are going without me. I'm quarantined at home. Sick.

Sunday. Day 7. My voice is back! It's harsh, wheezy, and scratchy; but I can speak. Cutting back on the ibuprofen. Definitely improving. Tested out activities: went to work for a few hours. No one there, no one to scare with my scary cough. Took photos in a park.

Monday, Day 8. I went to work. Ten hours with students at the hospital. Ran into my doctor and she said yes, my eyes are so bloodshot because of the pressure with coughing. Less coughing today.

Tuesday, Day 9. Worked 12 hours. People said to me, "This is better? You're feeling better now, and you were worse than this?"

Days 10 and 11. Working, sleeping, coughing. The election. Sad. Slept 15 hours.

Day 12. I feel better.

Day 17. The cold that came to stay. And wouldn't leave. Mostly gone; just a lingering cough, sore throat, and headache. Mostly feel fine. Worked just 7 1/2 hours today instead of my usual 10-14. Came home and raked leaves. It was warm outside, 59 degrees (15C). Sunny. Still have blooming calendula and salad greens.

Day 19. This cough is just a bad habit.

Day 20. The end.

research

old but still good
Published abstract of my Reiki research    Abstract

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/acm.2014.5197.abstract 

weller

I'm weller today than I was yesterday.

Yesterday I went to work feeling a little unwell: sore throat. Blew my nose and the mucus was orange. Eeuw. Stay home? Not sure of the protocol for calling out sick, and didn't want the students to have to make up a day so I took a couple of ibuprofen and headed out. Got to work at 5:15 am.

Worked. Felt worse as the day progressed. Didn't feel too bad if I kept moving, but if I sat down then I closed my eyes and held my head and felt not-so-OK-ish. I was chilly, chilled. cold. Couldn't get warm. Went to the fair in the lobby and bought a jacket. Still cold. Shivering, covered with goosebumps cold. Couldn't think clearly.

I left work a little early, students looked worried, told me to drive carefully. They stayed to finish their paperwork.

Home I cranked up the heat to 70. I usually leave it at 60. Took a hot shower. Turned up my electric blanket all the way. Still cold, shivering, it hurt to be that cold. Sharp stabbing shooting pains in my joints and feet. I was hungry, but couldn't work up the motivation to eat. Fever. Went to bed. Still cold. Slept, woke because I bit my tongue, twice. omg- did I have a fever-induced seizure? I worry too much. Slept almost 14 hours.

Woke up and was fine. I was amazed. Fine! No sore throat, no fever, no chills. Did I cook that virus out of me? I went to work.