Tag Archives: healing arts

Reiki for Life

by Penelope Quest

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In February, I received Reiki level I training. It was taught in a typical two-day environment and left me feeling like I had more questions than answers. Searching for a good book that would help guide the practice, I found this gem. I read the e-book cover to cover and for anyone wanting an easily accessible manual on Reiki, this is a great one. When I get back home, I’ll definitely be buying the physical book for reference.

Before talking about the book, I think a brief discussion about what Reiki is for those who may have heard the term, but who are not sure exactly what I’m talking about may be in order. Reiki is described as a high vibration healing energy, a specific frequency of chi. Reiki is one of perhaps thirty or so different healing frequencies. Reiki energy stimulates and accelerates the body’s natural ability to heal. The energy is intelligent and works for the highest good using its own timetable. Reiki can affect the physical body, the mind, and the spirit. Developed in Japan by Mikao Usui in the 1920s, practitioners receive attunements to open a channel to allow the flow of Reiki energy.

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photo: queeselreiki

Although we don’t know exactly how Reiki works, Penelope Quest does a good job providing background information on how science is moving forward with quantum theories and interconnectedness. She points to some tantalizing research done by Valerie Hunt at the University of California on high frequency energy fields. While the average human field is 250 cps, those who use or receive Reiki have a field of 400- 800 cps. I would have liked to have seen some studies on plants or bacteria using Reiki in this book because I have seen them elsewhere. It also begged the question about human studies (you’d think we’d have something by now??). Hopefully, books focusing on the science will emerge over time and Quest’s book is a manual geared to practitioners. (See below for an article citing human studies where Reiki has been effective for treating anxiety and pain.)

Short Reiki trainings do not give a lot of background on Reiki’s developer, Mikao Usui. This is an area where the book is wonderful. Due to a lot of recent research, much of the myth and distortion surrounding Usui is being cleared up. Although we will never have a truly complete picture of this man, we know much more than an epitaph from a gravestone which is all the class alludes to. Quest also goes into meticulous detail over the lineages that developed after Usui’s death and how Reiki in the East is far different from what is taught in the West. I was very captivated with the traditional way Reiki is given time to develop in Japan. The West could learn a lot if we could slow down and step away from the money making paradigm.

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photo: Andy Beer

Reiki for Life is divided into useful sections so that Level 1, Level II, and Level III are discussed separately. Anyone interested in Reiki, can quickly find out what is covered at any given level and what the requirements are for practice. Additional chapters offer insights in to how to creatively use Reiki in every area of life. Those wishing to open a Reiki practice in the UK will find very specific guidance on legal requirements, but there’s nothing for anyone who wants to do so in the US or elsewhere.

I wanted to share one jaw-dropping moment I had reading the book. This applied directly to me and occurred at about 70% through the book. Remember I outlined above that Reiki was just one of the healing energies. Well, it turns out that many Western Reiki masters are attuning to Kundalini energy and not the gentler Usui Reiki energy. The lineage that includes William Lee Rand introduced Tibetan Reiki symbols that channel this fiercer (serpent) energy. So, the dragon sleeps no longer. I was shocked. Still am. I think this needs to be disclosed going in. Gulp.

Further reading:

Articles:

https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/reiki/what-does-research-say-about-reiki

Click to access Reiki_Really_Works-A_Groundbreaking_Scientific_Study.pdf

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/962427/spiritual-healing-study-alongside-conventional-medicine

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Interview with Mama Maga: Karma2Dharma Astrology

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I’ve been watching Maga’s astrology videos on Youtube for months now. What I like most about her presentation is the focus on spiritual growth and evolution. As my birthday approached, I decided to take the plunge and have her do my natal chart. I’ve been playing around with my chart for a few years so some of what Maga outlined was very familiar, but what was really helpful was that she looked at it from a perspective of soul mission and growth. Turns out, that’s the thing I most needed to hear as we head into 2016. I immediately reached out to Maga to see if she’d be interested in appearing on the blog. She’s here today to share her knowledge and perspective on astrology and healing. Before I launch into some questions I want to share a little about Maga’s background.

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Maga is a professional healer, intuitive, astrologer, and artist. She holds a bachelor of science degree from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, is a Usui Reiki master, a licensed massage therapist, and is a certified Kundalini yoga instructor. She has been teaching since the late 1990s after going through her own transformative spiritual experience.

Welcome, Maga!

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Mama Maga has answered the interview questions in the following audio file. Please click to listen to this fascinating interview.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rd4jeu5357dpvva/Ellis%20Interview%20w%20Maga%21.mp3?dl=0

1. What was your life like prior to 1995 when you experienced what you call “the Plutonian Passage”?

2. Was it then that you were called into the world in a new way or were you always interested in the spiritual side of life and healing?

3. As I’ve started learning some of the basics of astrology, I’m struck by how large and technical the art and science is. Can you share how you first became interested in astrology and how you proceeded to acquire your understanding?

4. When I was listening to your natal reading of my chart, I wondered how having some of these things pointed out early in my life might have made a difference. How can astrology be a practical tool in people’s lives? For a beginner, how should someone get started?

5. How can astrology be used for those with a spiritual inclination? How can it aid to our evolution and growth?

6. I’ve been watching “The Daily News” on your YouTube channel and I know you’re offering a special program starting in mid-January. Please describe what the 5 Month Membership is and who you think would most benefit from it?

7. As we look at 2016, what astrological aspect(s) should we most be aware of?

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Thank you, Maga, for spending some time with us. Maga offers a wide range of astrology and healing services (at affordable rates, I might add). Please check out her YouTube channel and websites for more information.

Maga’s Links:  

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/fireofpurity/about

Astrology Website: http://www.karma2dharmaastrology.com/

Healing Website: http://magaliarts.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CounsellingHealing

Google: https://plus.google.com/+MagaliArts/posts

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INTERVIEW WITH DANA TAYLOR- author & healer

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I met Dana through the Visionary Fiction Alliance and recently enjoyed reading her book, Ever-Flowing Streams: Tapping into Healing Energy. She is an award winning author and healer. Her book describes her journey as a healer in the Christian tradition and how she eventually became a Reiki practitioner. Although I will focus on her non-fiction book, Dana also has several novels available. Today I welcome her to talk about her work and life experience.

Thank you, Ellis, for inviting me to chat today. These days my life involves writing, healing, and enjoying what I call the Supernal Adventure as we’ve entered this amazing post-2012 cosmic era.

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 Do you see healing as a calling or can anyone train to become a healer?

Both. Some people incarnate with a life mission primarily geared toward healing in some capacity. However, learning to channel healing energy is something everyone can learn. As our paradigm shifts into quantum thinking, the general population will begin recognizing their energetic nature. As that evolves, learning to channel universal healing energy will become commonplace. It will be part of the New Normal.

It was interesting to read about your prayer work with Christian groups. Eventually, you seemed to grow beyond those roots. Could you talk a little about what you experienced as the Christian community shifted away from healing as a mission?

Some of the loudest voices in the Christian community have felt their values under attack and so we’ve seen a shift from the Charismatic Movement of the 80’s to political agitation. As my world expanded, I began to see the stifling effects of Fear Theology. However, I have never turned away from my deep love of Christ. In fact, as my spirituality has grown, the healing and love of the Christ Spirit has become more brilliant. Interestingly, my book resonates most with Bible Belt readers wanting to keep their faith, yet yearning for the freedom to explore beyond the constrictions of denominational thinking. To them I say, “Break down your walls of fear! The Son is shining out here.”

Photo: Alan Vernon

Photo: Alan Vernon

Larry Dossey, MD has written about scientific research conducted on prayer. There is strong evidence to suggest prayer can have an effect. What factors do you see as essential in optimizing the healing power of prayer (the healer’s ability, how to pray, for whom to pray, etc)?

Dossey is a quantum thinker. He gets it. He provides scientific research to validate what the shamans, healers, and holy people have intuitively understood since we first started painting on cave walls. Praying is a multidimensional activity. Awareness of the dimensions beyond 3-D comes easier to some people than others. It’s a skill that can be developed. Like a kid playing basketball, throwing the ball into the bucket over and over every day after school. Practice, practice, practice. Prayer is the same deal. Get alone. Turn on some meditation tapes. Listen to Tibetan singing bowls. Whatever works. As you raise your frequency and stimulate the pineal gland, you will make a spiritual connection. And that’s when the fun begins. Nowadays they’re calling it “quantum entanglement.” You step into a dimension that laps into another. Suddenly, you see that broken bone, or an empath feels the great sorrow of a sudden loss and you send a higher frequency of healing and love into the situation. It’s beautiful.

Did energy work feel like a natural extension of your prayer work?

Absolutely. But the word “prayer” has taken on a lot of baggage. Organized religion has given it a bad name! The biggest shift is understanding that healing prayer is an act of co-creation with Spirit. It is not begging. Please, please God heal my dog. It is reaching into a dimension where Spirit resides and being a human conduit for healing energy. Prayer has many euphemisms nowadays. We use words like “intention,” “affirmation,” and “sending healing energy.” It’s all prayer to me.

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Do you think Reiki will follow a similar road to acceptance that acupuncture has traveled? Will my health insurance cover Reiki anytime soon?

Most oncology departments in hospitals are recommending Reiki to their patients. Reiki practitioners are volunteering with cancer patients across the nation. Of course, insurance coverage would mean regulating Reiki, setting up boards and state certification and all that. I know of one hospital in California that had a paid Reiki practitioner on staff. It’s probably just a matter of time–and bureaucracy.

Can visionary writing, in fiction and non-fiction forms, shift consciousness?

Never doubt the power of the Word! Think of opening chapter of the gospel of John In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is referring to Christ as the Living Word. Stephen King says writing is mental telepathy, placing the images from one mind to another. Visionary writing will be increasingly influential. There is an explosion of channeled material–A Course in Miracles, the Kryon books and audios, etc. You don’t get much more visionary than information coming from nonphysical beings. The Internet transmits philosophies across the planet. We’re seeing turmoil and struggle as various forces compete for mass consciousness mind influence. In the end, individuals, communities, and countries will have to sift through all the information and think for themselves. I hope peace, kindness, and love triumphs.

Photo: Forest & Kim Starr

Photo: Forest & Kim Starr

How do you balance writing and healing work? Is one more important?

They come in seasons. There is always a presence of both, but healing and writing has been a seesaw for me. Sometimes I’m up in the air with heady healing experiences and growth, then it settles down and the writing rises to the occasion. Writing can be a slave master. Working in the healing energy is more fun and amazing.

What are you currently working on?

The working title of my work in progress is Supernal Journals. Over the past ten years I have recorded the most astounding experiences I’ve had shared with my three Supernal friends, Sue, Paula, and Helen. Using those as anecdotal chapter openings, I’m exploring areas of the New Normal–energy healing, past life therapy, channeling, mediumship, Akashic records–all the things we’ve bumped into over the last decade. We’re ordinary people living extraordinary lives.

Thanks for doing the interview! I hope readers will seek out Dana’s books and visit her blog. I, for one, am very excited to learn about her new book. Sounds like it needs to be on my to-be- read list.

For more on Dana and her books visit her blog.

Website: Supernal Living

Facebook: Dana Taylor

Supernal Living with Dana Taylor

Twitter: @supernaldana

Link to Ever-Flowing Streams: Tapping into Healing Energy http://amzn.to/1a0dW63

 

 

 

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HEART-CENTERED CREATION

Interview with Kimberly Harding, PhD- artist, author, and teacher

moonpull

As the Moon

pulls the Wave,

God

pulls the Soul.

Welcome, Kim. Please tell us a little about yourself and your work.

I am currently a college professor at a small school in central Colorado. I teach in the science discipline- primarily anatomy and physiology, microbiology, and such. I am not one who always knew I wanted to be a teacher, but when I taught my first college lab, I was hooked. It was only after completing my PhD education and securing my first job that I “let out” my artistic side. I remember a New Year’s Eve in which I stayed home to paint and I realized how much everything had changed for me. I do not know what precipitated my sudden interest in art at that time, but it has been with me ever since.

Currently, you are combining teaching science and creating artwork. Does one support the other? Could you see yourself doing only one?

 I think most of my colleagues would be surprised to learn if I had to choose only one- it would be art. However, science and teaching provide a grounding force in my life, which I believe support my artistic side with a sense of security.

Of course, there are points in which the two interests converge. I have written and spoken about the power of the female body. Many of the details arise from my scientific training. When I speak on this topic, though, I always present my artistic images, and I believe those are what remain with the audience the most.

Likewise, when I did a book comprised of artistic images and poems of the heart, many of the ideas I played around with were based on my understanding of the heart from a physical perspective.

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It is those who have been

hurt the most,

that understand the best.

 

And it will be those,

with the Soul’s awareness ground into bone,

that heal this world.

 

I read that you started creating art when you were thirty. What led you to begin expressing yourself in this way?

I truly do not know that answer. I have never taken an art class in my life and throughout my earlier years I had self-defined to the nth degree that I was a scientist and “very logical”. There is something about touching colors, though  ( I work with pastels and move the pigments around with fingers and hands) that speaks to my soul.

How important is creative expression to spiritual growth? Because so much of your work seems to center on the heart and compassion, I wonder how art can aid healing?

I do believe that art can facilitate healing. I recently wrote that “The artist sees before anyone else believes.” When we are in the creative state, our inner artist is able to reveal to us what is has “seen”, usually before we are even willing to be conscious of the experience.  My artistic process is very “in the moment”. I used to “receive” images in my mind while falling asleep and I would feel compelled to create them the next day. It was almost a compulsion.  Now, I begin with blank page and make a few random lines. I have to sit with the image and see what it wants to become slowly. In the process, there is such an inherent sense of my having to be honest with what is arising. When I try to manipulate, control, and project, the image veers off into something less than profound.

Were you a creative, artistic kid? Did you like art classes or did you gravitate to science very early?

I was not a creative child in any form. My parents are not very well-educated. I saw education as a “way out” and liked the security (and money- sciences tend to be very well-funded) that science education seemed to provide. Early in my life, I would not have risked becoming something as “crazy” and “unstable” as an artist.

appearingYour Spirit’s shape and form stand out in

stark relief against the

background of any circumstances.

What themes has your art allowed you to explore? How do you see your work developing? What impact would you like your paintings and poetry to have on the world?

That is the gift of art, isn’t it- it gives us the ability to explore. I have explored the power of a woman’s body, as well as the power and strength related to male-ness. I spent one summer in what I refer to as my “phallic phase” as images of penises abounded. I have also done entire series on hearts, birds, symbolic shapes, symbols of union and more.

I am constantly surprised how my work develops. I have to say, and I wonder if this is true for other artists- that I will sometimes want to define myself with limitations, -i.e., I want to be the “heart artist” or whatever idea I am currently playing with at that time. That type of self-definition does not seem to be part of my artistic pathway.

As for the impact of my art and poetry, I want it to be “gentle”. That may be a strange thing to say, but I feel so much in life, including spirituality, is layered and projected upon us. I want my art to simply be a gentle opening for others to realize their own understanding.

Thanks for sharing your work with us!

Kim has two books available which combine her paintings and poetry.

The Heart Within You-

http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Within-You-Learning-Yourself/dp/1495432351/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428943038&sr=1-2&keywords=Kimberly+Harding

The Spirit Within You-

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-within-You-Learning-Compassion/dp/1499318286/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428943089&sr=1-1&keywords=Kimberly+Harding

Watch Kim’s fascinating lecture on Female Embodiment- A Woman’s Place (22 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcKXaq1l1kk

For more information on Kim and her work, please visit her at the following site:

https://kimberlyharding.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

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