Two of my Reiki students jumped out of their car laughing when they came for a session the other day.
"You've been working on us all morning," said one, giggling, "haven't you?"
"Yes, I have," I replied, sitting on the front porch enjoying their mirth.
"You've been working on us for a coupla days, haven't you?" said the other, looking at his friend knowingly.
"Yes," I said, "I have."
I figured maybe they deserved an explanation, so I invited them come have a seat before we began and told them about how energy work works, or at least how I do it.
When someone makes an appointment, I usually start working on them long distance beforehand, I told them. That's to get them prepared and to let me know "the lay of the land," what to expect, what's needed, and to expedite matters when the time comes to meet.
"How does this work?" they asked, though I suspected they already knew -- to a point anyway.
"Your mind/body is an energy system that extends considerably beyond the physical body, including other dimensions of space and time," I told them.
"At any time, your focus can touch anyone and anything and affect it. This is more pronounced in meditative states, such as through shamanic drumming, or nightly dreaming, but is most pronounced when doing focused energetic healing work.
"And it is not bound by space or time.
"What I do is, generally, start treatment a few days before the session. This can be either through Reiki or shamanic journeying, and often combinations.
"For example, a shamanic journey can 'load' my mirrors so that a treatment is more efficient, tailored specifically for the individual. Or, I can shamanic journey and travel through non-ordinary reality to give a Reiki treatment, balance chakras or shape the aura.
"In Reiki, " I told them, "the Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen symbol will actually hold your lessons suspended in time, to be released in this reality when you are ready to receive them. Just as the master's symbol, when applied, will guide you toward your destiny independent of any thought or intention I might have.
"But energy treatment cannot be rushed. Each treatment must be integrated and that can take time -- time as measured in our world, just as time in our world is required for the physical body to digest physical food; our body/minds must have time in this world to digest energetic changes and shifts.
"These applications of energy medicine techniques can cause shifts in your world, your outer world, your physical world, like you saw this morning, and will see today and in coming days. A treatment or attunement causes inner shifts that are reflected by outer shifts, among your people, places and things.
"These shifts are the healing powers at work. They dislodge what can be considered bubbles deep within the sea of your soul, blocked energy from previous traumas, misunderstandings or intentional blocks to healing, growth and development. You must let these 'bubbles' come to the surface and acknowledge them and let them go.
"These thoughts, memories, feelings or images are 'stuck' energy that have kept you from performing as a whole energy system or blocked your spiritual or mental development. So, when they come to the surface, you must let them go -- acknowledge them and let them go. By acknowledging them, you release energy, allowing the negative energy behind them to be released.
"If you try to analyze them with your mind or put judgment on them, they will remain stuck and will continue to block your development, the same if you deny them or try to stuff them back down.
"As long as you release them, the bubbles of energy by their release will allow the healing energy of a treatment to go deeper, releasing more bubbles and causing more inner/outer transformation.
"The more you release, the deeper you go. And those areas where the bubbles are released are filled with healing energy.
"It's a process that can go on indefinitely; but, of course, few people are able to let go that deeply or quickly. We love our limitations and fears too much -- however we may protest to the contrary -- because we are accustomed to them, they have become our 'comfort zone.'
"That is why we must be spiritual warriors, stalking our fears, with discernment, attacking them in different ways, with different strategies, to trick the mind to let them go, to allow the soul to breathe and take on new life.
"That is why we must clear as much debris from our personalities as possible, to let the soul shine through, to light our way.
"That is why we must act with discernment to see what enemies our ego/minds have set up for us to trick us into keeping our old fears and limitations around us. And, so, we must continue treatments of different kinds, renewing the introduction of 'bubbles,' so to speak.
"So, yes, I have been working on you; today, yesterday, and days before that, just as, more important, you have been working on you.
"The more you release these old fears and limitations, blockages and outdated thoughts and feelings -- linked with realities that are no more, from your past, that is, thoughts of yourself and your world from the past that no longer apply -- the more deeply the healing energy can go.
"The more deeply the healing energy can go, releasing even more, allowing healing energy to replace old hurts and pains, old trauma, the more whole you will become and more able you will be to find and follow your true life's purpose, and let that speed you along.
"But sometimes I feel that you're working on me at other times, too," one said.
"That's true," I replied. "And it's also not true -- sometimes," I explained.
"In all energy work, the actual work is done in all time-no time; or non-ordinary reality, in shamanic terms. "So, someone can actually feel the effects of a treatment before the treatment is done in 'real' time, because all-time-no time is real or "really real" time, not the time by the clock that our minds have constructed for everyday use.
"In all time-no time, or non-ordinary reality, a treatment can be done and felt before the treatment has been done in ordinary time because all time-no time is not bound by clock time.
"So, a person can feel the effects, often days beforehand, of treatment before the actual treatment has been performed.
"This doesn't mean I don't also work on you and others at other times of the day and night, too. "It's the nature of the work.
"Whenever a healer accepts someone to help, it's the duty of that healer to help when help is needed. This usually comes in the form of 'pings.'
"I could be driving, reading, doing anything, even (and especially) sleeping when someone 'pings,' or appears in consciousness.
"If you are going to be a healer in this type of work, it is your duty to respond," I told them.
"You have something that person needs when they 'appear' to you, when you think of them, when they suddenly are 'there' in consciousness. If you didn't have something they need, they wouldn't come to you," I told them, adding: "if I didn't have something you uniquely need, you would not be here right now."
But it's not something "I" own, I told them. "What you come to me for is nothing anything I so much possess as something I am able to help you find. Whatever it is already belongs to you. It is yours. I am only the facilitator.
"Now, I don't always acknowledge the 'pinging' if I'm doing a treatment; that person deserves my attention -- totally -- at the moment.
"And when I'm doing work for myself, I must be totally focused on that, too.
"For example, in the sweat lodge recently, people kept 'pinging,' but I had to turn them away, to focus on my own spiritual healing, growth and development. How can I heal if I neglect my own healing?
"We must be gentle and caring toward ourselves, too.
"But, most of the time, when someone pings, I acknowledge them, if only for a moment -- and more if it's required. Usually, all that is required is a simple acknowledgement. By giving attention -- with intention -- the doors for whatever is needed on the energetic level are opened. Acknowledgement releases energy. "For whatever reason, my 'mirrors' have what the person needs -- at the moment. We are all connected energetically. I have only to acknowledge the 'pinging' and the mirrors will turn to provide whatever that person needs.
"It is the same for you," I told them. "When you feel someone 'pinging,' it means that the person needs you, needs what you have to give, and it is your duty as a healer to acknowledge that need; that is all; just acknowledge it and whatever that person needs from you, an idea, an orientation, a direction, a clue, will be given to them.
"You will be helping to heal them, or more precisely, helping them to heal themselves, for no outside force except the Creator heals us. We all heal ourselves. We sometimes need only to ask for help.
"Native American peoples knew this. In ancient Hopi prophecy, it was predicted that a time would come when the Earth Herself would need our help. We all heal ourselves through our communities.
"We are all reflections of each other, mirrors of each other. United, focused on a goal, a community of beings with a single purpose is a force that even the powers of Earth and sky will obey."
We went inside, but a friend was using the ashram upstairs doing long-distance work for someone, so we made refreshments and returned to the front porch, as it was a beautiful day.
"What do you see?" one of the students asked, "can you tell anything about the people you work on?"
"Very little," I replied. "I'm not a psychic. I'm only allowed to see what I need to see in order to do the work my guides tell me needs to be done. So, anyone's private life is their own. I prefer it that way. It's none of my business.
"For example," I said, "I have no idea about the issues you are working on, unless you tell me. I only see things energetically, as shapes, symbols, messages that may have meaning for you, but not for me. This isn't my 'business,' but yours.
"I have no idea what your destiny may be, for I do not tell the future, either. But I do know that this work will hasten your fulfillment of it, for it removes the 'speed bumps' to your progress -- the limitations you have set for yourself or lessons you must learn.
"This work removes them by making them more obvious, so you may more clearly see them, or heal them, yourself. It also sometimes makes people angry at me, because they are revealed -- blame the messenger," I added. But it gives you more direct access to the energy, Divine energy, that allows all obstacles to fall. So, when you come to me, I don't heal you, you heal yourself. The gift of healing belongs to you. I only help you find it within yourself.
"I do nothing. I only give you what already belongs to you. And I hope you will return the favor. In this way, we both are blessed."
"That is what healing and prayer is all about. It's a circle. You give; I give; we both receive.
"That really is the heart of prayer and of using the drum in prayer.
"Not only do I 'work' when that is my single focus, but also when I pray. They all are on my prayer list that I apply in drumming and in nightly prayers before going to sleep; prayers that do not urge any one action or outcome, but a gentle push -- a request -- and a gift of energy, or acknowledgement, toward wholeness, whatever that person needs, in love, compassion and respect, as the Creator intends.
So, I told them about using the drum to pray, in this way.
"When I drum, I begin by balancing my chakras. I move the drum up and down until the drum resonates with each and all harmoniously, then I'm ready to get 'into the zone.'
"I usually hold the drum, once I'm balanced, between my heart chakra and the solar plexus, between 'heart' and 'will.'
"I drum until the drum takes over; my physical body is merely an extension of the drum and vice versa.
Then, the spiral begins.
My consciousness follows the drumming in a loose, slow spiral, starting low, with the healing energies of the Earth and, generally, with the drum, rapidly moves up and faster in spirals.
At each turn, I "see" all those in my sacred circle of family, friends, clients, etc., people I know and don't know, friends I have known many years ago, perhaps, or have yet to meet. That is why I always pray for those in my sacred circle who are 'known and unknown, seen and unseen.'
"With each, if I have time and it's appropriate, I acknowledge them, sharing with them the healing power of the drum, using the Earth energy, as I work my way up the spiral.
"I can tell by how they are placed on the spiral how they are doing energetically, what their 'level' is at the moment and whether they need help -- anything I have to give, again, at the moment -- or not. And so on, up the spiral.
I told my students: "It is in giving this way that you receive. When you are praying for something, you cannot just pray for yourself, for you will never receive that way. Only in giving can you receive.
"We all have gifts, great wealth of spirit. We must give to ourselves and that is right. We don't give ourselves enough -- and I know this sounds crazy in our materialistic society -- but we don't give ourselves what we need, for whatever reason.
"Not material goods, or wants, what our egos desire, but what we really need, energetically: love, respect, compassion, forgiveness, joy.
"This is very important: We give what we have of ourselves to give to others so that we can receive what is needed by ourselves from others; we must be generous in giving to others what we have to give and to ourselves what we need in order to give.
"We do not give away what is not ours to give or what we need. But we are generous in what we have to give. We must learn what we need and what we need to give.
"So, we must learn how to give in order to learn how to receive; how to help others so that we can help ourselves. We must be balanced and firmly in the circle of giving and receiving. If we don't give, then we cannot receive, for then there is no room in our hearts to receive what we need.
"So, I continue up this spiral until I meet my guides and angels, within sight of the Creator, and here I speak to them. I open my heart so that they might hear my prayer. I show them that the wealth the Creator has given is full and abundant and for that I am grateful. And, in this way, by recognizing the Creator's abundance, I become balanced in my wants and needs, reconciling, making atonement -- At One Ment -- with wants and needs and what has been given and is mine to give and receive.
"That circle of giving is how the Creator sees us as whole human beings."
My friend came downstairs, finished from her work. She chatted with us for a moment, then left for other activities.
"So, that is how I use the drum for prayer," I told them.
"It's similar to nightly prayers, except they are much slower, and sometimes I fall asleep along the way. But, then, I'm often whisked off energetically to do work of a different kind. But that is another story, for another time. It's time to begin our work."
Aho.