Over the past decade, I have studied Reiki - formally and on my own. I received my Reiki I attunement in 2003 in Tulsa, then again from a long-time friend several years ago. Just this past summer, I received my Reiki II attunement in Tulsa. It was a wonderful experience and came at a perfect time - my first weekend since becoming an empty-nester. It set the stage perfectly for this next stage of my life.
I took another step this weekend when I participated in an Animal Reiki workshop.
In all honesty, the class was nothing like I expected. I alternately felt sad, frustrated, irritated and restless. I firmly believe there are many paths and I disagree with those who say one path or the other is wrong while another is true or right. At the same time, I am adamant in my belief in training to work with animals. I don't just mean watch a television celebrity and imitate what they do or read a book and consider yourself a trainer/behaviorist. The animals always, always pay for that ignorance in the end and humans often pay a price as well. As a friend mentioned to me just yesterday, ego can be a huge boulder when working with animals. We cannot move another person's boulder; we can only chip away at our own.
So I tried to just keep breathing. I tried to focus on my own mission, which was to spend some time with dogs and cats at a shelter and - hopefully - bring them some feelings of peace and comfort. To an extent, I succeeded. It was a beautiful weekend, the last warm days of autumn. The sun was shining. Hawks hunted in the woods to the east of the shelter, their calls loud as they flew high above us. The animals welcomed us and we spend a good amount of time sitting with them, offering them what we could. My Wednesday post is devoted to photos of the dogs I met. For today, please offer prayers and gentle white light to shelter animals everywhere. They need us each and every day.
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