The REIKIDOGS Blog

Just a quick January note to all of you and to those who might be visiting the blog for the first time. Every Sunday at 9 a.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Pacific time we hold a distance Reiki circle for animals (and their people). Follow the link and ask to join, and I'll extend membership. http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/152536941490184/ This is a chance for all of us to sit wherever we are and tune in for 15 - 30 minutes while I send Reiki energy through the ethers and you and your animals receive it and send positive healing thoughts to the rest of the circle. It is a time when we slow down and open up to the Light. Feel free to write during the week and ask for special healing for those animals you know are in need. What must you do? Nothing but breathe deeply and feel the good vibrations. If you are unfamiliar with Reiki, please check out my web page that explains Reiki, especially as it is received by animals. http://reikidogs.com/reiki.html I hope to see you there. Remember, if yo...

I seem to have gotten over myself and the emotional wrangling that has preoccupied me since my divorce. In the six or seven months since the untangling of a very unbalanced relationship, I've taken accidental hiatus, and even with the best of intentions, have been too distracted and depressed to return calls, respond to requests for readings, and set up appointments. I did teach a two hour class on animal communication in October, but I have not been operating at full psychic speed as my body chose to absorb the shock of my ex's unparalleled selfishness and unpexpected meanness by developing Graves disease, which left me rather unsettled and yes, more than a little bit angry, not the greatest conditions for intuitive work. All that changed yesterday. My father's physical therapist called me a couple of weeks ago to check my availability for a dog birthday party on Dec. 4th. I said I was available and she and her partner booked me for two hours to help celebrate the first bi...

Self absorption is a character trait we don't like to acknowledge but unfortunately, in a society where individualism reigns supreme it presents a universal pitfall that's hard to avoid. I remember how much of my life was compressed into an insular capsule simply because I responded to the external world the way a sexually abused child/girl/woman naturally does and without any apology: How will this affect me? Not how, but WHEN will this hurt me? (because surely it will, as everything and everyone does). I always envied people who actually had a visible life outside themselves,who didn't turn the hostile mirror of the world inward. Then something happened. Call it crisis, emotional breakdown, dark night of the soul, five of pentacles, psychological raku, crack-up. Call it shamanic breakdown. Call it healing. This is when the wise women showed me that hyphenating the word emergenc - y adds a higher dimension. It is when we heal in this frightening and painful way, like the c...

It's October, the time of year that for me stirs the nest that is my subconsious, moving sediments of memory into full blown consciousness as the autumn deepens and swells with flavor. Because I live in Florida, I can visit this season only as visualization, but religiously, every year as Halloween approaches, images of the past begin whirling before me, a most joyful and sensual dance. At P.S. 203 in Brooklyn, each fall we'd create "art" with red and gold autumn leaves, study pictures of the harvest, eagerly buy paperback books of ghost stories at the Scholastic book fair in the school cafeteria. I also felt a physical excitement at the first sight of Halloween decorations for sale in the stationery store: cardboard cutouts of witches on brooms, black cats, and full moons with guardian owls. The smell of chewy orange wax harmonicas and red wax lips remains with me. In those urban masquerade days, harvest meant grabbing handfuls of candy corn and sticky popcorn balls....

For the past ten years, I have been using The Wizard of Oz to teach mythology, fairy tales, and Eastern philosophies to my college Literature students, sometimes three classes per semester, three semesters per year. In recent years, rather than paying attention to the plot and effects, I have been taking greater note of my students' responses to the Oz journey. Once Dorothy hooks up with her companions and skips along the yellow brick road (surely a symbol of the third chakra, the "I am" of individual existence), we see how each character mistakenly seeks an object like a heart or a brain, thinking it will render him complete. Actually it is not the object but a chakra, an integral part of the whole that the character thinks he's missing. Of course we know that no parts are missing; the chakras are there but the characters have not been fully awakened to them. This pretty much parallels the way so many of us live our lives in the mundane world which dulls the senses w...

Your animal has died and you are distraught. You have never felt such deep and prolonged loss and are afraid to share this with others who will minimize and perhaps dismiss your pain as misplaced or trivial. Wrong. All of us who have shared life with (not "owned") animals have entered and emerged from this unavoidable black hole, and we'll likely revisit it as long as we live with animals whose life spans do not equal ours in measure. What can you do with this grief? 1. Give yourself permission to grieve, and give your self permission to grieve hard. Experience it. Embrace it, even. It's real and it's potent. Avoiding grief, burying it, masking it, will guarantee its future re-emergence as a larger and more devastating threat to your well being. 2. Remember. Remember the joy and mischief, the silly songs and the serious training, the intimacy and the frustration, the quiet support and cuddles your dog gave you when he sensed you needed them most. 3. Talk ...

I'm pleased to persent this wonderful assessment of Reiki as a complement to medical treatments. Thank you to Emily Walsh for so successfully capturing the essence of this divine healing tool. Studies Show Reiki Helps Humans and Animals Cope with Cancer With the endorsement of medical professionals,such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, Reiki is becomine an increasingly well-known form of energy medicine. Developed by Mikao Usui in 1914 afater a mystical encounter, Reiki was first practiced by Usui and has been passed down through a lineage that continues to the present day. A form of healing and relaxation that balances the body's life force, Reiki strengthens the immune system, reduces stress, and helps the body heal itself. Its spiritual energy affects the body mentally, physically, and emotionally. How Does Reiki Work? The life force enrgy that flows in and around the physical body supports its cells and organs. When this subtle energy is blocked, the area that is obstructed func...