As a very small child, I thought nobody had grandparents. I have an early memory of a TV special about what I now know to be the mythical practice of senicide in Japan: an elderly woman carried to a desolate mountaintop in winter by her son, and left there to die. I...
This weekend, I took a Reiki masters class in a lineage called “Komyo Reiki Kai” which was started by a Japanese Buddhist monk named Hyakuten Inamoto. Mr. Inamoto trained with both Japanese and Western Reiki Masters, and has been a translator for Hiroshi...
Yom Kippur occurred on a Saturday this year, which gives the normally austere-feeling holiday (Repent! Atone!) a different flavor. Sabbath is the day of lounging and eating heavy food that makes you want to doze on the floor afterwards, and joking out with family and...
Tonight, I was in the middle of giving a Reiki session, when I remembered what I had forgotten. This blog. Simple oversight. A few days after I officially became a Reiki master, it was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, my favorite part of which is a ritual called...
On Saturday, our Reiki masters group, together since the spring of 2009, celebrated the closing of a chapter as teacher and students by doing a ritual along the Shenandoah River. We gathered in a circle, lit incense, and were guided by Luann to go our separate ways...
Nomen est omen. (Names are destiny) — Ancient Roman saying Names are, on one hand, super important. According to Jewish tradition, God’s most mystical name, a 72-letter tag that was revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush and with whose help he parted the Reed...