Enjoying the sunshine

It was a beautiful day on Friday so I took advantage of this and went for a walk around the nature reserve. It seems like weeks since I last did this and I was definitely ready to be outdoors in nature. The sky was quite clear to start with and the sun was shining after a foggy start to the day. The walk around the pool was lovely with many different water birds to see. The undergrowth is dying back but there are fungi to see and lots of interesting shapes in the trees.

I especially needed this time out as the last couple of weeks have been quite worrying. My best friend of many years was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer when four tumours were found during an MRI scan for a back injury. This was a great shock to all of us but now we are getting over the shock and all are being positive about the outcome although we realise it will be a long and hard road. So the walk outside in nature was very special for me. It gave me a chance to get back some of my own energy and to reflect on how this situation has come about.

I find that listening to music also helps me especially the quiet soothing type of music and I have been using my adult colouring books as well. This can be quite meditative in some ways and time passes when you are doing something like that. I find the colouring books quite therapeutic. Of course Reiki has been a large part of my day too. This calms me and helps me to be positive about the future for my friend.

This morning the sun is shining again and I have arranged another walk around the nature reserve. Each day there is something different to see. I love to see the skeletons of the trees when their branches are bare of leaves. They have a beauty of their own standing proud against the sky. I wish that more people would see what is around them and acknowledge the beauty of nature. I recently set up a WordPress website for all my photos of the natural scenes around me here. It is http://thenaturalworldaroundme.wordpress.com

Enjoy the world around us while we still have it and fight to keep it as it keeps us alive.

Moving on

The weather this week has been stormy. Dark clouds rushing along in the sky and heavy rain showers. The leaves are being blown off the trees like magic carpets rushing along. But there are still many beautiful coloured leaves around and of course the weather is making the fungi grow.

But like the storm moving onwards, my thoughts have been doing just the same. I have been going deeper in Reiki seeing it more as a spiritual path than as a system of healing. I find myself drawn to the Buddhist aspect of this but know that Buddhism is not for me. I know others who manage to meld together various different spiritual paths and make it one of their own. In some ways I have done this, taking a lot of knowledge from the Native American paths and mixing it with druidry. Now I am adding the spiritual aspect of Reiki to the mix.

If you ask 100 druids what druidry is you will get 100 different answers and I feel this is the same with Reiki and other paths. We are all individual and we are all unique and therefore our spiritual paths are unique to us too. I find that I take from each path what I feel is right for me and then I have this mix of different beliefs and paths. Is this something that you do as well or do you follow a specific path?

I am also moving on into the darker months of the year as many of us are, when I feel I want to create more, to journal more and to be restful. Somewhere deep inside me, is the germ of another book but it has yet to grow big enough to do something about it. Maybe the darker nights will encourage it to grow. But life is a journey and it goes on every day bringing more experiences, more joy and often more sadness as you get older. I have reached an age where many of my friends have passed on. I have to dig deep and continue to do what I need to do and also what I want to do and progress even more on my path. Moving on is a continuous process. How do you feel about this process?

For the highest good and more

This week has been a week of deep thought and a week of asking questions. Thank you to all those who responded. My first question was what do you think  healing for the highest good actually means. Aristotle stated this ‘Men generally agree that the highest good attainable by action is happiness,’.. Your responses were different from this because healing was part of what I asked. I don’t like to use the word ‘healer’ because if I am ‘giving’ Reiki healing energy to someone I am only the channel for the energy which does the healing together with the person receiving it. I don’t necessarily ‘send’ the energy either. I ask that it be sent to the person who has requested it for their highest good. Only they and their Higher Self know what that is and we have to trust that the healing energy goes where it is really needed.

This brings me to other thoughts. How is healing different from curing? One definition I found was this one ‘Curing means “eliminating all evidence of disease,” while healing means “becoming whole’. I like this quote because it helps me to explain to others why I still have my various diseases but I feel I am healed.

Another thought was about the belief that disease starts in our auric bodies before it manifests in the physical body, therefore healing energy may go to these auric bodies not the physical body first. So someone receiving healing energy for a physical complaint may not feel any better and if they don’t have the right understanding they may feel disappointed.

My last thought was about healing lists of which I am a member. We often ask for healing for a specific thing such as depression, anxiety, fractures, and other physical ailments.I am guilty of this yet I know that the healing energy will go where it is needed most and not necessarily where we expect it to go.

So there has been a lot of deep thinking and I hope this blog is not too complicated to read. I would love to read your comments on all of this. Many druids become interested and work with healing energies during their Ovate studies and there are many different ways of  using healing energy for yourself and others. This blog is a brief summary of my own thoughts on this and I know I have missed a lot of my thoughts out as I didn’t want the blog to be too long.

Moving forwards

Moving forwards is how it feels so I hope I really am doing this. I have continued to work with the Reiki precepts this week and also taught my first Reiki student for some years. That was an amazing experience and an emotional one too. I have learned so much more about the Reiki energy and how to work with it over the last few years and I am still learning. I have found some good books about Reiki as a spiritual journey and these have given me many more ideas about deepening my work with Reiki. I feel different too which is good as the difference is for the better.

The weather this week has stopped me from going out a lot but I have been keeping an eye on a young swan on the nearby pond. He was pushed off the nature reserve by two dominant swans and is alone at the pond. He was rather battered when he arrived but there are plenty of us to keep an eye on him as dog walkers go past several times each day. I sent him some Reiki energy too and he has done well this week having moulted all his grey feathers and is now able to fly better. I have let the area round the pond have Reiki energy for some weeks now so that all that visits stays safe.

But the weather is cold, wet and windy here now. The wind has been coming over from Siberia bringing extreme cold air with it. The leaves are falling rapidly from the branches and there is a carpet of gold, red and brown leaves on the ground. I can see houses I didn’t see before as when I moved here the trees were in full leaf. It is going to be interesting watching the changing of the seasons here. I notice that we have more birds on the feeders and the squirrel is busy collecting food and hiding it away somewhere. It is time to stock the larder and find the woolly jumpers and thick socks so I am ready for the winter.

Are you ready for the cold of the winter?

If you work with any form of healing energy do you use it for the land around you?

Just for today

I have decided quite recently to start working with Reiki again. I have missed my daily sessions and meditations with Reiki. The Reiki precepts are not only for Reiki but suitable for use every day whatever your beliefs.There are many versions of the precepts but this is the one I like:

Just for today I will let go of anger

Just for today I will let go of worry

Today I will count my blessings

Today I will do my work honestly

Today I will be kind to every living creature.

Some of these can be quite hard at times. I am not one to get angry at others or things that happen but I do worry and find this precept quite hard to deal with. Yet worrying doesn’t make sense and I know this. I try to change the things I can change and learn to live with those things I can’t change. I always count my blessings, doing this every night before I go to sleep. Looking at what you have puts things into perspective when you see those who don’t have anything not even water in some places. We are so lucky in the western world.

I am honest and always have been and that can cause me grief as I do tend to speak my mind but try to think first before opening my mouth! I also try to be kind to every living creature including the spiders I don’t like but in general I feel I do this.

After all the recent stress of moving house and having the new bathroom, then working with Reiki has helped me greatly. I am no longer stressed and feel much happier in myself. I always understood that Reiki was not just about helping others to heal but about healing yourself and becoming who you really are and this has certainly worked for me. I am now at the moment where I am going much deeper into Reiki and the meaning of the symbols and everything that goes with Reiki. I am also now feeling able to teach others Reiki again and this does not have to be done person to person but can be done over distance so if you are interested then do let me know.

My photo this week is a butterfly, a symbol of transformation.