What is Reiki?

Reiki is a beautiful healing energy practice, let's explore what it is and how it can help

Reiki (Ray-Kee) is a form of energy healing often translated as "universal life-force energy". Ki (also known as Qi, Chi, Prana, depending on the culture or spiritual believe) is the life force energy that flows through all things, humans, animals, trees, even inanimate objects such as rocks. There are many forms of energy healing but Reiki tends to refer to the healing developed by Dr Mikao Usui, a Japanese Buddhist Priest.

Reiki students in the western training method tend to move through various levels; Reiki I (allows you to practice on friends and family), Reiki II (utilising the level II symbols and eligible to practice), Reiki III (Master training, utilising master symbols and able to train other Reiki students). Each level is guided by a Reiki Master and the student receives an attunement as part of their training. Previously the powerful symbols used at levels II and III were not shared outside of those who had passed through the training, and often they were not even written down. This is a practice I shared and I have never shown the symbols to anyone, nor do I intend to draw or name them here. I deeply believe in the sanctity of the symbols, but they can now be found easily on the internet, although the full power cannot be harnessed without the appropriate training and attunement.

Reiki healing can be practiced "hands-on" or "hands-off", but whichever practice is chosen, practitioners are guided by a set of hand positions (although as you become more attuned to Reiki you may feel the need to move off the set path and allow the Reiki energy to guide you to where it is needed for the client). That said, the Reiki will flow to wherever it is needed and always for the highest good of the recipient.

During a Reiki healing session the Reiki practitioner channels this universal life energy to the recipient, sensing areas of imbalance or depleted energy, cutting away unwanted, negative energy and replenishing the energy field that surrounds the body. For those of you with a more scientific mind, research has been carried out into these energy fields (known as bio-fields) and the impact of Reiki on this. As a practitioner myself the best way I can find to describe how an energy field feels when working with Reiki is similar to two magnets repelling each other. It literally feels like a magnetic force under my hands, constantly ebbing and flowing, sometimes it tingles, sometimes it feels warm, as practitioners we learn to feel these subtle differences in the energy field by scanning the body before commencing the healing and then paying attention t the changes throughout.

Reiki healing can be a short seated session, up to approx 75 minutes where you would be invited to lay on a couch. It has a multitude of physical, emotional and spiritual benefits although there is no particular belief system attached to Reiki. It can address physical ailments (although always consult with your GP as well), emotions that we can often store in our physical cells that can cause physical symptoms and it can also help to balance our emotions. Some people fall asleep during Reiki healing, some people feel no sensations, some feel heat, tingling, waves of energy, or see colours and lights, some experience emotions coming to the surface. There is no right or wrong way to experience Reiki. It doesn't matter if you fall asleep, you will receive the Reiki nonetheless. The Reiki will always travel to where it is needed and for your highest good!

Reiki is also very beneficial for animals who enjoy the calming sensations, with many practitioners working with horses and pets.

Reiki practitioners should be able to trace their lineage back to Dr Mikao Usui. Indeed to join the UK Reiki Federation you must be able to provide this information. I completed Reiki II in Usui Tibetan Reiki and am able to trace through my Reiki Master back to Dr Mikao Usui as well as through a different lineage from my Reiki I Masters.

If you would like to experience Reiki Healing please get in touch. I can provide in person healing in the Greater London Area but it is also possible to carry out distance healing so do get in touch if you are further away but would like to receive healing.

Below are the Reiki Precepts that guide Reiki practitioners, and I also think are a good way to live our lives, without putting pressure on ourselves to never be angry or never worry; but just in this moment, let's not be angry, let's not worry, then the next moment...

How did we get here? A her-story

Welcome to Unto the Grove. A little about my journey here....

A little her-story

Welcome to Unto the Grove. Unknown to me this has been carefully falling into place over the last 30 odd years, one little piece at a time.

If I had to pick a moment when it began it was when I was 11 years old and thought I saw a ghost in my room. She was stood on the end of my bed. I immediately ran out the room, the image engrained in my mind. I developed an interest in all things spiritual and over the next few years read about astral projection (and realised I had already been doing it), paganism, crystals, and got my first set of Rune stones. During this time I also met my long-time friend Katherine (who now runs Wild and Wonder) and together we bought crystals, explored the countryside, talked about faeries, followed the cycle of the year.

At 16 I decided to explore Reiki (I don't remember now how I came across it) and took my first degree Reiki with Caroline and Paul Crawford in Northampton. I remember my attunement distinctly, with a bright white light clearly visible through my closed eyes as Caroline walked past me. I continued my interests throughout university, exploring essential oils and Qi Gong, before deciding to follow Reiki further and complete my second degree.

I had been previously advised to select the Reiki Master you felt drawn to and so it was I ended up at Atlantis School of Healing with Usui Tibetan Reiki Master Alison Bennett. Alison was particularly gifted and it was during a peer treatment that she told each of us our spirit guides were standing next to us. As I lay on the couch to my astonishment she perfectly described the "ghost" I had seen at 11 years old, now standing at the bottom of the couch. I had never described her to anyone, so there was no way she could know.

For a while I provided Reiki treatments at a local gym, but was faced with clients who opposed my age and the experience, questioning my healing recommendations. So this all took a back seat for a few years. I found if I mentioned Reiki, crystals, tarot, paganism, people backed off pretty quick and so I hid it away.

At 25 I went through a big break up and decided to go for a past life regression which was eye-opening. I wasn't sure I believed, I thought I was making it up, but when I googled information afterwards I really couldn't be sure how I knew such ancient information. I read books by Brian Weiss; Same Soul Many Bodies, Through time into Healing, and became more convinced of our many lives and the need to learn lessons through each life to move up the spiral. Maybe the hurt was all a learning curve. Could I see a resonance through my many lives?

Over the last few years I have become gradually more open to sharing these parts of myself, and in so doing feel much more connected, and a sense of remembering rather than learning. This began when I started attending women's circles in an attempt to get better at speaking about how I felt to others. My yoga teacher who led this circle gently encouraged me to speak my truth and gradually it became a little easier, and I realised how special a held space like this was. When this circle stopped I couldn't find another, and I stumbled across The Goddess Space by Anoushka Florence and something she said really stuck with me

"If you are constantly calling out for the village and no-one is responding; maybe that's your sign to build the village".

This was exactly how I felt, calling out into the ether with no response. And so I signed up to her training to learn to hold space for others and invite them to also remember this deep sense of connection that we have lost in modern society.

Alongside this in 2021 I also started training as a Sound Healer. The singing bowl I bought in

Kathmandu, Nepal and the many instruments I used to play at school suddenly felt like they had a purpose. I bought a guitar and relearnt to read music. As I learnt the history of sound healing, it connected with so many things; it felt both overwhelming and very right. It connected with what I already knew about Reiki, and with my personal ethos.

For years I had also been using herbs for my own health, the jars in my cupboard contained herbs that sounded like they belonged in Harry Potter. I knew enough to brew a variety of teas for myself but I longed to know more. So I started a herbalism course. It was like a huge penny had dropped. It was in this moment that I finally felt I understood my purpose as a healer. Each of these things, since I was 11, had been adding another string to my healing bow, and now it felt like home, it felt like a deep sense of remembering, not learning something new. I strongly believe that our ancestor's knowledge also resides in our cells, that this healing knowledge was stored somewhere within me, and it was all finally starting to make sense.

And that leads me to now. Unto the grove. Something about trees has always had a resonance for me. I often stop to stand with trees and absorb their wisdom and gentle nervous system. Hornbeams hold a special magick for me, the silent guardians of the forest. A grove, a meeting place, a circle of trees, felt like the right place to gather, to connect and share this knowledge and so Unto the Grove was born. And it is my hope that this will one day also be a physical space, within a physical grove.

So through my long, rambling story, my message is that things happen in our lives that we don't always understand in the moment, a skill we think we will never use, a person who appears in our life at a particular moment, a soul we feel we have known before; these all have a purpose and that will become clear in its own time.

For now, let me help you to remember.