underdogishere

Yesterday evening I received my Reiki Master attunement. Studying Reiki has been an odd experience for me. I am a Geek. (I would be an engineer, but I do not have a college degree. Engineers are Geeks with college degrees. I do not have a degree, thus I am a Geek.) I am an atheist who does not believe in the existence of anything that is not scientifically quantifiable. But I have been, in the Reiki classes, in the company of people who freely converse about their communications with angels; discuss past and future lives as though reincarnation was as obvious and apparent as the full Moon in this morning's sky; and bandy terms from Quantum Mechanics with an ignorance that is shocking but is also, in a strange way, charmingly innocent. I have said nothing of my own thoughts to these people, because I realize that I am a guest in their world, they are not in mine, and I respect them, and I have no desire to create discord -- or stimulate discussion, whichever you choose to call it.

So how (you may ask) did I come to be in these classes, with these people? How did a Geek come to be a Reiki Master? Therein lies a story, from long ago, but I'll save it for another time. The story I'm going to tell today happened just a couple of months ago. Since part of it happened on the public Internet, and I do not have the permission of the principles to repeat it, I'll obscure the details:

I received a request, via the Internet, to pray for one who was very ill. As an atheist, prayer wasn't exactly one of my options, but I was moved to send Reiki. I went home after work that day, and I had some other things to do, and it wasn't until mid-evening that I did the distance send. The flow was very, very strong -- stronger than any Reiki I've ever experienced. The energy felt like it was gushing from my palms. I thought, at the time, "This is either very bad news -- the sick one must be very ill to be drawing this much energy -- or this is very good news -- the energy must be helping." And I did feel, very much, that the energy was being drawn, not sent.

After ten or fifteen minutes, I went back to my evening. The next day I watched for some news, and was surprised to learn that the ill one had died late the previous afternoon, hours before I sent Reiki. The caretakers reported that they had gone home, grief-stricken and doubting themselves, until a few hours later, when they were in different parts of their house, and they were suddenly moved to come together, and they both at the same moment found peace, and agreed, together, that they had made all the right decisions.

That's the story. I will leave you to interpret it as you wish. I bring it up because I told it to my Reiki teacher yesterday evening, and she said, "Those people gave you such a beautiful gift." I hadn't thought about it that way, that I was the one who received the gift, and should be thankful, but I was, and I am.

I apologize for the donnish tone of this post, but the attunement has left me feeling solemn. I'm sure I will return to my normal self soon.

Labels: Transcendental