Plans for 2008

My dear Friends,

This is to let you know that I shall now be writing the Reikiway newsletter "The Light" on my blog and also keeping you up-to-date with any Reikiway courses and happenings that are in the offing. You can then just go into the website - www.reikiway.com - at any time and click on 'blog' to get the information. This seems to be a better way of doing things from now on. But let me know if you think otherwise.

One thing that has crystallized in my mind is that, from March, all my emphasis in 2008 will be on setting up a teaching and treatment venue somewhere in the mountains in Italy, as well as creating my home base there. This has been my dream for 6 years now. And I have a plan that, as well as courses in Reiki healing, the venue will also offer Thai Yoga Massage and, of course, wonderful walks in the mountains so that we can place ourselves where we should always be, in the heart of nature. This means that everything else, including the Thailand programme, will be put on hold until this plan is achieved, although I will still offer one or two courses in London (Willesden Green) in the spring and autumn if they are called for. I really hope to create a very wonderful setting for acquiring an understanding of the power and workings of Reiki healing in the midst of Europe's hills and mountains. And I hope that one day we will see you there.

May your days be bountiful and your joy unbounded and, in spite of all the darkness and suffering that surrounds us, I pray that your heart will be open to the light and that you will know the divine within you.

Impermanence - no two days are the same

When I woke up this morning I realised that I felt differently from yesterday and that the energy of the day felt different, too. In fact, it seems that no two days are the same... they don't start out the same, nor do they finish the same. Each day has a different character from the one before. Now, is this just my perception, based on how I am feeling as I drift up out of the dream state into waking consciousness? Or is there something external to me with its own energy and changing character within which I exist at every moment of this day, cultivating all those new experiences which will accumulate while I am in this wakened state and which will cause me to say before I nod off to sleep again at the end of the day: "Oh, that was a good day!" or "Oh dear, what an awful day!"? I feel like a wave in the ocean that is the day, changing shape, playing with other waves, and rolling ever onwards towards some distant shore. And when I break on the shore, will that be that? Is this how our life is, like a wave in the ocean of time?

Of course, we know that nothing stays the same, not even the chair we sit on. We know that good times pass too quickly, as when we are with the person we love with all our heart and then we must part. And we should also know that the bad times, the times of suffering, will also pass for us in one way or another. This is why it is helpful to accept things as they are at this moment in time because, however they are, they will not stay this way and we need to be able to flow with the unpredictable currents of life. This is what it means to go with the flow, or to bend wth the wind. It doesn't mean to opt out of life or of decision-making but, rather, to have an open and flexible mind which can cope with every hand that life deals us.

However, none of this answers my question about whether or not each day has its own character and set of circumstances with which we have to cope. It seems that in some sense we have to slot into the day we are presented with. We can never be entirely in control. So, yes, we are waves in the ocean of time.

learning through our experience

During the past few years I have been making a big mistake. I have always felt that we have made modern day life too complicated which is why it is so stressful for so many people, and that I must make every effort to simplify it by cutting out all those things which seemed to me to be irrelevent and wasteful of my effort and energy. So, in an effort to achieve what I felt was simplicity I turned my back on opportunities and, in a sense, negated life in all its rich hues, falling into a hole of stagnation and negativity. In fact, I rather turned my back on life itself which is a dreadful sin to commit as I feel we have been given life to live it. John O'Donohue writes (in "Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World") "... we were never told that one of the greatest sins is the unlived life. We are sent into the world to live to the full everything that awakens within us and everything that comes towards us... We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny." And then later he quotes the 2nd century philosopher, Irenaeus, who said: 'The glory of God is the human person fully alive'. This all makes me shamefully realise that I have not really embraced life in recent times. Why? Well, fear, apathy and a silly misunderstanding that in order to simplify life I must turn my back on many of the things that would have allowed it to flourish and prosper. After all, there's no good without bad and sometimes we must experience both in order to find out which is which. I now realise I was turning my back on both.

One test on whether or not one is really living life with a passion or just allowing it to scrape along is whether or not one is bored and having to think of things to do. If you are living life, you are buzzing and you never have to think of something to do in order to pass the time as there is always something you want to be doing. After all, by nature we are creative beings. Maybe this blog is a good example. For 5 months I wrote nothing as my spirit ('shen') was stagnant and I had no motivation to put fingers to keyboard. Life was dead and I had nothing to say, or at least that is what I felt at the time. I now realise it was quite wrong. If we are awake, there is always something to say as life is such a rich tapestry which can always inspire comment.

I now realise that the way to a fulfilling, simple life is the path of mindfulness and the giving up of dislike and desire. Be where you want to be, do what your heart tells you to do, and love everybody. That seems to be the recipe. I'll try it.