Pathways to Harmony
Our Newsletter...May 2012
Welcome to the May 2012 edition of the Pathways to Harmony Newsletter!
Each month, Bonnie and Bob will bring you news, tips, and new original articles to enhance your practice and understanding of Reiki.
To see past issues, follow the links at the end of this page.
In this issue:
Reiki Shares - Nurture Yourself!
New Pathways Referral Bonus Program
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Original article by Reiki Master Bob McGrath
Pathways Reiki Tip of the Month
Pathways Reiki Link of the Month
Let It Grow, Let It Grow, Let It Grow
Original article by Reiki Master Bonnie Fredrick
Newsletter Past Issue Archives
Congratulations to our latest graduates! Check out our Alumni page to see the newly attuned First Degree Practitioners from our April 30th Class.
Free Reiki! May's 1st Friday Free Reiki with Angels at Venture Inward is May 4th at 6 PM. The Reiki hour from 6-7 PM is free. If you want to stay for Marge's wonderful psychic circle from 7-9:30 PM, it's a steal at just $10! We look forward to seeing you there!
Monthly Reiki Shares - Don't Forget to Nurture Yourself!
Mark your calendars for May 15, 2012! That's our next regular monthly Reiki Share. These monthly sessions will give you a chance to practice your skills as a Reiki healer and to receive a full treatment for yourself as well. Open to all Reiki practitioners at any level, these two hour sessions include an hour for you to give a full session to another attendee, and an hour for you to receive a session for yourself. These sessions will be held every month on the 3rd Tuesday from 6:30-8:30 PM at Venture Inward, 568 Columbia Tpke in East Greenbush, NY 12061. While there is no charge to attend these Reiki Shares, we do ask that attendees give a $5 contribution to help keep the heat and lights on, so please don't be offended when we pass a hat to collect. Marge Kaufman has been gracious enough to offer her wonderful space for these sessions on a regular basis so the contributions will be simply to offset her expenses.
For each paid student you refer to any Pathways to Harmony Reiki training class, you can choose any one of the following three rewards as our way of showing gratitude:
Enjoy a $25 discount on your choice of any future class we offer
-or-
We will give you a $20 cash reward
-or-
Schedule a FREE one hour Reiki session for yourself in our Clifton Park studio ($50 value!)
Or host a class with at least 4 paid students and receive the class and certification for yourself completely free!
Call for details or with any questions. 518-312-1570.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
by: Pathways co-founder Bob McGrath
I have been a huge fan of American Idol since the very first year when Kelly Clarkson first appeared in the spotlight. It’s probably the inner rock star in me that draws me to this show but I am seriously addicted to it and get surprisingly attached to the highs and lows of each contestant’s journey.
A recent show featured the music of one of my favorite bands of all time – Queen – who quite likely started making music before the parents of some of these contestants were born! Watching a very talented young singer named Joshua Ledet take on the Queen classic “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” got me thinking about how powerful love really is – how it really is the answer to all problems and the pre-requisite condition for all healing.
Now I’m not talking about romantic love or the love of material possessions. I’m talking about unconditional love. Love that is pure and unencumbered. Love that is trusting and without fear.
Bonnie and I went to a beautiful wedding in Long Island recently and one of the readings during the service was the Bible passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a which says:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
That’s a pretty high bar to set, but it is one we should all work daily to achieve in our lives – not for a specific person – but for everything – for the Universe – for our very existence and the existence of every other being.
The only being I can think of readily who has probably achieved this level of enlightenment already is my dog Mickey.
I can tell in his eyes when he looks at me that his love is without condition and totally trusting. His tail wags with excitement when he sees me (and pretty much when he sees anybody!). He has no expectation other than happiness. He is just excited to be alive and to be part of this wonderful world. He will live a long, healthy and happy life in this condition. Imagine yourself feeling this type of emotion whenever you gaze in the mirror. How wonderful would that be to know yourself and your personal beauty that well?
How ironic is it that with the passing of the enormously talented and tragically troubled vocalist Whitney Houston, we are forever reminded in the echoes of her voice that "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all".
If only Whitney had been guided to meditate on that sage advice and manifest it in her own psyche! Amazing personal healing would have been sure to follow, and after that, with the gift of her celebrity platform, the healing she could have shared with the world would have been limitless. But perhaps it is the lesson we can learn from her tragic demise which is her greatest gift to us. Maybe that was her task in this lifetime.
Part of my own ongoing pathway to enlightenment has been the crystal clear realization that negative thoughts will prevent healing. They won’t just slow it down or make the journey more difficult. They will prevent the healing from occurring. If you put negative energy into the universe in the form of your thoughts, that negativity will return to you in some form. The mission, and it is certainly far easier said than done, is to replace ALL negativity with love. I am certainly not there yet but I am honestly trying every single day.
We all need to consciously and deliberately strive to be an instrument of healing spirit. Whenever you find yourself harboring a thought containing any negativity towards anyone or anything, immediately entertain the exact opposite thought. If you find yourself feeling anger, reverse that anger to love, empathy and compassion, sending energy for complete healing to the person or situation that is the focus of your anger. Do not allow negativity to reside in your being. In the words of Mikao Usui: “Just for today, handle anger appropriately.” Healing will follow.
This will take tremendous work, but as Usui told us in the fourth Reiki precept: “Just for today, do your work honestly”. Don’t just give this lip service. Be completely honest with yourself in your efforts to release negativity. Don’t mislead yourself to rationalize that some negativity is justified. Any negativity will always come back to undermine your healing.
Early 20th century author Kahlil Gibran tells us: “Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy”.
Gibran recognized that work without love is fruitless. The synonym he uses for negativity (distaste) undermines the entire effort.
Recognize that you alone are the captain of your ship. Your healing and enlightenment depends only on yourself. If you do not start your journey with unconditional love and gratitude for yourself, your journey will be long, arduous and unsuccessful. You will be lost at sea, wandering aimlessly in unfocused directions. Remember that YOU are the boss. You are the captain. Handle this responsibility well and with unconditional love and you will reap the benefits. Take it lightly or ignore it and you will likely fail to thrive.
In his wonderful novel Captains Courageous, British author Rudyard Kipling shared with us the simple yet profound thought that "An angry skipper makes an unhappy crew". You are the skipper – your world is the crew. Consider the impact.
We have had this knowledge for a very long time but the work to implement the surprisingly simple concept is difficult so the journey is long. We will get there. Keep positive energy flowing. Follow the advice of another troubled yet amazingly talented singer and songwriter, John Lennon, who told us to simply: “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. Do this daily and be the change. Put unconditional love for everyone and everything into the universe and let it flow back to you.
I’ll close with a 2,500 year old reference to this topic from Lao Tzu, who gave us the eternal wisdom of the 81 verses of the Tao.
Tao Te Ching Verse 28
Know the masculine,
but keep to the feminine:
receive the world in your arms.
Be a valley under heaven;
if you do, the Tao will never leave you
and you will become as a little child.
Know the white,
yet keep to the black:
be a model for the world.
If you are a model for the world,
the Tao within you will strengthen
and you will return whole to the infinite.
Know the personal,
yet keep to the impersonal:
accept the world as it is.
If you embrace the world with compassion,
then you will live a life of abundant virtue.
The world is formed from the void,
like utensils from a block of wood.
The Master knows the utensils,
yet keeps to the block
because of its limitless possibilities.
When the unformed is formed into objects,
its original qualities are lost.
If you preserve your original qualities,
you can use all things.
There is wonderful insight and guidance to be found in every phrase of this verse, and it is a wonderful verse on which to meditate, working through it in your mind, but for the purpose of this article, I would like to extract from the first stanza the incredible advice: “Be a valley under heaven; if you do, the Tao will never leave you and you will become as a little child.”
Imagine yourself as that valley under Heaven, capturing the wonderful nourishing gifts that fall to us in the rain, and then allowing them to flow through you on their path to healing the world. It’s a powerful image and it is perfectly congruous with the Reiki mechanism of opening yourself as a channel to flow healing energy to others.
So remember…your mission, should you choose to accept it (apologies to Mission Impossible), is to consciously, honestly and diligently work to reverse every negative thought that you have, replacing those thoughts with unconditional love.
Love conquers all.
Blessings,
BobMedia Coverage of Reiki on KFBB ABC 5 Montana
This is an excellent example of favorable mainstream media coverage aired recently on KFBB, the ABC affiliate in Great Falls, Montana. Reiki Master Karen McElroy does a great job of providing a credible and professional explanation to the reporter.
We've used this one many times and are always pleasantly surprised by how well it works...
Pulling into a crowded parking lot? Send a little Reiki intention ahead for a convenient parking space to be waiting for you.
This never fails...more often than not, just as we're pulling into the lot, someone with a prime space pulls out and Reiki gifts us with executive parking!
Let It Grow, Let It Grow, Let It Grow
by: Pathways co-founder Bonnie Fredrick
One of my favorite springtime activities is working in my gardens – getting my hands in the soil, planting flowers and watching them grow and bloom. We know the possibilities for using Reiki energy are endless so I thought about and explored how I could apply my healing techniques to my flowers, house plants, trees, bushes, lawns, and so on.
Energy flows through all living things, it is what created us and keeps us alive. Reiki is the natural healing universal life force energy most commonly used by practitioners with people and animals but since Reiki heals any living thing, it can also be used on plants. Plants are naturally sensitive to energy and to touch, in fact scientists discovered that plants have vibrational responses very similar to emotions. Because plants are so sensitive to energy and because Reiki is non-invasive, non-threatening and very calming, makes them great recipients of Reiki.
Reiki can be used at every stage of gardening from turning the soil to planting the seeds, transplanting, watering, weeding, fertilizing and harvesting. Before planting, it’s a good idea to send Reiki to the planting soil or earth where you intend to plant. To empower seeds with Reiki, cup them in your left hand and give them Reiki with your right hand, holding them for a few minutes before planting them. Normally they will start to grow sooner, be stronger plants, develop faster, and provide protection against adverse climate conditions and diseases. To give Reiki to plants, start at the roots and then to the leaves – use both hands, surround the plant, addressing all parts of the plant. Reiki can also be placed over the top of the plant affecting the leaves and blossoms or given by holding the container.
Reiki your garden regularly – sit or stand, beaming Reiki to your entire garden. As you send Reiki to each plant, thank the founders of Reiki and the Reiki energy for enhancing this process. If you are a Reiki Level II or Reiki Master, send distant Reiki to the garden, the soil and the plants before, during and after watering, holding the intention of providing refreshment and nurturing to the soil life and the plants. Carolyn Musial, Reiki Master, suggests visualizing the power symbol at the end of the hose as water passes through it into the plants. Also, you can pour water over your energy radiating hand as plants are watered. You can even send the garden distant Reiki from a crystal grid. Treating your garden regularly will reward you with strong and healthy plants.
Meditate on what your plants need – this will provide a way for you to actually feel its energy. If a plant has mold, pests, etc., it’s advisable not to physically touch it when treating it. Preparing to treat a plant is the same as you would for a person, become focused and connected. You can do Reiki healing with distance healing techniques, treating the area of immediate need, then proceed to treat the rest of the plant. Giving your plants lots of Reiki energy helps to fight off pests and diseases. Like people, plants can be treated as often as necessary, as any excess energy is simply returned to the Universe.
When you channel Reiki into your plants, be specific and careful with your intention so as not to include the weeds. If your garden does have weeds, imagine that by pulling each weed, you are removing unwanted thoughts or energy from yourself. With the intention of releasing unwanted thoughts, you’ll find yourself more centered, grounded and uplifted.
Gardening is a wonderful way to grow closer to nature and to use your Reiki practice to give back to the earth. Nature’s health is directly related to our health – applying Reiki healing energy to plant life creates a healing environment for us. Life in the soil and the ground’s energy can provide a feeling of relaxation, more balance and harmony in your life, and a loving relationship with plants and nature.
I leave you with this quote from Alfred Austin – “The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body but the soul.”
Reiki Blessings,
BonnieWell that's it for this month's Pathways Newsletter. Have a wonderful month, and we'll see you again in June with new tips and articles, and our Summer schedule of class offerings!
Newsletter Past Issue Archives:
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011