On October 20th I will be celebrating 9 years since I received my first Reiki attunement, and I had no idea at the time just how much of an impact that class would have on the direction my life would take. Not a clue did I have that in four and a half years I would resign and walk away from a career that I planned for and built my life around. I didn't even have a hint that I would go on to become a Reiki Master and teach others this healing art known as Reiki. As a matter of fact, I didn't even really know what I was getting into. At this point all I had known about Reiki was what I read about in a book.

After I first heard about Reiki, I went to a book store and bought a Reiki for Beginners book to learn more about it and read it from cover to cover. The book mentioned that to learn Reiki you have to take a class with a Reiki Master, and as soon as I found a class I immediately went online to register for it. There was only one seat left in it, and I knew it was meant for me. I completed the registration and eagerly awaited the upcoming class.

When I walked into the classroom at the Glendale Community College Garfield Campus, it was a familiar setting for me. The teacher was at a desk in the front of the room and the other students and I were seated around tables placed in evenly spaced rows. It was a traditional academic classroom, but what we were about to learn was anything but traditional.

About a year ago I found the folder that contained all my notes and handouts from that class, and I remembered that I had written about my first attunement right after it had happened. I flipped through the folder to find it, and I always share the story with my Reiki students before they get their first attunement. This is how I described my experience.

"As soon as I sat in the chair I got chills in my head. As I inhaled, the top of my head would tingle, and the more I breathed the more focused the tingling became in my crown chakra and throat chakra (near my glands on my jawline). 

"As [the Reiki Master] began, the sensation was wonderful. It was as if the energy was flowing out the top of my head with each breath. I think this had something to do with the stone* under the seat since it started as soon as I sat down. (*stone = rose quartz)

"As the attunement continued I began to feel the tingling in my lower legs, calf area. Again with each breath, tingling in my calves, throat, and crown. There's something about getting the chills that feels invigorating, something that you don't want to stop.

"I just got the chills, as I write, just thinking about [the Reiki Master's] last movements of washing over me with Reiki. I felt surrounded, almost blanketed with great energy."

I have been looking over that story since I found it last year, but it wasn't until tonight that I read the next passage I want to share with you. The following entry is a description of what I experienced during a guided meditation during the class.

"After crossing the bridge I was standing in a thick forest. It was so thick that it was dark in the center of the trees. As I walked the edge of the forest the light shined through the trees but as I looked toward the center of the forest it was black between the trees. I couldn't see through to the other side.

"I started to walk toward the center of forest being surrounded by the darkness, and all I could see were the trees closest to me. As I walked further in, an energy came down from above and cleared all of the darkness so that I could see through the trees in all directions. The forest was open. The energy was like an explosion, only no bomb. The force was strong."

As I read that last part again, how the energy came down from above and blasted away the darkness so that I could see clearly, I can see the spark that was ignited within my soul that day, and I haven't connected with that feeling in a long time.

When I look at the top of the page above that story, I see that I had written my intention for taking the class.

"To feel and harness the energy within myself and my surroundings."

As I approach the 9th anniversary of that class and my first attunement I can truly say that I am starting to access that intention on a deeper level than I ever could have thought when I originally wrote that down.