After sharing about my first reiki attunement last month, I thought I would continue the story and tell you about my first reiki treatment. I went about things a little backwards from a lot of reiki practitioners that I meet in that I first was attuned before I had ever experienced a reiki treatment. I was ready to go out and give reiki to everyone that was willing and interested, but I had no idea what they would be experiencing or even what they should expect to experience. All I could do was regurgitate what my first reiki teacher, Julie Raftery, told me in the class. After a couple short sessions I gave to friends I realized I need to experience a treatment for myself so that I could speak about reiki from a place of experience with those I would be giving reiki to, and learn from both mine and their experiences during the sessions.

I looked through my notes to find Julie's business card, mustered up the courage to call her, and dialed the number. I didn't know Julie except for the fact that she taught the reiki class I took, and I didn't know what to expect in setting up the session. As we worked out the details of time and place, I was thrown off when she asked if there was anything I wanted to focus on in the session. I couldn't think of anything that needed healing in my body, and I explained that I just wanted to experience a reiki session. She understood and let me know that if I think of anything before the appointment to let her know.

And that was it. The session was scheduled, and I was excited to experience it for the first time. I never did think of anything to focus on, but as I found out, it didn't matter. Reiki goes where it needs to go.

Below are my notes from the session dated 2/11/08. You can see that the sensation of "tingling" was and still is my experience of feeling energy move through my body, and is how I described it in my first attunement in last month's post. (Read about my first attunement here.)

"Notable things to remember:

• As soon as Julie put her hands near my head I could feel energy (tingling) around my head and beginning to move down into my shoulders and upper chest. The longer she stayed there the energy began to flow to my left shoulder reminding me of my tendonitis there. The energy knew where to go before I even said anything to Julie.

• She moved to my right elbow asking if I've had any problems there and throughout my forearm. I thought of some discomfort near my wrist when playing bass and really bending my hand. While she worked in this area, I could feel the energy completely moving from head to toe and not just on the inhale like I've been feeling but even on the exhale and between breaths.

• After going to my chest, she moved to my knees and I began to smile knowing the pain I've had from running which I then shared with her. She was about to ask if there was anything going on with them. They just called to her.

• While sitting and holding my focus on my 3rd eye, I felt energy going from the back of my head to the front in 2 distinct lines above my ears and near my temples. With my eyes closed I shifted my focus to look at myself from outside my body. As I looked at my forehead it opened up and a serpent stuck out its head, opened its mouth and went back inside. When I mentioned this to Julie, she told me she just did a coil maneuver. This all connects with kundalini which is said to be serpent-like coiling up through the spine. The connection with what she did and the vision I had is amazing.

• At the end I felt pretty light all over, and slightly light headed. She said to take it easy and drink a lot of water.

• At some point I saw the profile of a frog blinking its eye."

The coolest thing about that session was the vision of the serpent. It was so clear and vivid, and I told all of my friends about it which I'll admit, freaked them out a bit. I didn't care. I experienced it and it was wild.

As I continued giving friends reiki sessions I noticed that my intuition was beginning to awaken, and I believe that the serpent opened up my third eye chakra. I would close my eyes during the treatments and go into a meditative state while giving reiki, and I would picture a black silhouette of their body in my mind. On that silhouette would appear little red blinking lights in different locations. It would grab my attention and I would watch these blinking lights appear and disappear in my imagination. After a few minutes one or two lights would not disappear on the silhouette, and I wondered why. Instead of assuming I was "psychic" and believing this to be a sign of where they need reiki, I chose to ask them about that area on their body. I mean, come on. I was imagining these images in my mind, and the mind is a tricky thing. I could just be daydreaming and my mind could be making it up.

The only way to know for sure was to ask them, and I asked without any expectation of being right or wrong. I just wanted to know if I was making it up or if I was connecting to something deeper.

And so I did, and this began my investigation into my intuition. Sometimes friends would tell me that nothing was going on in the area that I asked about, and I would continue the session and go through all of the hand positions I learned. But over time I started to get more "Yeah, that has been bothering me lately. How did you know?" And occasionally that would be followed by, "You're freaking me out."

To be honest, it was freaking me out too. How was I "seeing" and picking up on these areas of their bodies that needed attention or that were bothering them? It was messing with my analytical mind that was seeking an explanation for everything, but there was no rational explanation I could think of. But yet, I couldn't deny the experience of having those intuitive insights, and that kept me interested in doing more and more reiki to see where it would take me.

Next month I'll share about one of the sessions that still boggles my mind.