healing – Serendipities

Hedgewitch: How I Describe My Magical Craft

I mentioned in a previous post that I tend to refer to my magical practice as hedgewitchery, and myself as a hedgewitch, but I thought it would be useful to go into that in more depth in this new blog post.

So, what do I mean when I call myself a hedgewitch? What is it I do ?

This: I practice folk magic to balm and bane, I divine for omens, I truck with spirits, I cross the hedge to walk the worlds, and I dabble in herbs.

FOLK MAGIC

A lot of my magical practice draws on folklore and folk magic traditions, and incorporates the materials I have around me in a way that some might call traditional witchcraft. I use pieces I’ve learned from family and friends, or invented myself, with what bits and bobs I had on hand or could easily acquire: paper or yarn, candle or salt, herb or stone. I read about other witches’ practices, I talk to my peers, and we inspire each other to use materials or magical technologies in ways that solve the problems in front of us. Most of it is highly personal and highly intuitive, often with guidance from spirits. I have a couple of pretty tools (a brass bell, a copper mug, a pillar of quartz, an engraved wooden spoon) but most everything also has a very practical purpose. I love the look of a fancy wand as much as the next magpie, but I’ve never really used ceremonial tools with any regularity, and I rarely do magic in a manner that requires an altar set just-so. In fact, many of my most “complicated” workings are done almost entirely in trance.

BALM AND BANE

Healing and hexing are two sides of the same coin, in my view. I can heal with darkness, I can curse with light, and in fact I have an upcoming workshop for the NoVA Pagan Moot on exactly that. I am trained in several modalities of energetic or spiritual healing, and I combine them intuitively for those who seek my services. But just as poison in the right dosage can be medicine, a medicine in the wrong dosage is often a poison. Non-consensual or inexpertly targeted healing can cause harm, and sometimes a binding or a banishing can twist someone’s fate so that they’re heading in a more positive direction. Magic is complicated, consent matters, and every effective spell has consequences, intended or not. I try to do more good than harm, but if I’m between a rock and a hard place I will use every tool in my arsenal. I see a lot of people who have a very all-or-nothing mindset around banework, and I don’t think that’s nearly as helpful as having actual discussions about ethics and harm reduction, and us each figuring out our own personal boundaries.

DIVINATION

I am an eternal student of divination: I keep learning new forms, and I keep going deeper with the forms I am already proficient with. I practice several types of cartomancy, I read ogham staves and rune stones, I take omens taken in the wild from the flight of birds, and I sometimes even turn to modern technological omens like shufflemancy and the rolling of d20s. Not everything works well for me: I’ve never quite gotten the hang of pendulums or spirit boards, for instance. But I am proficient enough in many forms that I have enough confidence in my skill to offer these services for money, and the reviews I get back are extremely positive. I use my tools to divine the future, the past, the present—to illuminate anything that is shrouded, to look around corners, to answer what-ifs as best I can, knowing as I do that things are always in flux. I use these tools to speak with and to get messages from spirits of many kinds, both for myself, and on the behalf of others.

SPIRITWORK

I have deep relationships with two pantheons of Deities: the Tuatha Dé and the Vanir. I am also deeply entwined with the Álfar and with the Daoine Uaisle, through the Fairy Queen I serve. I maintain relationships with my local Good Neighbors, Nature Spirits, and Land Wights where I live, where I visit and practice, and where I travel. I honor my Beloved Dead, and those Ancestors (of blood or of path) who appear to guide and to help me. There are spirits in my household; they are my allies and my companions, my guides and my guardians. I also maintain cordial relationships and open lines of communication with many of the Deities and other tutelary spirits of my human-incarnate friends and associates. Most of my magical work involves these many types of spirits; I do workings with them, for them, because of them, on their behalf, or at their request.

HEDGECROSSING

Hedge-crossing, hedge-riding, journeying, pathworking, world-walking: whatever you may call it, I use these to refer to the act of travelling in spirit to the Otherworlds. This is a type of trancework, and the one I use most often. I slip between this world and an Other to see spirits more clearly, to converse with them, or to take a look at the landscape and flows of energy. I travel to visit spirits I know; I travel to seek those I have not yet encountered. I go seeking answers for myself and for others, and I bring answers back in words or images, scents or feelings. Sometimes I wander the worlds for the sheer joy of it, the ecstasy of spirit-flight. From time to time I go walking in my dreams, but most of my wanderings are waking visions.

HERBALISM

This is the one area that I most wish to have additional education in. I am familiar with some herbal remedies for common things like colds, scrapes, and bruises; I know remedies for menstrual cramps. I have deeper education in a couple of chronic conditions I am personally dealing with, including migraines, but I would like to take an actual certification programme at some point. For magical uses, I work with herbs and resins a bit more intuitively, mixing flavors and intentions into food, blending oils for scent and resonance. I speak with the plants themselves, and learn what they would teach me. When I need to ground deeply and my usual way is not enough, I go walk the land or else I spend time in my own garden. The cycles of plant growth, of harvest, of weather, of the moon, bring me back into the present, back into balance with the cycles of my own life.

Grand Healing Ceremony

Earlier this month, Glasreo and I had the opportunity to work as healers at Monika Healing Coyote’s Grand Healing Ceremony. It was the first time we’d worked that sort of ritual, and the most clients we’d worked on in a single day (except for brief work at reiki shares) and though we were somewhat nervous about how much we’d be able to do before we got tapped out, we both managed to work on 3/4 of the attendees before we needed to stop.

For privacy reasons we obviously can’t tell what we all did, but we can give an overview and some general themes. Most of the attendees didn’t have specific things they wanted worked on, but I ended up doing deep healing work (and some soul retrieval) on just about everyone she worked on, even when the requests were vague. Glasreo found that his new lithomancy set was needed to work through blockages for some people, giving them answers that hadn’t been made clear by other forms of divination. Both of us found ourselves holding part of the warding for the space in which we worked, and my Waystation energies in particular seemed (to Monika, at least) to be helping the healers work longer more effectively!

It was a nice plunge back into healing work, and we will definitely be working the next one (schedules permitting) so watch for it some time in the winter months!

My Reiki Classes: A Reflection

March 1, 2017
by Alexandra

As you probably know, I taught two Reiki classes in February: a I and II class on the 19th, and a III (Master) class on the 25th. Both classes were small: 3 students for the first, 2 for the second, but I think that was a good thing for me, where I am right now.

It was the second time I’d taught a I/II class and I think it went just as well if not better than the first time, despite me no longer having the backup of other Reiki Masters (besides my husband, Glasreo). I streamlined the notes last time, and this time I added a few things but mostly stuck to the outline from before. Both classes together plus the attunements and several breaks took about four hours, and I think that’s probably just going to be how long it takes to do that class. We had a little bit of practice time at the end and I think everyone went home satisfied with the progress they’d made. The only thing I think I’d want to do differently is to have posters of the Reiki II symbols made so that they can be up on the wall. And I may want to put page numbers in my notes so I can tell my students which page to find things like the hand positions on without having to look myself, or telling them to read the whole book. I’m using William Rand’s manuals, the same as I was given when I was taught, and I do like them, but I don’t follow the flow of the book exactly in my class. I did forget to print the certificates ahead of time (whoops!) and will now have to mail them, but that’s not the end of the world.

My first time teaching the Reiki III class was a bit stressful, because I was unable to finish my preparations the day before due to an emergency personal matter, but I think I made the best of it and my students were very understanding when I occasionally lost the thread and had to find it again. Those notes will need some more streamlining, but I am confident that I gave my students enough information to succeed, and I will of course always be available to them for mentoring or further study. The III class also took about 4 hours, because I included a review of I and II to make sure everyone was on the same page. I think including a review was a good idea, because it allowed us to talk about our personal strengths and weaknesses when using Reiki. I may also want to expand my ethics section a bit, after having an amazing ethical discussion at the Soul Retrieval Workshop. Afterward we had another short practice section (one of the students brought their spouse to be a guinea pig). For this class I also used but did not exactly follow William Rand’s manual, and I think another poster of symbols would be useful. I also need to take a closer look at the manuals – it seems the new edition has changed a few things, which I found out as I was teaching! I didn’t give the Master students their certificates yet – I’ll mail those once they finish their “homework” and pass an attunement on someone else!

So far I’ve been keeping my classes to friends and acquaintances. In the future I’d like to expand by word of mouth some before I go fully public, and if I continue teaching at my house the classes are going to have to stay small for now. My goal is going to be to have one of each level each quarter, but as I am currently pregnant and due to give birth at the beginning of May, I think next quarter is probably out!

As always, if you’re interested in a Reiki class or a Reiki treatment (or even Reiki attuned healing jewelry) please contact us (or browse the Etsy shop)!

Soul Retrieval Certification!

This past weekend (Jan 13-16), Glasreo and I attended a Soul Retrieval Certification workshop, taught by Monika Healing Coyote, in the neoshamanic healing tradition of Sandra Ingerman and Gryphon’s Grove. It was an INTENSE experience. Which is part of why it’s taken me this long to blog about it… I’m still pretty heavily processing,but I think it’s time to share! I’m going to give a brief overview of each day of the class, the topics covered, with more details on any personal insights I gained. I will probably forget things and miss things because I learned SO MUCH, but hopefully this will be a passable record of my experiences.

DAY ONE:

There were six other attendees, plus myself, Glasreo, and our instructor, gathered in her living room. It was a small room, and a cozy fit, but pleasant. We did a round of introductions – the usual. Name, experience level for journeying, healing modalities practiced, why learn soul retrieval? My answer to the last question was pretty much,
Another Tool in the Toolbox. I’ve been spirit-led to do soul retrieval on a few reiki clients previously, and I jumped at the chance to learn it more deeply.

We talked a bit about ways to jump in and out of journey space in order to take notes and ask multiple questions, but I already have a system I use for “pausing” journeys in order to do that. I’ve really found it useful in my reiki practice, because it allows me to receive messages from spirits and look at the energy body deeply, and still talk to the client and be aware of where my body is in relation to theirs and everything else in the room.

Our first journey was to talk to our soul retrieval guides about soul essence and soul loss, on micro and macro levels. My guides are the same as my main reiki guides: Airmed and Miach, Irish gods of healing. They gave me imagery that spun up and down on different levels, comparing the soul to the nucleus of an atom, or the star of a solar system – the center that animates the outside (the body). Many of my classmates also got solar or fire imagery, and most of us also got messages about the soul of an individual being part of a larger soul (and likely made up of smaller souls, as well). Fractals, spiraling up and down out of our ability to conceive in both directions. Soul loss, then, can affect us all on many different levels, and it’s as important to do soul retrieval for individuals as it is to do it for groups, the land, and the planet, if you can.

Since we started in the evening and everyone was pretty beat, it was a short session.

DAY TWO:

Day two started with us asking our guides for a dismemberment healing, to prepare the way for new energies. As usual, I dissolved into the water that borders my Waystation island. It’s very very calming, and a bit less violent than what usually comes to mind for a dismemberment healing, but just as potent. We talked a bit about my own shadows and blockages, shadow work I need to do and things I need to be aware of as I’m doing this healing work. Most of it was things I’m already aware of and trying to work on, one or two were new and struck a chord. Self improvement is never finished, and I’m glad to have their guidance.

Then we talked for a bit, with Monika introducing concepts like client education, confidentiality, consent, other complementary healing modalities, so that we could discuss them and figure out our own paths through this work. Glasreo and I will probably be combining this work with our reiki practice, first and foremost, and using reiki to both prepare the bodies (physical and etheric) as well as to help with integration afterwards.

The next journey was a pretty intense one – we were to ask our guides for a run-down of our specific method, ie, how we were going to perform soul retrieval with their help. My particular method requires me using sound to call in nearby pieces, and visiting an underwater (but air-filled) cave to find pieces that get lost. I see the soul like a little squishy ball of light as I work on it, clearing things out and helping pieces assimilate back in. After learning our method, and hearing about everyone else’s, Monika paired us up to work on partners. My partner and I didn’t have any trouble working on each other, and it helped me really cement the method I’d been shown.

We then talked a bit about integration, and how to tell the client what we’d seen, and when it’s best to keep some of the story to ourselves – it’s not a good idea to share something if it will trigger or re-traumatize the client. It’s better to focus on what the soul pieces are bringing back, rather than focusing on why the left – you want the client to move forward, and heal fully. We also discussed how different messages come through our filters, and how sometimes a symbol will mean a different thing to us than it does to the client. It’s okay to just say you’re not sure if the symbology or metaphor is unclear – maybe it will become clear to the client afterwards! After discussing integration, we did a journey to the soul pieces that were returned, to ask them for their story, and advice moving forward, in order to cement our own integration.

Our last topic was soul theft, and we discussed the topic before journeying to ask our guides how we would handle it as healers, and what we should do to prevent it from happening again. Monika pointed out that frequently, human-on-human soul theft is a chain that goes pretty far back, and it might be best to go as far back as you can, or until you hit someone dead, to prevent the cycle from recurring. Most soul theft is unintentional, and the perpetrators often need healing, themselves, but consent can be difficult, so I will probably free pieces and hand them off to someone’s guides or Higher Self, as attempting to put them back into the core soul without consent is likely to get me nowhere, and it’s not very ethical. Spirits can also steal pieces of soul, or pick up pieces that left and hold on to them, and those may have to be battled or psychopomped, depending on the kind of spirit and how reluctant they are to give up the piece. I’ll be working with the Morrigna in these cases, though, so I feel ready to do the work.

DAY THREE:

The first half of the day was spent on smaller topic discussions: ancestral line soul loss in the client’s family, past lives/reincarnation/soul contracts of the client, working on clients with mental or physical illnesses (especially the limitations of this work to “fix” biological problems – it can help, certainly, but “miracle cures” are incredibly rare), working on clients with addiction issues (and the limitations it puts on healing if they are not Ready, Willing, and Able to change), working on clients remotely (can totally be done, across time and/or space), working on land spirits, working on animals, and group healing ceremonies.

After we discussed animals, we did a small group session on the dog that lived in the house, and we found that some of us were called to do different parts. For example, I ended up doing mostly gunk removal, from both the core soul and pieces, though I was not guided to gather or integrate more than one piece. Another classmate was called to gather many pieces but not clean them, and a third was guided to hold space for the rest of us and then finish the integration process. That led us into the discussion of group healing, and once we had finished all our discussion topics, we did a brief healing on Monika, as well.

The final journey of the day was a discussion (with our guides) of trickery and intrusions, from spirits and thoughtforms and suchlike that could mess with a healing. We were to come up with a system to guard against and deal with these issues. My personal system is to remain basically the same as what I already do with my guides when working on reiki clients, or when encountering new spirits in journey space, so that was more confirmation for me than anything new.

DAY FOUR:

The first half the day was entirely devoted to a discussion on ethics. We revisited consent and confidentiality, and also covered topics like holding space, moving past our own ego, self-healing work and shadow work, honoring equal exchange, knowing our personal limits, and making sure not to cause dependency, not to hold any healing back from the client. Monika shared with us her own ethical code, and talked about the code put forth by the Indie Shaman quarterly journal, and we all thought a bit about our own guidelines. Then, another journey – this time to ask our guides for their input, and to be told what the consequences might be if we broke our oath. After that, we all participated in a short meditation to release any soul essence that was not ours that we had taken or ended up with, consciously or unconsciously, so that those pieces could find their way home.

After lunch, Monika led a ceremony to call forth many many spirits as witnesses, and we all gave our oaths. The core of mine is that I will abide by the sacred rules of Hospitality, and I will Put Right what is Wrong. Some things will not be mine to change, and I should never put anything wrong that was right to begin with… It is somewhat difficult to put into terms, but I understand and my spirits understand, and the consequences if break this oath will be immediate and dire, and completely out of my control.

OVERVIEW:

I feel like I learned so much, from both the discussions, and the journeys. It was also really helpful to hear about other people’s journeys, and where everyone else was coming from. It was one of those times where I’m not sure it could have been replicated with another group of people, because we were all so in sync! Hopefully Monika will teach the class again – I would highly recommend it to any experienced energy healer. It’s been a lot to process, but I would do it all over again. I really think this is going to help deepen my healing practice.

One last thing – before we receive our final certificate, we have to do 1 free soul retrieval healing, so if you’d like to volunteer for that, do let me know. I’ll probably offer a handful for free to make sure I’ve really integrated what I’ve learned, and then I’ll add it to my reiki bag of tricks and stick it on the menu, so to speak. I’ll be updating the reiki & healing part of the website with more information soon.

As we slide into Winter…

A few months ago, I posted a blog titled “A Message for the Equinox”. In it, I described a journey I took to see the Morrigna, the three Daughters of Ernmas, and their message for me about the coming fall and winter. As they predicted, the fall has been tumultuous, even beyond what I had expected. Fierce storms raged, the veil was so thin that people who aren’t normally in tune could feel that something was amiss, wild unseen things were wandering, and the US election seems to have caught quite a few of us by surprise. Illusions are being shows for what they are, assumptions are being overturned, and we are all confronting the fact that we have painful shadow work to do in order to move forward. The unnecessary, the luxurious, and the gilded things are being stripped away. It has been a painful season of growth, but I hope you all are rising to the challenge.

As we move forward, however, remember to take time for yourself. Remember to rest, recharge and heal. Check in with people around you; give help where you can, and accept help when you need it yourself. The winter is likely to be even worse than the fall, and spring is very far away. We have much to do before then, and burn out is likely if you can’t maintain yourself.

The Morrigna have been calling me, personally, to help heal those of their warriors who are in my own circle. That, it seems, is my role in the struggles ahead. I am a healer, not a warrior, and my most important efforts include holding space for others. I will do my best to provide respite and sanctuary to all those I can, whether through reiki or spellwork or simply listening. If you need someone to help you find hope, please do not hesitate to reach out.

I’m attempting to schedule some reiki classes for January or February, so if you are interested in taking Reiki I, II, or III, do let me know. Classes are tentatively priced at $50 plus the cost of a manual (which is $15-20), and I’ll need at least three students per level to be able to schedule a class. Weekends are probably best, as each class is several hours long and I’d prefer not to go too late into the evening.

Reiki Adventures

June 13, 2016
by Alexandra

Glasreo and I have been doing a bit more reiki recently, both for clients and bartering with friends. I’ve noticed that I’m getting better at paying attention to the client’s gods and guides, now, even when they don’t have a specific message, which is good. Previously I mostly noticed them when they were trying to get my attention! I’ve been practicing shifting focuses in and out a bit and it does help with my awareness and visualization. I’ve also been improving my work on physical ailments – helped in no small part by a new anatomy book we picked up, which is refreshing my memory of high school Anatomy/Physiology!

On Glasreo’s part, he’s finding it a bit easier to work with client’s energy centers, and that is helping him find less obvious blockages. He’s solidified a few new relationships with spirit helpers, including a lava elemental that has been very helpfully eating things we pull out of people. The crystal spirits are taking a more active role, as well – Glasreo is now making crystal grids intuitively based on each client’s needs, instead of more general grids to help with reiki flow and broad healing.

We’ve been pretty in tune as we work together on clients as well, seeing a lot of the same issues and problems, but being guided to work on different aspects so that our work complements each other. So far we’re still using the chair-in-the-living-room method, but as our sessions have been 45 minutes or shorter that’s working out fine. Hopefully before too long we’ll be able to save up for a traveling massage table.

[[If you feel like helping that cause, please contact us to set up an appointment, or visit our etsy shop!]]

Pendulums!

We got some pendulums and pendulum necklaces from our supplier in time for Baltimore Faerie Faire! Here are the little gems all wrapped up in their packaging still:

They’d come a long way through the mail all smothered in plastic, so the poor little babies needed some TLC. First, we set them up with a sea salt bath for about a day. Here they are, a few layers deep, before we covered them completely in salt. We go through a lot of this sea salt in our house…

After a day or so of that, I pulled them out, dusted them off, and set them on a cookie sheet out in the sun on the deck for a long afternoon.

After that they were much happier and much less sluggish! Then Glasreo (yes, we’re calling Gwdihŵ by a new name now – but it still starts with a G, so hopefully you’ll find it easy to remember who he is) journeyed to talk to all the crystal spirits so that our little pendulums could find their way home – Amethyst, Aventurine, Jade, Opalite, Rose Quartz, and Tiger’s Eye.

There they are sitting on top of a sigil waiting for me to attune them! The Tiger’s Eye will be more geared towards grounding and removing blockages, and the others will be more geared towards pulsing energy to break up blockages and to raise vibrations. I even put my personal pendulum in the mix to get recharged . I use it in my reiki practice to help me find blockages and places that need more healing, both in the physical body and in the energy body and aura. About half of them are on short chains for pinching between fingers, but the other half are on necklace chains so that they can be worn to help you when you’re not using them on others. Hopefully others will find these as helpful as I do!

If we don’t sell out of these at Baltimore Faerie Faire I’ll put them up in the Etsy shop next week. Otherwise I’ll have to order another shipment and do this whole process over again!

A Reiki Treatment of a Friend in Need

August 31, 2015
by Alexandra

[[For the privacy of those involved, the names below have been changed, so that our lovely elven friends are now Eärwen and Finarfin, and their son is Finrod. A fitting tribute, I think, to magickal folk and Tolkien fans.]]

A few weeks ago, our friends (Eärwen and Finarfin)’s son, Finrod, was in a nasty car accident. The car he was in was rear-ended at high speed while they were stopped at a light, and the accident killed two young women and gravely injured Finrod, and another young man in the car. This happened whilst Gwdihw and I were out of town, but once we were back we made room in our schedule so that we might visit the family and try to give them a little reiki and just, well, hold space for healing. Finrod had recently been released from the hospital, but he was still being treated for traumatic brain injury and was, of course, absolutely blown away mourning the two young women who died. Finarfin had to work, but encouraged us to go and visit his wife and son in any case, though he was not sure if Finrod would want to be treated, because he thinks his father’s love of things metaphysical is, to quote Finarfin, “crazy”. Finrod is a teen, and while I had hoped we would be able to convince him of the usefulness (and existence, honestly) of reiki, I knew that it would be difficult to convince a teenager of anything, especially one we hadn’t met who was going through such a hard time in his life. So when we arrived at the family’s house, we first treated Eärwen, who had received reiki treatments before and was more than happy for any help in dealing with her own trauma in seeing a son so badly hurt. As Gwdihw and I do not yet have a massage table (travel or otherwise) of our own, we had Eärwen sit in a chair in the middle of the room so that we might move around her.

At the beginning, I sat on the floor in front of Eärwen. I sensed that her aura was pulled tight around her, retracted into an opaque shell, for self-preservation. Not wanting to pull too hard, I tried to wash the outside of her shell in waves of reiki, and to plant flowers near her, on the astral, so that she might feel their gentle presence. I had hoped that I might be able to coax out a tendril of her aura, so that I could get a better feel for exactly what sort of healing she needed. Instead, the shell became somewhat translucent. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was a start. I tried to reach her chakras through the now-translucent but still dark shell, but could not – so instead of attempting to press the sei heki symbol into her chakras, I pressed it into the aura shell itself.

Meanwhile, Gwdihw was working behind Eärwen, with his hands on her shoulders. He began by scanning, starting at the top of her head, using a system he likens to a sonar echo, to see what was amiss. What he found was what he saw as a huge sword, without a sheath, sitting along her spine, with the cross guards resting at the top of her shoulders, and the pommel at the crown of her head. He didn’t find anything else as he scanned, so he figured this was what he was meant to work on. He could tell it was not something meant to be pulled out, and while he thought about what to do he sent reiki at it gently and asked Eärwen if swords held any symbolic meaning to her, personally. When she wasn’t sure, I chimed in that sometimes they represented carrying the burdens of others, especially if the sword was not suited to one’s size. (This one would have been far too big for her to wield.) Eärwen said that resonated with her – and said that mothers always carry burdens for their families, their children. Gwdihw stepped back to see if he had any crystals that might assist him, and his eyes caught on a malachite sphere. He charged it with several reiki symbols (including the choku rei, the sei heki, the dai ko myo, and the raku symbol) and gave it to Eärwen to hold. He used the malachite energy with his reiki to grow a sheath for the sword she carried, starting from its pointed tip. Once the sheath was fully formed, he put 2 choku rei symbols (one on each side of the blade) to help seal it. Then he went to retrieve a piece of nimbus quartz and charged that with sky/cloud energy with the help of his Namesake Spirit Helper, Gichi Binesi. Gwdihw touched the nimbus quartz to her back where the hilt met the blade (which was approximately at her T3 vertebra), and infused the sword with this sky/cloud energy, willing it to be lighter so that it would be easier for Eärwen to carry.

From my perspective, I saw Eärwen’s heart chakra pulse for a moment when Gwdihw handed her the malachite sphere, and this light allowed me to see through the still-dark aura shell. Taking that as a sign, I began to channel reiki through my heart chakra instead of through my palms, giving her my compassion and love along with the universal love of reiki, so that she might feel safe again. I called on my guides and Eärwen’s, and Brigid showed up in a form that I regard as Saint Bridget, in contrast to the Goddess (though I believe the two are related). I’d had an inkling that She might appear, and I’d brought a pink 7-day candle for her for just that reason, but I was initially surprised that the Catholic Saint showed up, not the Goddess with whom I work more often. Then again, Eärwen is Catholic (though very Pagan-Positive!) so I supposed I should not have been surprised. I told Eärwen this, and she was happy and said she knew the Saint and she, too, thought that Saint and Goddess were related – and then Eärwen reminded me that Brigid is the patron goddess of her husband Finarfin’s coven, which I had forgotten. At that point, I rose, went to the table where Gwdihw and I had set our things, and I anointed the pink candle four times with lavender essential oil, and I offered it to the Four Brigids: Goddess of the Forge and Firey Inspiration, Goddess of the Healing Well and Flowing Words, Goddess of the Home and Hearth, and Saint Bridget of Kildare, patroness of Ireland. I invited them into the house to help with the healing, and I gave them thanks and honored them. Then I lit the candle, and set it to burn on the table, and returned to sitting in front of Eärwen and sending waves of reiki over her. It seemed like the darkness was finally beginning to wash off of her aura shell, and it was becoming more transparent, instead of darkly translucent. To facilitate this process, I began to inscribe the sei heki symbol all over her aura shell, continuously, like the pattern in a damask wallpaper. Once I had finished, I took at scan-look at the sword Gwdihw was working on. I decided to test and see if it could shrink down and regrow in size, so that she might carry a deadly weapon as a small pen knife – telescopic, if you will. It seemed to understand and to accept this programming, and I explained that to Eärwen.

As I was doing this, Gwdihw decided to give the sword a healing attunement as well. He used several reiki symbols in doing this (including the choku rei, the sei heki, the hon sha ze sho nen, the Tibetan fire serpent, the dai ko myo, and the raku). He placed most of the symbols into the part of the sword where the hilt met the blade, but some he inscribed along the entire length of the sword. His intent for this attunement was for the sword and its hilt to be easier to carry, and to give off positive energies; to become a sword of regeneration. In this way, a burden would become a boon instead.

Once he was finished, I stepped around to Eärwen’s back, and scanned it myself from that perspective. I reached out to feel her aura again, and I found that the shell was even more transparent now, and a bit more relaxed, less tight around her body. I managed to put the sei heki symbol through the top of the shell into her crown chakra this time, and let it float down within her. I continued to scan in order to find and look at the sword from this angle, and I found it there, sheathed, and as the reiki did not increase its pressure, nor did the temperature change and I moved my hands across her shoulders and back, I believed that what needed to be done there was finished for now. While I had been sitting at Eärwen’s feet I had momentarily glimpsed wings, and now that I was behind her I sought them to see them more fully. I found wings like a newborn butterfly’s inside her aura shell – crumpled and wet and still folded tightly. Perhaps newborn isn’t correct, as it seemed she was still inside her chrysalis, as her aura formed a cocoon. I tried to gently pull her aura shell wider, and to gently begin to unfold the wings, and to show them how they might unfold more when the time came. Wings like this I frequently find to be signs of rebirth, of transformation, and of healing after trauma. Sometimes wings that stay can be signs of spiritual progress or faerie blood, but I think in Eärwen’s case they are most likely a sign of healing and reemergence. Eärwen told me afterwards that while I was doing this, she saw a field of flowers and butterflies in her mind’s eye, and took comfort from the image.

Once we were both done, Gwdihw and I made sure to even back out everything we had done, so that Eärwen’s aura, energies, and shields might return to her natural state. Then she called downstairs to her son, Finrod, but he was spending time with friends and did not wish to come up and be treated. Instead, with inspiration from Brigid, I decided to make a sigil spell to set the candle on, in order that its healing light might be amplified throughout the house. I also intended it to be a sort of target for distance reiki I would be sending them. For the sigil, I started with a stylized 4-armed Brigid’s cross, added reiki symbols, and then the ogham of hawthorn, a healing tree. In the center was a square where the candle would be placed. I made a rough draft and then Gwdihw, who is the better artist, made a neater copy in red marker. I told Eärwen to light the candle for at least 30 minutes every day, and to get another healing candle (in red, pink, or white if possible) once the pink one we’d brought burned out. Here is a quick snapshot of the sigil spell:

This was the first time that Gwdihw and I had done so intense a treatment on a friend by ourselves (I think from when Eärwen sat down to when I began drawing the sigil was about 45 minutes, so the treatment itself must have been just shy of that), and it was the first time I’d designed a sigil of this type. However, Eärwen was feeling much better by the time we left, and we were glad to have helped out a friend in need. It was good to use our skills for the benefit of someone we cared about, and I think we all learned something in the process. Gwdihw and I hope to return to offer Eärwen (and hopefully Finarfin and Finrod) more reiki treatments in the months to come, because after such a trauma the healing process is a long and winding road, and so many friends and well-wishers drop off after the first few weeks. It took us those first few weeks to get this (long, sorry) blog written up, and in that time we sent them distance reiki a few times. Now it’s time to see where our schedules align for September.

Bright Blessings,

Réaltán

Reiki Master Attunements!

July 31, 2015
by Alexandra

My husband and I have achieved one of our major milestones in this endeavor: taking the final Reiki class and getting our Reiki Master attunements! Thanks to Caryn MacLuan of CedarLight Grove, we are now fully attuned, and ready to move beyond our circles of friends and family and reiki shares – to actual offer treatments to those seeking help. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a travel massage table of our own, but hopefully we’ll have one before next summer. In the mean time, we may offer treatments at places that already have tables, or do short treatments on people as they sit in chairs. We’ll see.

We still need to practice passing attunements (we plan to start with our pet snake once we’ve gotten the hang of it) and then perhaps we’ll teach classes of our own sometime down the road. For now, we still have a lot of learning to do! (Is one ever truly done learning, after all?)

In addition to the Reiki Master attunement, Caryn passed along a Rune Valdr attunement, giving us more symbols and spirits to work with. If you’re interested in Rune Valdr, you can read about it here, but we strongly suggest you find someone attuned in it to attune you before you attempt to use the symbols in your healing practice.

Sorry for a short post, but between moving and being in a near-miss car accident, many of our plans are slightly on hold, waiting for our lives to reach equilibrium again.

Bright Blessings!

Réaltán