April 30, 2008
I've been doing Reiki on my mother, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during a stomach surgery, nearly ever day since March 18, the day of her surgery. First, I did it for hours at a time for the week she was in the ICU. After she was transferred to a regular room, I did it every day, but one day I did it for 3 hours straight.
That in itself was interesting because I noticed that the Reiki energy itself ebbed and flowed. When I give a 1 or 1 1/2 hour session, it flows strongly the whole time. She's been home for nearly a month, and I now give her nightly one hour sessions. I try to get an hour in every night, but lately I've become exhausted, so this past week I did 2 half hour sessions instead. The day I was really exhausted and didn't do it all, I didn't like the gastrointestinal symptoms she had when she woke up.
My Preparation
To prepare my mom to relax and make the environment a healing one, I light a tea light made of a large piece of quartz crystal. The effect is that it looks like a piece of glowing ice on her dresser. Sometimes I add aromatherapy elements, such as frankincense (which, along with lavender, was recommended at a Reiki workshop I attended a few years ago). My mom, though she's 84, especially likes Patchouli, so sometimes I use that alone, or with ylang ylang *(these are heat diffusers - drops of essential oil in water, heated by a tea light below. No irritating smoke involved). Then I darken the room, and put on a Reiki or meditation CD. I often also massage her legs and arms with aromatherapy massage oil, since her skin is now especially dry. It also relaxes her, another immune boost.
I then call Dr. Usui, Mrs. Takata, and Dr. Hayashi along with the other ascended Reiki Masters, along with Jesus, Mary, the Buddha and anybody else who occurs to me that night, giving thanks in a advance for the blessings received.
Since I'm sitting in a small downstairs room next to her bed, I don't usually do all the hand positions. It's awkward to stand up leaning against the bed, and sitting down I often can't reach. So, what I do is when she has some rib pain, I put my hands there, or I put them on her abdomen or hip. Sometimes I end up placing one hand on a thigh or knee and the other on a hip. I have the feeling that when I'm going that's balancing the chakra system more than just 1 hand position.
the session
I often envision the Reiki lighting up her whole abdomen, energizing the normal cells and weakening or dissolving the malignant ones. I do this acknowledging that Reiki has its own intelligence, but just for my own self, I want to direct some of it there, and then the rest of the Reiki can go where wants.
What these nightly sessions have turned into has been this incredibly intimate series of conversations between me and my mother. Many times she talks about her childhood, sharing information or thoughts I've never heard from her before, or some emotional issue that she's also never spoken about before.
Last Night's Session
Last night, we talked about her family, and she told me that when she first came home from the hospital in early April she would see her whole family in the room with us, up in the corner (she's the only one remaining from her nuclear family). She NEVER said a word about this to me before last night.
I also had gotten some information that the emotional component of my mother's dis-ease had to do with an inability to communicate effectively at times, in addition to an unconscious, but intense, tendency to worry all of the time. So, it's been interesting to see if she can recognize these elements, and heal that part of her. I don't push this or try to analyze her. I'm not a psychologist, and she doesn't like the kind of prying that that would take anyway.
The issues come up anyway. Last night she was talking about how her mother talked non-stop (and her father always had patience with that, telling the kids "just let her talk, she'll be alright," but really it was her father who didn't talk all that much, and didn't express his feelings very well either. Typical WASPY thing. My grandfather was an extremely kind and gentle man. He died when I was 11, but I always remember his kindness, and yes, his quietness. Since my own father was a rage-aholic, it was quite a relief to be around a man who was quiet, settled, and kind. His daughters all idolized him for that. Last night my mother told me she thought he was a philosopher. She also talked generally about how, yes, sometimes it is difficult for her to communicate because nobody really ever taught her how to do so.
The night before she came up with something from childhood. Her neighbor up the hill had a mother who wasn't too well, and they were talking about putting her in a nursing home. She never found out what happened in the end. I asked her why she often thought of her childhood during these sessions, when she really doesn't talk about it much otherwise, and she replied that she thought her life was more fun and interesting than it is today. She also loved to ride her bike everywhere, and loved to take her baby sister out in the stroller, thinking aloud that today she would never let a small child wheel around an infant like her mother had with her. That whole reminiscence was very sweet, and I thought of what life must have been like in Westchester County in the 1920s.
Every night
I make sure that I always do a Reiki session every night because of 1 experience I had the week before last. This winter my mother's health problems started with a bout of bleeding diverticulitis, which sent her to the hospital for the first time in 40 years, and the second time in her life. The ONE night I missed because, again, I was too tired, she had some bad digestive symptoms pointing to the diverticulitis. So, now I never miss, even if we're not too focused, or whether my mother feels like talking the whole time. Getting that energy into her system has been vital.
And it heals her on many levels. My friend and Reiki Master, Pauline, now comes over once a week to do vortex healing on her (see thiswebsite for more information). She's a medical intuitive as well, and says she can tell that my mother's had lots of Reiki - just from her energy level and the way her energy system feels when she works on her.
Outside validation is great.
My "inside" validation is that on the days that she's having a bit of pain in her side, if I give her oxycodone and do the Reiki, it takes care of it for the rest of the day. If it's acute, and I do Reiki, it takes a half an hour to start to show that it's working, but the Reiki definitely calms things down.
Next report tomorrow.
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