Finding Joy and Healing with
Reiki and Shamanic Therapy Sessions
Reiki Sessions
I began doing Reiki in 1994. I studied with Dechen Rheualt and became a teacher in 2002 and with Kathy Lapinski in 2003. I am the fourth generation of Dr. Usui, and I am a Registered Reiki Teacher in both the Usui and Karuna lineages and have integrated Reiki into my overall work.
Reiki (Ray ki) is the Japanese word for A Universal Life Force.
Reiki derives from the work of a Japanese teacher, Mikao Usui, and Dr. Hayashi, who studied with Usui. Having a Reiki treatment requires no specific setting or preparation, so Reiki can be utilized in many different settings, including hospitals, hospices, emergency rooms, and other patient settings. Reiki can be used to support a person through emotional, physical, and spiritual crises or as a preventative tool to maintain good health and ease everyday stress. Reiki is a gentle yet powerful tool for change in self and the planet. Anyone can benefit from Reiki treatments.
How Does Reiki Work?
All people have energy! Reiki Practitioners have received teachings and attunements that sensitize their energy flow. Reiki can be given to the client both in person and from a distance.
Face-to-Face Sessions
In a face-to-face session, the client, fully clothed, lies on a massage table or chair. After a short check-in about the purpose of the visit, the practitioner lays her hands on, or above, the body of the individual receiving the treatment, allowing Reiki energy to move through the client, releasing tension and distress. Reiki can even be received through casts and bandages. When receiving a treatment, you may feel moving energy (such as a gurgling stomach, coughing, or sneezing) and other sensations as old stresses are released. Often, a treatment feels deeply relaxing. You are always in control, and there are no known side effects to receiving Reiki.
Long Distance Reiki
Reiki can also be offered through distance treatments, and I work with both people and animals around the world. After an initial phone or video conversation, I will perform the Reiki treatment, preferably at a designated time so that both of us are tuning in at the same time. Following the session, another call completes the process. Please ask about setting up an appointment.
Reiki Bowl
If you like your name or someone who needs support to be put in our Reiki Bowl, I will offer distance Reiki to those whose names are in the bowl weekly.
Energy Healing and Psychotherapy
Research is now proving that the use of energy such as Reiki can shift neural pathways by supporting a relaxation response in the brain. This helps a release from trauma responses such as Fight, Flight, or Freeze. By integrating energy work or another expressive method, you can access material in the prefrontal cortex with more ease. By combining Reiki and other energy work with graphic arts and verbal therapy as you work through profoundly emotional and personal issues, you can build tolerance and resilience, allowing for greater meaning and expression.
I often work with Tuning Forks and "clicking" and support individuals with deepening and beginning a mindfulness/Breath practice. I also use Qi Gong to help alleviate stress, depression, and grief.
I adhere to a strict Code of Ethics as outlined by the International Association of Reiki Practitioners, as well as the Code of Ethics by the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association.
Who Can Use Reiki?
Reiki is passed through attunements from Master to Student, the attunements opening the student to the flow of energy. Once tuned, you can work with the power for the rest of your life. Both adults and children can be tuned to and learn Reiki. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in learning Reiki. Classes in Reiki I, II Animal Reiki, and Master level are offered regularly throughout the year.
Cost
- In-person Reiki Sessions: $75.00 (90 minute session)
- Long Distance Reiki: $45.00
- Animal Reiki: In person or Long Distance $30.00 (Usually 45-60 minute sessions)
- Integrated Healing /Psychotherapy Sessions: $75.00
- Reiki Bowl: This is a free service, but you are free to offer a donation if you are moved. You can leave a gift on our Payment page.
A sliding fee scale is available.
Reiki Trainings
Reiki I
This class is designed for the beginner Reiki student. In addition to being introduced to the history of the Usui Shiki Ryōhō lineage of Reiki and its principles and precepts, this class supports the development of your natural intuitive senses. Students are taught the traditional Japanese Reiki hand positions for practice on oneself and others, including pets, and plants and are initiated to the First level of Reiki energy, known as Shoden, which translates as "Elementary/Entry Teachings."
This class places attention on the personal application of Reiki, such as self-practice and self-care, and gives you tools for working with others effectively.
Cost: $150.00
Reiki II
Students who have completed Reiki I am training will be attuned to the Reiki II symbols and the ways one offers Reiki to others. All information and techniques are covered in this 1.5-day training, with ample practice time set aside. Reiki II level is also known as "Okuden" or Inner level. This is when we go deeper in our practice as Reiki practitioners.
Information and techniques covered include:
- Advanced Reiki hand positions
- Giving a complete Reiki treatment, with symbols
- Using Reiki for specific conditions
- The Reiki II symbols and how to use them
- Using Reiki to heal unwanted habits
- Distant Healing
- Developing a Reiki business
Cost:
$175.00
Reiki III
In level III, known as Shinpiden, is known as the "Mystery Teachings," students engage in an intensive training program that offers a thorough review of the First and Second-degree teachings and teaches the final "Master" symbols. In addition to learning the application of the last "Master" symbols, this course emphasizes the mastership of Reiki Natural Healing as a healing modality, both theoretically and historically. Drawing on each student's practice and personal experiences, this course moves to understand Reiki as a healing practice and a lifestyle of living in "balance."
Students will be encouraged to share their understandings in such ways. Students will also receive tools for facilitating workshops and classes in the community and receive ongoing small business consultations to help them fine-tune their management and marketing skills throughout their careers. During this level, students will create a workshop and use other students to practice.
33-hour training
Cost:
$300.00
Teacher Level
This training is available for students who have completed their Master's Degree and wish to become Reiki Teachers and teach Reiki to others. In this training program, students shadow a Ma Teacher in the field and are supported individually, from start to finish, in preparing the First, Second, and Master degrees of Reiki. In this class, students receive the final "teaching" Reiki symbol and learn to initiate others.
This program is done individually. Discussions will include using Reiki in clinical and nonclinical settings such as mental health, Hospice, hospitals, and daycares. The basic training is 25 hours, including shadowing teachers and practicing giving a level I, II, and III class.
Cost: $500.00
Shamanic Healing
We are all shamans, capable of opening our hearts to Mother Earth and the Creator and supporting the well-being of ourselves and others.
We are each an expression of Nature, of Creation, each perfect, each beautiful in our unique way.
Our lives are a conversation with the Ancestors, the First Ones, and the Creator.
The challenges we face, the suffering and hardships we endure, and the joys we experience are all meaningful and sacred.
In our lives, there is always the possibility of healing, of returning to balance, of remembering the wisdom of the Ancestors, the Directions, and the Great Weather. That is the journey.
I studied for many years with shamans and curadera/os from many traditions, including Amazonian, Mayan, Huichol, and Siberian.
Long Distance Aid
We gladly provide support to individuals and families at a distance. Shamanic aid and Reiki work across time and space and do not require you to be physically with us to receive benefits.
Our Work Together:
- I will seek a vision of your healing.
- Together, we draw from the wisdom of our Ancestors, our creativity, and the traditions of our cultures.
- We will journey to consult the spirits, prepare ceremonies, or utilize energy work to soothe and mend the body, mind, and spirit.
- With your permission, I ask my life partner, Jennie, to join me in working with you, as we can offer more than we can alone.
- I will gladly collaborate with your support team: health care provider, psychotherapist, clergy, or other persons to support you on your journey.
I sometimes offer training in the use of shamanic approaches to meeting life's challenges, such as skills in education and health care, for repairing inter-generational wounds, and for expressing gratitude to Pachamama (Mother Earth).
I offer shamanic aid both in person and at a distance.
I am often asked what constitutes a fair payment. I suggest you decide what the service is worth to you and what you can truly afford, then pay that amount. If I need to travel, please keep in mind the added time and expense. Please do not allow finances to prevent you from asking for aid.
Learn more about shamanism and curanderismo. - link to the heading page Shamanism and Curanderismo.
Shamanism and Curanderismo
My teachers were shamans; some were also curanderos, a "folk" healing tradition from Spain, and some practiced Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religious practice.
Shamanism is deeply rooted in the natural world. We say that the Earth is our home, a house made of the Great Weathers, sunrises and sunsets, and all living things. We know that everything in the natural world is alive and awake, has spirit, and can become an ally in life.
Traditionally, shamans and curandera/os work with the spirits on behalf of others and the community. In Latin America, shamanism and curanderismo became intertwined. In the Brazilian Amazon, these traditions are often joined with traditional practices from Africa. All are animistic, meaning practitioners work with nature spirits, including plants and Ancestors. Rather than the practitioner having power over the spirits, the spirits and practitioner form a mutually beneficial relationship.
My teachers have come from many places: the Brazilian Amazon, Peru, Mexico, Siberia, and North America. Please note that although two of my most treasured teachers were Amazonian, I do not use hallucinogenic plants in my practice.
Traditional healing makes a distinction between curing and healing. Sometimes, even when we try with all our heart, we cannot be cured of what afflicts us. Yet, even then, often, we can find deep and lasting healing.
Shamanic aid can be an effective adjunct to medical treatment or counseling. Most issues can be addressed in one to three sessions. Rarely, more complex problems may require additional meetings.
When you contact me, I may "look into" whether I can be helpful before scheduling a first meeting.
I offer shamanic aid both in person and at a distance and often work with Jennie. I am often asked what constitutes a fair payment. I suggest you decide what you might be able to readily afford on a scale of $5-200 for a session and donate that amount. If I need to travel, I ask that you keep in mind the added time and expense. Please do not allow finances to prevent you from asking for the aid you need.
Teaching
We are honored to have the opportunity to teach in Southeast Asia, as well as the United States and Canada, and to have taught at Burlington College for many years, where we worked with both undergraduate and graduate students in the arts, Interdisciplinary Studies, and psychology. Jennie continues to teach in the Lesley University Expressive Therapies Graduate Program.
Our teaching often addresses issues of inclusion, focusing on the experience of living with a complex identity or disability. We have recently presented at the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association Conferences, national Psychodrama conferences, and the Expressive Therapies Summit in NYC.
We enjoy helping individuals and organizations learn and apply new skills in service to their unique visions. We teach clinical and organizational tools that are informed by the arts and, when applicable, shamanism. We offer classes in Reiki and teach down-to-earth shamanic skills for life, for repairing multi-generational wounds, and for honoring the Earth.
For more than a decade, Jennie has taught Expressive Therapy and Playback in Bangladesh, South India, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, as well as across the United States.
Michael has made two trips to South Asia, supporting people impacted by genocide, co-teaching Playback Theatre, and presenting on the use of shamanic techniques in mental health, education, and health care.
Over the years, we have spent many beautiful hours working with Yours Truly Theatre in Bangalore, India.
We're only a phone call away! Call 774 328-7044 and let us know how we can help.