Sep 28 2012

From the Reiki Room

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a new blog. My day-to-day life has gotten so interesting, I haven’t had time to write about it. The first major change is being suddenly cast in the role of President of the La Mirada Symphony Association. That’s a whole new learning curve, but is a good fit for someone who appreciates the fine arts and is a natural schmoozer such as myself.

Secondly, turning my spare bedroom into a Reiki Room became my personal Field of Dreams — “build it and they will come.” Word-of-mouth has brought new people into my life and onto my Reiki table.

Take Joan, for instance.

SESSION ONE: She called me saying she’d heard I was an “awesome healer,” which made me uncomfortable. Jesus was an “awesome healer,” I’m just a healing facilitator, allowing myself to be a conduit for the cosmic energies. At any rate, Joan came over and we hit it off immediately. She is a bright lawyer, trained with an analytical mind and gifted with intellectual curiosity.

I told her not to tell me why she was coming for a treatment. It’s easier to get into the healing mode without my mind having preconceived ideas of what to expect. In that first session, her neck and shoulder area buzzed the strongest under my hands. I felt led to apply the area with the Young Living Essential Oil blend, Valor (sometimes called a chiropractor in a bottle).

As I worked that area, Joan said, “Okay, I’m a believer.”

It turned out she was there primarily for the pain from a car accident that has returned. She was able to swivel her neck better after the treatment. Her neck seemed out of alignment and she followed up with a chiropractic treatment.

SESSION TWO: Her neck seemed much better. I moved around her body and suddenly felt intense cramping in my digestive tract. Joan had mentioned that for the past fifteen years she has suffered from extreme food reactions. She has become a vegan, eating mainly rice and vegetables, out of necessity, not because she’s a health-nut.

The session took on a life of its own as I worked and pulled on the energy patterns over her pelvic region. “Ow,” I said. “This hurts. Is this the way you live all the time?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing a little. “I ate a piece of bread.”

“Bread makes you feel like this?” I knew my pains were just ghostly reflections of what she must experience. After fifteen years, it had become her “normal.” I worked the area a few more minutes and then sent her on her way thinking, “Well, that was interesting!”

The next day Joan sent me an email:

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was going to call you, but I thought I wouldn’t be a “crazy patient”. That digestion thing that you fixed…I’ve been living with that for over 15 years. I am in shock because I went and ate sushi TWICE and nothing happened! I ate salmon which usually sets me off. You have no idea how strange that is to me right now to feel fine. My skin has cleared up considerably too, just in the past few days. Normally if I had sushi, I would not feel good and I would get some really bad cystic acne that hurts for a week and then takes another couple of months to heal. I told some people at work who know of my issues and told them how I got healed.

Joan has been indulging in the joys of junk food for two weeks now.

I wonder what will happen next in the Reiki Room? I’ll keep you posted!

Dana Taylor

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For more information on Reiki and healing energy, read EVER-FLOWING STREAMS

Sep 5 2012

Messages from The Ancient Ones by Stacey Stephens

If you’re a fan of the Abraham/Esther Hicks channeled books, you might enjoy Messages from the Ancient Ones by Stacey Stephens. Well organized by topics such as Compassion, Empowerment, Relationships, Integrity, etc., the ideas presented are upbeat and almost uptopian. If everyone took the advice to live by the ideals in this book, it would be a better place indeed.

I used the chapters as a daily devotional in the mornings. There are pictures to set the tone for each chapter, which is a creative way to utilize the new freedoms of digital publishing. The messages are reminiscent of A Course in Miracles talking about ego-based thinking and urging readers to breakthrough to an era of Divinity.

This book is part of the New Thought movement of spirituality. For those of us well-versed in this type of philosophy, it doesn’t break new ground. However, it is a good presentation of the ideas and presents a hopeful image of what the human experience can be.

Dana Taylor

Aug 31 2012

Cancer and Reiki

1st Place Spirituality & Religion–E Festival of Books Awards 2012

The Supernal Friends have found themselves surrounded by cancer patients over the past months. Cancer used to be a disease of “old” people. Today it cuts a swath across all age groups. It touches everyone. You probably know several people dealing with it.

As an energy worker, I sometimes feel overwhelmed when faced with these extremes of thinking:

Going “all natural”—Sometimes people walk completely away from medical doctors and begin a desperate search for health with supplements, strange diets, gurus, and begging me to send them healing energy.
Last resort—After all the surgeries, chemo and radiation have been tried, then people are looking for a miracle worker and I get a call.

In my experience, neither one of these scenarios are optimum for healing. Reiki and most natural methods of dealing with a health crisis are best utilized for accelerating healing and establishing better lifestyles. They work in conjunction with an overall game plan for better health.

Best Case Scenario

I’ve been working woman who has had breast cancer and has recently finished up all the surgery, chemo and radiation treatments. Her prognosis is good, but she has been seeking a boost back to wellness. She had a wound that would not heal for months. After one Reiki treatment, there was enough improvement, her doctor told her, “I don’t know what you’ve done, but keep doing it.”

Reiki energy treatments are ideal in this situation. After cancer treatments, the body is impaired and out of balance. It is full of toxicity. The patient feels exhausted all the time. Reiki serves as an infusion of healing energy. It draws on the Ever-Flowing Streams of light and color and envelopes the patient in these unseen, but very real energies.

As a Reiki therapist, I can “read” a body. As my hands travel over the head, trunk, arms & legs, I literally feel the hot spots. I know where there are problems. Like little Geiger Counters, my palms buzz over trouble areas. Often, I’ll get an image of an organ in my mind’s eye and work the area as I feel led. This is an intuitive way of tapping into information available in the patient’s energy field.

Sometimes I draw out the blockages to improve the energy flow. Occasionally I lay my hands on the area and concentrate on sending energy into the person. It’s certainly not an exact science, but then neither is traditional medicine.

A Reiki therapist works on the whole person. Even with a repeating client, each session can be vastly different. Emotions may be more at issue one week and I’ll suddenly “know” about a situation that needs to be addressed. Mind and body are so intertwined.

Cancer is so much more than a physical disease. It is a huge emotional experience. It’s a catastrophic event. People go from being themselves to being a Cancer Patient.

Energy treatments go through all the layers of imbalance and distress, both physical and mental to help people get to a better place.

Despite the pain of hearing about a teenager struck down by leukemia or the dear friend with a deadly tumor, my Reiki work is my way of making a positive difference. A half hour on my Reiki table is an oasis of peace and healing for my clients. That is their time to rest in the Ever-Flowing Streams. Sometimes they cry; occasionally they sleep; their pain is usually alleviated.

Healing is a process. Reiki helps.

Aug 20 2012

Visionary Fiction Leader, Jacob Nordby

One of the more interesting, creative genres emerging in the writing world is being labeled “Visionary Fiction.” Jacob Nordby is part of the vanguard of authors presenting New Thought philosophy in the fictional fashion. The Divine Arsonist : A Tale of Awakening is a sort of modern Pilgram’s Progress, featuring an American business man, Jacob, and his spiritual journey.

Jacob is a hard-driving type-A personality, reaching for the American Dream. He has it all–the growing business, the pretty wife, two great kids, a few extra pounds, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Enter Lucius, a mysterious messenger, challenging Jacob to meet him next week at his Idaho cabin. His life will be irrevocably changed. The choice is his.

Driven by inner guidance and a need to find Who You Really Are, Jacob takes the challenge. What unfolds is a mystical journey that strips him bare, literally and figuratively. His metaphysical experiences are the stuff dreams are made of. The guides he meets all have lessons to teach. He emerges from the harrowing, sometimes blissful, experience transformed.

Jacob Nordby is a gifted writer. He tackles difficult scenes–dream sequences, pedantic conversations, revelations–with a deft touch. He is especially adroit at description. He uses fresh analogies. The hills of Idaho come alive. Astral projection, doomsday visions, and other-worldly adventures are easily imagined. Even though much of the journey is supernatural, his main character remains very human.

The reader senses the real story is about to unfold as the new Jacob re-enters society with a greater awareness of what is really important in life. What sort of impact will the enlightened Jacob have on the people and planet? Perhaps, in a few years another installment of Jacob’s life will make for fascinating reading.

As value systems change and global awareness increases in the area of spirituality without religion, books like The Divine Arsonist will influence the world, one reader at a time. If there is hope for the world, it is in young people with vision, like Jacob Nordby.

Read more about Jacob Nordby at Your Awakened Self.

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1st Place Winner E-Festival of Words

Religion & Spiritualitiy

Aug 14 2012

Supernal Living with Dana Taylor

From Scared to Sacred: Lessons in Learning to Dance with Life.

Therapist Carol Woodliff demonstrates what can happen when “still small voice” whispers turn into full-blown lessons for abundant living. Using an interesting mix of channelled information and memoir, Woodliff provides an uplifting and entertaining guide to positive living.

Carol Woodliff is a shaman, healer, and hypnotherapist who has crossed my path in writing circles. Over the past couple of years I’ve come to “know” her through the social media. If I had to use one word to describe both her book and Carol Woodliff, the person, I would choose “authentic.” She has an authentic desire to help people heal and grow; she has an authentic hunger for personal spiritual growth. She doesn’t use hype or sell CD’s on how to become a guru in twelve easy steps. No, Carol, has experienced life-changing communications and used them to change her life. Her book…

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Aug 8 2012

“Miracles: 32 Stories”

You know you’re about to embark on a unique book when the cover page reads: “This book may be copied and freely distributed. Its contents belong to God; its work are His glory.”

Miracles: 32 True Stories compiled by Joanie Hileman centers on thirty-two people living in Maine who all were touched by God’s grace. Hileman does an excellent job of capturing everyone’s “voice” and writing their stories as if they are sitting in your living room sharing their lives.

The book is decidedly Christian in philosophy and features many people who were struggling through life and found their way to a better path by becoming followers of Christ. The people portrayed are generally middle class folks living in a small town setting. Some stories are anecdotal incidents such as “The Appointment” where a woman reluctantly keeps a hair appointment during the busy Christmas season. She winds up saving a choking child’s life and the appointment becomes divine intervention.

Other stories are much longer tales of despair and redemption. A sad commentary on our society is how many of the people in this book have struggled with drugs and addictions. They are the lucky ones to have found a way out.

“Losing Matthew”—Barbara’s story covers a thirteen year span about a mother who seriously messes up and loses her son to the foster care system, then to the biological father. I found her story of slow redemption especially moving. There were no instant miracles, but God never gave up on her, either. Barbara found God’s grace many times along the way, even after she stumbled time and again.

There are two suicides in the book. In both cases, family members receive supernatural encouragement to get through a devastating situation.

There’s an authenticity to this book that will undoubtedly resonant with many who will identify with the people who share their stories. Miracles demonstrates that life is not easy, but it can be filled with grace and joy, even in the most difficult of times. When people open themselves to Divinity—in these examples through the Christ Spirit—miracles do happen!