Roots That Heal

I have recently been attuned to Usui Reiki First and Second Degree. This is something I have been considering for quite some time - in fact I was considering being attuned to Usui Reiki several years before I was even attuned to Celtic Reiki, but ufortunately finances and time did not allow me to do this.

However since meeting T and especially since attuning him to Celtic Reiki First Degree (and yesterday to Second Degree) I have felt an increased desire to be attuned to this earlier form of Reiki if nothing more than as a comparison to Celtic Reiki. By that I mean it is allowing me to see how Celtic Reiki differs from Usui Reiki, enabling me to answer questions such as “why choose Celtic Reiki?” and “what is the difference between Usui Reiki and Celtic Reiki?”

Indeed, what is the difference? As I have only recently been attuned to Usui Reiki this can by no means be taken as a be-all-and-end-all discussion of the differences between the two. Furthermore, each individual will experience Reiki in a different way so it cannot stand for everybody - just my own individual experience of the two. Having said that I have felt a great difference in the power of the two. Neither one is stronger nor weaker than the other but the power is definately different! Usui Reiki is much stronger in a physical sense - it is hotter, more intense and much more perceptible. Celtic Reiki on the other hand is a much more subtle and gentle power, one that trickles like a stream as opposed to a raging river! Each form takes the water to its destination, only one is much more direct, encasing a wider area and much faster whereas the other one ambles along, taking a few twists and turns to the most beautiful and hard to reach places along its path.

Neither one of these is better than the other and it is entirely up to your own individual preferences as to which one you might choose. Personally I have always felt very attracted to Celtic Reiki and never hesitated to put myself out there to be attuned to it, yet I shied away from the intensity of Usui Reiki for many years. Yet now I have been attuned to the First and Second Degrees I am looking forward to using a combination of the two - utilising the individual values of each one as my intuition guides me.

I always wondered why when I gave Celtic Reiki I often felt very little in forms of hot hands, hot body, energy flow (even though I believed entirely in the process) yet when I received Usui Reiki the hands of my healer were hot, sometimes burning to touch. At the beginning I questioned whether I was doing something wrong, but then I began to trust and my faith grew stronger and I began to know the energy I was healing with. Since my attunements I understand why there was such a difference - whereas Usui Reiki is an overall, universal energy, Celtic Reiki focuses solely on the beautiful energies of nature. It’s as if Celtic Reiki brings forth a specific aspect that is encompassed within Usui Reiki - yet Celtic Reiki comes from exactly the same place that Usui Reiki does. A good analogy would be that Usui Reiki is like white light - it is made from all the colours of the rainbow and Celtic Reiki is like the green ray - soft, gentle and soothing - a part without which white light could not exist but which can exist on its own and work well alongside any other colour of the spectrum.

If you want to know what Celtic Reiki feels like imagine walking through a quiet woodland, with the sunlight filtered through the green canopy, spreading a beautiful glow on everything. The birds are chirping in the distance and you hear the shuffling of squirrels searching for food. There are bluebells along the path and shadows dancing everywhere. What you feel when in this place away from the harsh, mechanical side of modern day life, that is what Celtic Reiki is like.

I hope that this post has helped you to understand more about Celtic Reiki and I hope to post much more about Reiki as a whole alongside our usual posts on Celtic Reiki and nature in the near future. Many changes are occuring in our lives right now and T and I are standing at a crossroads. Fear has held us both back but my recent attunement has made me remember the Reiki precepts and I now know that to live in fear, to go to work and get angry at the injustice I see and having to battle each day to change that is not living in harmony with my beliefs. Changes are afoot and we both want them to bring us closer to our beliefs. Essentially - we want our lives to become our work - not the other way around. By doing this we hope to have much more time to live Reiki rather than just turning to it for instant healing in times of crisis. More and more we are realising that Reiki should be a way of life, not just a way of healing. Bear with us as we make these changes!

With many Blessings
Amanda and T xx

I thought it was prudent to write a follow up to my previous post about attunement symptoms. I realised a few days ago, upon reflecting on our situation, that my post may well have scared some of our readers. I remember being scared myself as people commented on the incredible changes and challenges they faced after an attunement!

My desire is not to scare you but to encourage you to see Reiki as a beautiful energy and maybe even inspire you to explore it further yourself. So let me explain about attunement symptoms a bit further:

When you are attuned to Reiki it is like having a dear friend turn up and help you do a massive spring clean. Together you go through all the bits and pieces you have stored in your attic (head) and basement (heart and solar plexus), whilst dusting away the cobwebs throughout the whole house (your whole body). In doing so you will discover two things - treasures you had long forgotten you possessed (memories, achievements etc) and things you have hidden away because you didn’t want to see them again (perhaps a memory of an argument you’d had, the fear of moving forwards in an area of your life, or even a “gift” someone gave you that you didn’t really want but felt you had to keep!)

You may have tried this kind of spring clean multiple times before - but each time you found a treasure you couldn’t see it for the dust that had formed through the years and every time you found a painful memory you closed down and decided you couldn’t face it. Even if you felt you had faced it, you may find it popping up in some other guise to tear you down again. I know I had!

But with this dear friend called Reiki you find that the dust just blows away without so much as a whip of your cloth and suddenly beauty appears before you everywhere you go. And when the pain resurfaces from those not-so-pleasant issues you find a friend who can hug you from the inside out and dry your tears as they fall. This friend understands your pain, but also knows the strength that lies within you. This friend offers you the power to heal yourself and whispers gently in your ear that you can do it!

For T, his heart and soul had been fightin against his work as a plumber for a good many years previous to his attunement. Yet he had kept going due to guilt, fear and a sense of duty or responsibility. He had taken actions to move forwards and a trip to Thailand followed by an attunement to Usui Reiki had created a great shift in his perceptions - even brought the two of us together (we would never have met if T hadn’t developed an interest in Reiki and found me online)!! Both our lives had moved forwards independently with a lot of help from our dear friend Reiki - but then Reiki called to us to work together with her!

After his attunement to Celtic Reiki 1 we both felt a shift deep within ourselves. Just as I had been urged to make changes to my life after each of my attunement, T found his body telling him without question that now was the time to walk away from that which caused him so much pain. And I found myself urged on to expand Roots That Heal as I have dreamt of for many months, even years!

Please do not think that if you are attuned to Reiki that you wil suddenly develop painful physical issues or that you will be reduced to tears because of all the things that suddenly come up for you. You will not be overwhelmed, for Reiki knows your limits (and knows they are far greater than you ever imagined!) and will always show you the paths forward, especially if you remember to tun to her and use her gift in times of need. And at the end of it all you will be so much happier and calmer and you will see so much of life you were missing due to the fog you had pulled around yourself. It is a beautiful thing!!

So, remember that Reiki will always be your friend, whether you are attuned to it or not, and an attunement will never be an unpleasant thing - it is just the friend who shows you the truth you were perhaps afraid to see about yourself. And the truth is - you are far more powerful and beautiful than you ever dreamed!

With love
Amanda xx

We’d like to invite you to visit our new forum.

Having helped to run a similar forum a couple of years ago I decided the time was right to start one connected to this blog, to enable our readers to fully interact with each other.

We hope that the forum will become a community where you can meet like-minded people, share advice and stories and even set up Reiki swaps, books swaps, share prayers and meditations and make it your own space.

Please pop along and visit us there - we would love to see you. Just click on the link to your left!

Blessings,
Amanda and T

 I am very sorry for the length of time between our last post and this current one. As those of you who have ever been attuned to any form of Reiki may know from experience, often when an attunement occurs the body realigns itself and you can end up facing many issues you had thought long hidden or even overcome. T and I have been experiencing this very thing!

Since his attunement, T has developed a painful condition in his wrists, effectively stopping him from working in the construction trade. This may sound like an awful thing - an undesirable effect of the attunement. The truth, however, is that T has been extremely unhappy and increasingly depressed for many years in his current trade. His work has led him to act in ways he now regrets, just to forget the pain of work. Yet he continued on through necessity and the feeling that he “should” be working in this particular role. In effect, his attunement allowed him to align his body with his emotions, enabling his body to send him a final, no-way-out signal to STOP and realign his work with his passions.

Of course this means we are now facing a financial tight spot as my salary as a care worker is too low to survive on. T is looking for work and I am also looking for a change in pace for it is not only T who has felt the change since his attunement. Having spent the majority of my life in academia I resented the pressures to succeed and even exceed expectations, expectations which were incredibly high to begin with. I shied away from such pressure and turned to something I loved and felt secure in - care work. I adore my role but more and more I have been finding my own body cannot cope with such long, demanding hours, especially when it means we struggle to cope financially at the end of it all. I feel the need for a change…

This is not only due to necessity however - this is an actual awakening to my true potential. By making the choice to change careers I will not only gain a bit of financial security but also more hours and more energy to put into such work as Reiki healing and running this site, balancing my work and home life in a far better way than I have ever achieved. Again, the situation created by those parts of ourselves which understand the greater things in life has enabled and even pushed T and myself to re-evaluate our lives, both individually and as a couple, to move forwards and reach our potentials in every way.

This is why we have been absent for several weeks - we have been dealing with the emotions and events that have rapidly come to us and worked our way through them by returning to nature whenever we could to touch base and re-centre ourselves. In doing so I have found renewed passion for our beloved earth and a desire to create more opportunities for people to love and care for our planet as she does for us.

Keep popping by as we love to know people are out there, and keep an eye out for the opening of a new forum we are currently building. We hope to create a space for our readers to share their own experiences of nature, and even develop a circle of healing and perhaps even orchestrate Reiki swaps across the globe - we’d love to see you all there!

With Many Blessings
Amanda and T xxx

Thanks to all of you who are following this journey with T and myself and special thanks for all the good thoughts sent our way. After several days of feeling rather sorry for myself, my body decided it was well enough to carry out the attunement last Sunday. I have been meaning to post the pictures all week, but work has simply been so busy my evenings have been taken up with sleeping!!

So, only a week late, here is how the attunement went.

Please be aware that the photos are snapshots taken from a video we took on my laptop, so the quality is not brilliant. We chose to film the process as this meant we could forget about the camera and focus on what we were doing. The photos are also taken during our run-through prior to the actual attunement - something we chose to do so that T would know what to expect. The photos and comments in this blog post are shared with you in order to show how an attunement works - there are no instructions on how to do an attunement nor no symbols shared. They are not meant to be used in order to try attuning yourself or others - although Celtic Reiki is available to all, I strongly suggest you follow a proper manual and are attuned by a Reiki Master. This is to help you understand the energies and how to use Reiki most effectively, rather than the desire to hold information back.  I would love to think that these posts may inspire some of you to practise Reiki, but practising Reiki means honouring and respecting the process and this means following a dedicated path. If you have any questions or would like to contact me about how to have an attunement yourself then please do not hesitate to contact me at rootsthatheal@live.co.uk I would be happy to help you find a Celtic Reiki Master in your own area or discuss the possibility of setting up a distance attunement at a time convenient for us both.

In preparation for the attunement I had shown T the first degree manual. We had looked together at the nature of energy healing and then gone through the 6 first degree symbols, the trees that they represented and the ways in which we could use them to help ourselves in our own lives. Using Fred Hageneder’s Tree Angel Oracle we found the cards relating to these symbols and placed them on our coffee table, ready to aid us in the attunement. This was a personal choice and not something that has to be done by any means. The whole beauty of Reiki is that it can be adapted to suit those using it. Next to these cards I placed my own cards, portraying the symbols in gold, a small pencil drawing of the tree or plant itself and notes on what the energy is used for in healing sessions. We completed our table with a candle, some crystals and the manual (open for my own reference during the run-through as it was my first attunement and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything!)

As you can see, we closed our curtains to ensure the room was dark and calm. Although the sun was shining beautifully, we felt the desire to have candles and incense burning as we carried out the attunement. It felt more sacred to us both this way - but again this is a preference that each Reiki master and student can choose for themselves. The attunement begins with a prayer and blessing, followed by the opening of the master’s chakras using a master symbol. The room is infused with the master symbols and then rapport is built between student and master by placing the hands on the student’s shoulders, preparing the student for the first degree symbols to be given to him/her.

The first degree symbols are now given to the student in three stages - first they are drawn above the crown chakra and then directed down through the head.

This involves sending the symbols through the student’s hands into the crown chakra.

The hands are then placed on the heart centre, whilst the master moves to kneel in front of the student. This is an excellent time for the student and master to both take a moment to reflect on what they are both doing!

The symbols are then “tapped” into the Third Eye. This involves drawing the symbols before the chakra and then tapping in, whilst intoning the symbol name.

Finally, the symbols are drawn above the hands and then “blown” through the body - up the spine, round the crown and down again into the hands. After this, the master moves once more behind the student to “seal” the energies into the student using a master symbol. A final blessing and prayer of gratitude is given before the master moves to stand once more in front of the student to release the Reiki energy and complete the attunement.

I hope that this post has helped to ease any fears or concerns of anyone new to Reiki, and perhaps inspired some of you to explore further. It has been a pleasure sharing this moment with you all and we shall be updating the blog further with T’s impressions of the attunement and how he felt post attunement, how Celtic Reiki feels in comparison to his Usui Reiki training and of course I shall be posting more about Celtic Reiki, the trees, nature and life itself.

But for now I leave you with bright wishes for a beautiful Sunday, a peaceful week and many blessings.
Amanda xx

Before my first attunement to Celtic Reiki I spent a lot of time getting to know the trees near my home. I was very priviledged to live near a beautiful university campus where I studied. This meant that each day, on my way home from lectures, I could walk around the lake, find a quiet spot and meditate surrounded by nature. In fact, the photos that create the banner to this blog were taken on one such walk!

So, in preparation for the coming attunement, T and I drove out to a nearby wood to connect to the great outdoors. We are very lucky in that even though we live in a city there are many, many green spaces still within walking distance of our home. In fact I walk across a common and the beautiful Cam river (upon which invariably there is a rowing team practising!!) each day on my journey to and from work. But however beautiful these spaces are, they are always full of people.

Now I love people, don’t get me wrong, but when you want to sit in silence and meditate you cannot do so as easily as when you are in a secluded spot. And in preparation for an attunement we both felt that this is what we needed to do. Our decision was well-founded and we walked in awe of the beauty and silence of the area we were in (once we moved away from the main areas of the woods). The photo in the previous post was taken as T meditated to by the old Oak tree that he felt drawn to. Although I will not be attuning him to the energy of the Oak in the first level of Reiki, I do know how powerful the Oak’s energy is and T obviously felt that too as he walked through the woods straight to this particular tree and felt the need to sit at its base and absorb some of its energy.

We saw many trees and flowers that day which really connected us to nature, reminding us to listen to the breeze and enjoy the moment. In fact, that day I realised how hard I work and how I forget to enjoy my life. I realised how imbalanced I was and how much I needed to take these moments in order to connect fully and live in harmony and balance. I realised just how little I respected the beautiful gift I had been given and I knew right then that I needed to reclaim the sacred and bring it back into my life.

Consequently I went to work the following day and fell ill!! I have been off work the rest of this week, with a blocked chest, blocked sinuses and upset stomach. I have been unable to eat anything but the plainest food and drink. I have been made to stop and listen. I have found the time to really focus on the Reiki symbols, the meaning of Reiki itself and the way in which I want my life to develop. In essence, I am clearing away a lot of old habits and convalescing in a way I wouldn’t have had I been at work. I’d rather not feel this ill, but if I felt better I know I would be running around trying to fit as much into my life as possible - so I know it is meant to be.

This does mean that we may postpone the attunement until a later date, dependent upon how ready we both feel tomorrow evening. However we will let you know and the attunement will definitely occur within the next two weeks. In that time I hope to introduce more to this site (and I hope you are already enjoying some of the new additions I have already made). It is my hope that Roots That Heal will finally grow into the vision I had for it at the beginning - a true resource for all those wishing to know more about the trees, sea, nature and Celtic Reiki as a whole.

With many Blessings,
Amanda xx

My partner T and I have long discussed my attuning him to Celtic Reiki and this weekend, in an attempt to think of ways to boost the energy I put into this blog, decided to set a date. On T’s suggestion we have chosen to attune him to level one next weekend. This is something we are both very excited about.

But even more exciting is the fact we have both agreed it would be a wonderful opportunity for sharing the world of Reiki on this blog. It will be my first attunement (even though I have been a master for quite some time now) and so it will be a new stage in both my journey as well as T’s. In light of this we thought we would document the process in pictures and share them with you.

The thought behind this was two-fold - first it would invite you into our lives and involve you in our Reiki journey and secondly it will give those of you who have no experience with Reiki the chance to see what occurs in an attunement. More and more T is becoming an integral part of my posts on this blog and I am hoping to involve him even further by asking him to post a few thoughts about how he feels during and after the attunement. We both hope that this will add even more insight into the energy of Reiki, perhaps for those of you who may be apprehensive about becoming attuned yourself.

We’d like to ask you to think of us both next Saturday evening (about 8pm GMT) and look forward to posting the photos during the following week. There will also be additions to the blog as I add more pages and meditations to improve the ways in which Roots That Heal may assist and support you on your own journey.

With many Blessings,
Amanda xx

When I first starting using Reiki I found it incredibly difficult, however exciting, to remain calm and focussed for up to an hour. If I were giving healing to someone else it was far easier than giving myself a treatment, but I still found it hard work. I preferred sending short bursts, five minutes long or so, because I knew I could remain in a space of love and connection for that time.

The more I practised, however, the easier it became to remain in that space. In fact a lot of things became easier… it was easier to calm myself, shut out worries and centre my whole being on the thought and spirit of healing and connecting. I began to look forward to offering Reiki to friends and family, and in return I began to open up spiritually and gain insights I might never have seen from my previous 3D state of thinking. I seem to go through these cycles, where I am very intensely aware of and eager to connect followed by periods of time when I let life get on top of me and I close myself down again. Each time it seems harder to reconnect, like now. Although I am eager to pick up my Reiki practise more regularly (as I have let it slip in recent months), I find myself reluctant to put aside what I consider “precious time” to sit and meditate and channel healing energy. I could be reading, or contacting all those people I have neglected to reply to or… or… The list of excuses goes on, but each one, however important, would actually be easier to do from a point of relaxation and serenity.

My work at the moment is incredibly taxing and by the end of a working day all I want to do is sit and do nothing. But I am so wound up with energy that I find this hard work. This week I had a stinking cold and my partner decided what I really needed was a full Reiki treatment. So I lay in peace, my favourite piece of music playing in the background and let go. Next thing I knew I was waking from a sleep with just enough energy to climb into bed and fall into a deep slumber. We repeated the treatment the following day and the same thing happened. Then the next night, in an attempt to return the favour to my partner, I offered him a treatment. I found it incredibly difficult to connect, I honestly wondered for a few moments if I’d have to postpone the treatment for another day. But eventually I felt the energy flowing and we started the treatment. And again, I had the best night’s sleep!

Reiki is like anything, the more you practise the easier it becomes. I remember years back going to yoga classes with my father and really wishing I didn’t have to give up my Thursday evening to go out. Yet each session, as we closed with a meditation, I felt the most relaxed I had ever been and the following day was quite blissful. I loved the result, but getting there in the first place was so hard. It’s the same with Reiki - I love how it feels and I love channelling the energy once I get started, but when I am out of the habit it can be so hard to start.

I wonder if any of you feel this way too? I’m sure I can’t be the only one, so I thought I would share some of the “tips” I have discovered both since being first attuned and then quite recently.

• Have a Reiki partner (this doesn’t have to be someone you live with, just someone who you can see regularly, who will encourage you to practise regularly). Having a Reiki partner means that when you are feeling like you really can’t be bothered, they are more likely to realise/remember that this is perhaps the time when you need to practise the most and they will be able to remind you of this and sit with you in silence (or singing, dancing, whatever works for you) and help you to connect
• Practise regularly, even if just for a few minutes a day. A few minutes per day is far better than half an hour or more once a week. I find connecting is the hardest part as it requires me to truly stop and remove myself from whatever is bothering me long enough to do so.
• Set aside a specific time to practise and turn off all electrical equipment, especially telephones. I find that once I start channelling the energy I don’t want to stop, even if I have decided only to sit for five minutes. If I have set aside half an hour it means I do not have to worry about stopping the flow to go check on the dinner or worrying about whether my mum is going to ring etc.
• Make your space sacred to you. This may mean playing a cd that you reserve purely for Reiki or burning some incense you save just for healing sessions. Lower the lights and make yourself warm and comfortable. Often, when we devote sounds, smells and images to the practise of something, just hearing, smelling, seeing these things can help us enter that space far easier than if we just tried to meditate or heal in a busy, noisy, strange atmosphere.

I am sure there are many more ways in which you can make your Reiki practise easier to keep up, and I would welcome any suggestions you’d like to share in the comments.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy your Reiki journey
With Blessings
Amanda xx

My apologies for how long it has taken me to update this blog, and thank you for continuing to pop by. We have spent the past few weeks, my partner and I, finding a new home, furniture to fill it and discovering the joys of sharing our lives with one another. We find that each day we love each other more, and also that each day some new demon comes to the surface for us to face together. Our life is both perfect and flawed - in fact it is perfect because it is flawed. Our flaws allow us to work together, support each other and share in our acceptance of our lives both as individuals and a couple.

A lot of the success can be attributed to the shared desire to live our lives as spiritually as we can. We both practise reiki and have used it for ourselves and the other both as a quick fix for a headache as well as a full treatment after a long day at work. We have reminded each other of the Reiki principles and the need to meditate, centre, appreciate and honour that which has been given to us. Indeed, we are very blessed right now and through trust and acceptance have found a home that is perfect for us in this moment.

It’s not all roses, it never is. And I find that this is the most beautiful part of life itself. We are in balance. For every moment I think to myself how lucky I am to be here, living my dream, I have equal moments when my health seems to fail me and bring me down again. I am reminded to be humble and gracious, to remember my friends, to remember the world, to remember those in need and also to remember the love and support that is given to me. Never before haveI cried so often and so freely as I have done these past few weeks. Never before have I allowed myself to feel things so openly, to share both my joys and sorrows and realise the blessing that is within this space of shared experience.

So although I have been offline for longer than I would have liked, the time seems to have been perfectly set aside for me. I return to Roots That Heal with a new vision, a new way of feeling and a new passion for practising and sharing the beautiful healing of Reiki and lessons that can be found within it.

It’s great to be back and I look forward to a renewed journey with you all.
With many blessings
Amanda xx 

I am ever so sorry for the lack of posts recently. Not long after my previous post I went for an interview for a new job as my old job was nearing the end of its contract. I was offered my new job there and then and since that time have been hastily running around trying to find somewhere to live (it’s in a new city), finishing up at my old job and filling in forms for my new one (working with children) and now I have 3 days in which to move into my new flat, allow my parents and my partner’s parents to meet for the first time and get everything sorted for my new job. I’ve just found time to pop online to say I am still alive and I will be back to regular postings as soon as I get internet access sorted in my new home.

Until then, many blessings to you all and thanks for popping by. I’ll see you all again soon!

Amanda xx