Japan Reiki Adventure - Adventure Year Week 24

posted on: November 24, 2019

I figured it was bound to happen that at some point I'd miss a week of blogging this adventure.  However, I ended up four weeks behind, so I'm catching up by back-dating some posts with very limited text that will at least preserve links to the Instagram posts that have more detail.  What I have been able to keep up on are daily Instagram Posts with tons of photos and long descriptions full of details!  So, I've still been documenting daily and trying to capture all of the experiences as they happen, but I just haven't had time to really sit down and create weekly summaries until this week.

These last 16 days in Japan have just flown by.  I was on a 16 Day Reiki Japan Trip organized by Oliver Drewes of Holistika, which also included a 3 day retreat with Frans Stiene of International House of Reiki.  In total, we were a group of 20 people coming together from Germany, Netherlands, Australia, UK, New Zealand, United States, and China.  Our trip was also greatly enhanced by having Michelle Shinagawa of Purple Fish Healing with us, providing Japanese translation to help us sort out difficult moments and be more respectful of sensitive sites and rituals while we were in Japan.

At this point, the best way for me to recap everything is to link to all of the posts I made on Instagram, so please forgive me if you receive this over email and they don't show up without clicking for more...







Arriving in Tokyo at the Narita Airport meant a full Mario Bros character greeting while coming down the elevators- complete with an entire gaming station after baggage claim in the arrivals hall. I also saw a guy who had a full-on sumo wrestler look with man bun on top of his head and a robe, waiting for a cab, but I chickened out asking for a photo with him. The air is a deep blue and easy to breathe, which now makes me wonder why other airports are surrounded by smog. The hotel water is safe to drink from the tap, and doesn’t taste like heavy chlorine, so I’m happily watering myself up. After figuring out I needed a local SIM card, and exchanging my Japan Rail Pass at the airport, I had a lovely night of getting to meet some of the other reiki Practioners I’ll be traveling with these next to weeks around Japan. 🙏
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 2: 🚊 Arriving by train to the town of Atami and seeing a hot spring and public foot bath right outside of the train station 🌊 Walking along the soft beach with sparkling dark soft sands and dipping my feet inside the water to find it cool but not freezing 🍥Walking around Atami Ginza street sampling all sorts of snack foods, fish spreads, dried sea things, and fruit bars 🌭 Trying a crazy Ariarang Hot Dog covered in all the sauces 🚨Visiting the Happy Pachinko Parlor and finding it not to be a happy experience with nearly deafening noise and indoor smoking 🐉 Seeing an interesting canal spring in the middle of town with a series of decorated walls covered in sea creatures and a tiger headed dragon figure 🧖🏻‍♀️ Spending time relaxing in massage chairs and the onsen (hot mineral bath) at our hotel 🍝 Having an Italian dinner while in Japan ⛩ Ending the night at the Kinomiya Shrine dedicated to the largest trees of Atami and their thousands of years of survival 🌳 Sending blessings and prayer requests while surrounded by the spirits of the Kodama Forest
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 3: 🚊 Took a train and then a bus from Atami to Kawaguchiko 🚠Took the ropeway for views of Mt Fuji, which was covered in clouds most of the day 🗻Took in the energy of Mt Fuji by breathing in the warm sun shining brightly, feeling cool little rain drops on my head, and feeling the wind carrying the evaporated water back up the mountain to be purified again, imagining the same for me and my body, as well as for all the people and blessing requests that were given to me to carry during this time 🚌 Rode around the lakes in the rain, watching the fall colors and nature turn into impressionist watery views through bus windows 🍲Tried some tempura shrimp, soba noodle, and teppanyaki steak 👘 Had another lovely relaxing night in the onsen’s hot steamy mineral waters
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 4: 🦶Tried the super hot and steamy public foot bath while waiting for our train at Atami Station 🗻Got to see a clear view of Mt. Fuji from the train windows ⛩Arrived in Nara and headed straight to the UNESCO World Heritage Temple sites 🏯Saw the five story pagoda that has survived multiple fires 🦌Saw many many domesticated deer in Nara Park interacting with tourists who give them food 📿Saw the Giant Buddha and had a surprisingly emotional experience even in spite of all the tourism and rowdy school kids, so I shared more blessings and prayers from that space of connection to something larger and more powerful having an impact 🥘Tried a fantastic Okonomiyaki Japanese BBQ omelette covered in fish flakes that move as steam rises 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Left a reiki group photo Polaroid on the wall of the Takomi shop in Nara 🍢Wandered Nara streets and alleys under the full moon, looking for Japanese sweets
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 5: 🥋When I started my healing journey and reiki practice, it felt a lot like the two guys beating the mochi into a putty. Reiki had to break down a lot of the walls that I had built for myself and beat me into something more soft and chewy so that I could be a better receiver of healing energy within myself. 🍡 Working with various healing practices now feels much more like the guy lighting tossing the formed mochi around in the sesame dust. I may get tossed and turned a little, but I no longer need to be beaten to a pulp because I’ve already softened to the point of being open and receptive to being tossed around a lot. That’s not to say it doesn’t still make my head spin sometimes, but if I’m the mochi, it’s much easier on me overall than it used to be. 👺One question that came up was, isn’t doing the work of healing ourselves hard? There were certainly times when I have answered yes, but today the answer is no, it feels easier than it’s ever been. That’s not to say it won’t some day be hard again, but that it feels easy when life is easy and hard when life is hard. 🥰 Sharing this journey with other reiki practitioners and teachers gives multiple perspectives to consider for my own practice and way of teaching. I get to question what feels most beneficial and effective for me, so that I can teach from a place of sharing what has worked well for me and embody that journey more fully in both wisdom and result. 🧸I sit with each experience and feel it deeply- to see what it reveals within me. I hear a chant I‘m not familiar with and feel into it- what feeling does it exude- what is it calling on? Is it creating a certain vibrational energy? How does it feel in my body? How does it feel in the space? What emotions arise? Does it create separation or unity? I look and listen and feel everything around me as a witness for my own understanding and my own sense of practice. I stay open to everything and yet also not attached to anything- practicing and observing from a place of curiosity and awareness.
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Can you see yourself in me? If you cannot, what is it that separates us? How can we find the common ground and a place of connection so that there is less separation between us? The statue behind me is of Gyōki (668-749 AD), a Buddhist monk who traveled Japan building bridges and repairing roads. I think about his desire to go beyond his spiritual work and commit to the practicality of connecting people through those bridges and roads. I read elsewhere that he also created many maps from his travels. He applied his teaching and understanding of the power of interconnectedness in very practical ways that would help make this easier in daily life for people to connect and experience other perspectives and other places. How can we repair the broken roads and create new bridges within ourselves in order to see ourself in others and to have the kind of compassion that comes from that unity of spirit and understanding?
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 6: 🌀We’ve been in Reiki Retreat Group Practice mode for the last two days. And yes, while I am always in practice in my life, there are definitely differences when groups of people come together to meditate, chant, and do hands-on healing work together as one large group. ♨️I’ve been waking up before 4am each day without an alarm, so I’ve had a good amount of time to myself in the onsen hot spring of our hotel. 💦This morning, it was raining and I loved the feeling of the hot steam rising and the cool rain falling while I steamed away in the hot water. 🍱 Michelle (@purplefishhealing) found a traditional lunch spot where we got to sit on tatami mats on the floor, and try a set lunch that was full of little surprising flavors I may not have selected if it hadn’t been a set menu of items. I really love the bento style of trying many little things. 👘 I had a chance to do some shopping alone and found some great boutiques full of fabrics that are lovely to touch and patterns that are really fun to see, but didn’t feel the need to take any home with me. 🏮At night we wandered out to the Temple of a Thousand Lanterns and walked around the space in the dark, with only hints of light here and there. I shared blessings and prayers from the temple. ⛩I found another little mini temple that had a lingering energy around it that was different than everything else nearby. It’s still a mystery to me what that energy was, but it was quite easy to feel again by simply walking by, so it seemed very fixed in its own place. Could be a relic, could be electrical box, could be a geomagnetic thing- they all feel similar in my body, but with my mind open to the awareness, it seemed most like a relic. When we tried to decipher the Japanese with translation tools, we came with the potential to rent the pavilion for funerals, and it possibly enshrined some family relics- but who those people are was still hard to decipher. After experiences like that, I have to decide if I’ll keep attempting to learn more, or if I’ll just let go of the experience so that I don’t accidentally take any dead people home with me.🌚
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 7: 🙏Yesterday we experienced some of Takeda Sensei’s practice and teachings, and he so graciously invited us to continue working with him, which is a very gracious offer in Japanese esoteric Buddhist traditions. I am grateful for the experience and for the generosity of spirit that he shared with us. I am grateful for @stienefrans & Oliver Drewes, who brought us all into shared space together, in order to learn from each other. 👘Some people may look at this photo and see one teacher. Some people may look at this photo and see two or three teachers. Yet, we can also look at this photo and see 21 teachers. 📿When I came on this retreat, my intent was not to learn from one person, but to learn from many. This is also how I apply my practice in daily life- so every moment I can learn something more about myself, my triggers, my assumptions, and other ways of seeing, being, and practicing within the world. 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧Yesterday, even after the class, I extended my practice by spending more time with people I haven’t spent much time with yet on this retreat, and I found myself needing to walk in ways that are different than I normally walk. I experienced making decisions in ways that are different than I normally make decisions. It was a chance to travel differently than I normally do for a few hours, and to experience another way of being within the world. 🏃🏻‍♀️Sometimes I found myself wanting to move at a New York pace, but then reminded myself I was choosing to travel differently, in order to learn a little more that can’t be learned in my normal way of traveling. 🕉I’ve been doing my best to sit with or travel with as many different people as I go, opening myself to what I can learn from each person I have chosen to travel with during this trip. 🧘🏻‍♀️As a self-employed person, who spends so many days alone, I had some serious hesitation about traveling with 20 people for over two weeks. More people, more potential for drama, ego, and cliques. Luckily- this is a group of 20 people who are trying to “work on their shit” so even if those moments come up- they are also moments for each of us to recognize what we can work on.
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 8: ⛩⛩⛩Hello Kyoto!⛩⛩⛩ We haven’t even been here 12 hours yet and I can already tell this city may push some serious buttons. It’s good though, because it gives us a chance to examine our frustrations, and reveal what where we still have work we need to do. ⛩Today has been all about Temples and Shrines, and boy does Kyoto have a lot of them to explore! 🌳Shoren-in-Temple was our first stop of the day, and the trees were really what called to me in this space. There are many trees, but a few massive trees that feel so rich with kami energy, it was hard not to feel hugged just by simply being among them. 🍵As an added bonus, we also were able to partake in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony at the Temple Tea Room, which was a lovely experience full of focus and artistry. 🥘Then, I felt called to wander around a bit in this lovely area, as did @purplefishhealing so we found some great street market foods in front of the Heian-Jingu Shrine. ⛩ We ended the day at the famous Fushimi Inari-taisha, which may be the most crowded and famous shrine in the city. Most people know it by its many red gates. 👹This was a great temple for triggering people, either by crowds, commercial activities, the Shinto rock band playing louder than the priest chanting, people bumping into each other, pathways being crowded or difficult to maneuver, climbing steps and it all feeling too repetitive after a while, people not following traditional practices seriously, people not following rules stated on signs, or any other number of things. Oh yes, I can already see Kyoto has plenty of challenges to offer for practice. 🙏 🧘🏻‍♀️It’s one thing to practice in meditation, practice groups, or solitude- which allows us to have more awareness of ourselves and our inner truth in a sacred private space. It’s a completely different practice to observe ourselves in the world when we are confronted with things not being the way we want them. Are we still able to create that sacred space around us no matter where we are? Or do we need everything to be perfect before we can unify with the chaos that is daily reality? 😉
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 9: 🎊It was such a gift to meet Hiroshi Doi, who has been cultivating reiki gatherings and teachings in Japan for over 20 years. He has been a key link in connecting Western and Japanese reiki practitioners around the world, and has taught many reiki teachers. 🙏Gratitude for the efforts of Oliver Drewes to bring an international group of practioners into the Gendai Reiki Hō space together with Japanese Practioners and for the translations by @purplefishhealing , which allowed us to understand each other more easily across our different spoken languages. ❤️ My heart is so full of love and hope for the bright light that reiki helps cultivate in each person. 🔆 Victoria and I got to receive a surprise shoulder treatment during the meetup, and I had a lovely sensation of the great bright light of reiki that let me know it is easy to recognize when this light is present, even if we cannot speak the same language. 🌟I also got to meet another healing practioner here in Japan, Satoshi Zach Yashima, who has the same level of clairsentience that I do, which is always a refreshing gift to know that I am not the only one who feels so many subtle things in life that other people don’t seem to feel or notice. We geeked out about comparing all the feels we have and if we feel the energy the same way as the moon shifts cycles, if we feel the same ill feeling under heavy power lines, if we feel the energy of certain chants the same way... it was like a breath of fresh air since I don’t get to discuss all the subtle feels of daily life with anyone else regularly. We’re both fascinated by quantum science because of the experiences we’ve had, and are constantly studying and identifying patterns between feelings and experiences to understand the world that can’t be seen in deeper ways. I’m so grateful to know that even if we’re in different places, we can stay connected online as we travel through the world. 🌀If you are a reiki practioner, there are plans underway for a 100 years of reiki anniversary celebration in Kyoto for the year 2023 in August. That’s plenty of time to prepare for a trip to Japan, no matter where in the world you may be!
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 10: Yesterday our group of reiki practioners traveled to Mt Kurama to have a direct experience with the mountain where Master Usui is said to have meditated and came to understand universal energy in a way that it could be more easily cultivated and shared. I’m sure the structures on the mountain today look a bit different than they did when he was here, but I know some of the trees he saw are still here, including many of the large Japanese Cedars, which all felt like they were exuding a special energy that I just wanted to soak in every time I got near them. I also felt a strong sense of spirit under the temple, in a type of crypt where statues of dieties and urns of hair are kept after people have done blessing ceremonies on Mt Kurama. The other place where I felt a strong connection was in the roots of the trees as they drew from the earth and connected to the sky. I found some that were easy to sit with and observe, and felt so much compassion among them. I did not find the designated power spot to be something I needed to stand on, but the little volcano shape mound near the temple office felt special and full of intent to connect with the divine. There was another object along the path that caught my eye and felt like a three dimensional way to understand the first symbol of reiki, and how we can draw energy up from the earth or down from the greater light as desired. Many little moments resonated along the way and I’m grateful for the guidance and encouragement from this group and from all of my teachers and colleagues to come here to walk with reiki and bring new understandings and perspectives to various ways of experiencing and expressing the system of reiki. Whether people use it for self-care, self-healing, spiritual development, or physical health- I think it has strong roots with compassionate intentions. 🙏
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 11: Like blowing the seedlings away from the dandelion, today was a day for me to blow away the energetic attachments that come from spending extended time with a bunch of other people. This is not about anyone else, but rather a metaphor for how it feels when I’m in space with others that I am dedicating my presence and awareness too. In that space, I feel many energetic cords and attachments- versus when I’m in space alone, which is when I feel like I get to press the reset button and become a dandelion that has become bare again. The bare dandelion (or alone state) may not be as attractive to other people, but since I seem to carry a sphere that feels so much around me, it helps me become clear of what is mine and what comes and goes as others come and go. Sometimes I’ll be wrestling with emotions that aren’t even mine to wrestle with because I feel them inside my space as if they are mine. It’s only when I can have that spaciousness that it becomes clear what is not mine at all! So today was a day for me to do some laundry, do an extended reiki self-care treatment until I felt like a bare dandelion again, and get an extended shiatsu and pressure point massage to dig into the deeper attachments I couldn’t blow away on my own.... and now I feel energetically scrubbed clean and ready for more people time again. In my squeaky clean state, I decided to wander the #FlowersbyNaked Digital Art exhibit at the Nijo Castle, and found the art to resonate deeply in this state of allowing the leaves and petals to all fly away into the wind. Nearly all of the art was based on the sensation of a Phoenix flying through a garden and transforming the ordinary castle scenes into beautiful garden scenes full of petals and leaves blowing away in the wind. The truth of a tree remains no matter the season, even as the leaves come and go- and that is how I know what is mine and what is temporary- by blowing away the temporary leaves and attachments that accidentally accumulate in my space.
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Mount Hiei offered us the beautiful gift of participating in a ritual chant with a few Tendai Buddhist Monks and receiving an unexpected spiritual blessing. Thank you @stienefrans for guiding us through the practice and to the temple so that we could be more at ease in this space. My experiences with practices like this are so much more peaceful at this place in my life than they were even 7 years ago. I actually have no idea how long ago my exploration of various meditation practices and chants began, but I do remember vividly the first time I felt like I blew the top off of my head in meditative chant and felt formlessly interconnected with the divine quality of everything around me. It was nothingness and everythingness all at once. However, meditative chant in spiritual practice actually wasn’t the first time I experienced a feeling of oneness with everything around me. My first time (that I was truly aware of, because it was so different from my self-conscious ego state of mind at the time), was as a teenager at the age of 17 while I was singing in a choral competition with my high school choir in Michigan. I believe the work was O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen, which still taps a deep part of my soul whenever I hear it or sing it. What was amazing was that I wasn’t the only one who experienced that oneness as a phenomenon during that song. Several other members of the choir reported feeling the exact same thing- and those of us who felt it surrendered deeply in tears of realization after our experience. The second time it happened was while I was in college, as a music major, conducting a choir for an exam. I was a nervous wreck because I was conducting my fellow students, and we all had big personalities as performance and teaching majors, but once the choir hit a certain section of the piece I felt like time stopped and the room dissolved and there was nothing but vibration. I have no idea what happened to reality in those moments, but again, I had a deep release of any separation between me and the choir and remembered how limitless that space of interconnectedness is. The third time was at the age of 33 in meditative chant. 🙏
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Art is a great way to reflect on our inner world of thoughts and perceptions. We don’t have to worry about hurting any feelings, we can just use art to become self-aware of our inner thoughts and how they shape our experience and perception. Try it: When you look at this image, observe the first thoughts that come to your mind. Accept whatever thoughts come and let them be OK without trying to control or change them. Just become aware of them. Once you have heard and accepted your initial inner thoughts, consider these questions... What is the nature of that thought? Is it a question? Is it a judgement? Is it an observation? Is it a label? Once you became aware of that first thought, where do you feel yourself wanting to take your thoughts next? Do you try to correct or change it? Do you get more curious? Do you continue to observe more? Do you connect it to a prior experience? Do you look for comparisons or differences? Do you create more labels? Where do you want to naturally take your first thoughts after having them? The more you can observe your thought space and become aware of your natural tendencies, the more you can catch yourself creating internal stories that become projections onto the things, people, and places that you encounter. The more you become aware of your projections, the more you can see your own veil of illusions and blocks, that are otherwise invisible or very difficult to see within ourselves. Much like a psychologist can work with a Rorschach test to observe your inner world of thought and perception, you can also work with art, portraits, and photographs to hear your inner dialogue and to become aware of your natural projections onto the world around you. Once you’re aware of your inner projections onto the outside world, you gain better control over your illusions and how they can get in the way of greater connection and clarity.
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 13: We spent our day in the hometown of Mikao Usui, and received a special blessing from the priests that watch over the local shrine that houses Usui’s memorial stone donated by reiki Practioners, as well as a special gate donated by the Usui family. We also visited a temple connected to Usui’s lineage, and the spring that his family would use for their sake production. It’s good to remember the simple and humble means of the area he was born into and the simplicity of the town and land that supported his path. We have been lucky to receive many blessings along this journey, and observe many different practices and styles of offering blessings. What often strikes me is how when the monks and priests disrobe and show up for us in normal clothing, we could easily walk by them on the street without even noticing or sensing the depth of their practice and ritual. Our energetic power and ability to connect divinely can be turned on and off like a light switch, as we connect or create boundaries in our lives, and the priests have been a great reminder of that for me. So often people will put a spiritual practioner who appears in robes and ritual attire on a pedestal of admiration, but then won’t look at the people riding the bus or train as anyone special or worthy of that same admiration, when actually, they could be the exact same people all along. I think it’s good to remember this in our daily life, and not just in rituals or ceremonies. That everyone around us, no matter what humble means or fancy clothing they appear to have, no matter what section of the plane they fly in, has this lovely light and set of blessings within them. Whether or not they see it in themselves, cultivate it daily, or show it to anyone else doesn’t really matter at all. What matters is simply recognizing we all share this same breath of life, this same set of possibilities, and this same connection to the greater sense of spirit that connects us all.
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Japan Reiki Adventure Day 14: 🌀The best part of this trip for me has been traveling with and getting to know this group of reiki practitioners and teachers. I can return to these cities and locations anytime, but coming together as a group of people traveling together is a special and sacred act that is very difficult to replicate. As we continue to grow and practice, we become different people along the way- so I find this moment in the time of that growth to be the most special aspect. 💦 We returned to a cold and wet Tokyo yesterday, and I noticed that the bathroom in the train station had a hook for umbrellas- which indicated to me how much it must rain in Tokyo for it to be part of a bathroom installation. ⛩ We visited the Fukagawa Fudodo Temple and attended the 11am Ceremony and witnessed yet another different ritual with large conch shells, fire, chant, and massive drums that pounded the Fudo energy into the deep and watery parts of my body that hadn’t yet been stirred up by any other chant practice we’ve done this trip and I got to experience a lovely release in the tears that trickled from my eyes. Sometimes it just takes a resonance or vibration much deeper than what we’re physically capable of ourselves to shake something loose. 🌟On the 4th Floor of this temple is a room dedicated to Dianichi, who is considered an embodiment of universal energy. A couple descriptions have described this energy as cosmic- but I didn’t really have any idea of what that meant until I sat inside the space and tried to experience the energy of dianichi in meditation and through my felt senses. It was weightless and formless- like being in outer space- and stayed in motion, but was also easily moveable with just the slightest movement. I realized the power of the mind to organize space and give it direction and form, but it’s also a realization that even if you give form to something, it will always eventually change or dissolve once again because the nature of the universe at a cosmic level is all these little spherical forms floating and spinning, growing together and apart, coagulating for a time and then dissolving again.✨ 🍜Cheese Ramen is tasty 🗼Skytree Fail
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