A Master's Path: Reiki Travels Around the World

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Saratoga Springs, New York

You are good with your hands, you will do something called Reiki.

I dutifully wrote this down. I had never heard the word Reiki before and wondered what it was, especially if I was going to be doing it.

It was the summer of 1984, my day off from work, and I was having my first official psychic reading as part of an ongoing course in metaphysics called Awaken Your Higher Mind. The only other thing I remember about that reading is a comment that I was highly guided. I thought that was probably a good thing.

The next day on my lunch break I went across the street to the library just to look up the word Reiki. I found no reference to it at all, not in the card file (they still had card files at that time), the dictionary, periodicals, or the encyclopedia. I figured I must have spelled it wrong, so I went back across the street and called Marina Petro, the metaphysical teacher who had given me the reading on the previous day.

Marina, you mentioned the word ‘Reiki’, I’ve tried to look it up and can’t find it. Do you have any information on it, or do you know how to spell it?

You know I am in an altered state when I give a reading. How do I know what it is?

So, that was that. It never occurred to me that Marina might not know what Reiki was. She knew about most everything in the metaphysical world. How intriguing. But, curious or not, I was going to have to let this question go. If Reiki was not in the library or in Marina’s general knowledge bank, I didn’t know anywhere else to look.

My cousin Kathy and I worked together at Spring Street Stylists, a four operator beauty shop, two doors down from Broadway, right across the street from the public library in Saratoga Springs, New York. The shop was in a vast old brick building that started its life as an elegant hotel ballroom. It still had the high ornate plaster ceilings -- very Saratoga. Spring Street was my first venture in owning a business, and I loved everything about that shop.

Kathy was blessed with a decent sense of humor, an invaluable asset in the beauty world. She also had a pile of homey observations to cover most situations. One of her favorite observations was that I had Sucker printed on my forehead, normally invisible but a beacon to some, especially salesmen and solicitors.

It was true. Soft didn’t even cover it. I was a marshmallow, particularly vulnerable to a touching story or a good cause. If a person came into the shop and wanted a donation, that person got a donation. I figured it was good karma, like putting money in the poor box at church, bread upon the waters, that sort of thing.

Consequently, the shop was very popular with local causes. A few months after that psychic reading with the word I could not find, a lady came into the shop to ask for a donation for the local Waldorf school. They were having yet another auction to raise money and needed items to sell. I think Steiner education¹ is absolutely wonderful for children, and was happy to do what I could to support the school. I just had one reservation.

I would love to donate service to be sold at this auction, but the last time I did that to help set up a child care center, $100 worth of my services sold for five bucks because no one showed up to bid at the auction. So this time, can I come to the auction and buy back my service if it doesn’t sell? At a reasonable rate of course, then at least you’ll get some money and I don’t have to give all that service for nothing.

Can you come? the lady said. Of course you can come. And while you are at it, why don’t you bring some solvent friends with you?

That sounded like a great idea. The auction was going to be held in a recently renovated turn-of-the-century hotel. Saratoga Springs is famous for its older architecture and for local efforts to preserve and maintain historic buildings.

Seeing the Adelphi Hotel in all its splendor was worth an evening in a girdle and high heels no matter how dismal the auction might be.

I called several of my more solvent friends and asked them if they would like to come along, …and bring money, it’s a worthy cause.

The evening turned out to be quite a surprise. The hotel was wonderfully grand: faithfully restored to the posh velvet, gold-fringed elegance of the 1890’s. A few hundred people came to support the auction; I guess the school got the word out this time. There were refreshments and live entertainment that were actually good. I looked in the program to find Spring Street Stylists to make sure all the information was correct, and to see what else was being offered. What a list! Catered dinner for eight, 100 gallons of gasoline, pony rides and a clown for a birthday party, and so on -- all useful, clever and interesting things.

Toward the bottom of the list was an entry I read twice. A Reiki Treatment. A Reiki Treatment. Reiki. Hot damn. It did exist! And I had spelled it correctly. This item was going to be mine, if only to find out what this Reiki actually was.

The auction was entertainment itself, and very profitable for the school. The Reiki treatment turned out to be the item of the evening. At least four people must have known what it was; the five of us kept bidding for this item that most of the audience did not have a clue about -- myself included. But I finally won it, to much laughter and applause.

I found the woman who was offering the treatment, and we made an appointment for the following week.

As we were leaving the auction, my husband and I decided to go up the street to a small bar and listen to a local jazz pianist. Ruth Heitt was an old friend and one of my clients, and on rare evenings out, I always liked to stop in and say hello.

You know those stupid arguments that only a married couple can get into? Well, my husband and I got into one about whether we should walk the two blocks up Broadway (my esoteric view, I loved to look in the store windows and enjoy the night and each other’s company with a leisurely stroll). He wanted to drive (his practical view, then the car would be there and we wouldn’t have the walk back, which he did not seem to understand was part of the reason I wanted to walk up there in the first place: to walk back).

As it turned out, we never made it to the piano bar that night, or any other. The end of the disagreement turned out to be the end of the marriage.

A little drastic, you might think. There were a lot of cracks in the marital foundation before that minor incident, to be sure, but somehow we always managed to hold it together. And yes, in case you are wondering, we had tried counseling. Several times. To no avail.

This was a second marriage for both of us, and sometimes it just seemed that the problems of a large blended family were simply overwhelming.

Of course, I have always thought that finding a good counselor is something like finding a good lover -- a lot is left to the luck of the draw, after which general attitude, knowledge, technique, enthusiasm and experience can come into play.

Either we were not so lucky in the draw, or counseling didn’t take, or separation was simply the way things were meant to be. Whatever. For some reason, that stupid argument on that particular night shattered the remaining framework of our marriage. Sometimes things happen that way.

Richard had the keys, he took the car. I took a cab. Home. I did stop at the grocery store first, to get milk and bread for the next day. With six boys at home (five teenagers and one pre-teen) there was always a need milk and bread, no matter what other crisis was going on. Richard followed in the car the whole way. If the situation wasn’t so pathetic, so indicative of our general level of communication, and just so sad, it would have been quite funny.

On the ride home, which was fairly long, I had time to mull things over. I remember thinking how useless it was to continue in a relationship where the parties involved could not even agree on something so simple as a walk or a ride without a major dispute, especially on an evening that was supposed to be some kind of fun.

I remember a very quiet, solid understanding that I was simply unwilling to continue to live my life that way. I also resolved to keep my own set of car keys in the future, no matter what. When we both finally got into the house, I took off my wedding ring, put it down on the kitchen table and stated what I had figured out on the taxi ride home.

Richard, I can get where I am going with or without you, and I guess it is going to be without you. That was my resignation from ten years of marriage. Then I cried. And then I went to bed.

It took some time for the logistics and the legalities. We lived in a large old farmhouse situated off an unpaved country road. We restored the house ourselves, and we both loved it. The maple trees that lined the front yard were well over a hundred years old. When either Richard or I moved out we would have to have a large enough home to accommodate all the children. Finding one of those within driving distance at a reasonable rent could take some time. Since I was the one who wanted to go, I figured finding a new place was mine to do.

Richard and I decided that we would continue to share the same home and keep the financial responsibilities arranged the way they were, even though separated. We had way too many dogs, cats and kids to do otherwise. We were not in a hurry to do the custody thing, anyway. It was much better for the children for all of us to be living in the same place. We were certainly not mad at the kids, we were not even mad at each other. The marriage just didn’t work out.

When I looked back on that night several years later, I realized what a turning point it had been. My life took a totally different direction -- nothing I had planned, nothing I expected, and nothing I could ever have imagined -- that night I bought the Reiki treatment to find out what it was.

¹ Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian philosopher, scientist and artist who developed the theory of Anthroposophy knowledge produced by the higher self in man. Among his many other achievements, he started the Waldorf School movement in Europe and America, introducing a noncompetitive, holistic approach to education.

Burnt Hills, New York

Marti Pease, a teacher at the Waldorf school, lived in Burnt Hills, New York, a place about as big as it sounds. She had learned Reiki the previous summer at a holistic center in Massachusetts. That was something else I had never heard of: holistic centers where classes in subjects like this Reiki were taught. Interesting.

Marti was in her early forties, naturally blonde and fair (hairdressers notice these things), very delicate and slight of build, gentle and soft-spoken. Marti met me at the door of her apartment, and invited me to go into the other room and make myself comfortable.

I looked around the corner into this other room, and saw a day bed in the center. The lights were low, candles burning, incense smoking, soft music playing. I had no idea what she meant by the phrase make myself comfortable, so I turned and asked, Do you mean, get naked, as in a massage? I always like to come right to the point. I figure it saves time and possible misunderstandings.

She looked shocked. Oh my God, NO! Don’t do THAT!

I laughed. Well, you have to tell me what this Reiki stuff is; I don’t have a clue.

I can’t tell you what it is.

Great, I thought. I went to all this trouble to find out what Reiki is and she can’t tell me.

But I can show you, if you will lie down on that couch. With all your clothes on.

I did.

Now relax, she said. She put a blanket over me, sat at my head and gently placed her hands over my eyes.

Sure, I thought. Relax. I went to take a deep breath, and found I could not take a deep breath. Or breathe much at all. This was a new experience.

"Is this supposed to be relaxing? I asked. I tried to inhale slowly and deliberately and not embarrass myself by jumping up in a panic or hyperventilating. Here was this lady trying to do this thing, whatever it was; the least I could do was be cooperative and stay in position. When does ‘relaxing’ kick in? I don’t seem to be able to get a breath here."

Marti didn’t know what to do about my not breathing either; it had never happened to her before, so we both just continued on. As the treatment progressed, my breathing did get easier, I did relax, I thought I saw some colors behind my closed eyes, and even drifted off to sleep now and again.

My reaction to the energy of the treatment was unusual. When we talked a bit we decided that it may have been because I was a hairdresser and worked with my arms above my heart most of the day. My chest muscles were probably not used to any relaxing energy, and may have just seized up when they felt it, not knowing what else to do. Not to mention the chemical debris I breathed in or absorbed through my skin on a daily basis: hair spray, ammonia and other various chemicals for this and that. We even had a saying when we were mixing a particular bleach compound: Sounds right! because as soon as the two chemicals came together anyone in close proximity had an immediate involuntary cough. Talk about occupational hazards. Chemical contamination in the beauty business was overlooked in those years.

One thing I knew from my psychic healing work in the metaphysical classes was that whatever Marti was doing with this Reiki stuff, it involved energy, and this energy was good -- real, powerful and simply done. She was not wearing any special clothing, white robes or such; she did not do any special rituals that I was aware of, like turn around three times and spit over her left shoulder or anything like that. She did not call in any entities or deities (which would have gotten my immediate attention and made me very nervous to boot). She didn’t flex any metaphysical muscles that I could see, she just did whatever it was she did. All in all it felt great. At the end of the treatment I felt as though I had been meditating for an hour, or just had a long restful nap. I was intrigued.

"How did you learn this? Or should I say did you learn this? Is this a gift or a technique? Can I learn it, and if I could, how would I do that?"

Oh, anyone can learn how to do Reiki, Marti said. But you have to find a Master to teach you.

A Master. Where do you find one of those? Tibet? It took me three months to find the word! If I hadn’t gone to that auction, I’d still be looking. Where can I find a Master?

Marti laughed. Well, actually, I invited the Master who taught me Reiki to come here in the spring to give a class. She is the only teaching Master on the East Coast. Would you like to sign up?

Would I! How much is the class? I asked.

$125.

For a weekend?! I was shocked. That was an outrageous sum of money at the time. I was a self-employed person. No work, no pay, very simple. I would have to take time-off-from-work. This was unheard of, at least for me. Not that I had any workaholic tendencies or anything like that, of course. Budget had a lot to do with it.

I quickly added up what I would not earn if I took time off, plus what I would pay out, and it was an astronomical sum, at least to me at that time in my life. The course itself was twelve and a half shampoo-and-haircuts, at least five pairs of jeans or four pairs of leather sneakers for the boys. I kept translating the sum in my mind.

Marti sat quietly. She never said a word. She let the Reiki treatment speak for itself.

I shifted from one foot to the other, coat on, purse under my arm, ready to go, but my body was not leaving. I finally decided that this sum was the minimum equivalent of what I would spend at the grocery store in any given week without batting an eye. It seemed that I gathered money at the shop and dropped it off at the local super market on the way home. I probably had paid for the parking lot by now.

Surely I could take the equivalent of a week’s worth of groceries and do something for myself. I made the rash decision to do just that. I made out a check for the class then and there, so I would not be tempted to change my mind when the fever passed.

The following day I went into the shop, turned the appointment book ahead and boldly crossed off the required days the following spring. I made the announcement that I would be taking a day and a half off, four months hence. No one seemed to care. My cousin’s comment was that it was about time. And here I had thought the world would come to an end, or at least stop spinning if I did not show up at work. It was OK. Wow. Revelation.

The Class

The weekend for the Reiki class finally came. We met in the Burnt Hills Grange Hall on a Friday night. (Yes, grange halls where small, independent farmers used to meet really still exist). Anna and Gail, a couple of friends from the metaphysical group decided to come along. We talked quietly and waited for the Master teacher to arrive. Then we saw her.

She was somewhat imposing -- close to six feet tall, blonde hair, of a certain age as the French say, (I think that means probably over the childbearing urge, but still vital, interested and interesting) striking looks and the most beautiful skin -- what my Mother used to call an English complexion. Mom always thought it was the damp weather that gave women from the British Isles such beautiful complexions.

But for this woman, this Master teacher of Reiki, her complexion seemed to be finer than even English heritage or damp weather could produce. She had a glow about her that did not come from the natural gift of good skin, prevailing atmospheric conditions or even fifty-dollar facials. I knew what fifty-dollar facials would do for a woman, and this glow was much deeper than cosmetic. It was almost like the energy or presence of a person who meditates a lot, certainly different from the norm. Whatever it was, I decided that I would like to know how to get some of that for myself.

Linda Keiser (now Keiser Mardis) began the class. She told her story: how she came to Reiki, and how she came to be a Master and a teacher. Then she told the story of Reiki: how it had been rediscovered in Japan, and how it came to America. Then Linda told us what the class would be like: there would be four initiations or attunements to the energy and time for us to practice giving and receiving the Reiki energy with each other. We would have one attunement in each of the four segments of the class. The first one would be now.

We arranged our chairs into a circle in the center of the room so that we could put hands on each other’s shoulders: a simple way to share energy as the initiations were happening. One by one, we got up and went behind the curtains on the stage of the grange hall. We sat in a chair with our feet flat on the floor; our hands pressed together with arms straight out and pointed up; our eyes closed; no talking. Linda did some ceremony or other, during which she blew on us three times, and then we went back out and sat in the circle, and put our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us.

Somehow that ceremonial attunement was supposed to let healing energy flow through us, out of our hands, and into the body of the other person. It did. Most of us felt some physical sign that energy was flowing: heat, slight tingling in our hands, an after image feeling on the body when the hands moved. Subtle, but there.

The person seated behind me came back from his initiation and put his hands on my shoulders. This completed the circle.

Almost instantly, a thought appeared in my head -- not something I thought of, simply something that occurred:

This is the most comforting thing I have ever felt.

The thought itself felt exceptionally clear and profound.

Then it felt as though a current of energy flowed around the circle, and when it got back to me another thought occurred -- again not something I thought of, simply a fact that became evident:

I couldn’t do anything better with my life than to share this feeling with other people -- that a person can feel this kind of peace and comfort with the touch of a hand.

Again, the thought itself felt profound. I felt that quality of silence that acknowledges a truth.

Then my conscious mind kicked in. Will you get real, Honey? You have a business to run, six kids to feed and you’ve still got a husband who hates this stuff. And, just what you need, another hobby.

OK, OK, I said to myself. I’ll be good. I understand. Just let me have this weekend without nagging me about what I should be doing, and I promise not to go overboard.

This was not the first time I had ever lied to myself. However, I did get to enjoy the rest of the weekend without the usual overriding guilt feelings, such as I should be at work: either at the shop, or at home cooking in the kitchen or cleaning the bathrooms, two of my major life occupations.

By the end of the weekend, I just knew I wanted more Reiki. We were ten people in Upstate New York who were shortly going to scatter to the four winds. None of us lived within twenty miles of each other, and most a lot further away than that. I finally worked up the courage to ask about further training. No one else had mentioned it yet.

How would one go further with this, if one wanted? I asked Linda.

One would take the next level of training, Linda answered, with the emphasis on the word one. Linda generally prefers that a person speak for him or her self and not for the masses. My first lesson in I statements, and owning my own stuff. I got it.

I also got the words next level. Great, I thought. There are probably forty levels, and each costs more than the other.

Linda seemed to hear that thought even though I had not spoken it aloud.

There are only three levels, she continued. And you never have to worry about the third one. The second level is about learning to increase the flow of energy to any one place at any one time, being able to access the psyche of a person, and being able to send Reiki energy across time and space in as focused a way as a physical treatment.

Send energy across time and space in a focused way. This sounded like psychic healing. Healing was why I got into metaphysics in the first place. She had my attention.

How much is that training? I asked.

Five hundred dollars, she answered simply.

Awwk.

Linda went on to say that there had to be a certain amount of time and practice between the first and second levels, that the second level was more of a calling and not even necessary -- we knew everything that we needed to know to practice Reiki on ourselves and others for the rest of our lives, right now. No further training was required, only hands on practice.

The second level of Reiki was for people who had actually practiced the first level for a while and wanted to deepen their experience with Reiki. Students in this class would be eligible for the second level in the summer, if they felt so called, and did their homework, and talked it over with Linda beforehand. Linda would be teaching at a yoga center in Massachusetts in July. If we were interested, we could contact her for more details. I was certainly interested, and already felt called.

But…Five hundred dollars. She might as well have said five thousand. There was no way I could get that out of my budget in the next few months.

I decided to have a talk with God.

It had been a while since I talked with God. I used to speak with God daily, ever since I was a child, and I was sorry to stop.

However, the Catholic Church and I had a difference of opinion as to the issue of birth control. It seemed that I was way too fertile to remain Catholic under their terms. The Church did not seem to care about that fact. At all. Not their problem. I always loved babies, and wanted them, but I felt my family was now complete.

I found I could not remain in the church and take the sacraments; actually I didn’t even want to, feeling that I was such a sinner in their eyes. Confession was not going to cover this problem, since I had no contrition: I was not sorry about my stance, and I would need to be heartily sorry to receive absolution, in order to receive any other sacrament. So, I left the church.

In the church’s eyes, God was now angry with me. Or so I was told. I had never personally asked God for an opinion on the subject; I just took everyone else’s word for that fact. There was a hierarchy here, a chain of command, protocol: a Catholic person went to the intermediary, the priest, for decisions on matters of faith, which this issue happened to be. The referee’s decision was final.

I stopped my daily conversations, figuring that God must not want to hear from me anymore.

I have no idea why I decided to speak with God about this matter of five hundred dollars for the second level of training in Reiki. But I did. During a break I went outside (I always have a better time talking to God outside) and looked up into the sky and cleared my throat.

Well, you heard her, I said. "If this is something I am supposed to do, I need five hundred dollars. Outside my budget." I was very clear about that point. And while you are at it, I figured as long as I had the phone line open, a massage table would be great.

I thought if I had a massage table, I could earn back the five hundred dollars making house calls to give Reiki treatments. That’s it, I guess, and thank you. Then I let it go. It either would or would not happen, for sure.

In the meantime, Anna and Gail and I made arrangements to trade treatments on a weekly basis. We all worked, but had flexible schedules. We decided to meet on Tuesdays (my day off) at my house (husband at work, all the kids in school). We used the solid wood trestle table in the kitchen; it was six foot long and would hold anything you could put on it. We used a couple of feather ticks for padding, and it worked perfectly as a Reiki table.

Anna and Gail each took a long lunch hour, I provided the lunch, and in about three hours with no interruptions we could trade full treatments and be on our respective ways.

At least we would have that part of our first level practice complete -- giving and receiving treatments with others. The other part was simply treating ourselves on a daily basis. We all left the class feeling great.

First Level Reiki Training:

April 14, 1985

Practice

Richard was waiting for me in the driveway when I got home from the Reiki class on Sunday afternoon. This was never a good sign. I rolled down the window of the car and asked, Who died? He leaned over to tell me that one of my best friends had just had a massive stroke and was taken to the hospital. Things did not look well. I turned the car around and headed for Saratoga Hospital.

I used to be intimidated by hospitals with all their rules and regulations. Through the years I have found that if you wear a white top and sneakers, you can get almost anywhere you want to go (with the exception of surgery -- they wear green), as long as you are quiet and don’t ask too many questions. A nurse can walk into a room and in a millisecond know if a visitor is good for the patient or not; and if the visitor is good for the patient, the nurse will probably not be asking the visitor to leave.

Saratoga Hospital was not very large at the time, and there were only so many places Amy Dean Snyder could be. I finally saw her name outside a door, and went in. There were about eight people around her bed, either doing various things to her or talking about the results of things that had been done earlier and considering what else remained to be done.

Since Amy was lying on her side with her back to the door, she did not see me come in.

I took the garbage bag out of the garbage can, turned the can upside down and used it to sit close to the bed, up by her head. I put my hands on her back. It’s me, Amy.

When I touched her, I felt, with every fiber of my being, I want to die. I just want to die. It was like a litany. I could almost hear it.

I can’t explain how this thing happens exactly, but it’s like getting a glimpse into a room -- in the blink of an eye you take in a lot more detail and information than at first you think you do. What I understood was that she knew she was drooling and incontinent, certainly not how she would choose to live if she had any choice in the matter.

Although there was a constant babble of voices in the room, we were separate from it. No one was speaking to Amy, even though she was the object of attention; everyone was speaking about her as if she were not there. No one even noticed me.

I took a deep breath. Hang on, Amy. I said quietly. I’ve had this Reiki stuff for about an hour; let’s see how it works. In my mind I said, You can always die tomorrow, if you still want to. It is a theory of mine. If you think about it you might change your mind. If you do it first, you lose your options.

I gave Amy a full Reiki treatment, moving my garbage can seat along a few inches with each position. When I was done, I told Amy I would be back the next day.

I got up, put the garbage bag back in the can and left the room. No one seemed to notice I had been there.

Every day for the next thirty days I stopped to give Amy a treatment on the way to work or on the way home, or however it worked out. In New York State at that time, a person with a stroke could be kept in a regular hospital for thirty days before other arrangements had to be made -- a long term care facility, a rehabilitation hospital, or going home.

About a week into the Reiki treatments, I met Amy’s husband in the parking lot late one night. Frank was just standing by his car, I was on my way in. He looked distraught. I asked Frank what was going on, and he told me that the doctors had given him the news that Amy was not expected to get any better. Ever. He would have to look for a long-term care facility, as she was probably not a candidate for rehabilitation.

Amy was fifty-eight. I couldn’t believe my ears. Their whole lives had crumbled around them in the space of two hours. It went without saying that home care was not an option. Some people can do it, others cannot. Frank was simply in the not category, and we all knew it. I asked him if anyone had told Amy yet, and he said no.

Something will happen, I said. I just know it will. We stood there in silence for a while. At any rate, you don’t have to take care of this tonight. Go home. Have a beer. Things have got to get better.

He didn’t look as though he believed me, but there wasn’t much else to do.

I went in and began to give Amy her treatment. I was down at the foot of the bed, giving Reiki to her affected side. While I was giving the Reiki, I also decided to have a deep mental conversation with her body: I imagined the nerves reattaching themselves to their various muscles and completing their pathways back to the brain; right now would be a good time. I was engrossed in this process, and my hair fell over my