Reiki Roundup

This week's Reiki Roundup begins in Wilton, Connecticut, USA, where nurse Nancy Sokolowski is retiring after a 50-year career. The article about her in the Wilton Villager doesn't mention whether she is also a Reiki practitioner, but it does say she was co-founder of a decade-old breast health center where Reiki is among the modalities available free. That in itself is quite an accomplishment, and her memories of how nursing and medicine have changed over the past half-century are reason enough to recommend the article. Congratulations to Ms. Sokolowski on her life's work, and to the reporter for a nicely done feature.

Next stop: Columbus, Ohio, where Reiki is combined with a detox foot bath and electricity: yikes! Kids, don't try this at home: the electrical cord you see in the photos isn't an ordinary one. "The Reiki Center's Foot Detox Bath uses an electric charge placed in a salt-water bath to draw toxins out of the body's lymphatic system. Although it sounds like an accident waiting to happen, the electric current is completely harmless and merely ionizes the water," says the article in Columbus Alive.

Since everyplace in cyberspace is equidistant from every other place, let's hop on over to Goa, India, where a Reiki master identified only as "Riju" offers some good advice to working moms that's just as good for everyone else: "If I am on the highway driving from Goa to Bangalore during the night, all I can see is the next 20 feet. That’s all I need to see, because I know that as I move, the road will keep unfolding. Gradually, I will reach my destination, I don’t need to see the whole staircase to reach the top. . ."

On to Sunderland in the United Kingdom, where the Sunderland Echo has an article about an animal communicator who also practices animal Reiki. Almost simultaneously, we find an animal Reiki practitioner in Green Valley, Arizona also featured in the local newspaper.

My local newspaper, The New York Times, had a Week in Review article this past weekend that doesn't exactly mention Reiki, but is definitely of interest to Reiki practitioners, especially professionals: The Murky Politics of Mind-Body, about efforts to require equal coverage for mental health and physical health in the United States. Could that lead to insurance coverage for Reiki treatments? Maybe someday.

Let's move on to Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA, where The Chronicle tells us about Reiki and other palliative therapies for hospice patients in an article headlined Offering Comfort 'Touch is Love'.

On to Annapolis, Maryland, USA, where we discover a women-only retreat coming up in May that includes numerous amenities, including Reiki, mentioned as ". . . full body and reiki massage." (Reiki is not massage, but some massage therapists also do Reiki. Reiki is not dentistry, but some dentists and hygienists also do Reiki. And so on. . . .)