Bowing: An Energetic Transaction

Our Korea correspondent, Reiki practitioner and English teacher Michael Swerdloff, checks in again this week with two blog posts that have a Reiki connection.

In the first, Bowing: An Energetic Transaction, he talks about the custom of bowing common to many east Asian cultures, including Japan and Korea, from his own experience. One of my Reiki teachers has a cameo role in the post, and it leaves me eager for more details about Michael's visit with Hyakuten Inamoto.

On my first morning here in Korea, I entered a local “deli” to buy something quick to eat before starting work. I had arrived in my room around 1:00a.m. and did not go to sleep till nearly 3:30, with a wake up time of about 8:30a.m. The “deli” is not what I would typically call a deli but do not know the correct name for it. The woman prepares and sells different kinds of Kimchi and stews, hot and ready to go. I did not know what I was thinking when I walked in the door of her place, she bowed and said some kind of formal greeting that I know now as “Annyeong-haseyo”, good morning/afternoon/evening. But the bow is what caught me in my tracks. I had been given the information that many Koreans still bow before I left the states. I was a little excited but did not really grasp what bowing really is till that morning of little sleep after a twenty-four hour flight and a long ride from the airport to my new place in Cheonan. She bowed as casually as someone who has done so without thinking thousands of times. She did not know how strengthening and affirming that common gesture was for me. I knew I had reached my destination and was in the right place. My trip to Korea was where I supposed to be.

For the last two months I have reflected many times on what actually happens during the process of bowing that is so powerful. Is it the honoring of another person’s Self? The honoring of the Self? . . .Click here to keep reading Bowing: An Energetic Transaction.

Michael's second Reiki-related post this week tells us about a Reiki experience in a coffeehouse.

Thanks, Michael!

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