100+ and counting!

Since last Friday more than 100 Reiki practitioners have responded to our call to stand up and be counted in the global Reiki census. We know that's just a small percentage, so we invite the rest of you to add yourselves to the total. Here's how. . .

Stand up and be counted!

The other day I got a call from a reporter for a major American newspaper. She was on deadline and needed an answer, fast.

I'm sorry to say I didn't have the answer, and I'm hoping you can help.

The question: How many Reiki practitioners, and Reiki clients, are there in the United States?

I explained that since there is no central organization or registry of Reiki practitioners, it's impossible to come up with an accurate guess, let alone an official number. I know there are thousands, because this publication has thousands of readers, nearly all of whom are Reiki practitioners. But are there tens of thousands, hundreds of thousand, even a million or millions of people who practice Reiki worldwide? Nobody knows.

The only way to find out how many of us there are is to start counting.

So please stand up and be counted. Just click here for our Global Reiki Census online form

[Update: Due to the volume of responses, we are now accepting information only via the online form -- not by email or comments. Thanks!]

This census will be ongoing, and we will update the numbers monthly. If you want to receive those updates by email, please opt in for our mailing list, or include the phrase "add me to your mailing list" (or something along those lines) if you submit your information by email.

No duplicate entries, please. Thanks for your help in developing this resource!

Reiki Roundup: extra-large end-of-summer* edition

*or end-of-winter for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere

This may be our biggest Reiki Roundup ever! For some reason, Reiki has turned up in the news much more often in the past couple of weeks, so grab your reading glasses and let's get started.

London: The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council has now opened its register to reflexologists, and Reiki practitioners are scheduled to be added within a few months. The voluntary register will open over the course of this year to a wide range of complementary and natural healthcare practitioners. Reflexology is the fourth discipline for which the register has opened this year, joining massage therapy, nutritional therapy and aromatherapy.

East Anglia, United Kingdom: A woman whose husband shot her by accident is recovering now, thanks to a series of surgeries and the aid of alternative therapies, including Reiki.

Spain, by way of Japan: The Japan Times has a feature on a winery where Reiki is used to "harmonize the wine with the energy of the universe."

Mumbai, India: After surviving a cardiac arrest, an anonymous writer learned to practice Reiki.

Majur, India: A Reiki practitioner and her husband have culminated their life of scholarly work with a six-volume lexicon of the Tulu language.

Dehradun, India: The Times of India has an article on how the elderly and others with limited mobility can integrate Reiki with surya namaskar, known to yoga practitioners worldwide as the sun salutation, to greet the sun in a less active way. The techniques mentioned are from a branch of Reiki that has evolved in India in recent decades that incorporates yoga and other meditative techniques.

Hervey Bay, Australia: A Reiki practitioner gets an award for his volunteer work.

The Australian Outback: A Reiki practitioner is one of the characters in a new television comedy series. She likes to give Reiki to snakes.

Northumberland, Ontario, Canada: A Reiki master teacher who works with both animal and human clients talks to her local newspaper.

Barbados: The Caribbean island nation's Reiki association is planning a gathering in October.

Burien, Washington, USA: A woman who just got her second "bionic shoulder" also got Reiki to help with the surgery and recovery.

Mesquite, Texas: Born a displaced Hungarian countess, she's now a Reiki practitioner.

Ft. Hood, Texas: Reiki is one of the therapies offered to injured and traumatized veterans at the U.S. Army's Warrior Combat Stress Reset Camp. And here's more on the yoga-aficionado general who helped bring that assistance to his troops and hopes to expand the program.

Nashua, New Hampshire: After overcoming from kidney cancer with the help of her doctors and a Reiki master friend, a Nashua woman went into the recording studio to continue healing with music.

Hampton, Maine: A man who's now in remission after nearly dying from liver cancer surrounds himself with positive-thinking people and has learned to practice Reiki.

Cyberspace: The Usui Virtual Retreat is entering its third and final week, and this week Susan Mitchell, one of Hawayo Takata's Reiki students, contributes her thoughts on how practice can lead to happiness.

A Celeb-Reiki golfer

We don't know if golfer Phil Mickelson is still receiving Reiki regularly, as The New York Times reported two years ago. But since he's playing in a tournament a couple of miles from The Reiki Digest world headquarters, we're naming him this week's Celeb-Reiki.

Music we love to practice Reiki by. . .

This week's featured artist is Jiang Xiao-Qing All purchases you make at iTunes via links on this site help support The Reiki Digest.

Coming soon: The Reiki Digest iMix!

The weekly waka

In endless numbers
Clocks are wound up everywhere
And then together
They, in perfect harmony,
Bring all of us such joy

(By the Meiji Emperor on the occasion of Japan's adoption of standard time in 1888;

translated by professor Harold Wright at the request of the Japanese government for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics)

This week's specials

The Reiki Digest is a free, advertiser-supported publication. Thanks for helping us keep it that way by shopping with our sponsors.

This week's deals:

Hay House is offering a a FREE 2-hour Abraham-Hicks workshop download immediately upon purchase of The Vortex by Esther and Jerry Hicks: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships. Plus, purchase select Esther and Jerry Hicks items together and save up to 39% with special bundle discount prices!

You can get 40% off on emWave products (this week only):

Sounds True offers hundreds of audios, books, DVDs, and interactive learning kits on spirituality, meditation, health and healing, yoga, creativity, and more, as well as this special offer:

Juara Skincare, inspired by Indonesian Botanicals, is offering 10% off with this special code:

DHC is offering 50% off on selected skin care products from Japan:

And please welcome our newest sponsors: Exclusively Green, Alen Air Purifiers, and Spiritual Cinema Circle!

Carnival of Healing #203

Cue the calliope. . . it's Carnival time again!

Laydeez annd genntlemenn, step right up and join the festivities as we celebrate the 203rd edition of the Carnival of Healing.

It's been many months since the Carnival has set up its virtual tents here at The Reiki Digest, so we have hundreds of newer readers who may be wondering what's going on. So we'll begin with a brief explanation. The Carnival of Healing is a weekly roundup of personal blog posts on the topics of holistic health, wellness, spirituality, and self empowerment. The Carnival travels constantly through cyberspace, landing at a different host site each Saturday. Last week the Carnival set up camp at Cari Campbell's Your Joyous Life, and next week's host is Rosanna C. Rogacion at Melisma. The Carnival founder and organizer is Phylameana lila Desy, About.com's guide to Holistic Healing. (Phylameana also happens to be a Reiki practitioner, as are many other Carnival participants.)

This week your host is the world's only weekly publication about the gentle yet powerful spiritual healing practice of Reiki, home to a lively community of approximately 5,000 readers in more than 150 countries. For those Carnival visitors who may be unfamiliar with Reiki, here's a description from the National Institutes of Health.

Familiar or not, every post in this week's Carnival fits perfectly with the guidelines that we Reiki practitioners try to follow every day: the Reiki precepts. Here is our favorite translation from the original Japanese:

For today only:

Do not anger

Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others.

You don't have to be a Reiki practitioner to follow those precepts -- they make sense for everyone. We found a precept in every post in this week's Carnival contributions. Take a look and see what we mean:

For today only: Sam Alexander of Glowing Face Man gets us started with How to Take Control of Life -- it's all about focusing on the moment. And sometimes the best way to stay in the moment is to stop trying so hard, as Kaushik Chokshi at beyond karma explains in Call off the Struggle. If you've got seven minutes to enjoy being in the moment, Catherine Van Wetter of To the Heart of the Matter has a Seven Minute Break for you in the form of a video meditation. One of the ways we drift away from the moment is by making excuses -- Daylle Deanna Schwartz (Reiki is one of her many skills) of Lessons from a Recovering DoorMat tackles that subject in the 48th post in her ongoing series on the Law of Attraction: Excuses.

Do not anger: Sarah has plenty of reasons to be angry, but instead she writes about Overcoming Hatred on her blog simply called Writing. (Note: Sarah's site has music when it loads, so keep that in mind if you're in a place where that might be an issue.)

Do not worry: There's no way to eliminate the worry from dealing with cancer, but Amy B. Scher at Healthcare Hacks offers some encouraging words on How to Embrace Losing Your Hair During Chemotherapy. And animal Reiki specialist Beth Lowell asks, "What's more scary: change or cancer? in her article, "Canine Wellness -- Prevention and Treatment of Cancer."

Be humble: Humble, as in, "It's not all about you." Two of our contributors, both nursing-related sites, take that to heart by providing lists of valuable links to other online resources. Emma Taylor gives us "100 Web Tools to Help You Live to 100" at OnlineNursingPrograms.net, and Barbara Williams at RN Central offers "100 Blog Posts You Should Read Before Going to Nursing School."

Be honest in your work: At Personal Web Guide, Outshined writes about Dealing With and Understanding Liars.

Be compassionate to yourself and others: Peggy Vertrees of stillpointreiki contributes some vivid and moving tales of Reiki for animals in Holy Cow. And Covert Hypnotist writes about how to show that compassion by establishing rapport in How Rapport Can Help You With Hypnosis. One of the best ways to show compassion is with encouragement, as Adam Faughn writes in "15 Things You Can Do to Encourage."

That's it for this week's Carnival! For more Carnival of Healing fun, check out last week's edition at Your Joyous Life, and next week's edition at Melisma. Many thanks to all our contributors, and thanks especially to Phylameana for all she does to keep the Carnival going. (Hmm. . . I guess that makes her sort of a cyber-roustabout.)

If you're an email subscriber to The Reiki Digest, stay tuned for this week's Digest in your inbox later today. And if you're not already part of our community but you'd like to join us, click here to start your free subscription.

Carnival of Healing returns on Saturday, August 22, 2009

We'll be hosting the Carnival of Healing this Saturday, so we're holding our email edition until then in order to include the Carnival.

There's still time to contribute an article, but hurry: the deadline is tonight (Thursday, August 20) at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Click here to submit your article or blog post.

See you on Saturday!

Continuity

(Typing very softly, so as not to disturb those in deep meditation. . .)

Greetings to all the participants in the 21-day global Usui Virtual Retreat. I hope you're enjoying your own daily personal Reiki practice even more than usual during the retreat -- I know I am. Many thanks to virtual retreat founder Mari Hall for starting and keeping the retreat going for the past 13 years, and to this year's host, Pamela Miles, for the lovely meditations and guidance she's provided to enhance the experience for us, as well as the discussion forum available on her blog. And thanks, Pamela, for inviting me to contribute a guest post!

This week as we focus on the topic of "Reiki as a Healing Practice," my own emphasis is on the foundation: personal practice, or self-care. To me, that is the most important component of the system of Reiki. Our personal practice helps keep us grounded and balanced, and that is what makes it possible for us to help others. Yet I find that many practitioners have difficulty establishing and maintaining a daily personal practice. They say they can't find a way to work a regular self-care session into their busy (and irregular) schedules, or they're so focused on taking care of others that the idea of taking a few minutes for themselves feels unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.

Frankly, I think that tendency to put ourselves at the bottom of our priority lists is more likely to be the reason: many people who learn Reiki are already caregiver types, whether by personality, circumstances, or both. Yes, it does seem that life gets more hectic and unpredictable all the time, but that's all the more reason to maintain a regular personal practice.

I was fortunate that when I first studied Reiki, my teacher, Margaret Ann Case, made a point of recommending that we take what we'd learned in that first weekend class and put it into practice regularly for 21 days straight. I've since heard different takes on whether Usui himself specified 21 days, but that was the length of his own legendary retreat on Mt. Kurama, and whether or not he recommended that specific time period to students, the fact is that it works. Do anything for 21 days in a row, and it becomes a habit.

But it's not just me saying that daily personal practice is important: Mikao Usui made it clear as well in his preface to the Reiki precepts. Here's Hyakuten Inamoto's translation of that:

"Do gasshô every morning and evening
Keep in your mind and recite."

I am not qualified to translate from Japanese into English, so this is just my own speculation, but I like to think that Usui meant not only that we should practice morning and evening, but from morning to evening -- that is to say, all day long. Whether that's what he meant or not, however, that's what works for me.

I begin and end my days with personal practice, but I find opportunities all during the day to work in a moment or two here and there. I think of it as something I once did when I worked in radio: continuity.

In radio broadcasting, the worst thing that can happen is silence, or as they say in the trade, "dead air." Listeners have no way of knowing if a station is broadcasting "dead air" or if they've lost the signal. So a lot of attention is paid to what they call continuity: making sure that all the little components such as station identification, jingles, ads, announcements, are smoothly interwoven with the rest of the programming. When I studied radio drama many years ago, I got to choose to work with any part of the production I wanted. I chose continuity, and that meant that while other students were focused only on their specific part of the program, my specialty was all the little connecting parts, so I had to -- and got to -- pay attention to the whole production.

I use the concept of continuity in my daily Reiki practice by trying to avoid any "dead air" in my day. If I'm riding the bus or the subway, doing the laundry, standing in line or walking down the street, I'm also practicing Reiki. Sometimes I have the privacy and luxury of a little hands-on self-care, but more often I just focus on my breathing and remind myself of the precepts while I'm going about my business. I doubt anyone ever notices -- except me. I notice because I can see, and feel, how much it helps me get through the day.

And if I'm having a particularly difficult day, or if I just can't seem to focus on the task at hand, I find that if I take a few moments away from my work for an impromptu personal practice session, I return to my task in better shape and I'm able to get much more done than if I had kept slogging through without a break.

By the time I get to my evening practice session, I don't feel like I'm getting back into what we practitioners sometimes call "the Reiki space." I feel like I've been there all along.

So if it seems like there's no room in your crammed schedule for regular Reiki practice, look again. Look at all those little spaces in between, and take advantage of them, even if you only have time for a breath or two. Hawayo Takata is said to have told her students, "A little Reiki is better than no Reiki." To that I would add, "A little Reiki, and then a little Reiki, and then a little more Reiki, throughout the day, is better still."

Reiki Update Training teleclass begins Sept. 8 - reserve your space now

There are still a few spaces left in our September Reiki Update Training teleclass, open to those who have completed Reiki Level 2 and above.

If you were trained back in the 20th Century, or studied with a teacher who was, it's likely that some of what you learned has since been supplanted by more recently discovered information. Were you taught that Reiki founder Mikao Usui was a Christian medical doctor and university president? It turns out that wasn't the case after all. Or did you learn that Reiki was an ancient Tibetan Buddhist technique that Usui "rediscovered"? That, too, is misinformation (for one thing, Tibetan Buddhism isn't ancient).

But there's an even more important reason to update your training: to prove that you've met standards over and above you original certification. All you have to do is pass the final exam at the conclusion of the course, and you'll qualify for listing in our new directory as well as referrals from The Reiki Digest and The Reiki Dojo. And you'll get a certificate of updated training to attest to your achievement.

Updating your training will also help you better represent Reiki to your clients, students, and community.

In this class, you'll learn:

* The documented history of Reiki
* The truth about the most common Reiki myths
* Where to find credible information
* How to keep yourself informed on further developments
* Highlights of the latest Reiki medical research
* Traditional Reiki meditation techniques
* How to get the most out of your personal practice

. . . and much more.

You'll learn ways to bring new life into your personal Reiki self-care practice, and you'll find out what makes a person a Reiki practitioner (hint: it's not the certificate).

The class will be taught by multi-certified Reiki Master Teacher Janet Dagley Dagley, editor of The Reiki Digest and founder of The Reiki Dojo in New York City. For those who are unable to participate live, recordings will be available so that you can listen at your convenience.

The Reiki Update Training is open to Level 2 and above in all lineages. We will need to see a copy of your certificate to enroll you.

Class will meet live in five one-hour teleconferences, and those sessions will be recorded for those who join us at other times.

Only $65 Click here for the registration form

For more information, email editor @ thereikidigest.com or call 917-512-1330 or
toll-free (in the USA): (888) 316-5853.

Spaces are limited.

The weekly waka

Revelation

That which was hidden
Must be revealed in the end,
Shining like a gem
Whose facets, cut and polished,
Reflect the true light within.

(By budouadana)

(Waka wanted: If you'd like to contribute a waka to our regular series, check out these guidelines, write your waka, and email it to editor @ thereikidigest.com.)

Please welcome our new sponsors

Our sponsors make it possible for us to keep The Reiki Digest available free online. Thanks for supporting us by supporting them! This week we welcome:

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PiYo Fitness:



DailyOm online courses:




And -- this just in -- iTunes! If you get your music from iTunes, do us a favor next time you're shopping. Click on our iTunes link, and it will automically open iTunes on your computer. We'll get a few pennies on your purchase, and it won't cost you a penny more.



We'll also be featuring one artist each week in the category of Music We Love to Practice Reiki By. This week's artist is pipa player Shao Rong. Click here to find out more:

Coming soon: The Reiki Digest iMix!

For more from our advertisers, check out these special offers.

To become one of our advertisers, click here for more information.

August 15, 1865

144 years ago. . .

Mikao Usui, founder of the system of Reiki (source: Wikimedia Commons)

(Editor's note: This is the first in a continuing series, Mikao Usui: In Context.)

On August 15, 1865, Reiki founder Mikao Usui was born in a village in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, to a hatamoto (samurai in the direct service of the shogun) family.

This year, we've decided to mark the occasion by taking a glimpse into the world Mikao Usui was born into. The 1860s were a time of tremendous change in Japan, a country that had changed very, very little in the preceding 265 years, when it was essentially isolated from the rest of the world.

We could go on and on and give you thousands of words on the subject of that pivotal time and place, but instead we're going to let the pictures tell the story. All these images are in the public domain and no longer subject to copyright, so if you're a Reiki teacher, you might want to use some of them in your classes or even your manuals.

Here are some samurai, all dressed up in their finest for the camera, in 1868:

(source: Wikimedia Commons)

Notice that they all are wearing not one but two swords, as well as distinctive hairstyles with shaved pates and topknots, whether in Japanese or Western attire.

We couldn't find any images of his particular village at that time, but thanks to pioneering photographer Felice Beato (and to Wikipedia), we do have some images of the Japanese countryside.

Here's a ford across a river:

(source: New York Public Library)

And a stop along the Tokkaido road:

(source: Hearst Museum, University of California at Berkeley)

As well as a panoramic image of Tokyo (then called Edo or Yedo) in 1865:

(source: Wikimedia Commons) Click here for the full-size image.

Those are the estates of the feudal lords, all of whom were required to have part-time residences in the capital.

These days, the entire panorama is covered with skyscrapers:

(source: Stephen Cannon via Flikr)

A dozen years before Usui was born, a fleet of foreign ships led by U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrived at Yokohama Harbor, and for the first time since the beginning of the 17th Century, they landed on the Japanese mainland:

(source: Brown University) Click here for full-size image.

Here's a depiction of Perry's arrival from the Japanese point of view:


(source: Library of Congress)

For most of the Tokugawa Shogunate period, (1603-1868) from 1641 until Commodore Perry's arrival, the only foreigners allowed in Japan were Dutch traders, and they were limited to the tiny island of Dejima in the bay of Nagasaki. Japanese citizens were not allowed to leave the country, and any foreigners who reached Japan were executed or not allowed to leave.

Perry's arrival marked the beginning of the Bakumatsu, a period of transition that saw the end of the shogun's rule and the end of Japan's isolation.

Usui was three years old when the shogunate fell and the 15-year-old Meiji emperor took over:


The Emperor Meiji, in 1873.

(Photo by Uchida Kuichi. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

And by the time Usui was in his teens, the samurai class had been abolished and the former samurai were no longer allowed to carry swords or wear topknots. Japan still had a very structured society: the children of farmers became farmers, the children of merchants became merchants, and so on, so the children of Usui's generation born into samurai families found themselves with no clear path to follow when they came of age. Maybe that's why Usui changed jobs as many as 30 times during his lifetime (according to Hyakuten Inamoto). "That was very unusual," Inamoto said during a 2008 talk in New York City. "In Japan, we don’t change jobs. He was a spiritual seeker, always seeking the purpose of life."

We're glad he kept on seeking until he discovered and developed what we now know as Reiki. We wouldn't exactly call it the purpose of life, but this practice does make life more enjoyable in the good times, and more endurable when times are tough. Reiki certainly seems to have been the purpose of Mikao Usui's life.

For more photographs of Japan during the Bakumatsu-Meiji period, check out the Nagasaki University Library Collection.

Join the Virtual Reiki Retreat starting August 15

Reiki practitioners of all levels, styles, and lineages are cordially invited to participate in the Usui Virtual Reiki Retreat, organized by Mari Hall and hosted this year by Pamela Miles.

Unlike retreats in (and from) the real world, the virtual retreat doesn't require you to pack a suitcase or find someone to take care of your cat while you're away. You can participate from the comfort of your own home, and you can do it at your convenience, on your own schedule, beginning tomorrow, August 15.

Here's a special invitation to the retreat for Reiki Digest readers from Pamela Miles:

No matter what kind of Reiki event I am organizing, I always have two objectives in mind: reaching out beyond lineages and practice styles to strengthen our Reiki community, and supporting practitioners to deepen their relationship with Reiki in whatever way is comfortable for them.

So when Mari Hall asked me to facilitate this year’s Usui Virtual Retreat, my heart lept, and I immediately thought of the Reiki Digest readers. I am so honored to be at the helm of what promises to be a fulfilling and restorative adventure, and I personally invite each of you to join us.

Let's combine technology with our beloved practice to come together as the exquisitely diverse, global community that we are. Please click here to find out more about the Retreat, and use the link at the bottom of the Retreat page to share the invitation with your Reiki buddies.

Thanks, Pamela!

The retreat lasts 21 days and features a new meditation each week, plus a continuing discussion among participants.

Here's more about the retreat from Mari Hall:

The Usui 21-Day Retreat is simple and flexible. Reiki practitioners can participate in this Retreat fully or partially, as they are comfortable. It is not necessary to spend the entire 21-days in fast and meditation, nor is it necessary to do this for a full day. Some people find that 10 minutes a day is a way to connect with inner guidance and wisdom that works well for them.

Practitioners can join in the Retreat from their homes, offices, centers and can meet with their Reiki Circles to enjoy the Retreat.

The intent is to be able to be in quiet reflection, meditation, or prayer. Reiki is the focusing tool for this experience in which a way is cleared for balance and healing in our lives and in the lives of others. There is a special interest in distancing Reiki at this time. Some Retreat practitioners, who work for wellness of the planet, find this an excellent time for Reiki sessions for the highest good of all concerned.

How you decide to join with the Retreat, whether in solitude or not, I welcome you!

Thanks, Mari!

Since 1996, the Usui Virtual Retreats have taken place at solstice time, but beginning this year, the retreat is scheduled to begin on August 15, the anniversary of Reiki founder Mikao Usui's birth in 1865.

Hope to see you there!

The Carnival is coming!

The Carnival of Healing returns to The Reiki Digest on August 22, and you're invited to join the fun by submitting your blog or website post on the subject of healing.

What is the Carnival of Healing? It's a weekly round-up of posts and articles from all over the Internet on the topics of holistic health, wellness, spirituality, and self empowerment. The Carnival was founded, and is organized by, About.com's guide to holistic healing, Phylameana Iila Desy (she's also a Reiki practitioner).

Click here to submit your blog post or article to the Carnival!

Why should you participate? It's a great way to increase your online visibility and get more visitors to your web site.

A Celeb-Reiki fire chief

Why does the fire chief of London, Ontario, Canada practice Reiki?

"It's grounding yourself when you face a lot of challenges," Chief John Kobarda said in an interview with the London Free Press. Both Kobarda and his wife, Jan, are Reiki Master Teachers. And that makes them this week's Celeb-Reiki couple.

In this week's issue. . .

In this week's edition of The Reiki Digest, get ready for a special retreat this week to mark the birthday of Reiki founder Mikao Usui, followed by a carnival next week devoted to all sorts of healing. Also in celebration of Usui's birthday, we'll take a photographic journey back to mid-19th-century Japan.

And we'll tell you about a Reiki-practicing fire chief, answer your questions about our Reiki Update Training teleclass, and more.

Look for it here or in your inbox (if you're a subscriber) by Friday morning.

Early Bird Discount extended for Reiki Update Training teleclass

We're extending the Early Bird Discount for our Reiki Update Training teleclass until August 20. The regular fee for the class is $65, but if you register before August 20, you pay only $45.

If you were trained back in the 20th Century, or studied with a teacher who was, it's likely that some of what you learned has since been supplanted by more recently discovered information. Were you taught that Reiki founder Mikao Usui was a Christian medical doctor and university president? It turns out that wasn't the case after all. Or did you learn that Reiki was an ancient Tibetan Buddhist technique that Usui "rediscovered"? That, too, is misinformation (for one thing, Tibetan Buddhism isn't ancient).

But there's an even more important reason to update your training: to prove that you've met standards over and above you original certification. All you have to do is pass the final exam at the conclusion of the course, and you'll qualify for listing in our new directory as well as referrals from The Reiki Digest and The Reiki Dojo. And you'll get a certificate of updated training to attest to your achievement.

Updating your training will also help you better represent Reiki to your clients, students, and community.

In this class, you'll learn:

* The documented history of Reiki
* The truth about the most common Reiki myths
* Where to find credible information
* How to keep yourself informed on further developments
* Highlights of the latest Reiki medical research
* Traditional Reiki meditation techniques
* How to get the most out of your personal practice

. . . and much more.

You'll learn ways to bring new life into your personal Reiki self-care practice, and you'll find out what makes a person a Reiki practitioner (hint: it's not the certificate).

The class will be taught by multi-certified Reiki Master Teacher Janet Dagley Dagley, editor of The Reiki Digest and founder of The Reiki Dojo in New York City. For those who are unable to participate live, recordings will be available on demand.

The Reiki Update Training is open to Level 2 and above in all lineages. We will need to see a copy of your certificate to enroll you (but don't worry -- you don't have to get the certificate to us by August 20 in order to get the Early Bird Discount)

Only $65 Click here for the registration form

For more information, email editor @ thereikidigest.com or call 917-512-1330 or
toll-free (in the USA): (888) 316-5853.

Early bird discount: Complete your registration by August 20 and save $20!

Spaces are limited.

The weekly waka

Retreat

Far from the city,
With its speed, noise and worries,
Is our place of peace,
A retreat from the war of life,
A place to begin again.

(By Budouadana)

This week's specials

The Reiki Digest is a free, advertiser-supported publication. You can help keep it free by supporting our advertisers in return. To sweeten the deal, here are this week's special offers:

Hay House, Inc., the international leader in inspirational and self-help publishing, is also the home of bestselling self-help author Dr. Wayne Dyer.

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Juara Skincare is offering a free pair of sterling silver earrings with Swarovski crystals, valued at $45, with a purchase of $50 or more:

SoundsTrue is offering $10 off meditation products plus free shipping:

You can save up to 80% during Gaiam's annual sale on natural living products through the end of August:

And please welcome our newest advertiser, NutriSystem, joining us with a special offer of two weeks of free food when you join one of their many weight loss programs:

Other specials this week:

Thanks for supporting The Reiki Digest by supporting our advertisers!