Looking back and looking forward at The Reiki Digest

By Beth Lowell, Managing Editor

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’re almost halfway into January. Looking back on 2010, it was a great year for Reiki and The Reiki Digest!

The Year in Review

The Reiki Digest started the year by reporting late breaking news, as Reiki was featured on the Oz show, here in the United States. And of course, along with featuring current events, we published several articles about the history of Reiki, from writers like Susan Mitchell, who remembered the teachings of Hawaya Takata and special Correspondent Cymber Lily Conn, who visited Hawaya Takata’s Reiki clinic in Hilo. And when Reiki practitioners around the world responded to the devastation in Haiti brought about by the earthquake, Editor and Publisher Janet Dagley Dagley wrote about how Mikao Usui responded to The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Oliver Klatt asked the question, Does Reiki have Buddhist origins?


In February, we bid a sad farewell to teacher Margaret Ann Case, whose influence and legacy lives on, and Elaine Grundy announced her Reiki self-care survey - more exciting news on that later!


Health care is always a hot topic when it comes to Reiki, and we read a lot of good news about Reiki in health care this year, including some great research from Yale, one practitioner’s personal experience working in a medical setting, and statewide recognition for another who works in hospice care.

In April, we held our annual Waka Fest and reached our goal of at least one waka a day!


Our regular waka feature, The weekly waka continues to appear every Wednesday, and we were pleased to hear from new waka writers from all over the world who shared their poetry with our readers.

We had some lovely contributions from Bobbe Bramson and Julie Goodale who talked about the healing power of Reiki for ourselves, and for others. We also solicited advice for beginners from seasoned Reiki practitioners, and received a great response. Thanks to all who chimed in - and if you have advice for beginners, you can still comment.

Zeynep Yilmaz contributed pieces on the precepts, specifically on gratitude and worry - that one really helped out during the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Cymber Lily Conn composed a musical piece to help facilitate the healing there, and also contributed an article about the connection between Reiki and harp music.

Summer found us with a new format and new editors. Heather Alexander, Rose De Dan (who also served as one of our Celeb-Reikis), Beth Lowell, Deborah Flanagan, JeMaja Selas, and Jeffrey Hotchkiss all guest edited their own edition of The Reiki Digest, which moved to a monthly format in June. Heather, Deborah, JeMaja, and Jeffrey are now on board as contributing editors which means The Reiki Digest will be featuring more great articles from them throughout 2011.

In addition to our monthly edition, we introduced several new features that appear throughout the month. These include personal practice Monday, Animal Reiki Friday, and  Reiki Rooms.

We’ve been honored to receive personal practice articles from people like Pamela Miles, our Editor at Large, Janet Dagley Dagley, Editor and Publisher, and Bronwen and Frans Stiene.

We’ve heard from a variety of new writers who contributed to Animal Reiki Friday who’ve written about subjects like using intuition, the healing power of animals, the healing power of Reiki, animals assisting the human dying process, and even a bit of humor as we received our very first cartoon submission!

Our Reiki Room feature was such a success we decided to continue it in perpetuity - so do share yours if you haven’t already!

Looking Ahead - 2011

2011 is already looking bright with our first monthly edition guest edited by The Reiki School + Clinic in Philadelphia, and our first article from yet another new contributor. We look forward to the results of Elaine Grundy’s self-care survey as well as regular monthly posts from Elaine. We are honored to include Marianne Streich, Susan and Paul Mitchell, and Mari Hall among our guest editors this year.

As we approach The Reiki Digest’s fifth anniversary later this year, we dedicate ourselves anew to serving the global Reiki community in its many aspects, lineages and styles.

We’re also looking forward to contributions from new voices and will be publishing more information on that and other related items soon. Can one of those voices be yours?

Just For Today

Remember the precepts, practice self care, and also remember, nominations are open for the Readers’ Choice award for best Reiki blog! We hope you’ll vote for our dedicated contributors!


Happy New Year from the staff of The Reiki Digest - we look forward to another great year with you.