Reiki an Adventure for Life

I met Reiki in a bookstore when a woman who was a friend of a friend hugged me and I could feel her hands on me hours later especially on my back where I had a physical problem.  I decided to participate in a Reiki course after that because I had been told by my doctors that by the time I was forty, I would be totally paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

The entire family on my Dad’s side has a spinal defect that manifests as an exposed portion of the spinal cord. My Grandfather, Dad, brother as well as my daughter have all had back surgery to try and correct this defect. I have been told by several doctors it is similar to spinal bifida and in my case the cord had become so pinched that it was compressing main nerves. The doctors said the damage was too great to be repaired. Often times I would stand up and immediately fall down. I had to learn to get out of bed in a way that allowed my back to slowly stretch. I had to sit completely straight because slouching in a chair created all sorts of shooting pain and an inability to walk. Other times I would start to walk and my legs would not corporate. I had to wait until everything seemed “connected” to resume going where I was headed. I had lost the feeling in my left leg and side including my left arm. I also had started dragging my left leg. They called it a partial paralysis. My emotional state was not good either to think that I would have to be taken care of and dependent upon my daughter left me feeing suicidal. 

After the Reiki one and two course with Iris Ishikura in 1980. I started to give myself Reiki, and I experienced a return to harmony on all levels. I felt I had touched my soul and had experienced deep peace. I had the thought for years that a dark cloud hung over my head, and that I was jinxed in some way. But now the cloud had disappeared and it was as if I had awakened from a long sleep. One of the most amazing realizations for me during this time was that as peaceful as I felt, it did not matter if I would be in a wheel chair. I had surrendered all demand and that was when my physical symptoms disappeared. It took about a year to fully realize I was completely healed on all levels. I maintained my normal life as a financial advisor and did Reiki in the evenings. I had two worlds I lived in; one I considered “normal” dressed in corporate drag and the other, well it was Reiki and I had slipped into something comfortable to wear. I did not mix the two; it was like having each of my feet in two different boats and I had to maintain balance to keep afloat.

I then decided to become a Reiki Master because I wanted other people to have an experience of peace and fulfillment that I knew Reiki could bring. Iris died before I decided that I was ready to take my master from her so I had no idea how to go further in Reiki, but the intention was there and they say when the student is ready the teacher appears. I met Marguerite Shelton in Houston, Texas at a Life Training event (a self development course) in 1988; she had finished her training from Rick and Emma Ferguson. I re-took Reiki 1 and 2 and then Master/Teacher level from her. At that time she said she had just returned from a woman's retreat where she trained several women including Diane Stein who was a feminist author and had written several books.  The training was based on what Arthur Robertson was teaching since Rick and Emma learned from him. In fact all the initiations were done at Rick and Emma's home. I started teaching small classes in my home and also traveling to other cities in Texas and Arkansas to teach Reiki.

In 1989 I decided to make a trip to study regression techniques in Somerset, England. I had been using regression work with Reiki in my Reiki practice in Texas.  A few days before my departure I went to visit a friend at her office. There was a woman sitting in the waiting room; she looked at me and said: “Soon you will go to a long journey; you will cross the big ocean and will not return to the United States for a long time. Take everything you need especially warm clothes; you are going to wake the sleeping people of many churches.” I remember thinking the woman was very strange and I absolutely had no intention of working in a church. Besides it was my plan to be back in three month or less. Everything was arraigned.

However after I had been in England for two months I made the decision to stay in England to work and live and to put both of my feet in one boat “The Reiki Boat” was now my vehicle of choice.  I was the one of the first Usui Reiki Masters in the UK. I had been invited by many people to travel and facilitate courses all over Britain. The photo to the right is from the 1st UK Reiki course in 1989. My family was shocked because I always had to have a steady paid job, and here I was leaving everything and following my heart. They did not understand and were worried about what was going to happen me, while I on the other hand was happy responding to spirit. I was blessed to teach the first Reiki class at the Bristol Cancer Center in the UK.

After working in England for some time I was asked to come and work in Scotland with a group of doctors that were interested in the influence of Reiki by clinical application for depression and motor-neurogical defects. I was also treating animals and would go out when I was called by farmers who would take care of their stock over anything. It was an exciting time with a tremendous amount of work and research going on but, I was still missing something. One morning I was compelled to pray. I got down on my knees and I asked to be told where to go to be able to serve mankind. In less than ten minutes I had received a telephone call and was told to go to Czechoslovakia. I remember looking up to the ceiling and saying Gosh God that sure was fast! I followed my heart and arrived by train in Prague on February 3rd 1991, after spending Christmas and my 44th birthday with my spiritual family in the Netherlands Fortunately for me another friend in Holland had given me an old coat and a pair of winter boots because there was much colder than I had ever experienced. My first day in Prague the temperature was an all time low of –38 Celsius, (-36.4 Fahrenheit) even the water in the Vltava river was frozen.

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As a way to live I started teaching English in a local hospital and at the high school in Kolín which is 50-kilometers to the East from Prague. I had the idea that I would only stay three months. When I arrived it was so different. The people were just free form communism and had no idea about basic ways to support themselves in a healthy life style. They had never been able to experience energy medicine or many other things that I had taken for granted. I had only fifty dollars to my name, two suitcases and my willingness to make a difference in whatever way I could. I was housed in student housing for medical personnel. There were 17 of us on one floor that shared one toilet and one tub. My accommodation was one room and a few old cabinets and a single bed. The refrigerator that was there was broken but I was told to put my food on the window sill, of course everything froze.  I came away from everything I thought that I needed to feel safe and comfortable. I remember thinking I am here doing this is all on complete faith and trust.

Actually I tell people that God had a great sense of humor about my initial stay in Czech because he knew I would have said after a few weeks ‘Look I tried it isn’t working and I will leave now” but, I couldn’t leave I did not have enough money to go anywhere much less out of the country. I had to make it. I surrendered my fear and placed my trust in God. Some of the doctors from Ethiopia on my floor took me in and fed me the first two months because it took that long to get my 30 Dollars a month salary paid to me. After some time my English students which were also the heads of the various departments in the hospital asked me what I really did when I didn’t teach English and I told them about Reiki. They asked me to work with several of their patients to monitor the effects of Reiki. I started treating with Reiki in a ward of 50 patients with staff infection and septicemia who the doctors felt would die. If Reiki did not work it would be ok, and if it worked; well the patient would be considered lucky. They were quite surprised when patients were getting well and they discovered that Reiki was a natural complement to their own Allopathic medicine they wanted to learn the system themselves.

The first Reiki course in Czechoslovakia was for 28 doctors at the regional hospital in Kolín. The director of the hospital went on to become the first Health Minister for the country. The second Reiki class I taught was for 45 teachers from the Kolín Gymnasium (High School) shortly afterwards. I also taught the first Reiki class for 30 Russian doctors and I started teaching classes organized by the Czech magazine “Regeneration” in Prague on the occasional weekend I could get free from the clinic. The head of the hospital gave me an office in the administration building to see and treat people with Reiki and a retired Doctor who spoke a little English to be my translator three days a week. There were no promises that anyone would come in fact they said for me to bring a book to read just in case.

There was not a single day that I ever picked up the book. I was working at the hospital from 7 am to 9pm for the first three days of that week and then started working every day, seven days a week from the second week onwards. I had to quit teaching English and concentrate on the people who came from everywhere not only the Czech Republic but also Poland, the Ukraine and Russia. I may think I would have 10 people to see that day and open the door to 40 or more, some who had traveled through the night, or several days by train or bus to come and experience Reiki.

Being in the practice of Reiki through an interpreter, surrendering everything and just being the conduit to transfer the energy taught me so much about people, the illnesses and certainly me. When my interpreter could not be there I would ask in Czech ‘Where is the problem and then watch what they touched. It taught me to be acutely aware of body language, smell, and touch. What a school.  The most wonderful aspect of working in a hospital was the corporation between the doctors and me. We worked together for the best interest of the patient. Reiki had become a key element in treatments through out every department of the hospital.

After some time the hospital was finding that I had more clients than they did. Mail would arrive addressed to Mrs. Mari, Kolín Hospital. Realistically I was not licensed to work in the hospital as a therapist so in order to keep things legal the decision was made to have the Red Cross take me under contract to do a relaxation technique called Reiki. Initially I continued to see clients seven days a week for 14 hours a day at the Red Cross; we converted a broom closet into a space to treat in. I had one small chair that my translator sat in, a low bench with a cushion. I sat at one end of the bench with my knee under the pillow and the person laid down on the bench, Improvisation was my middle name! I used three translators. After a few months the communist newspaper Rude Pravo “Red Truth” wrote an article about the best kept secrete in the Czech Republic “me” and believe me I was no secrete. They even mentioned “life force energy and God’s love” One of the many people I treated turned out to be the editor of the newspaper and she wrote about her Reiki Treatment, the results and how she felt. You have no idea the effect of that article. With in a week I had received sixteen giant sized bags of mail asking for treatment or to learn Reiki. I answered each and every letter with the help of my translators. The Red Cross then decided I would only treat people 5 days a week and start teaching Reiki One courses on the weekends in response to all the mail which continued to pile in. Now just in case you are thinking I ran into a gold mine in Czech I want to assure you that working in an Eastern Block country is never about money. It was pure service. I was under contract and was paid 7% of the net amount paid by the clients to the Red Cross and out of that I had to pay the translators. I was the lowest paid person in the city, worked the longest hours and probably was the happiest. I was doing what I had asked God for. I was in service and from the very heart of myself.

It was an incredibly humbling time. When I had treated with Reiki in the USA and UK I always had people I could refer my clients to for massage, herbs or flower remedies, or whatever that would complement what I was doing. I did not know anyone in Czech. I started to learn about treating with herbs, homeopathy, massage, and Bach Flower remedy. I begged doctors and therapists I knew who lived in other countries for supplies. They sent them; some also came to treat my clients using the time as a working holiday.

After working for a year at the Red Cross I was approached with a wonderful opportunity to come to Liberec in the mountains of North of Bohemia very close to the Eastern German border to start my own business with a silent Czech partner.

A foreign person can not have a business by themselves, or own property. This partner was a Czech man named Milan who had left in the 60’s when the Warsaw Pact closed the borders of Czech. He fled the country and ended up living in Australia. He returned with his family (a wife and four children) to live the same year I had arrived in Czechoslovakia. He and his wife Marie both took part in a Reiki class in Kolín. They felt I needed to have more control over my future in Czech and offered to sign my business papers. Of course I needed to have the cash to pay for the lawyer to set up the corporation and start the bank account.

They wanted nothing from me and even offered to sublet an office in their office space located in the Lesni (forest) Elementary school in Liberec. I did not know that the Jiri (George) who was the director of the school and most of the teachers had also taken the Reiki course in Kolín and that all of them had sat talked and masterminded about how to get me to Liberec and support the work I was doing. 

Jiri organized 5 classes in a row for me to teach at the conference center for the Regional Zoo, arraigned the translator and Milan handled all the money because of taxes through his company. At the end of the 5 classes after all the bills had been paid, there was exactly enough money to do what was needed to start the business…not one penny more.

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	The International Association of Reiki was finally born in Czech. I was also working on the animals at the Regional Zoo; can you imagine the trust the people had in Reiki? (Later on we transferred the organization from Scotland to Czech)   The doors just opened for me to be there. Spirit was in charge. I had a room, a borrowed table, a telephone and could use their computer at night when they did not use it. I hired my first employee, a young woman named Jana. There were 600 people waiting to take the 2nd level of Reiki…thousands wanted the first level of Reiki. I started teaching five days a week and treating for two. Finally I gave up the clinical side to be able to teach.  Renata, one of my students from the Gymnasium in Kolín was my main translator in the courses. She laughed when she remembered me saying to the English class “you never know what opportunity will arise to use your English” Boy was she using her English!

Another translator who was a pharmacist from the hospital in Kolín came and also translated for me. She had taken Reiki in Kolín and treated doctors in the back of the pharmacy on her lunch hour.

I was asked to come and teach Reiki in Poland at a Healing Center in Polinice Zroid, and then Krakow and Warsaw. All the manuals were translated into the Polish language. When I was at the center the director Andrej taught me bio- energetic healing. We would work in his center at night and I would also teach during the day. I had so many spiritual experiences there. 

I also started traveling more out of the country teaching in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Norway, England, Scotland, Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Ireland the country of) and New Zealand and Australia.

I continued to say yes and was so touched by the people’s spirit. We respected our differences and celebrated our sameness; it also during this time that I developed “Water Reiki” and began teaching students this technique in Greece and Cyprus. I also began teaching special children’s Reiki classes, I started teaching Self Development work, advanced Reiki techniques classes; and we had our first Reiki Master Teachers class.

People have asked me why I stayed so long in the Czech Republic. There are many reasons. I was busy working and before I knew it seven years had passed then ten, and then thirteen plus. I had taught over 45,000 people Reiki all over Europe and Australia and worked in clinics in Kolín and Liberec plus written 5 books. But on another level I felt that the work I was doing being based in the Czech Republic continued to play an important role in future of Europe and the world. In every village and town in the Czech Republic a church can be seen; the words the women said to me before I left the States, “you will awaken the sleeping people of many churches” still has a profoundly deep spiritual meaning for me. Reiki helps us to reawaken our spiritual essence and strengthen our own spirit. Reiki plus living, working and BEing in Europe continued to help in my own spiritual re-awakening and of course thousands of others. I was a witness to Reiki working in all streams of society, with whole families and experiencing the light spreading ever further across Europe. Doctors, politicians, actors, police, bakers, conductors all were embracing Reiki and had incorporated into their lives.

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In February 2004 I started to move back to the USA by sending some of my things ahead of me. I had experienced a heart attack while traveling in England in October 2003 and my family said please come home let us take care of you. I actually arrived at the end of the year just in time for Christmas. I had been blessed to teach Reiki and other special self development courses all over Europe now it was time to come full circle. I absolutely had no idea what that looked like. While I was well known in Europe my mind imagined no one would know who I was in the USA. And I also wondered how I would adjust to living with my daughter and her family and being back in Texas. It has been quite an adventure.

In January of 2006 while celebrating my first year back in the USA I remembered my time in the Czech Republic and the tremendous growth of spirit I had experienced.  I sat and looked at the pictures of Kolín where I first lived and remembered the English classes in the hospital and Gymnasium (High School), all these children are now grown up, and are probably parents making their way. I thought of the very first Reiki class for 28 doctors…all the people that touched my life in such profound ways, the days at the Red Cross with Josef translating for me while I worked with so many people giving Reiki and love . . . and how we converted a sewing room at the Red Cross into a Reiki Room on Friday after all seeing all the clients, making sure to pick up the pins on the carpet in order to teach Reiki on the weekends. I remembered all the miracles that I had witnessed, the changes in the people as they touched their own souls. The programs set up with the help President Havel and his staff in the prisons and hospitals. I remembered the conversations started and continued with a dictionary, trying to speak Czech, and practicing to ask, ”how much is this,” only to be frustrated because I forgot to learn the numbers. I still had to hold out the change in my hand for them to take what they needed me to pay. I was impressed with the Czech spirit, how they sang from their heart and still do. It was a time to acknowledge the start of coming away from everything and having to discover my inner will and resolve to trust and embrace the unknown and to find the gift that each new day brings.
Foremost is the impression of coming into a deep realization how we are the same, no matter what religion, philosophy, color and language we speak. We can choose to find a common language. We can come to understand each other. And this is born from the compassionate heart.

	I looked at pictures taken of myself over these seventeen years and saw my hair getting more silver .and then changing to dark blonde (miracles come in small bottles) I noticed in those pictures how softness had come over me as I moved into my own peaceful place inside. I acknowledged all the inner battles of my spirit.  I came to terms with my past, let go of demands, and forgave, let go of people that came into my life and left again. I realized that people came into my life in the “right moment” and that I could choose to let these arrivals awaken me. I learned from my students not to take their departures personally. That was the biggest lesson…loosing your adopted family is always hard, being a woman who mothers also requires a letting go, but not to take it personally - to realize that this is about choices in living - was a process to learn and fine tune here.
	I haven’t finished learning, life (by its very nature) will always bring lessons to deepen awareness and turn this new understanding back out to the world. The Czech Republic is known for its fine cut crystal that is made to sparkle by the way it is cut and polished. What better place than Czech to have cut and polished Mari. I now wonder what is ahead of me here in the USA. I have been paying attention to spirit and how it moves with me especially when I am still inside. I have reconnected with my family and am in the process of redefining my work and how to utilize my talents while basically starting over. I still travel to Europe and Australia and parts in between, only not as much.  For some reason living out of a suitcase is not as appealing as before, at least not as much. I consider myself blessed to have been on the cutting edge of Reiki all these years and being given the opportunity to meet so many different people all over the world. Many still write to me. We are a large Reiki family.
	Basically I feel like an older piece of glass that has been tenderly treated to a re-cutting and polish. I am more exposed, vulnerable, and I shine from the inside out. I am more dedicated than ever to helping people find this inner same kind of beauty. I feel as if I am here to help light a path to brotherhood and peace from a new perspective. I realize that, like eagles, we all have our own patterns of flight But I hope we meet in the vast sky of love and compassion -- and soon. I invite you all to join me in this grand adventure called life. I invite you to remember to fly free and high but not alone.

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