Reiki Meditation or Meet Your Guides

When you reach Level 2 in Reiki (at least Usui Reiki), you meet your Reiki Guides. But I believe this is something that everyone should know, not just Level 2 Reiki Practitioners. Anyone can use this meditation to contact their spirit guides, their angels, whoever guides them in their life.

This is important information for all, not just Reiki practitioners. So, I’m writing instructions for the meditation, giving you the information so you can go on and contact your Reiki Guides/spirit guides/guardian angels and get some answers to your questions.

Your guides lead you, guide you, help you live a better life.

So, here’s the meditation to meet them:

Get comfy, close your eyes. Find a door, go through the door. See a set of chakra coloured stairs descending in front of you. The top step is white (crown). Go down the steps.

There's another door at the bottom of the steps. Go through that door. Now you'll be in a garden. Anchor your senses in this place. What's the temperature like? Is there a breeze? A scent of flowers? A rustling of leaves? A babbling brook? etc.

An animal will make itself known to you and lead you on a path. Again, anchor yourself whilst walking. What's the ground like underfoot? Is the light dappled along the path, are there birds flitting among the trees? etc.

Now you get to a lake. This is the cleansing stage. Imagine yourself swimming into the lake and relaxing on your back, staring up at the sky, being held up by the water. All your worries and negativities melting off you like ice in hot water. Then water bubbles up from beneath you replacing those worries with invigorating, re-energising, enlivening, protective and healing energies.

Then you'll notice an island in the middle of the lake where your guides are gathered to meet you. Go to the island, greet them and ask them your questions. Once they've given you the messages you need, thank them.

Find another door. Go up a set of chakra coloured stairs, this time starting with the red step (root). And at the top of the staircase is another door. Go through it and you're back in your physical body. Anchor your senses in your body, wiggle toes and fingers and slowly come back to reality.

What is a Healing Crisis

There are a lot of people out there, especially newly attuned Reiki/energy healing practitioners, who feel like their life is suddenly thrown into chaos.

This is a healing crisis.

I know it sounds terrible, but bear with me and I’ll tell you a little bit more about the mechanics of what causes a healing crisis and how to get through one.

When a wound heals over without being cleaned properly, a doctor may need to come along and cut open that wound to physically clean it out.

This is what energy healing does, but with energetic wounds. The Reiki (in my case, but energy healing in general) reopens an old wound so it can be cleaned out and it can genuinely heal properly.

This reopening of old energetic wounds can cause a healing crisis, becuase it can be quite confronting and traumatic. But if that wound wasn’t reopened, it would cause more and worse issues down the track.

If you think about a physical wound, cleaning it is the first step to healing. It makes sense that this is the first step to healing an energetic wound.

Now to what to do if you find yourself in a healing crisis: as Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Meaning “stay the course.”

And in the case of a healing crisis, a healing crisis can feel like hell. It can feel horrible and uncertain and nothing makes sense, but that doesn’t mean you should give up.

Becuase the Reiki (or energy healing) started the process of healing, and that process includes cleansing, then the best thing you can do in a healing crisis is to keep healing, keep using that energy healing system to get through this issue.

How To Tell If A Spiritual Teacher Is The Real Deal

I’m sure we’ve all heard stories about a spiritual teacher or energy healer being more toxic than they are helpful.

I want to do what I can to ensure that everyone in this space is as safe as possible. Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of Red Flags when it comes to spiritual teachers/yoga instructors/energy healers.

These are the Red Flags to look out for when searching for/following a guru:

• The person claims that they are the powerful one, not the energy they channel.

• Read the subtle messages the person says. eg.

  • Do they imply they are all-knowing?

  • Do they think that they are the authority, not everyone’s inner self?

  • Do they deny your own intuitions in favour of their own?

  • Do they dismiss stories of your own psychic/intuitive gifts?

• If it’s an energy healing system that you’re learning, how many people have achieved the highest level of this system? Is there only one person at the top (or only a very few people?)

• Does your intuition tell you something is off about this person?

• When in groups with the person, are contradictions or challenges to their ideas accepted or punished (even subtlely)?

• Does the person seem to want followers or “yes-people”?

And, finally, remember the ultimate rule of spirituality: Whatever someone says, if it doesn’t resonate with you, disregard it. This prevents dogma and cult-like practices from infiltrating spiritual teachings.

There are plenty of genuine spiritual teachers/yoga instructors/energy healers out there who can help you. But sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a good one and a harmful one. I hope this helps you differentiate between the two.

Reiki and Anxiety

I have been experimenting with different ways to treat anxiety and mental health issues in general.

Firstly, don’t underestimate what mental health professionals can do for you. There are some mental health issues that benefit greatly from a specialist (OCD, for example). Reiki is a great complimentary therapy, it can help while you seek out someone or if it's a time-related anxiety that will clear up on a certain date (thus making the effort put into seeking a specialist non-effective), then Reiki can support you through it.

Right, now onto my methods:

Method 1: Imagine your anxiety as separate from you (Narrative Therapy), and send Reiki to it as if it's someone else. You can do this via distance reiki or an object. The idea is that anything that happens to that object, also happens to your anxiety.

You can make this super easy, is there a ring you wear or an object you touch *all* the time? A fiddle tool you use to keep your hands busy? You could even use your computer keyboard or your phone. Or simply draw a symbol on you the palm of your hands, so you channel directly into it.

Whatever you choose, name it "Anxiety", and every time you touch it, know that you are sending reiki to your anxiety. This way, you can reiki your anxiety basically all day, every day. Sending a constant flow of reiki to it.

Method 2: Send distance healing to your anxiety.

Similar to method 1, but different. When you're setting up distance healing on your anxiety, ask the reiki to do a full reiki healing treatment on the anxiety, focusing on [insert here, eg. calmness, focus, joy, mental wellbeing] and then ask the reiki healing treatment to repeat every 2 hours or so (depending on how much energy you can actually channel, if your chest gets tight, it means you're channelling to much too fast. So lengthen the amount of time between repeats). Ask Reiki to repeat until the issue is resolved.

Method 3: Combo of method 1 and 2.

Pretty self-explanatory, do both. Bombard that anxiety with all the reiki you have.

The more you do reiki, the more you will be able to channel. So you will notice that whatever method you choose, you'll be able to channel more and more and your reiki will become more potent.

Method 4: Ask your Reiki Guides

Everyone's situation is different, your Reiki Guides know you and your life and circumstances better than some random reiki master on the internet. Meditate and ask them how to improve your situation.

Negative Entities

Someone said to me that they worried that Reiki attunements can be used to implant negative elements into their energy system by a nefarious person. This was my response:

So, firstly, I'll say this: you can be manipulated into accepting nasty energy from someone. I, personally, was manipulated into accepting horrible energy from an ex some years ago and only recently found out when one of my Reiki Ascended Masters pointed it out.

Secondly, it's far easier to be manipulated into accepting nasty energy than people realise. As Reiki practitioners and energy workers, we need to be aware of how easy this is.

In the human world, this manifests in advertisements and our energy is money. How many times have you fallen for marketing and bought something you really didn't need? Another example of how it works in the human world is if we want to be loved (and we all do) and a person offers it to you, but only if you accept other things too. This example can also include any unfulfilled need or desire, it's not limited to just love. It can also be healing, money or knowledge.

You see how dangerous this can be?

Thirdly, take it from a Reiki Master, even if they anchored that energy into you with Reiki, it wouldn't be permanent. Mainly because Reiki will never do harm and if its being used to do so, it will actively work to sabotage the harm, thus making it easier for you to dispel it. Therefore, it is not permanent, Reiki will make sure of that.

Even if they used one or two Reiki symbols to alter your energy field, the entirety of Reiki is held within each symbol and the symbol itself is more of a suggestion on how Reiki should express itself in that moment. But as every first level Reiki practitioner knows, Reiki is intelligent and goes and does as it needs, not what the practitioner tells it to do.

Think of symbols like the pirate code, they're more guidelines than actual rules.

Now back to the problem of wanting to remove negative energies. As you have seen in my personal example above, it is entirely possible to get rid of unwanted entities/energies, even if someone implies they are permanent (because that's a manipulation on their part, it's not true).

The way I did it was ... well, I didn't do it. Kali (my Reiki Ascended Master), aka the fiercely compassionate mother goddess and demon destroyer, just ripped it out of my body one day, while I was busy doing something else at my computer. It was a shock, tbh. This thing had hidden in my system for 20 years and it took an Ascended Master to find it.

So, for suggestions on how to remove this negative influence:

1. Meditate and call upon your Reiki guides to help you.

2. Don't have Reiki guides? Don't worry. You *absolutely* have spirit guides/guardian angels who work in the spirit world to keep you safe.

3. Don't know how to meditate? Find a guided meditation that allows you to receive messages from your spirt guides on youtube.

4. While in meditation, ask your spirit guides to help you remove this energy. Listen to their suggestions (eg. they may say "take a salt bath" or something). They can work in the spirit realm, but you may need to lend a helping hand in the physical world.

5. Follow their instructions.

6. If you did so and still feel the need for more help, consider calling in the big guns, aka Kali or the Angel Tarot cards by Travis McHenry. Those Angels don't play, neither does Kali.

7. You don't need to be of any religion to call upon the angels or Kali. If you call upon Kali, she'll come to you, no strings attached. In regards to the Angel Tarot, you don't need to know how to read Tarot, the cards themselves hold the energy of each angel and they are exceptionally good at cutting cords and energy. Because of the way the Angel Tarot cards were created, there are also no strings attached.

8. If all else fails, go to an Reiki practitioner/energy healer/psychic that comes *highly* recommended by people you know are trustworthy. I've left this as the last step, because it seems as if asking another person for help has got you into this situation in the first place. An experienced Reiki practitioner/energy healer/psychic should be able to help. And I've also left this as the last step because it's the only step that isn't free. Yeah, the Angel Tarot aren't free, but they're pretty cheap and can be reused if another situation arises (which hopefully it won't :) ).

Reiki and Science

Reiki and Physics

Yes, this post is about to get into the science behind Reiki. Now, before you shudder, thinking that you’ll need to draw on your high school maths and come up with equations for force (mass x acceleration = force), don’t worry – we’re not going that deeply into physics.

And just before we go beyond this point, I’d like to note that all of this information has come from renowned healer and physicist Barbara Brennan (B.S. in physics and an M.S. degree in atmospheric physics, researcher with weather satellite instrumentation for NASA for five years) in her book Hands of Light, published by Bantam Books, 1988. I realise this has come from a single source, but there is an extensive bibliography at the end of Hands of Light that you can look at.

Okay, now that we have gotten past the obligatory reference, let’s get into the basics of energy, connectedness and how we all relate to one another. But to do so, we must first look at historical scientific views of reality.

Newtonian Physics

Modern Newtonian physics describes a universe composed of fundamental building blocks called atoms. Much like how the planets revolve around the sun, so too do electrons revolve around the protons and neutrons of nuclei.

Newtonian mechanics was incredibly successful in describing much of our world (planets, machines, fluids in constant motion). As such, physicist believed that the universe was a giant mechanical system based on Newtonian laws of motion – everything could be described objectively. All physical reactions were seen to have a physical cause, like balls colliding on a pool table, negatively and positively charged particles attracted each other.

Even now, we experience our bodies in a mechanical way. We have organs and bones, and if one organ isn’t working properly, it throws the rest of the body out of whack (scientific term).

But this Newtonian view of reality leaves us with some unanswered questions. Like, aren’t atoms effectively 99.9% empty space? How is it possible that we’re basically empty space when I can feel that I’m solid?

Not only that, but Newtonian physics failed was in describing electromagnetic energy (see, we’re getting into energy now). 

Field Theory

And this is where a different scientific view of reality comes in.  A field is described as a condition in space which has the potential of producing a force. Now, instead of the Newtonian “opposites attract”, we have Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell saying that each atomic charge creates a “condition” in the space around it, which acts as a force on the other charge. In other words, atomic charges create a “disturbance” in the force (or maybe that’s just my interpretation).

So, now we have the scientific framework of a universe full of fields which interact with each other through forces. And this explains how we can affect people over a distance without speaking to or seeing them. Examples include knowing that you “should” call someone and finding out they really needed you at that time; a particularly poignant card dropping from an angel card deck; getting a positive or negative “vibe” from a room or someone that later turns out to be accurate. Basically, Field Theory can describe psychic phenomena with a scientific basis.

Now, onto Relativity!

According to Einstein, space and time are one and the same. There is no separation. Also, time is relative to the observer.

Say a person gets an intuitive vision flash of something bad happening to a friend and they call to see if the friend is all right, but nothing bad happened.

According to Newtonian mechanics (where time is linear), that psychic flash was mere imagination.

However, with the theory of Relativity (where time is wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey … or, you know, just “not linear”), that was a true intuitive vision and it may have already occurred, or will occur in the future, or it may never even happen (due to probabilities waves (“things” are actually “events” or paths that might become events), parallel universes and such). But just because it doesn’t occur when you think it will, doesn’t mean our intuition is off.

Relativity also described how matter and energy are interchangeable, and how energy is never destroyed – just changed into matter. Our bodies are matter, a form of energy.

Subatomic physics discovered that there are too many elementary particles to be a “basic building block of life” and Newtonian physics had to be abandoned. The subatomic physicists also discovered that all particles can be transmuted into other particles.  

Enter the Holographic Universe (which also includes fractals)

If the universe is one giant interaction of fields and an observer can affect the outcome of whether or not a photon is a wave or particle, this means the “universe is … a dynamic inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way.” This also means that all experience is interconnected.

Therefore, considering we are one with everything (according to physics and many spiritual beliefs) and considering our physical bodies and our life are made up of matter and space-time and consciousness (observation), we can be influenced by different forms of energy (whether this be electricity, magnetic, “vibes” or Reiki).

Fractals and Holograms and Fields, oh my!

In my meditations and metaphysical studies recently, I’ve discovered how expansive and ubiquitous fractals are.

For example, our astrological birth (natal) chart is a fractal of our lives. What’s happening in the sky and the energies between the transiting planets are a fractal of what’s happening here on earth. What’s going on in tarot and oracle cards are a fractal of the messages of our spiritual guides. The hermetic phrase, “As above, so below, as without, so within.”

I’m seeing fractals everywhere and I’m only just beginning my exploration of them.

There’s this deck of cards that I recently acquired called Path of the Soul, that has fractals on each card. The more I work with them, the more I discover about fractals and how they relate in my everyday life. And the more I work with fractals the more I see the connections between us all.

According to the Holographic Universe therory, we’re all a full representation of the whole. Like all holograms, one individual part is a representative of the whole. In that way, it’s a fractal.

Now, I never really understood fractals until I started working with them. Well, i understood them on an intellectual level, but not on a practical level. The practical lelve, where you see and interact with fractals, personally learning on a deep level what they mean to you.

For me, I see fractals as me outside of me and all around me. I know it doesn’t really make all that much sense, so I’ll try and explain it a little more.

Whenever I think of gratitiude, I imagine a green beam of light coming out of my heart. This beam lights up my surroundings and settles on whoever I think about and am grateful for.

However, when I apply the fractal theroy to this beam of gratitude, I see the beam coming out of my heart, but also directed back at me from all angles. In this way, I’m sending out energy and receiving it back magnified. Like the saying, “What you sew, so shall you reap.” Or the Wiccan Three-Fold law, “what you send out, you’ll get back times three.” And on and on.

Now I truly understand this spiritual principle on a deep, practical level. I feel it when I send out the green beam of gratitude, how that very beam gets sent back to me.

This doesn’t just apply to gratitude, but to everything energetic. Send out love and you receive it. Send out hate and you receive it too. Send out good vibes and you receive them back. And so on and so forth.

This is the basic principle of life, yet it’s taken me so long to truly understand this. And only once I started synthesising my knowledge from different spiritual traditions (Reiki, Tarot, Astrology, Meditations), was I truly able to understand this principle.

I’m not entirely sure what I wanted to say in this post, merely that sometimes it feels like you’re spinning your wheels when it comes to spirituality. You always feel like you’re learning and learning, but never actually doing anything. Like there’s always something more that you need to know or do before you can … be truly spiritual.

But the truth is, everything you do in regrads to spirituality takes you in the right direction. Takes you closer to the mysteries of the universe. Takes you closer to a more spiritual path. And sometimes it takes a while before you can truly see the progress you’ve made. But rest assured, you’ve progressed.

Astrology and Houses

If you’re like me, you have an interest in all things mystical. I love meditation, compassion, learning about spirituality from different religions, learning about all the ways people have communed with Spirit through the ages.

I’ve always had an interest in astrology. Growing up in Australia, with some of our closest neighbours being in Asia, I was influenced greatly by Chinese horoscopes. The single book on astrology we had in our house was a book of Chinese Astrology. So I grew an appreciation of the twelve animals of the zodiac. Western Astrology didn’t really factor in, other than my general sign (Virgo).

But now that I’m older and have access to the internet and a vast array of information, I can now investigate what I was never able to in the past--Western Astrology.

After reading many, many books on the subject, I’ve basically memorised everything I need to know to interpret a Natal (birth) Chart.

Everything except Houses.

I had no idea how anyone could connect financial investments with death (8th House), or why is the fifth house related to sports and children? And the sixth house? Some astrologers say it’s the house of mentors, others say it’s the house of jobs.

I just didn’t get it.

And as a result, I also couldn’t memorise them, so I was always going back to the cheat sheet one of the astrology texts gave me.

And this was my struggle, how was I supposed to resemble any sort of astrologer if I couldn’t even get the basics memorised?

And then a brilliant teacher came along and really made me think about the houses and what they mean. He made me collate all the information I’ve been gathering over the last year and a half, and do my own analysis of it so I could see the connections.

And this is what I’ve discovered:

Pretty much every astrologer says Houses and Signs are similar and (almost) interchangeable.

What they really mean is that the Houses are based on the signs. So the first house is like the first sign (Aries). Aries is a fire sign, so it bursts onto the scene, crying, “Here I am! This is me and I’m here to stay!”

And the first house is all about how you present yourself to the world.

The second house is Taurus, ruled by Venus and is an earth sign. What does earth represent to you?

To me, it represents groundedness, money, fertility. 

What does Venus represent to you?

To me, it represents relationships and values.

So, putting these two together, you get material stuff, like money and possessions, and how you relate to all of these.

The third house is Gemini, ruled by Mercury. What does Mercury represent?

To me, it’s everything to do with the mind and intellect.

THe third house is Air, so this has to do with communication and a hungry mind. So I see this house as the house of communication and learning.

You see how easy it is when someone explains it this way? It helps you form connections that weren’t easily seen before.

This is turning into a long post, so I’ll take a break here and talk about what you can do to solidify these meanings in your mind, then get back to how I interpret each house.

So what you can do is pull up a chart with the houses and signs in the right place (I literally googled, “house and sign astrology picture” and that got me to the right image), you can tell the signs are in the right place if Aries is in the first house.

Then ask yourself these questions:

What sign is the ruler of this house?

What does this sign mean to me?

What element rules this house and what does that element mean to me?

What planet rules this house and what does that planet mean to me?

What mode (Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable) rules this house and what does that mean to me?

Write down all of your answers to each of the questions, then look at your work. Can you pull all that information together to form a complete picture of what that house represents?

I’ll continue now with my own interpretations.

Fourth House is Cancer and is ruled by the Moon. Cancer is all about home and family, therefore this house represents Home and Family.

The fifth house is Leo, ruled by the SUn. Leo is all about creativity, sharing it’s marvellous self with the world, shining wherever it is in the world. So this house involves all things creative, including children and theatre and games and sports.

THe sixth house is Virgo, ruled by Mercury and is an Earth energy. Earth = practicality, Virgo = service, Mercury = mind. All up, this results in practical effort (working for the monies) and finding (or being a) mentor. Jobs and teachers.

The seventh house is LIbra, ruled by Venus. Again, Venus is relationships. LIbra is about partnerships and balance. Therefore, it’s the house of marriage and friendships!

THe eighth house (yes, I griped about this earlier in the blog, but now you can understand how I was able to truly understand this house), is ruled by Scorpio, Pluto and in ancient times Mars, it’s element is water.

Pluto = underworld, Water = consciousness, Mars = war, drive, passion.

Think of a stereotypical organised crime gang. What do they want? MOney. What will they do to get it? Set up “legit” businesses. What could result from underhanded practices? Death.

So it’s the house of Money, Business and Death (of you and friends).

(Please note, I’m not suggesting that Scorpios are gang members. This analogy is based pretty much exclusively on Pluto and what it represents.)

The ninth house is ruled by Sagittarius and Jupiter. And what does Jupiter like to do? Expand all the things! Expand your mind through philosophy. Expand your experiences through travel, etc. So it’s the house of Philosophy and Travel.

The tenth house is ruled by Capricorn, Saturn and is an earth element. So, once again, we have all things to do with material stuff and practicality. Saturn, the planet of structure, shapes how you go about accessing (or earning) that material stuff, like your job or your role in life.

THe eleventh house is ruled by Aquarius and Air. So you’re an Aquarius looking to do what’s natural to you (socialise), where do you go to find like minded people you can have fun with? The answer is your social groups and community.

The twelfth house is a fascinating house (to me, at least). It’s ruled by Pisces, Pluto, Jupiter and Water. So we’ve got the planets of the underworld and expansion, and the element of consciousness. To me this is like the hero’s journey, diving deep into the abyss and returning with a gift to share. Or like the Dark Night of the Soul, you’re dealing with some heavy stuff, but ultimately, you come out a better person and can share your learnings with others. It represents delving into the underworld and bringing back what you learn in service to others. So it’s the house of consciousness and service to community.

Wow, what a long blog post! Haha, when I first started writing this, I didn’t expect it to become an essay!

Anyway, I hope this gives you as much clarity around the houses as it did for me!

Happy astrologising!

December - Monthly Reading

Hello my lovely readers! This is a first for me as I don’t usually do monthly readings, but I got inspired to do so recently (maybe it’s that wonderful Jupiter energy ;) ).

I really enjoyed doing this reading, and it’s for anyone who reads this blog (past, present, future). And as an added bonus, I’ve infused Reiki into the reading, so anyone who views this will get a Reiki healing too!

Anyway, enjoy!

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RESULTS

Pile 1: Judgement, The Emperor, Ace of Cups Reversed,  6 of Cups, 3 of Pentacles Reversed.

Pile 2: The Devil, Queen of Pentacles, Page of Wands and The Tower Reversed.

Pile 3: King of Pentacles, 2 of Swords, 3 of Cups and 5 of Swords Reversed.

Pile 4: Temperance, King of Swords, Page of Cups, Queen of Cups Reversed, 10 of Cups.

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Discussion

December brings the start of a new consciousness to your life. People all around you will want to assist you, the systems in place to serve you will actually do so. You’ll find help from the government and friends and allies around you.  Internally, you’ll be building a new foundation for you to stand on for the rest of your life. To be honest, this month sounds fantastic, according to the first pile.

According to the second pile, the chains of materialism will be liberated from you. You’ll be able to stand your own ground, holding your own in terms of finance and peace and comfort and safety. So much so that you’ll feel free to start exploring what else is out there for you. With all of this solidity, you’ll feel freer than before. 

Pile three indicates that a change in thinking will also occur. You’ll move from focusing on the negative to focusing on your friends and family around you, those who lift you up and help you enjoy life. However, this pile indicates that you may have to make a decision to focus on the positive, otherwise you could truly end up focusing on the negative.

The fourth piles suggests that if you keep everything in balance, walk the middle path, you’ll be able to handle anything that comes at you with wit and alacrity. There will be pressures on you to withdraw emotionally, but if you are able to keep balance and do lots of self-care, you’ll have an entirely joyous December.

Wow! What a month ahead for my readers! This is all looking wonderful and I truly hope you have a fantastic December.

I’ll be back with more monthly readings next year (maybe even a yearly one too ;) )

If you would like your own personal reading for December, click here.

My tarot decks

When it comes to Tarot, I’m a bit like Ash from Pokemon—gotta catch them all!

Which means I need to use quite a bit of restraint whenever I walk into a crystal shop or when on a tarot forum. As my dad (who initially taught me tarot) keeps saying, I only need one deck.

But, but, but! There are so many pretty decks out there!

So I didn’t write this blog post to gush about all the amazing decks available. I just want to gush about the ones I (currently—more might be in the mail) own.

Now that we’ve established my love of tarot, let’s get into the decks that I use with regularity.

First of all, I’ll talk about the deck that I use the most, the one that I feel the most connection to and the one that I use in the majority of my Reiki healings.

This deck is called the Transparent Tarot and it was created by a Reiki master. As you can see, you lay three or four cards on top of each other and you build a comprehensive picture to answer your question. When I do the One Question Reading, I typically pull 16 cards and put them into four piles each. This helps me get an in-depth understanding of what’s going on and I can give you details that wouldn’t normally come out in a 15 minute reading.

Whenever I use this deck, it gets straight to the point and tells me exactly what I need to know. The feeling I get from this deck is that if there is anything I don’t understand, this is the deck I turn to. It’s also a very spiritual deck and connecting to it gives me a warm and joyous feeling.

If you’d like a reading, click here.

Most of the tarot readings I do is for healing work, so this next deck is really quite special for me. The Medicine Woman Tarot Deck is based on shamanism and is a very grounded in reality. Unlike most decks, where the Pentacles suit representing coins in a world full of online currency, this deck represents Pentacles as a practical journey in starting a jewellery making business.

It’s down-to-earth and lovely.

Now, I believe that if you are to do anything in life, you have to have fun with it (especially spirituality). So these next decks are my ‘fun’ ones. But don’t be turned off by this, they also produce clear and insightful readings.

The first deck is based on my favourite childhood show, Sailor Moon. Using this deck reminds me of a time in my life when I got up early each morning just to watch Sailor Moon. When I’d go to school, all excited about what had happened on that morning’s show and applied the lessons to my life. It solidified my understanding that there was more to life than what the majority told us. It gave me role models to look up to and taught me how to be a better version of myself.

All this childhood joy and learnings come into each of my readings and, like the Fool card, I do the reading with an innocence, no expectations, and am thoroughly delighted by the insightful answers I receive.

The next deck makes my geeky side fangirl. The Zombie Tarot deck is full of surviving a zombie apocalypse in a humorous way and from the perspectives of both zombies and humans, and how, ultimately, we can work together.

Every time I use this deck, I snicker at what’s going on in the cards. From the Fool walking happily into a cemetery full of zombies to the Seven of Swords, where a woman kicks her lover down the stairs into a zombie horde while she escapes, there’s just so much humour in this deck that I can’t gush enough about it.

Again, don’t be fooled by the humorous nature of this deck, it gives insightful and on-point readings every time, with just a bit of laughter to brighten the soul.

The next deck is from the same creator as the Zombie Tarot. This one is called The Housewives Tarot, and before you cringe about the anti-feminist implications of this deck, let me tell you that it takes a more facetious and honest attitude about what it was like to be a housewife in the 1950s. What with The Devil card being a chocolate cake on legs and the Nine of Swords (aka the nightmare card) being the horrible and judgmental mother-in-law, you can see the humour and love that went into creating this deck.

Although, the deck does say it’s for ‘domestic divination’, don’t be fooled, it’s a lot more accurate and insightful than you think ;)

How to be compassionate—without burning out

My lama once told me, when he handed over the Tibetan singing bowl I’d just bought, that compassion is healing. And I never understood that. I just smiled and thanked him and took my bowl to play at home.

But during an intensive meditation retreat, my Reiki guides got me to really think about compassion as healing. And, as I'm a counsellor, I thought about it from the mental health aspect. Counsellors, psychologists etc, use compassion (or empathy as it's called in the industry) to help others. They use it every day, knowing that sometimes people just need a friendly ear to listen and really hear their worries.

And empathy or compassion works. It helps many people on the mental level. However, what if it's more than just mental, but on an emotional, spiritual, physical level? They talk about doctors with no bedside manner and how many people dislike this sort of doctor. And I get it.

Usui Mikao said that to be a Reiki Master, you need to know how to counsel others. I believe that's because compassion heals.

But you need to be able to differentiate between compassion and over-empathising with another. Compassion is a love energy that flows freely, but you will get Burnout if you over empathise with someone, and that's because you're putting too much of yourself into this compassion. There is a fine line that I struggled to differentiate. Compassion is a sort of love energy that is ever present in your heart. The way I ended up being able to access it was going into my heart and finding a white light that shone out of it. This was compassion. I put my hands into the light and said the person's name and that was enough to send this healing energy towards that person.

Compassion is ever present in your heart. It flows freely.

The other thing I learned during this week was about trust. Trust allows the energy to flow and as it flows, it removes blocks. Trust in the universe, trust in yourself, trust in Reiki. All of it allows the energy to flow. And when you're in the flow, synchronicities happen too.

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Usui Mikao

Mikao Usui was born into a samurai family and was a descendent of Toshitane Chiba (a warlord who conquered the city of Usui and took that city for his name and the name of all of his family). His family were Tendai Buddhists and Usui studied in a Tendai monastery when he was a young child.

At the age of twelve, Usui studied martial arts (aiki jutsu, yagyu ryu).

He studied history, medical books, Buddhist scriptures, Christian scriptures and was proficient in psychology, Taoism, divination, incantation and physiognomy. He travelled widely through Europe, China and USA.

Usui ended being a zaike, which is a lay Tendai monk. This meant that he could be a family man, living at home with his wife and kids, and not being required to live in a temple with other Tendai monks.

One day, Usui decided he wanted enlightenment (although, as a lay monk, he had probably been working towards this his whole life). But this time, he was serious – it was enlightenment or die.

So he climbed up Mount Kurama and did a severe discipline of fasting for twenty-one days. On the last day of this practice, “he suddenly felt One Great Reiki over his head and attained enlightenment and he obtained” Reiki (excerpt from the Mikao Usui Memorial Stone, 1927).

This One Great Reiki allowed him to attune people with just his eyes (no symbols needed), while the rest of his students-turned-masters needed to draw symbols for attunements. Usui ended up teaching over 2000 students.

Now, being a monk, Usui used Reiki very much as a tool for spiritual growth and encouraged his students to use it this way too.

Dr Usui died of a stroke in 1926 at the age of 62. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a Tendai Monastery in Tokyo.

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What is Reiki

What is Reiki

Reiki is an energy and spiritual healing system. Once attuned, you will channel Universal Life Force energy (which everything is made up of) through you. Reiki is a laying-on-of-hands healing. With Reiki, you can heal people, animals, plants, earth, yourself.

Reiki is a two syllable Japanese word meaning universal life force. Although the proper Japanese pronunciation is RYE-KEY, it has been westernised to RAY-KEY.

Rei means universal, omnipresent – present everywhere at the same time. Esoterically Rei means spiritual consciousness, the omniscient wisdom from God or the higher self.

Ki is the non physical vitality that gives life to all living things. Many cultures understand and recognise the importance of Ki energy and how it impacts our lives and well-being.

Ki energy can be activated for the purpose of healing. When you feel healthy and full of enthusiasm, the flow of Ki energy in your body is high and unencumbered. Life seems easier to deal with and you have a higher resistance to illness and disease.

However, when your Ki energy is low because maybe you are under stress or feeling unhappy and tired you will be more susceptible to disease and sickness. Your attitude will be generally negative and you will find it difficult to deal with life’s challenges. Ki is the very essence of the soul; it leaves the body when a person dies.

Reiki is holistic; it works on the body, mind and spirit by stimulating a person’s own natural healing abilities. The blocked emotional and physical elements that lead to illness and disease are cleared. Reiki is neither positive nor negative; it is in fact the highest and most profound vibration of life. Divine in origin, it allows us all to become one with all things alive in our world. Reiki is pure unconditional love and joy bringing all who experience and embrace it principles together in harmony.

The skills and techniques associated with Reiki are simple and easy to learn. Small children and adults can equally comprehend and incorporate this ancient form of healing into their lives. Regular contact with Reiki will bring the recipients mind, body and spirit into balance. It will also help prevent future creation of illness and disease.

Healing and medicine are two very different disciplines. You should always remember to seek medical advice from a qualified doctor or practitioner in the case of serious illness. While all suggested treatments are offered in good faith, the author and publisher cannot accept responsibility for any illness arising out of the failure by the reader/individual to seek medical advice from a qualified doctor or medical practitioner.

A note on joy

I would like to introduce my Moon Crystal Tarot deck by Screen Girl on Etsy.

No this isn’t a review, it’s more about why I choose to include this deck in my regular go-to decks.

This deck is absolutely beautiful to look at and has characters that I grew to love from the Sailor Moon anime. When I was younger, there weren’t many Girl Power shows on TV. Xena, Charmed and Sailor Moon were the only shows I have regular access to.

These TV series gave me an example of girls and women triumphing over evil. They had romance, mystery, action, adventure, humour and focused on the emotions of life. They showed me that no matter how bad things are, I should never give up! They showed me the power of “the feels” and how it’s okay (and healthy) to laugh and cry, it’s okay to be vulnerable and it’s okay to be myself.

This Moon Crystal deck reminds me of my childish joy. How unadulterated it was. How in the moment it was. How spontaneous it was. How easy it was.

It reminds me of the things I’ve forgotten about my childhood and what used to bring me joy and laughter. It reminds me that I can call upon these old joyous things and new ones to help me find and cultivate the spark of joy.

It also reminds me that to truly be happy, I must be authentic and celebrate my interests/eccentricities ;)

What you need to know about finances - Pick a card

Let’s do an exercise that can help you. What do you need to know about your finances? What message does spirit have for you in regards to your money situation?

Let’s find out.

Close your eyes and clear your mind. Take three deep breaths. Ask your question: What do you need to know about your financial situation?

Then pick a number between 1 and 3.

Once you have chosen, scroll down to find your message.

Card 1 - Four of Stones/Pentacles

Your finances are stable right now. Your skills are the foundation for your income—continue working to improve them, whether this is through professional development or applying yourself at work. This card suggests that if your do this, your financial situation will continue to be stable and will improve.

Card 2 - Warrior/Chariot, Reversed

Remember your why. Why did you start down this career path in the first place? What did you want to achieve? What are you doing all this for?

The Warrior suggests you remember this so you can charge forward and single-mindedly go after your goals.

By rememberiing your why, you will find it easier to do anything, even improving your finances.

Card 3 - 3 of Arrows/Swords, Reversed

You may be going through a tough time right now, in regards to your finances, but the 3 of Arrows reminds you to have faith. Your ancestors and spirit guides are looking out for you. They say that this rough spot was necessary for your development as a person. When you come out the other side of this difficult situation (and you will), you will be a more rounded person, able to see what you were blind to before. You will be able to help others out of their own darkness, whether through advice, service or simply compassionately acknowledging and listening to their feelings.

How to find joy - Pick a card

Let’s do an exercise that can help you. How can you find and cultivate joy in your life? What do you need to do to make your life happier?

Let’s find out.

Close your eyes and clear your mind. Take three deep breaths. Ask your question: What do I need to do to make my life happier?

Then pick a number between 1 and 3.

Once you have chosen, scroll down to find your message for the day.

Card 1 - 4 of Cups

This card indicates that you are feeling boredom or complacency. That nothing around you interests you, even though there is a lot on offer.

This card suggests you take a moment to really consider what is important to you. What are you passionate about? What sparks your desire? How can you allign your values with you actions and everyday life?

Once you understand the answers to these questions, you will find how to live joyfully.

Card 2 - 8 of Wands

This card indicates that you might be flighty in your search for joy. Maybe you find a Bright Shiny Object (BSO) and play/run with it for a while, until another BSO comes along and you drop everything to play/run with it.

This card suggests that you stick to one BSO for long enough to see how it improves your life and your happiness. This will teach you about yourself and also teach you self-discipline. And with this, happiness will come to you, instead of you chasing it.

Card 3 - 2 of Swords

This card indicates that you are indecisive about what will actually bring you happiness. You have choices to make and you can’t decide—you are stuck and can’t see which path to take.

This card suggests you close your eyes, draw on your intuition and ask it to guide you. And just like how clouds part on a dark night, revealing the moon, so too will you intuition reveal what you must do to cultivate happiness.

What you need to know today - Pick a card

Let’s do an exercise that can help you for today. What do you need to know about today? What message does spirit have for you today?

Let’s find out.

Close your eyes and clear your mind. Take three deep breaths. Ask your question: What do you need to know today?

Then pick a number between 1 and 3.

Once you have chosen, scroll down to find your message for the day.

Card 1

Two of Cups, reversed

There may be blockages in regards to harmonious relationships. This card suggests that you be patient with the relationships around you. If you can be patient and caring and compassionate, the blockages will clear.

Card 2

Four of Wands, reversed

There may be tension in your family or with your job. But it will soon pass. This card suggests that you work diligently, show your willingness to make things work and the tension will fade away.

Card 3

Queen of Swords

Gentle, kind, compassion, but also quick-witted with a sharp mind. The Queen of Swords tells you to embody these qualities as you go about your day. In every interaction, be kind, but truthful. When showing your intellect, be gentle with your wit. And you will win the day.

Please remember — if you need specific advice

Inspiration

The tarot cards which inspire me most.

The first is the Star card. To me, it represents faith in the darkest moments of your life. When everything seems to be going wrong and you can’t see any way out of a terrible situation, if you can find faith, or hope, that will improve your situation, you can find your way out.

This is why I like this card so much, it reminds me that even when things look bleak, there is always a silver lining to every cloud :)

The second card that inspires me is the Sun card. To me, it represents that sense of unbridled joy when you get to the other side of your Dark Night of the Soul. When you’ve just stepped out of your bleakness, and found that light and life are welcoming—celebrating—you, it’s amazing.

You feel like you can be your true self, standing in your power and radiating your joy and love to everyone around you.

These are the cards which inspire me most. What about you? What cards inspire you?

If you would like a tarot reading with me