People like to say Italians talk with their hands. I’m half Italian, and I won’t argue with this characterization. In my reiki work, and in my practice of sacred movement, I both talk and listen with my hands. I also “see” with my hands. When I lay hands on someone and when I dance, I am reminded of an image of the goddess Tara depicted with eyes on the palms of her hands and feet. I often receive visual impressions and images through my hands, as if they do have eyes of their own.
Through highly sensitive and skillful touch, I am able to listen very deeply, and to be present with what wants to open or move in my client. My hands also hear the places needing more energy or nurturing, and they tap or move to gently remind my client’s soul to wake up a part of his/her body, which needs attention or has gone to sleep. My reiki is a loving dialogue of presence, which takes place at a very high level of Mind between my client and myself. It is a listening and responding, a giving and receiving, an intelligent process of enfolding and opening, which leads to a greater understanding and balance.
More and more there is less separation between my reiki work and my dance. My dance is an embodied invocation, and since I am attuned to reiki, it naturally flows through all of me when I dance. In both cases, I open myself to a higher wisdom, a higher level of heart-mind, to guide me as her instrument, whether for healing, for vision and guidance, to play with a question, or for contemplation of a “higher” vision. Then, light pours into me and my body becomes a vehicle of wisdom, which is love in action. I move and do as I am guided intuitively. I do not always know logically the meaning of what I see, hear and do in the moment, although it always makes perfect sense to me in its own way. I am there to pass along information and energy, and to facilitate my client’s process of remembering Self, which is much like a self-birthing process. I am acting as midwife, and not to interpret, to judge, or to impose my personal biases or beliefs. I am also functioning as an initiator and a safe container for others to experience their own unfolding if they so choose. I am listening, and responding, I am acting as a spark, a source-support, a skillful collaborator and a loving, mindful witness.