Book Review "Reiki for the Heart and Soul" by Amy Rowland

Amy Rowland is one of the truly creative and special master's practicing and teaching Reiki. Amy has shared Reiki with so many marvelous people, and, the Teachers and Masters who have shared with her have each left a section in the garden of her energy matrix. In Amy's class you can feel the presence of others, and it is very moving.

This book is both simple and difficult to describe, simple, because the book itself is in fact easy to follow, and complex, because it is a variance from Amy's prior books and from many other books about Reiki.

Amy's first book, "Traditional Reiki for our Times," focused on Reiki practice and on the precise importance of hand positions. This more advanced book, focuses of the basic principles of Reiki.

The magic of this book, very much like the magic of Reiki itself, is in its simplicity. So often, we focus on technique, on where to place our hands, on how to ground, on the lessons of using Reiki as a healing technique. And somehow, in the process of doing these complex things, we help others, and are helped somehow in our own lives.

"Reiki for the Heart and Soul" starts with us, and starts with the 5 principles of Reiki taught by Mikao Usui. "Just for today Do Not Anger." "Just for today Do Not Worry." "Be grateful: Show appreciation." "Do an honest day's work." "Be kind."

In meditating on these principles and bringing them into our own lives, we come into better contact with the Spiritual Energy that connects us all, and has the power to heal. In this lesson, first we work on bringing our own lives into "connection," and in the process, we feel the Reiki energy, it flows through our hands (and through our heart and souls), and we gain more capacity to heal.

Amy reminds us that for Mikao Usui, Reiki was not first a healing art, it was first a "Secret Method to Invite Happiness."

In Reiki class, we try to teach hand positions and Reiki technique, but, if we do this, and lose sight of the underlying principles, we have lost so much. If we live the principles, we do not need to augment our Reiki energy.

I sometimes wonder at Reiki practitioners concerned with enhancing their own Reiki "power." Reiki method helps us to connect to the infinite source of all energy, so that in the end, it is not about our power, but our capacity to create "channel" or simply stated "connection" between human beings, each other, and the power the creates and binds us all.

To quote Martin Luthor King Jr, "they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."

In hospice, we reach out share human connection with those people in fear of death, people having difficulty living the moment they have to live. And we know that we are connected to them, that our world and their world, our moments, are shared. Reiki method can help us to do that.

And it is this spirit that is embodied in Amy Rowland's book, "Reiki for the Heart and Soul." A realization that the wisdom of a monk living in Japan about 100 years ago, is relevant to us here today. Just as a part of a man's dream enunciated in 1963, came at least partially to fruition in 2008. And the teaching to be kind to one's neighbor resonates from souls who lived thousands of years ago, resonates in our Sacred texts, be they Buddhist, or Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish.

Read Amy Rowland's book and focus on her explanation of the 5 basic principles - and hopefully, it will help enhance your connection to Reiki energy, perhaps your capacity to do provide Reiki healing to others, but most importantly, assist your own sense of connection and of Happiness in Living.