A study at Macdonald's, and some thoughts on Reiki

John here --

Today I had just finished breakfast and as I passed the waitress I put my hand on her shoulder and said, "thankyou." I pushed myself a little to do it -- I wasn't completely sure if I'd get a positive reaction. She turned and her whole being lit up. "You have a nice day, honey!" she said. It was a little spark of magic. The kabbalists have a thing called "recapturing the sparks." It means pulling all the energy out of negative focuses and endeavors and giving them to the life-suppporting, harmonizing aspects of the world. So I felt like I recaptured a spark with that waitress.

Here's something interesting I read in a book on touch:

Cameras were set up to watch teenagers in Macdonald's in Europe and in America, to measure how often the teens touched each other. They found that the European teens touched each other quite a bit more than American teens. BUT THAT THE AMERICAN TEENS TOUCH THEMSELVES FAR MORE THAN THE EUROPEAN TEENS -- by scratching, fixing hair, putting on lipstick, putting hands to face, etc. So in America since its not as socially acceptable to touch each other, people attempt to do out their repressed desire to touch by touching themselves.

Tyler pointed out the feminine nature of touch. It feels to me that all this living in the head we do -- staring at computer screens, using cell phones, reading, etc. is an ultimately masculine activity, whose focus is in the head. The body, which is by comparison more feminine, is neglected. For many people all the body is is something which drags the head around from place to place.

I love the way touch tends to quiet my mind, sometimes even short-circuit it. That happens especially when I do Reiki, I think because the Reiki touch is steady and ongoing, not just a passing hug or handshake. Reiki is a "being" touch rather than a "doing" touch, a touch that allows you to tap into another person's energy field and simply be with it. You don't have to do anything when you do Reiki -- the Reiki energy does the healing on its own. The energy has intelligence and knows what to do.

Tyler and I have talked about the phenomenon of the weakening of the Reiki energy -- how it seems to have grown more superficial over time. The energy itself, I'm convinced, is in no way superficial or weak in and of itself. The superficiality and weakness come from the way people in general are using it -- only tapping into it in a superficial way, or, like a typical American, just kind of sampling it, dipping into the top two inches of it to get a taste of it and then moving on down the great cafeteria line of healing energies to taste a it of something else. Continuously and compulsively sampling everything can most definitely lead to superficiality.

Reiki is something that needs to be rediscovered again and again every time you do it.

I must go. Please share your ideas, and keep in touch.

With Love, John