Izhar Patkin at Mass MoCA
I’ve been trying to come up with reasons why I feel an urge to write about Reiki today. It might be because I’ve been giving it to myself more often and I feel it truly makes me closer to my heart; it could be the incessant pool of metaphysical questions that drown my mind in the rare occasions when I drink coffee; or maybe I’m just ready to share experiences about topics that used to embarrass my intellectual being.
Sometime along the way I developed an allergy to the label spiritual. It sounded confusingly esoteric and ghostly religious. It admitted a vast speech about self inquires but a poor call to action. It came associated with a certain rainbow flowery aesthetic that overwhelmed me. For the most, it required me to believe in things that are hard to proof rationally and I wasn’t ready.
Recently my allergy seems to be healing. I still get a couple of sneezes once in a while when I heard the term awareness or divine thrown from left to right, but the idea of a spiritual, free, examined life don’t give me the shivers.
When I give Reiki, to myself and specially others, I feel participant in a thankful and curious way. I feel part of something bigger, brighter, prettier. I don’t know if it’s the core particle of the universe or just my imagination, but I don’t have to know. I feel able to accept things that I don’t necessarily understand but I have definitely experience. I think that’s the key term here.
Experiencing a practice, sometimes doesn’t appeal so much to the rational argumentative part of comprehension, but rather to the sensitive, intuitive one. For the most, it’s a combination of both, you feel something beyond mind and body, and you’d like to share your experience with others, in coherent words if possible.
There is a quality of secrecy and mystery in Reiki that makes it fascinating but hard to talk about without sounding sectarian or fanatic. The more I experience the b- sides and the being of Reiki, the more I feel thrilled, curious and absolutely willing to explore it in depth. The more I want others to experience it as well.
Angela Lang 