This year, I enter my eleventh year of practicing Reiki, and ninth teaching. It’s been a magical decade. I’ve incorporated Integrated Energy Therapy and crystal healing, and I have even cultivated my own practices of Shamanic Reiki. Over a thousand students have invited me to be their teacher, more than sixty of those becoming Masters. I enjoy the honor of healing my community alongside them. All these years later, each new initiate fills me with immense gratitude and a renewed sense of purpose.
Despite this practice and life calling that nourished me so, there was a growing sense of something “missing” that I could just not ignore. While I’m grateful for my intuitive connection to Mikao Usui, the original founder of the Reiki style that bears his name, I lacked a connection to a teacher in human form. I share no relationship with anyone in my lineage (line of teachers connecting me all the way back to Usui) and have always taught quite differently. I have several colleagues, many students and grads, have read hundreds of books and practice daily yet I felt slightly lonely. As my decade came full circle, I sought to connect with others to deepen my knowledge and sense of community.
I began doing Reiki around this, which led me to intentionally manifest a new community with which to connect. I asked the Universe for a teachers who:
- Had strong personal practices firmly rooted in the precepts
- Cultivated an ongoing sense of support, community and inclusiveness
- Would treat my students with as much respect and love as I did, and that they would view them as an extension of their own community
- Most importantly were committed to ongoing collaboration and study to benefit our mutual communities
By the end, what I found myself calling forth was an extended family for my own ever-growing Reiki progeny that had even more to offer than I ever could have imagined.
And as Reiki always does, it found a way.
Upon sharing these wishes with Grad and close friend Carrie Pierce, she lit up and suggested Valerie and Ian Haag at Rainbows of Healing in Langhorne, PA. I reached out and when we met things just “clicked”. They had been Reiki Masters for twenty years and their experience and dedication were immediately apparent-it was clear that Reiki was something they embodied as well as practiced. Their lineage was completely different than mine…and much shorter. They were only two teachers away from Hawayo Takata, and 5 steps away from Usui. Val’s training also includes naturopathy and Ian works with sound, even recording an album of Native flute. Crystals, angels and sacred geometry filled their shop and their practice.
The perfect time later, my guides clearly sent me to their site where I saw their Advanced Level training listed. I called and got the last spot! In this class, I learned a lot of things that were brand new, despite my years of practice and all the books I had read. Most importantly, I felt surrounded by and connected to a community that I just knew my students and grads would appreciate, and was excited to share my wisdom with their community as well.
The attunement (initiation ceremony) was extremely intense, and I felt somehow lifted out of my body. Later, their teacher Barbara Livingstone and her teacher Beth Gray came to me in Spirit (as they are deceased) and offered support for myself and students in just the same way Usui does. Overcome with gratitude, I felt a deep level of connection, as if I had been blessed with an incredible bridge to Reiki land. The new tools I have learned from Val and Ian continue to unfold, and my practice feels completely rejuvenated. The gift of their teachings humbled and inspired me, and I could not wait to share it with my “crew”.
I attended Val and Ian’s last monthly Reiki share (along with thirty other people). It was a beautiful day of community and healing. I also brought along my most recent Master Teacher grad. His verdict? “This is awesome!” He also expressed interest in learning with them. I knew that this was absolutely the right decision, and I am abundantly grateful that Val and Ian’s dedication and wisdom will grace not only my practice, but my teachings and community as well.
Val, Ian and I have been comparing notes, manuals and insights that our practices have blessed us with all these years. Our sincere desire is to expand in every way what we have to offer our communities. As I type this, I have tears in my eyes. Tears of gratitude to these new teachers that I am humbled to call colleagues. Tears of joy that their wisdom, gifts and genuine compassion will be shared with all those that I have taught and will continue to teach. And most importantly tears of pure love for the new connection to Barbara Livingstone and Beth Gray who have been so supportive of me in this transition with my practice and the move to our new bigger, better home…the location of which will be announced tomorrow, May 4th 2017.
Val and Ian, students and clients, words cannot express what all of your teachings have meant to me. As I move forward to the next chapter I wish to express my gratitude to all of you for allowing me to do what I love every single day.
As I have mentioned to all of the students I have taught over the past few months, my teachings will be changing to envelop the new methods, techniques and insights with which we have been blessed. Those who have studied with me previously will not be kept in the dark, and my (new!) door will always be open to you. For the community of Rainbows of Healing (and all other Reiki communities) you are so abundantly welcome at Learn Reiki Philadelphia and we certainly hope we get to meet you all soon! Learn Reiki Philadelphia students, check out the Healing of Rainbows page and consider attending a class or share. They are accessible by SEPTA.
As we move forward in unity, may we make Mikao Usui proud.
Just for today, I will not worry
Just for today, I will not anger
Just for today, I will give thanks for my many blessings
Just for today, I work hard and honestly
Just for today I am kind to every living thing
In love and gratitude,
Danielle Stimpson
EDIT: Many of the new teachings will be methods I have learned through other colleagues and through my continued practice. While the teachings of my school and Rainbows of Healing will be different, they will both be beautiful.
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Valerie and Ian Haag
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