A Reiki Healing Circle, Thousands of Miles From Home

How did I end up here?

How did I end up on a massage table, in a trailer, in a valley of the Bitterroot Mountains named Coravallis, MT, thousands of miles from home.

The simple answer is that I was brought here to do my show. How I ended up in this trailer might be a bit more complicated.

There were four people with their hands on me, one of them being one of my best friends in the world, and the three other were his in-laws, people I’d only met once before twelve years ago. They doing a Rieki healing circle on me. Every cynical Gen X instinct was firing on all cylinders. But I took a breath and closed my eyes, blocked out the voices in my head, and prepared to receive this energy from these kind, dear people who for some reason cared enough about me to open their hearts and trailer to me.

Reiki is a healing technique based on the principle that the therapist can channel energy into the patient by means of touch, to activate the natural healing processes of the patient's body and restore physical and emotional well-being. I’ve been looking for natural and alternative practices to add to my traditional chemo. I had looked into the Vitamin C infusions but the $1000 a week price tag made me put that on the back burner. Reiki is something that keeps popping up in the books I’m reading, and it also seems like the universe keeps offering it to me for free.

This had been my second time in a week doing Reiki. One of my friends in Greenville is a Reiki Master and had me out to his house to do a session before I came to Montana. Now I was in the Bitterroot Mountains thousands of miles from home being offered it again.

So perhaps the show brought me to Montana, but the universe led me to this trailer.

I believe in principles of Reiki. I believe in energy. I believe that energy can be blocked. And I keep getting recurrences, so obviously the natural healing process of my body is off, and if the chemo can get rid of these mutant cells, maybe the Reiki can help my body keep those cells away. Crazier things have happened. And if nothing else after a Reiki session I feel calm AF. That by itself is worth it.

I continued to breath in and out. I never liked being given things. I never liked asking for help. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think it’s one of the masks pride likes to wear. But allowing myself to receive the energy from these dear people was a humbling experience. I think humility is recognizing yourself for who you really are. On that table I was reminded that nothing is separate. Everything is connected. And that the reason pride is such a deadly sin is that it tries to convince you otherwise.

As the session drew to a close I became aware of the eight hands. Two on my feet. Two on my arm. Two on my lungs. Two on my head. For the last few minutes, I swore I felt a ninth one right on my heart.

I don’t know if it was true or not. But there on that table, two thousand miles from home, I felt my whole body release and let go. That by itself was worth it.