Image by Larisa Koshkina
Editor’s Note: While this article focuses on using reiki to connect to plants and nature, if you are not familiar with reiki, which is an energy healing modality, you can substitute the words “healing energy” for the term "reiki".
As much as the reiki path can seem as if it’s all about treating others, we all eventually come to realize that it’s all about our personal journey of healing and reconnecting with our divinity. In my case reiki was leading me, through the spirit of the plants, to find my voice.
Through all my many metamorphoses—language student, marketing manager, reiki teacher, flower farmer, herbalist, shamanic practitioner, travel guide—my reiki practice has quietly persisted. My connection is constant, and always there, so it naturally flows through in everything I do; combining reiki with my passion for plant medicine is a natural progression.
I feel that, rather than keeping the beauty of the spirit of plants and reiki to myself, what I am learning needs to be shared with others. It may be the same for you.
Gratitude to Reiki and Healing Energy
This creative journey of intuitive plant connections combined with reiki has become my path and continues to evolve as I come into alignment with my own true nature. I have reiki to thank for putting me on this journey with the plants. It’s thanks to reiki that I first began to pause and reconnect to my heart, which is how the green world leapt in, took root and began to grow.
For each of us, the journey will be different. In my case it turns out that Mother Nature was in my heart singing a very loud song that would not leave me alone until I had followed its beat and joined in.
As you intuitively reach out to connect with the landscape and the plants that surround you in your home and workplace, you will come more into alignment with the heartbeat of the earth and the rhythm of who you were born to be. You may find that the subtle whispers that have long been calling you start revealing more clearly your role as a healer, spiritual guide, and caretaker for the Earth.
EXERCISE : Gassho Meditation in Nature
Take yourself out into nature and find a place that you can comfortably be for 20 to 30 minutes without being disturbed.
Settle yourself into this space, allowing yourself to land. Mentally call back all the energy that you have exerted over the day, calling it back to you. If negative experiences come to mind, picture yourself dropping them to the Earth and silently ask the Earth to take them away and transform them.
From this restful space, breathe normally, allowing yourself to relax a little more with each exhalation. Become aware of any tension in your body, drop your shoulders down your back and relax your face.
Extend your awareness to the environment that surrounds
you. Notice the trees and plants that are growing around you. Observe the colours, form and shape of the natural domain in which you have placed yourself. Open up your senses to the elements, noticing what you can hear, feel against your skin
and smell in the air, as well as what you can see.
When you have finished exploring with your senses, it’s time to go inwards. Place your hands in gassho (praying hands position) and close your eyes.
In the way that you have been taught, invite reiki (healing energy) to flow. I simply ask reiki to flow through me for the highest good.
Breathe in and settle yourself.
As you breathe, become aware of the green beings that grow around you.
As you breathe, become aware of the invisible realms that surround you.
As you breathe, become aware of the nature beings, elementals and fairy folk that may be sharing the space with you.
Sense into your energy field, feeling for where you end and the outside world of nature and the unseen spirit of nature begins.
If you wish to, say the reiki principles out loud. These are the words that I use now, though they differ from the original wording I was taught. You may have been taught a different translation:
Just for today,
I will not get angry.
Just for today,
I will not worry.
Just for today,
I will be grateful.
Just for today,
I will be honest in my work.
Just for today,
I will be kind to myself and others.
When you feel ready to complete the exercise, express your gratitude to reiki and the spirit of nature around you. Finish your reiki connection in the way that you would normally, and leave the area. (I give my thanks to reiki, all the reiki ascended Masters, my guides and all other beings of light that may have been present.)
Note down any observations and feelings in your journal.
©2020 by Fay Johnstone. All Rights Reserved.
Publisher: Findhorn Press, an imprint of
Inner Traditions Intl. www.innertraditions.com
Article Source
Plant Spirit Reiki: Energy Healing with the Elements of Nature
by Fay Johnstone.
In this practical workbook, Fay Johnstone demonstrates how energy healers and Reiki practitioners can partner with plant spirit allies and the forces of nature for powerful healing for themselves, others, and our planet. She explains how to include plants and nature in your Reiki practice, both the spiritual/etheric components of plants and the physical plants themselves. She offers many practical exercises, techniques, and meditations as well as case studies and personal experiences to show how best to harness the power of plants on all levels, along with other energy flows, to support the healing process in much the same way that crystals are used as energetic healing aids. She explains how plants connect with the Reiki principles and explores plant spirit allies, chakra work, and healing with the elements of nature. She details how to enhance self-healing and Reiki treatments for others through “bringing the outside in,” creating a healing space, use of plant preparations, and other sacred forms of plant medicine.
Click here for more info and/or to order this book. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Fay Johnstone is passionate about plants and people and draws on her experience as a former owner of a flower and herb farm and her shamanic training to assist personal transformation with the subtle whispers of nature. Fay teaches workshops on plant spirit connection, Earth based healing and offers shamanic treatments across the UK, online, and from her home near Edinburgh, Scotland. Visit her website at http://fayjohnstone.com
