OUR APPROACH TO REIKI
Reiki energy healing is a complementary wellness modality that focuses on strengthening and balancing the energy – often referred to as a “biofield” – that animates all living bodies.
The Usui Reiki lineage of teachings, in which we are trained, pulls from a hundred-year old Japanese framework developed by Mikao Usui, as well as ancient Tibetan, Indian, and Chinese folk healing traditions that have been carried forward for thousands of years. Most often utilized for stress reduction, relaxation, and pain management, Reiki and similar biofield therapies have also been used as a method to support traditional medical treatments to address wound healing, post-operative care, cancers and the side effects of cancer treatments, among others, and is offered in hospitals and other clinical settings, as it is thought to assist the body in creating an environment to facilitate healing.
As is often the case, folk healing traditions – especially those rooted in non-material experiences – tend to get overlooked or cast aside when it comes to rigorous scientific study for myriad reasons. Even so, when science eventually does focus deeper attention on long-practiced healing modalities that are challenging to quantify, replicate, and peer-review, the results can be not only promising, but validating to our lived, embodied wisdom. While we are science-lovers here at Silvae Spiritus, history has demonstrated that science sometimes needs more time to catch up, and that folk wisdom gets passed down for good reasons. We offer our deepest gratitude to the millennia of ancestors who were medicine people, folk healers, teachers, students, practitioners, and seekers who carried these practices forward through time with love and respect so that we may continue to benefit and grow from these practices today.
Because not all teachers are embodied humans – some are plant people, tree people, animal people, stone people, and beyond – our Reiki energy healing sessions often call upon a deep partnership with nature – seen and unseen – to promote a return to harmony and balance. Each session is tailored to the individual, and may employ the use of natural elements to deepen the experience.
ABOUT YOUR GUIDE
Leigha Horton is a certified Master Teacher of the Usui lineage of Reiki energy healing, having studied under the transformative tutelage of Anishinaabe Healing Practitioner and beloved teacher Renee Butters of She Heals Noojimo Noojimo’iwe.
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I’m honored to draw on a history of deep listening, empathy, intuition, and nature connection to serve as a conduit between how your body, mind, and spirit feel in the present moment and how they feel when you are in a state of harmony and balance. Because whole-person wellness is multi-faceted – I believe an integrated, multi-faceted approach to that wellness is best served by interweaving the energies of touch, music, meditation, plants, trees, and stones into Reiki sessions whenever possible and welcomed.
My intention is for participants to leave feeling heard, tended, and reconnected to their mind, body, and spirit – for it is in the harmony and balance of our wholeness that we find a meaningful foundation for engaging ever more deeply with the world we share.
The Light in me honors The Light in you,
~ Leigha
Silvae Spiritus Co-Founder, sauna guide, nature connection guide, and communicator
WHAT TO EXPECT
Reiki energy healing sessions are private, one-on-one, and are 90 minutes in length unless otherwise agreed upon in advance. At this time, all Reiki sessions will take place indoors, but outdoor sessions, when seasonally appropriate, are in the works.
Upon your arrival, we will orient you to the space and the practice, as well as determine if there is anything you’d like to focus on before we begin. Additionally, we will discuss your preferences for hands-on or hands-off healing (as both are effective in working with a client’s biofield), if you have any medical conditions that require awareness, and if you have any sensitivities to scent, sound, or lighting.
You will remain fully clothed for the duration of the session (non-restricting, comfortable clothing recommended), and you will be invited onto the treatment table where we’ll ensure your physical comfort with the aid of blankets and bolsters.
For the benefit of our shared focus, we will discourage conversation beyond that which is necessary during the energy healing itself. After the energy healing has concluded, we will guide you through re-grounding to your embodied senses. We will then offer the spaciousness to discuss experiences, feelings, and impressions that arose during the session, and can answer any further questions that may have developed.
WHAT IS A “BIOFIELD?”
“Healing practices that purport to sense and modulate “subtle energies” of the body have existed for thousands of years in a wide range of cultures.1 This family of practices, which includes healing touch (HT), Johrei, Pranic healing, Reiki, qigong and therapeutic touch (TT), is increasingly referred to as biofield therapies, a term coined during the US National Institutes of Health Conference in 1992.2 In this paper, biofield therapies are defined as noninvasive, practitioner-mediated therapies that explicitly work with the biofield of both the practitioner and client to stimulate a healing response in the client.
At this same 1992 conference, biofield was defined as “a massless field, not necessarily electromagnetic, that surrounds and permeates living bodies and affects the body.”2 For this paper, we expand the definition to consider biofields as endogenously generated fields, which may play a significant role in information transfer processes that contribute to an individual’s state of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.”
– excerpt from Clinical Studies of Biofield Therapies: Summary, Methodological Challenges, and Recommendations, National Institute of Health, Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information
HEALTH BENEFITS OF BIOFIELD THERAPIES, SUCH AS REIKI
“In addition to biochemical signals, the idea that living systems generate and respond to energy fields as integral aspects of physiological regulation reflects a convergence of several disparate paths. Numerous spiritual traditions describe modes and pathways of energy within and surrounding the physical body (Jain et al, 2015, this issue). Many complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies utilize variants of “laying-on-of-hands” and other minimally invasive procedures to improve endogenous energy flows. Moreover, Western biomedicine routinely examines electrical fields from the heart (via electrocardiogram [ECG]) and brain (via electroencephalogram [EEG]) as indices of clinical pathology. Furthermore, contemporary cell biology and biophysics provide evidence that endogenous electromagnetic and other types of fields play active roles in development, tissue repair, and an array of homeodynamic processes.”3–5
-excerpt from Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts, National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information
“Every living cell membrane ‘has an electric field of very high intensity (around 107 V/m) though of a rather low voltage … one of the basic features of life.’2 Biomedical researchers and clinicians routinely gather meaningful data from the manifestations of endogenous EMFs through the use of skin surface measurements like electroencephalograms (EEGs) and electrocardiograms (ECGs).25 The human body also includes classical acoustic energy fields due, for example, to muscular contraction.26 Coherence is often observed in EEG, which would indicate self-organizing systems.27 Such coherence has been shown to increase during meditative states of settled awareness.”28,29
– excerpt from Biofield Science: Current Physics Perspectives, National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information
$138 for a private 90-minute session, flexible scheduling
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
– Nikola Tesla