‘Coming Out’ in Reiki

My development as a Reiki teacher and community leader was birthed in gritty and vibrant Philly.

I ‘came out’ as a Reiki teacher here. No way else to really describe it. New Jersey is where I learned Reiki but it was this city where I first publically taught from 1997-9 before moving to Seattle.

I was encouraged by my Reiki teachers to hold a Reiki circle and see who would come. Basically step into my very new leadership moccasins.

This was 1997, before any social media existed, so I left flyers in various stores and put one community event posting in the newspaper. A chiropractor I had met let me use her office for the first circle.

15 people I never met showed up to that very first Philly Reiki circle!! It was held several blocks southeast of where I worked in Rittenhouse square. (Photo of my fancy office below ).

Half of those people at circle became my very first Reiki class and the underpinning of the vibrant spiritual community that developed.

More circles came after that and eventually we had to find a larger space. The William Way LGBT community center http://www.waygay.org became our next home.

Because I had sold my car moving to this city with phenomenal public transportation I got around by bicycle as many still do. I lived north of Center City by the Art Museum and Fairmount Park.

I would ride my bike miles each way through the city streets to the William Way center and often bungee cord my Reiki sheets and cassette radio to the back of it!

I started to find my ‘wings’ to soar with practicing and teaching Reiki, flying through those streets with my portable ‘Reiki gear’.

My leadership moccasins became hard soles. I was finding my way and succeeding as a confidant and competent Reiki leader.

(Continued in next blog, stay tuned!)

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst