by Laurelle Gaia
The air was crisp and clear early one autumn morning in 1997. I was walking my usual route for my morning hike, enjoying the jewel toned colors of the trees, the briskness of the air, and the aromas of the autumn forest and wood burning in the stoves in nearby homes. Suddenly I realized I was slipping into a spontaneous meditative state. I have learned through experience, when this happens, it is important and I had better pay attention. So I found a tree stump in the forest, and sat down to allow the meditation to unfold.
I saw visions of a tropical island, and felt the warmth of the sun beaming down on me, even though I was "really" sitting in a wooded area on a cool autumn day. I saw black, volcanic rock, the sea, and then I saw this most beautiful vision of our Earth. It appeared to be a future vision, and it was as if I were watching frames from a movie. I saw peace in the Middle East, in Africa, in China and Tibet. In fact, I saw glimpses of many areas of the world which frequently experience, political or religious turmoil, or war. All of these areas were at peace. I saw politicians, and religious leaders, and world leaders from all walks of life working together. I saw all people with an abundance of everything they needed, food, clothing, shelter, and love. I saw all the children, being nurtured, feeling loved and secure. I saw all people of the world giving back to our Mother Earth, more than they take. I was seeing visions of perfect peace on our planet and I was experiencing the essence of this peace in that very moment . . . in the now.
I was told in this meditation that the tropical island was the Big Island of Hawaii in Hilo, and that these visions and certain energies were to be anchored into the heart of the Earth by a group of healing channels, and that I was to see that this work is done.
Interestingly enough, I am probably the only person on the planet, who had absolutely no desire to go to Hawaii. I love tropical places, but all my life I had an aversion to traveling to Hawaii. I never quite understood it, I thought perhaps it was a past life experience I was not ready to touch into. I now know it stemmed from a major spiritual healing that I was to personally experience when I went there. There are many legends of Hilo, and especially of Pele the Goddess of the volcano who is considered the great destroyer and creator. It is said that she puts certain people through tests when they visit the island for the first time. Let me just say she chose us for many of these, and some great spiritual healing resulted from them.
I learned long ago that when I have meditative experiences like this which are so clear, I must follow through. So I began to set the wheels in motion. I meditated on what was to be done in Hilo, and was inspired to develop a Reiki Master Training program and retreat. I called my friend and colleague, Duff Cady, a Reiki Master Teacher who had lived in Hilo. I asked him if he would be willing to co-teach with me. He eagerly agreed, as Hilo is one of his favorite places on Earth. He knew the logistics of the island and could help plan activities and healing trips to power spots.
Pay close attention now, because here is where the synchronicity begins. We were to set the date for the retreat. We decided on one date in February, but the next day something changed in my schedule which required us to change the retreat date so that it would take place February 24-March 1 in 1998.
One of the events that we wanted to plan was a world peace meditation inside the house which was formerly Mrs. Takata's Reiki Clinic. The house is now owned by Dr. Klein who is a chiropractor. Duff tried for several months with no success, to reach Dr. Klein to obtain permission to do this meditation. On February 22, Duff and I were very weary after two days of travel as we waited in a crowded Honolulu airport for our flight to Hilo. We turned around for some reason and Duff said "Hey, I think that is Dr. Klein over there", as he motioned to the desk at our gate. I felt a very familiar rush of Reiki energy flow through me in that moment, and knew that it was indeed Dr. Klein. So we began to talk with him and he casually said "You can have your meditation in my office, either Thursday or Friday, just call and confirm the time".
Well we were thrilled, and we decided that we needed to determine how the experience would best flow into our class schedule. As we outlined all the material we needed to cover, it seemed that Thursday, February 26 (pay attention now), would be the best day to plan this. So it was decided.
The retreat began on Tuesday the 24th, and in the grand scheme of the week to come it was rather uneventful, except for the amazing attunement experiences in the wooded area overlooking the lava rocks and the Pacific Ocean.
The morning of the 25th was a field trip to the open market in Hilo so everyone could purchase some fresh food. Five minutes after we began our drive into town, I spotted a magnificent double rainbow over Hilo bay . . . and pleaded with Duff to stop so we could take photographs. It was such an incredible sight . . . the rainbow seemed to end in the center of the bay, yet I could see it even below the surface of the water . . . it appeared to be a never-ending rainbow. What a welcome, and we all felt it was a significant sign that our week would continue to unfold in miraculous ways.
That afternoon I was lamenting that I had not followed my intuition by bringing my professional recording deck with me. It was just too much for my luggage and it had stayed behind. (Little did I know that I actually was following a higher form of guidance). On the afternoon of February 25th we began to look for a sound engineer who could do on location recording of the meditation. Not only did we find one at this late date, but we found one who had considerable experience recording meditations and Gregorian chanting. Had I brought my recorder, we would not have met this talented engineer.
Being the e-mail-aholic that I am, I made my nightly trek to the cyber cafe in Hilo, and that evening was reminded in an e-mail that it was the new moon and a solar eclipse on the 26th. I smiled to myself and thought this would certainly enhance the quality of the meditation, healing and chanting we were to do. Just before I went to sleep that night I sent Reiki to the recording session and the tapes that would be produced, intending that powerful healing would take place for the Earth, and for anyone who participated in the meditations. I also intended that the healing would be for the highest good of all concerned, and that anytime one listened to the tapes, they would be able to tap into the power of the energy in Mrs. Takata's clinic and the astrological energy of the moment.
I awoke very early that morning, and my first thought was I needed to research the internet for more information on this particular eclipse. So I was knocking on the door as my new pal, whom I affectionately called Cyber Dave, was pouring his first cup of coffee. I intended to do some very efficient research because class was to start in an hour. I signed on, and poof, right before my eyes was an e-mail that someone I do not even know had sent me. It was full of details about the eclipse. It said that the earth, sun and moon were in a more perfect alignment than they had been in the past 1,000 years. It also said that world peace meditations were taking place around the world on this day, and it told us much more. I returned to the retreat and shared this information with a very enthusiastic class.
During our morning practice session, Toshika, a student who is from Japan was practicing her healing attunements. I noticed that tears were in Toshika's eyes and at the very same moment, her class partner, Marie, said "I feel someone's hand on my heart chakra". No one we could "see" was touching Marie. We soon learned that Toshika was brought to tears of deep love because in that moment, Mrs. Takata had appeared to her and had touched Marie. She came to comfort Toshika because she was feeling a little unsure. Even though Toshika speaks and understands English fairly well, the translation of the class material was somewhat difficult for her, and she had been concerned that she might make a mistake. Mrs. Takata came to her and said she was there to guide us, and that Toshika had indeed understood my instructions. She told her to just relax, and let Reiki do the work. The very amusing thing about this was when Toshika said, "She was speaking Japanese to me, but she must have come from a different prefecture than me, because I didn't understand everything." Mrs. Takata was speaking Japanese to Toshika in a different dialect!
After this experience, we went to Mrs. Takata's clinic, and set up for our meditation. We pulled into the driveway at 11:11 (for those of you who are into the 11:11 gateway), and although there were only ten in our class, our dear friend Cyd from Hilo joined us, so our group consisted of 11 people. Those participating in the meditation and chanting were from North America, South America, Japan, and Hawaii.
This was a powerful experience for each of us; we knew in that moment we had been called to that place and time because we were needed to anchor the energetic essence of perfect peace into the heart of the Earth. Some say that the Big Island is the solar plexus, power center, of the planet. Others say that the Hilo means new moon, and here we were on the day of the new moon, planting seeds of peace. What an honor, blessing and truly humbling experience.
For me that was probably the highlight of our retreat, yet the week unfolded with a trip to the Volcano National Park where we made offerings of leis and prayers for peace into Kilauea. One other especially moving experience for me was our trek to a remote sacred sight, where there are volcanic steam vents. We carefully climbed down into one. It could only accommodate five of us at a time.
Once inside, we began to chant as we were bathed in volcanic steam. I was guided to chant one of the Karuna Reiki® healing sounds which is for Earth healing. We all joined in chanting and singing this to the Earth. In a few moments, Pele began to respond by sending out huge blasts of steam, as if she was acknowledging and thanking us for our healing work. As this happened I looked up toward the top of the steam vent where there was an opening in the rock. Through the opening I could see a bit of a hillside, a tree and a sliver of the moon. I could also see moisture glistening off the black volcanic rock as steam touched the rock and seemed to vanish. I became mesmerized by this sight, and suddenly began to slip into another time and place, I was seeing myself back in Kentucky that crisp autumn morning, and realized that this moment had been part of my original vision. A deep sense of peace and completion came over me. I knew our mission here was finished. We said a prayer of thanks to Pele in her native language, and a prayer of thanks to the Creator for the honor to serve in this way.
I hope you enjoyed this journey in synchronicity, and I wish you peace, blessings and many great adventures with Reiki.
Notes and Synchronicities: A booklet expanding on the story of this adventure is being produced to go with the tapes and the set will be available soon. In doing some additional research for our booklet, Duff found an ad in a 1941 newspaper at the Hilo library. It was an ad for Mrs. Takata's Reiki treatments, and the date of the newspaper was... you guessed it, February 26th.
Copyright 1998 Laurelle Gaia - reprinted with permission
