by Penelope Quest
Many people are very fond of animals, so if you are attuned to Reiki, it can be especially delightful and satisfying to extend your gift of healing energy to your pets. I have had some interesting experiences using Reiki with animals, and I can give you some ideas for the best and easiest ways to channel Reiki for the benefit of animals and other creatures. Of course Reiki is a wonderful healing tool for every living thing, and most types of animals respond to it very well, in such an unquestioning and trustful way that it can be quite a humbling experience. It does seem that animals are very much more in tune with their own health and energy needs than humans, and they are also much more intuitive and can detect healing energies more easily than we can. Because of this, they are often drawn to people whose energies they know will help them, so as a Reiki channel, you may well find yourself like the "pied piper" in the well-known fairytale — although hopefully you won't attract just rats!
The Basics of Treating Animals
First let's look at the basic methods for using Reiki with animals. The way you treat a particular animal will obviously depend upon its size and temperament, and whilst with some you can follow a similar format of hand positions to those you would use on humans, with others you may need to use different methods depending upon specific circumstances. The six main approaches I have found useful are as follows:
- Placing the hands directly on the animal whenever it is safe and practical to do so.
- Placing the hands on the cage or tank in which the animal is housed if the animal is too small or too dangerous to touch, or if direct touch would disadvantage the creature (e.g., a fish).
- Holding a small animal in your hands if this is safe to do and won't frighten the creature too much.
- Sending Reiki through the aura to an animal, either holding your hands directly above the animal or from several meters away.
- Using the Reiki symbols to direct Reiki to an animal, which can be even more effective than method 4 above.
- Sending a full distant treatment to an animal, once, or as a regular thing in the case of severe illness. A stuffed animal can also be used as a surrogate to send distant Reiki to the animal.
Treating through the aura
Most of the methods above will be familiar to you, but perhaps I had better explain about sending Reiki through your aura to an animal. You probably know that the energy field around your body can extend as much as 60 feet (9.2 metres) in front of you, and the same distance behind you (see my article "Sensing Auras and Chakras" in Reiki News Volume One, Issue Three), although 20 to 30 feet (3 to 4.5 metres) is probably more usual. This means that if you are standing up to 20 feet away from an animal, it is probably encompassed in your aura, so all you need to do is think and intend that Reiki is filling your aura, and it will do so, and then the animal will be surrounded by Reiki. You can then intend that the Reiki flows into the animal for its greatest and highest good, and if the animal is happy to receive it, that is what will happen. Even if an animal is much further away, you can still connect to it in this way because it is possible to consciously push your aura out as far as you need it to go - even 500 metres or more - by visualising the edge of your aura expanding until it is large enough for the animal to be inside it, and then letting your aura fill with Reiki, as before, allowing the Reiki to flow into the animal's aura and from there into its body, if the animal is willing to receive it. (It is unlikely that the Reiki will be rejected, but there will be no harm done either way, because the Reiki will just work with your own aura if this happens, which is fine.) This method is an alternative to using the Reiki symbols to send Reiki, so it is a good way for people to work if they haven't done Reiki 2.
This is an excerpt from an article in the Fall 2003 issue of Reiki News Magazine.
