Episode 41.
Listen or Watch the episode, or Read the show notes: What is Animal Reiki?
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Brandy Montague 0:01
Welcome to episode number 41 of the For Animals For Earth podcast. Today’s title is: What is animal Reiki? and it’s just me today. so this is one of our bi weekly short episodes where it’s just me, where we’re interspersed between the longer interviews, and then the bi weekly episode with me. I am curious what you all think about that. I would love to hear from you. I am starting to think about season four right now and I’m wondering if you’ve enjoyed this format in season three where we have the shorter episode mixed in with the longer episodes. so let me know. you can email me at hello at for animals for earth.com or you can DM me over on Instagram at For Animals For Earth. I’d love to hear some feedback on that.
Before we start today, two quick announcements. Number one is a reminder that our charity of the Month for April is The Humane League Japan. Maho Uehara Cavalier, who is the regional lead for the Japan office was on the podcast last week in episode number 40. If you haven’t heard her yet, we had a great conversation about the work she is doing to drive cage free eggs, and just better treatment of hens in general, in Japan. so it’s a very fascinating conversation. so if you haven’t heard it, I hope that you will check it out.
As being part of the charity of the month what we’re doing is we’re all jumping in together to follow, like and support them. you can do that at Humane League Japan on Facebook or Instagram. also $5 for everything that is sold in our Etsy shop in April is being donated to The Humane League as well. so let’s see it’s April, yeah April 30. So this Friday is the last day to have the donation go to The Humane League. and that’s our Etsy shop, you can find that at For Animals For Earth on Etsy, as well.
And the second reminder is our meetup that we’re doing every week on clubhouse at 2pm Pacific Standard Time. We have had I think five of them now, and the group ranges anywhere from three to six people, so it’s just a small group, getting together to talk about different things that fit under the umbrella of sustainability. we get a little philosophical in our discussions. Last week we talked about greenwashing and really kind of unfolding, what is actually going on in the corporations that are doing greenwashing. And what can we actually do as individuals to, to try to hold groups accountable, and when should we even be holding people accountable. So really fun, really fruitful discussions. I hope if you are on clubhouse or if you’re interested in joining, you join clubhouse and you come find us. I am at Brandy H Montague on there and we meet every Monday at 2pm Pacific time.
Okay, so our simple idea for today’s episode is to go visit the show notes and spend a few minutes learning more about animal Reiki. so throughout the episode today I am going to share three completely different places to start if animal Reiki is something that interests you. and that is outlined in the show notes as well so you can find those at foranimalsforearth.com/podcast/41.
Hi there this is Brandy and you’re listening to the For Animals For Earth podcast. This is a space where we inspire each other, to take small steps every day to live a more conscious life helping animals, and the planet, while we do it. I’m so glad that you’re here, let’s all take a deep breath. Let’s get started.
So, Animal Reiki, have you heard of Reiki? It is a spiritual healing technique that was discovered, actually, I think rediscovered (there are signs of it being a modality that was used many, many years ago) but it was rediscovered in the early 1920s by a Japanese man named Usui. and he really brought kind of the modern understanding of Reiki into the world. I personally describe Reiki to people as a form of meditation, in which a group of living beings, that could be people, that could be people and animals, that could be plants, just a group of living beings, come together to sit in quiet meditation to foster healing for the higher good of everyone who is there involved, and connect into what is bigger than us.
So Reiki itself is a Japanese word created from two different Kanji. quickly, in Japanese writing Kanji is the kind of the fancy characters that you see written in the Japanese alphabet, and they’re typically written vertically from right to left. So the word Kanji is made up of, sorry the word Reiki is made up of two kanji rei, and ki. So rei being the top kanji means universal or connecting to all, connecting heaven and earth and all living beings. it’s really about something being present everywhere. And then the bottom kanji is about the energy that moves through our bodies, it’s our spirit, or our vitality, as a living being. One of my favorite sayings back from when you know we were living in Japan was ki o tsukete. Ki o tsukete means take care of your spirit. It means Be careful, but in a bigger sense it means protect your spirit. So when you put rei and ki together you get this idea of universal life force energy connecting what is inside us as a living being, with what is bigger than us and connects us to everything out there, you know, in the world and beyond.
So being an engineer, I often get asked like, what? you really believe in Reiki? And I have to tell you that, I mean, I really do. For me, I see a very clear alignment, not a disconnect between the healing modality of Reiki and the science that we have seen in our world. as well as spiritual you know. I am also Catholic and I’ve also gotten asked a lot, well how can you be Catholic and believe in Reiki like those two things are very against each other? And I don’t see it that way at all. So I would share that, my personal experience is that those things that I have learned throughout my life to be truths, align so perfectly with Reiki.
So, on the engineering side, I would share just a little experiment for you to do next time you’re around another person, another human being. Lay your hand on that person’s arm and just leave it there for a minute or two, and feel how that energy heats up and fires up between the two of you. And I think there’s no questioning, there’s no mistake, that there is an energy exchange going on there, between the two of you. I think another example of this is, have you ever been walking down the sidewalk in a city and a car comes at you on the street and you immediately lock eye contact with that driver or the passenger in the car, and you don’t know them, they don’t know you, and they’ve passed, you know, right after. And there’s something that happens. There’s an energy that connected you to that person that made you both recognize each other in that split second, and just to have that little exchange. To me, I think there’s a clear energy grid that connects all of us and there’s clear energy between us and the closer we get to each other, the stronger we feel that energy. And the more that we practice getting quiet and grounded and noticing those subtle energies, the more we notice them everyday in our lives.
And then on the you know, spiritual and religious front, I mean, I was sitting in church one day, and the priest was talking about the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden for me there was just this light bulb. And I was like, you know, for years, 1000s of years, people have been talking about the Holy Spirit, and this, you know, kind of unspoken energy that is shared between us and what is higher than us and for me that just fell into place, making complete sense. And so when I practice Reiki, I ask for the guidance from the Holy Spirit and from God. And that is, for me, what helps me connect into a higher power, but you know it’s different for everybody and I think that’s the beauty of it. I think we all can feel the energy that connects us. We all know there’s an energy that connects us, and we all have a different view of what is higher than us and what we can’t see, but we understand. And I think no matter what that view is, you can really learn and embrace Reiki.
So, Reiki itself as a practice there are many complexities to it and there’s a lot to learn and to hone your skill as a practitioner and as a healer. And the way that you learn will be determined by who you study with, you know, it started with Usui in Japan, but then he taught people and they taught people and they taught people. And now, I would imagine you’re hearing it in the world very often, as I feel like Reiki is like the yoga of 40 to 20 years ago, how it was becoming a much more well known and popular thing, I think that’s what’s happening with Reiki right now too. and I think in 10 years, it’s going to be a very common modality, in our world. and so there are, there are many different ways to learn it and places to learn it and there are many, many layers and complexities to learning how to ultimately be a clear channel between what is higher than us and what is right here with us as living beings. but the reality is that you can get started right now, because the base of all Reiki is meditation.
It’s all about practicing and learning how to quiet your mind while grounding your body and tuning in to those subtle energies and frequencies around us. And then when it comes to animal Reiki, I learned and studied a method called let animals lead by Kathleen Prasad. And her method of animal Reiki is really centered on treating animals as equal beings to us, and we’re sitting together and we’re sharing energy. We are not coming in to heal them, per se, and I see that the same way with humans, like when I practice Reiki, I’m not coming in to heal anybody. I’m coming in to bring light and compassion and love and be an open energy being sharing the space with another energy being for the healing, and the better good of all of us.
So what’s really cool about that with animals is the animals already vibrate and live at a more grounded frequency than we do as human beings, you know. They already are so much more in tune with this universal life force energy that connects all of us. Right, so it’s actually, in my view, a blessing when we get the chance to have an animal join us in a Reiki session because a lot of times what happens is the human ends up getting more out of it than the animal. But I do truly believe that everybody experiences healing, when we come together in this grounded, loving, compassionate place.
So as I said at the top of the episode I put together three places to start if animal Reiki interests you. These are all available in the show notes which again are at ForAnimalsForEarth.com/podcast/41. Okay, the first of the three is you can start by listening to a series called the Coast to Coast Reiki chats that my friend Patti from inner peace Reiki and yoga and I did over the course of the last, I guess, year and a half, maybe two years. we put together a video chat series where she and I talked a lot about how we practice Reiki in our daily lives, and we brought on other practitioners and did interviews, have them share how they do it. so that would be a really great place to start if you are just kind of, if this episode piqued your interest and you want to learn more.
A second great place, is you can actually learn from my teacher. so she has, oh my gosh, so many books and classes available in her method. her name is Kathleen Prasad, and she teaches the lead animals lead method. So I have links to all of her stuff there in the show notes as well.
And the third way is if you are interested in learning animal Reiki from me. so I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a workshop to teach just the basics of meditating with animals, and to share a couple of meditations that you could begin doing in your daily life with the animals around you, or reaching out to animals in the world that you want to help. and it would just be getting into a daily meditation practice with animals. so if you are interested in a workshop led by me, there’s a form there in the show notes to sign up for that as well.
So again, that’s all at ForAnimalsForEarth.com/podcast/41.
Thanks for hanging out today. I hope you enjoyed learning a teensy bit about animal Reiki. If this was interesting, please share it with a friend and please check out those resources. Follow us wherever you are listening to the show, and if you’re up for it and you listen on Apple, please leave us a review. they are really helpful. I will be back again next week. I am actually going to be joined by Kym from Crossroads Campus, which is a nonprofit in Nashville, that provides affordable housing and jobs and they are a pet rescue. how amazing does this place sound? you guys it’s, it’s incredible. I’ve been researching them and I can’t wait for the interview. so that will be here next week. See you soon, Bye.
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