Social networks like Twitter and Facebook give us an opportunity to connect with people we would otherwise never meet. Just a little over a year ago I found
Pamir Kiciman on Twitter, at a time when I was curious not only about Twitter and how to use it, but also when I was looking for ways to enhance my own spiritual path. Shortly after that, I discovered Pamir offered a monthly
Reiju blessing through his
blog . Pamir describes Reiju as
an offering of spiritual consciousness and energy. It’s a spiritual boost, divine blessing, and transfer of spiritual/healing energy. Reiju aligns any area of your life that you identify as central at this time. I have participated in Reiju for a year. I look forward to the beginning of each month now, when the blessings are held; they continue to be a significant part of my healing path. When Pamir finally joined
Facebook, I learned even more about him as healer, poet and
lover of trees. Pamir is thoughtful, inviting, and thorough. I am honored to call him teacher and friend.
I invited Pamir to come speak about Reiki, healing, and enlightenment. Be sure to check out his
blog, where he writes about many topics related to healing and transformation. Every time I interact with Pamir, I come away with new perspectives. Maybe you will too. Please welcome Pamir Kiciman, the Soul Whisperer, to Sacred Circle Mandalas.
- What is Reiki?
Reiki is a wisdom tradition. A wisdom tradition is an enlightenment teaching based on perennial truths. Reiki is founded on specific spiritual meditations its founder, Usui Sensei, recommended. It's an inner path to personal mastery and spiritual evolution. The popularized hands-on practice of Reiki is also founded on this same, embodied wisdom ground. Otherwise, hands-on Reiki is merely a disjointed practice without any depth consciousness to uphold it. I took great care to detail this in my extensive article:
Modern Reiki.
2. Would you please speak to why you view Reiki as a lifestyle rather than an alternative healing modality?
The mind tends to categorize and reduce things. Even in its hands-on application, Reiki is never a modality. "Modality" makes it sound like a #3 wrench you pull out of your toolbox. Reiki is a 'way.' It's a spiritual practice and discipline. And like any other true path, to be supremely effective it has to become a lifestyle. Otherwise, it's no different than a band-aid, a temporary solution.
3. How did you come to work with Reiki? Why Reiki rather any other healing form?
I came to work with Reiki in seeking answers to my own suffering. I prefer Reiki because it comes
through and not
from you. This is so vital. And the learning in Reiki is experiential and embodied, both during the training and one's own practice.
For example, when giving Reiki to others the practitioner is not required to visualize healing energy, direct it to a certain place in a certain way, give it a color; we're not in the business of balancing either. The properly trained practitioner isn't actively involved, isn't in 'doing' mode, isn't making decisions about which imbalances or energies to remove and which to put in. That kind of practice, seen in other therapies which
are actual modalities, is an intellectual and mechanical approach to healing. So much can be said about this...
4. How would you define healing?
There's an impulse to understand and it's what makes us human, but as soon as we try to define something, we reduce it. The best way to see into the mystery of healing is to be in its presence. When we do that, healing emerges as an utter rule-bender, concept-buster, unshackler, and freedom-granter. Healing is a revolutionary! It's always on the leading edge of possibility and reveals the full spectrum of the horizon.
5. What benefits have your students reported receiving from knowing how to work with this energy?
I'd like to take this opportunity to lay to rest the misinformation that Reiki is "energy," "energy healing," "hands-on energy work," or any variety of similar iterations.
While energy is a pervasive facet of life, it simply cannot exist without the even subtler backdrop of consciousness. Consciousness here isn't, "a blow to the head rendered him unconscious," but the primordial state of Being.
The reason Reiki can lead to enlightenment is because when the
full set of practices are given to the practitioner, each application of Reiki is a dipping into nonduality or Oneness. Consciousness in this sense is the substratum of creation. Consciousness is the source of energy and matter. Practicing Reiki only at the layer of energy is like having a bicycle with no pedals.
Fortunately, Reiki is extremely user-friendly! Its benefits are directly available almost immediately and deepen with time for lifelong enrichment. Reiki is
so life-changing that to list how students benefit would be encyclopedic. That's why I started curating Reiki stories. The growing collection can be found in the
Reiki Stories Project on my blog.
6. What is Reiki's place in mainstream medicine?
That really depends on medicine! It also depends on the health consumer's personal choice. I can say this: Reiki is affordable, preventive, and effective even years after the fact. It's noninvasive and without known contraindications. Where health insurance is concerned, Reiki is an option that never drops you or denies you for preexisting conditions.
I was the only non-medical presenter speaking as a Reiki professional at a medical conference last year. Significant portions of that presentation can be found on
my YouTube channel.
At the same time, to practice Reiki only 'medically' is to miss out on its far-reaching riches.
7. How is Reiki compatible with healing art like mandalas?
First, creativity and spirituality are sisters; one flows into the other naturally. Second, Reiki blends with and enhances whatever else you may be pursuing to better yourself, others and life in general. Where mandala art is concerned, like mandalas Reiki is archetypal, it accesses and addresses the cosmic common denominator. Both effect change in the matrix of life.
One of the most important factors in having an optimal inner and thus outer life, is the impressions we allow in through the five senses. In our wireless, mobile world impressions have unprecedented access to us. There's just so much atmospheric noise, and actual violence and negativity seeping in through our senses. This affects the quality of our thinking, the vibrancy of our health, and the resonance of the heart.
Reiki has the ability to charge our living, working and playing environments with Light, and keep them purified. This can also be achieved by hanging mandala art on your walls. Of course, you have to do so with awareness and appreciate the image with understanding. If you hang it to match your couch, that's all it will do!
There are many opportunities to spiritualize life and all must be taken. Otherwise external forces hold sway and life becomes dull, even impossible.
What is needed now, what evolution is demanding, is that we experience the self-transcending power of the soul. We do not have to change the world. We need only reclaim the fullness of our beings that is ever present and always seeking to awaken in us. In so doing, we become transmitters of a profound faith in life, and the world begins to change. 
I am in touch with both the ancient qualities of the redwoods and the energy of new growth when I feel into this mandala. I love the mystical aura present, and the mossy field around the image. Redwood forests are soft and regenerative from decay and new growth.
As far back as I can remember I have been captivated by the teeny tiny flowers on this planet. I love their delicate itty bittyness. These are the blooms that put me nose to nose with nature; and when I think about it I'm sure it was my fascination with these flowers in my childhood that first put me in touch with nature spirits, devas and fairies. I didn't really have a name for it then, but I sure felt their spritely energies. Kenilworth ivy, the source image for this mandala is considered an invasive and noxious weed by gardeners, but I think its adorable; and it got my attention one Sunday morning while I was roaming around the hood.
Bursting with Love (Love Series) © Sue O'Kieffe
Sue O'Kieffe at Art of Wine, Eureka CA May 1-31
Elegant Inspiration Mandala (Circles of Beauty and Light) © Sue O'Kieffe 2010
This photograph of buddleia was taken on a warm October morning, a time when I’m still surprised to see such beauty. This particular genus of flowering shrub is often called butterfly bush, so I imagine the blossoms must smell quite wonderful. I love the delicate lavendar colored flowers that seem to emit a come to me energy. If I were a butterfly, I would certainly want to dance on these blooms.
Spring Illumination Mandala (Circles of Spring) © Sue O'Kieffe 2010
Green Love Mandala (Love Series) © Sue O'Kieffe 2010
Summer Magic Mandala (Circles of Summer series) © Sue O'Kieffe 2009
6 Pointed Mandala Created from Mandala Tutorial 
