Dive Into Reiki: Kathleen Prasad is the founder of Animal Reiki Source and president of the Shelter Animal Reiki Association (SARA). A Reiki practitioner for over 22 years, Kathleen Prasad teaches and shares the healing benefits of Reiki meditation for animals and their caregivers. Kathleen has created the Let Animals Lead® method of Animal Reiki. This method represents the world's first specialized, extensive, and professional curriculum in Animal Reiki and meditating with animals for healing. Kathleen's non-profit, SARA, shares and teaches Animal Reiki for rescued animals and their caregivers in shelters and sanctuaries worldwide. 
I have to say that basically, Kathleen, you created the modality of Animal Reiki. I wasn't a thing before you came up with it. So, I'm really grateful you said yes to this interview. I want to start as I do with everyone, with a little bit of your origin story: tell us about the first time you came in contact with Reiki?
Kathleen Prasad: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Nathalie. I'm really happy to be here. My Reiki story is, I guess, similar to a lot of people that I've heard where it's unexpected, and it sort of takes over when you had other plans. Maybe the best things in life are like that! 
I originally discovered Reiki through my mother-in-law. She wanted me to get a [Reiki] treatment because she had had one. She lived in Denver at the time, and I lived on the West coast. So, the next time I visited her, she set up this whole thing, "Oh, you have to go get this treatment." I'm like, "Reiki? That sounds weird." And I was like, I'm like humoring her. That's why I did it. I got that first treatment, and it was so relaxing and peaceful. More than peaceful, like filled with well-being like filled with goodness and light.
I had grown up with severe anxiety disorders. So, I was always stressed, always nervous. And when I had my Reiki treatment, I felt just good. Like everything was okay, you know. I got up off the table, and I felt like I was levitating a few inches off the ground. I felt so light. Like all my burdens had been lifted. I just felt so good. And I'm like, "Oh my God, this is going to heal my anxiety." I never thought I would be able to be healed. I almost never even put that in my mind that I could heal my anxiety. I was just like, "I'm an anxious person. Oh, well, I have to live with it." The door opened that there was a possibility that my anxiety could be healed. I immediately dropped everything and had to learn Reiki. I found a local teacher. I also ended up studying the next time I went to Denver with a teacher in Denver, Martha. And it was Reiki from thereon. I literally started every single day practicing Reiki and just totally dove into it. I dove into Reiki, Nathalie!

DIR: Oh my God. I love that! Many of us who suffer from anxiety embrace Reiki as it is one of the few things beyond medication that actually help us. It gives us the possibility of feeling fine and not scared, which is beautiful. So how was that training? And what lineage did you train it at the beginning?
KP: The two lineages I learned originally for the first seven or eight years were Takata lineages or Reiki Shiki Ryoho. One of my teachers was Reiki Alliance [and was] actually very strict. It was very "Hands-on, Reiki on; Hands-off, Reiki off." That was like how I originally learned. 
And my practice that I began immediately was hands-on, self-treatment every day, as soon as I learned. And then my other teacher in Denver, Martha, was much less traditional and much more intuitive. She's also an acupuncturist, so she kind of brought in a lot of Chinese medicine philosophy and that sort of spiritual teachings along with intuition. She was much more like, "Well, you know, your hands will guide you. You have these hand positions to start with, but you can be more flowing and freer with it." I think it was nice to have both of those teachers and perspectives in the beginning.
I think it gave me a really good foundation for what Reiki is, and mostly for my own healing. What I always teach my students now is that Reiki actually starts with you. And even though you're here for your animals—because everyone who comes to me wants to help their animals—it starts with you. 
I learned that really strongly from my first two teachers about self-practice. I was able to really focus on myself. And it was interesting because when I was doing my hands-on self-practice, that was when my dog, Dakota, came and laid on top of my feet in this really weird way that he never did. And he only did it when I was doing Reiki. And I'm like, "What are you doing?" And finally, it dawned on me that he was like taking the Reiki space. He was like helping himself to some lovely healing energy. So, I sat down on the floor and put my hands on him. He rolled on his side, and he was like, "Finally, mom, jeez, I've been trying to tell you, I want Reiki."
It just didn't occur to me. I was so focused on my own healing. Dakota showed me that animals love Reiki. The other thing it showed me, which was kind of like a light-bulb moment, was that animals already know what Reiki is. For me, I had to take a class, I had to read about it. I was like, "This is confusing." And then my teacher would be like, "Well, just practice it, and then it will make more sense." And my dog's like, "Oh yeah, Reiki, totally. Totally get it. I'm taking this for healing. This is great. Thanks, mom!" And I'm like, "How do you know?" It was fascinating to me how animals are so energetically sensitive and very wise about energy. And so that kind of brought me onto a little different trajectory with my Reiki practice. I mean, I was so immersed in Reiki, and I loved it so much, and it was helping my anxiety so much that I thought, "I want to do this. I want to teach this." It just became bigger and bigger in my life. But then the animals were coming forward and saying, "But Kathleen, don't forget about animals!"
I was volunteering at shelters, and I was walking dogs and working with cats. I was seeing amazing responses to Reiki from these animals that were very stressed. I knew exactly how they felt because that was like my inner way of being stressed. And I'm like, "Oh, I know Reiki can help you because it's helping me." I would do Reiki with my horse, and people would walk by the stall, look in and go, "What are you doing? Can you do that for my horse?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I guess so." It just started taking over. That was kind of where it really began. 
I still remember going to dinner with my husband and my brother-in-law, and I'm like, I thought I would teach middle school my whole life. Now I feel so inspired about Reiki and also animals. And my brother-in-law said, "Well, why don't you do animal Reiki?" And I'm, "Because nobody does animal Reiki. That's not a thing." And he's like, "Well, why don't you make it a thing?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah, okay. I can. Why not? I can make it a thing, you know?" That conversation over dinner created something in me that [felt like] "It's okay that I'm the only one who does this. It's okay that nobody understands." I just knew at the core of my being that this is my purpose. This is what I'm supposed to bring to the world. This is what I'm supposed to do. So here we are, 23 years later, and animal Reiki is a thing now!

DIR: You made it! I am amazed because Reiki was already not that well-known 23 years ago. You mostly invented the modality of animal Reiki. It was really a big breakthrough at the time. Reiki is becoming one with the universe, but we keep it very much limited to humans. I love that you had that breakthrough. And I loved that it was someone who was outside who could see with fresh eyes and give you that insight. In our pre-interview, you told me your teacher's reaction to the idea of focusing on Reiki practice with animals. 
KP: Yeah. My very first teacher was like, "No, you can't do that! That's not a thing. You have to do all your training with Reiki. And then you have to teach Reiki to people you can't do [animals.] That's just not a thing." And I was like, "Okay."
Then I went to my second teacher in Denver, Martha. And I'm like, "Is this a bad idea? I want to focus totally on animals… What do you think?" And she's like, "Kathleen, that is the most amazing idea. And if anyone is going to do it, you're the person to do it. And I support you 110%." That was how I [started] because you have to have a teacher who will train you in Level 3 Reiki to be a Reiki teacher to go any further. I had to find that person, and Martha was that person for me. I'm really grateful that she saw potential and possibility where other people were like, "Oh no, no, you can't do that."

DIR: I just love that. When it comes to the Reiki system, we have to respect the core and the modalities, but we have to express it through who we are in our practice. For you, that's your expression. For me, it's a lot about our reporting and educating or mixing it with martial arts—we all have very different expressions of Reiki. As long as we do it based on who we are, not for marketing. So I think that is lovely. Can you tell us how your protocol to share Reiki with animals evolved from your practice with people?
KP: Yeah. So, you know, I love people too. After all, we are animals also. My first teacher gave me a lot of experience. She would send clients to me. I was going to hospices. I was working on hospital patients. I was going to people's homes, and people will come to my home. So, I was doing a lot of human treatments for the first seven years of my practice. And I had a lot of really beautiful experiences with that. 
I think some of the most moving ones were the ones with hospice patients and really seeing a deeper connection than just hands-on for a sore knee or a sore leg. [There was] something more important, something bigger kind of going on. I think that that really moved me. Some of those treatments were not conventional because they couldn't be touched if they were in a hospital bed. You could just sit and hold their hand.  
I remember my neighbor got hit by a drunk driver, and she got a brain injury. I went in to see her in the ICU to do Reiki. I sat down, and I just put my hand on her foot because that was the only place [I could.] I mean, she was so banged up! You couldn't touch her anywhere. And I'm like, "Well, my teacher would not approve this. This is not strict." I put my hand on her foot; I felt so much Reiki flowing through me. I got like pain all the way up my arms to my shoulders, and I was buzzing all over. I knew that that healing connection was happening.
The nurse had said, "She's out cold. She's on meds. She's not going to wake up, but you can sit with her." So, I'm sitting with her, and about 15, 20 minutes later, I hear this little voice, "Kathleen, I knew it was you." She's awake. She could only open one eye. She was all swollen. Her name is Stella, and she has this adorable cute little voice, just adorable… She said, "Kathleen, I knew it was you. I felt like I was at the bottom of this black hole, and I wanted to give up because I was in so much pain. And then I saw this light, and I knew I was going to be okay. It felt like you pulled me up into the light." It was so amazing to hear that, you know? Because we don't get that kind of verbal feedback from animals, right? And I was like, "Wow."
I didn't even do the right positions or anything. I was just sitting there with [my friend]. And I thought that is what is happening when I go to a shelter, and I sit with a dog, and the dog is depressed and listless, and there's nobody home in their eyes. Their eyes are just tuned out. I sit with them outside the kennel, and all of a sudden, they see me, and they come over and wag their tail. I would even have dogs roll in their back for me to reach through the bars and rub their belly at the end of the session. They would just come back to hope, into positivity through Reiki. It was pulling them up into the light—how she described. When she said that to me, I got the vision of all these shelter animals that I could see felt so much better after Reiki sessions.
The human practice gave me verbal feedback for what people experienced and felt that I could see in animals. It helped me make that bridge and trust a little bit more. But when I worked with animals, a lot of times, I couldn't touch them in the beginning. I tried to just use the hand positions that I'd learned for people and put them on animals. I would never start at the head because animals don't like that. I would start at the shoulders, and I moved down the body, and then I would end on the head when they were really relaxed from Reiki or something. So that's how I began. My first book, Animal Reiki, really shows that type of thinking; it was really taking human protocol and modifying it for animals.
But I had a little problem with that because some animals were like, "Sure, that's great." As I was doing it, some animals were looking kind of uncomfortable. And then, after two minutes, they would run away. I'd only get in like two minutes of Reiki. Then some animals would be like, "Oh hell no, you're not doing that to me." They would totally run, and then I'd be like, "But then you don't get any Reiki. There's no healing happening." 
That feeling of wanting to help and create that beautiful space of pulling you into the light, in a moment of suffering, bringing you into that well-being. How do I make it so that every animal feels safe and comfortable and I'm not pushing too much. Like, "Here's some healing energy, come back. I'm trying to help you!" And running after the animals. "Come back; the healing is for you!" right?

DIR: I've run after a few cats myself!
KP: I thought that it just didn't feel satisfying. It didn't feel right. It just wasn't good. So I'm like, "Whoa, what do I do?" if I would think, okay, who's like the most sensitive animal, like, let's say, a feral cat, right? A feral cat is afraid of humans. Doesn't want to be in a cage; he wants to be free. Their eyes get all big when they see a person. What do I have to do so that a feral cat feels the peace of Reiki and trusts me to step into connection. I want every animal, even the most fearful ones, to feel safe. I don't want to push my will or my agenda on them.
It was finding the instances where I was modifying the protocol for people because I had to. It worked and then tried to make it more comfortable for animals. Respecting them more, not wanting to dominate over them as the Reiki healer, but seeing it as shared decision-making—they can decide yes or no. That was where my protocol started to really go in a different direction. And the first thing I had to do is let go of hands. That was so hard because remember, my first teacher taught me, "Hands-on, Reiki on; Hands-off, Reiki off." That was really ingrained. 

DIR: Many teachers still teach that even though there is no mention of hands-on in the Reiki precepts—it's all about your state of mind. In your case, your practice forced you to let go of the hands because it's difficult to use touch on animals who have been abused. 
KP: Hands are bad for a lot of animals. They've never known kindness. They've been abused. So, when they see you with your hands, they look at [them] like they're weapons. It's really heartbreaking. I thought, "What if I just put my hands in my lap? Where's Reiki coming from?" These were thoughts that I had. If I looked at my own practice of hands-on Reiki, what was it doing? It was changing my heart. My heart that was so anxious and had so much fear was relaxing and opening and just feeling so good. I'm like, "Reiki really touches this [points to the heart.]". So that's what I say now to my students, "Reiki is about touching hearts, not hands." That was really my first scary, like, "Oh my God, am I still doing Reiki now that I'm letting go of hands?"
[Hands up] is a predatory position. I wouldn't even be across the room [holding my hands up] because I look like I'm going to pounce and attack. The hands had to be on the lap, not beaming, not doing anything. 
Hands-on the lap: animals would be like, "Oh!" Then I had a couple of animals I knew had surgeries or a torn ligament. They would come over, and they'd actually look at my hands on my lap, and then they would turn around, and they back up their stitches and sit down on my hand. They would literally be doing their own hand position. I never saw that coming. Animals will choose physical touch, and they will choose it in their own way. And you know why I never saw that before? Because I never made space for it to happen.

DIR: Because it's contrary to what we learn. When I learned Reiki for animals initially, it was about hand-placement, chakras for animals, and not doing them for more than 10 to 15 minutes. I was told that because they don't have limiting beliefs, they absorb energy faster.
When I trained in Japanese-style Reiki, I realized I no longer needed hands. But I love the fact that these animals actually wanted touch—albeit in their own way. You must have been so surprised.
KP: It was the weirdest feeling. I'm like, "Why didn't I do this before?" A horse would come and lean into my hands, and then they would move their body around. It wasn't in any order. It was just where they felt good. And I'm like, "Wow, animals actually have a way that they like to be." And not all animals came up and touched me. Some animals would lay down five or 10 feet away. Some fearful dogs would come and lay down behind me and lean against my back. And it was really important that I didn't turn around or look at them. I didn't even see them the whole treatment, but I would feel them very gingerly lay themselves. And I would hear them [sigh].
Some animals didn't want to be in my line of vision. Some animals wanted to be further away, some closer, some in my hands. And I'm like, "Wow. If I just hold space, animals decide what's comfortable for them. If I'm not pursuing some agenda, then I never scare them. If I just sit quietly, then they're always comfortable. They're always safe. The trust is built so quickly. That was a huge change in my protocol. I'm like, "Well, we can't do hands. We can't do hand positions anymore because we might offend somebody. We might come on too strong. We might make an animal uncomfortable. We might lose trust."
By the way, what you said about timing. The first ten years of my practice, when I was really just trying to do as many Reiki treatments as possible, an hour, 60 minutes, that was the ideal time.
A lot of that idea of short treatments is about our lack of ability to hold space. We get impatient because nothing's happening. We're not doing a protocol so that if the animal gets up and leaves, let's just finish. But guess what? You just continue to hold space. They come back. It's like an ebb and a flow. They walk in and out of the space, and they come closer, further away. But if you never just sit and hold the space, you never see them come back. Because you're like, "Oh, it's been two minutes. They got up and walked off, so I'm done. Bye. And you leave, and the animal comes in and goes, "Where did she go? I came back for more Reiki. She's gone already. It's only been two minutes!

DIR: I remember they told me if an animal leaves, it's because it's ready. It's funny because I easily hold focus on space for 15 minutes. I've learned to concentrate and hold the space for an hour, two hours, but 15 minutes—when I'm busy—it's the amount of time I can hold without effort. And probably that is common to many of us. But we blame it on the animal!
There is something I love that you mentioned: respect the animal. And your big Reiki aha or oops that change your perspective on sharing Reiki with animals even more. 
KP: Yes, that's like the second major change in my protocol that happened. And it happened from this mistake that I was making for such a long time, in human Reiki. I'd always learned to talk to the person about their issue and then focus on that issue. If they come to you and they say, "My knee is really sore," then you're going to focus the energy and place your hands around the knee. If they say I'm really sad, maybe you would focus on the heart. You're kind of trying to figure out what the issue is. Of course, Reiki goes where it needs to go. Still, you're having a conversation about what is wrong and focusing your protocol around that to some extent, right? That's kind of the way that I learned from both of my teachers initially. 
I noticed with animals, especially horses, taught me that the opposite was true. If a horse had a sore leg, and I went anywhere near that sore leg or even thought about that sore leg… their ears would go back. They would turn and look at me like, "Ugh, don't think about what's wrong with me. I'm totally fine." And they'd walk out. With cats, it was funny. I would go to someone's house to do Reiki on their cat, and the cat would be sleeping. I would stay across the room. I wouldn't disturb them. And the person would tell me, "You know they have this kidney disease, they're not able to eat, and it's making them very ill," or whatever. And then I'd sit down, I'd start Reiki, and I'd start going, "Okay. So, they have this kidney disease, and we want to heal." They'd wake up and be like, "I don't know who you think you are coming into my house and thinking about me as if I'm not perfect, but I'm out of here." And they would run off, you know? And I'm like, "Oh shoot. Are they really hearing my thoughts?" Yeah. They were. And they don't like you to focus on their ailments!
That's really scary that I have to monitor my own thinking because they're connecting, not only with what my body's doing… [but with my mind.] But how do I monitor my thoughts? So I would give myself affirmations. So if an animal was really anxious, I would think about affirmations of courage. I was trying to like create positivity, but I was missing a piece. I was missing something, and this did not come clear to me until I got breast cancer. 
I had the terrible experience of having the diagnosis and then going home and telling all your friends and family and seeing their faces and how they look at me completely change. Like no longer am I Kathleen. Now I'm a tumor. When they look at me, all I see is fear, pity, sadness, worry—varying degrees of that from everyone who looked back at me. 
It was the worst feeling. I felt I had lost myself. You don't realize how much you identify with the way people look at you, especially with people that are close to you, that you love. The way they see you is really part of who you are. When that is completely gone, I was like, "Where did Kathleen go?" It was extremely painful. I was already terrified of what was going to happen to me. And all of this made everything so much worse. 
Let me tell you, who in my life could see me still? My dog and my horse. When I went to see them next, they're like, "Hey mom, great to see you. This is awesome. What are we doing today? Let's go for a walk. We're going to ride today!" And I'm like, "How come my animals can still see me?" Then I realized, "Oh my God, I have been doing this terrible thing to the shelter animals and to the animals and hospice. I've been seeing them as broken, as less than. I've been defining them by their ailment. When they look at me, they see it reflected in my eyes everything wrong and broken!" It broke my heart. I realized I was in the shelter trying to do the right thing there to help. To support—and I was actually adding to their burden. I would never have seen it had it not happened to me.
That was the biggest mistake I ever made in my practice: defining animals and people by what's wrong with them and focusing on that. That's where my protocol completely shifted again in a whole different way. 
I say now—it's the third pillar of my Let Animals Lead method—is that we focus on the animals' perfection at this moment. Seeing that essence—like my dog sees when he looks at me when my horse looks at me—is always perfect. Doesn't matter if I'm in a bad mood. If my hair is messed up, if I have cancer, whatever it is—I'm perfect. And they look at me, and I'm like, how do they see that essence? I need to see that essence in myself so that I can get better. And I need to see it in the animals that I'm with. I just vowed I will never do that to another being. It's so painful. 
That's such a big thing that I teach now. It's so different: a protocol where you basically let go of whatever the diagnosis is, whatever the issues are. You acknowledge them and go, "Okay, yeah, but now we're doing Reiki, so in this space, you are the light. All is well. You're perfect in this space. It's filled with love and compassion. I think you have to see that in yourself before you can really see it in others. 
My cancer journey really taught me, "How do I see myself as the light in my darkest moments?" That was just a lot of what I learned through my journey. It's something that I always tell my students: "I don't want you to have to go through cancer to figure this out. So, I'm telling you right now. This is how you see. Let go of everything wrong. Nothing can diminish and dim that beautiful light within. It's still there. Even in the little dog who's passing away, that's very sick. I want you to see deeper than that. See their beautiful light shine. Be a mirror, reflect it back to them, remind them of that beautiful light. And then whatever's meant to happen in their journey—if they get well if it's their time to pass—they will be embraced in the light. Just like my neighbors, Stella said, pulling them up into the light. We can't control what happens, but we can create a space filled with love and compassion, and light in every moment. Peace in every moment. It's possible.

DIR: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know it's a very vulnerable story, so I really appreciate you sharing it. And again, I think he's great for animals, but for me, what you're saying is basically the essence of Reiki. You actually created the Let Animals Lead method, which has six pillars. Can you explain what they comprise?
KP: The Let Animals Lead method is something that represents the evolution of my own journey. The little lessons that animals have taught me along the way.
The first pillar of this practice is that it's based on Japanese Reiki techniques. Of course, that was my teacher Frans [Stiene,] which I know you've also studied with. When I studied with him, he presents Reiki as a meditation practice. When I learned that aspect and slant on the different tools that we have, that really opened things up. Because, of course, with animals, you can't use the hands-on protocol anymore. So, it's all meditation-based. All those Japanese teachings are really at the foundation and core of what kind of meditations I do—I do Reiki meditation. So whether it's the symbols and the mantras, Hatsurei Ho, the precepts even, are taught as like a mantra.
[You use them to] go inward and create that radiance that the animals can step into and step out of. The Let Animals Lead method is really about meditating with animals for healing. But at the base, the first pillar is those Japanese Reiki techniques. 
I always tell my students, there are six pillars. Only the first one is Reiki. It's really evolved into something more and different. Why? Because wanting to empower animals. Wanting to make them feel safe. Wanting to be able to deepen my trust with them. That sacredness of animals has really driven the rest of the pillars. 
The second pillar is about touch. We use touch only when animals initiate it. That is very different than what others have done in the Reiki community. In the beginning, you know, touch was just done. And then people started to realize, "Oh, some animals don't like touch. We should give them a choice." Which is good. Now the normal teaching is to put your hands on the animal but let them walk away. That's kind of the way that the human teachings have been modified for animals. In the Let Animals Lead method, that's not far enough. We never want to even go there with the touch if the animal doesn't 110% want it. How do we make sure [of that?] Let them be the ones to do it. 

DIR: It's like #metoo in a way.
KP: Totally. And especially when you're talking about animals who have trauma. This is not a mistake that you can afford to make because it may be very difficult or impossible to regain their trust once you've crossed that line. Your animals at home may forgive you, and it's not a big deal. 

DIR: Yeah. They forgive everything!
KP: Yeah. My philosophy about that is that if I'm going to give the utmost sacred respect and choice to a traumatized animal, why wouldn't I do that to the animal who is my partner in life? Wouldn't I afford them the same respect? Just because they're nice, I shouldn't take advantage of that. It's always animal-initiated. We never cross that line. Trust the animal with that. 
The third pillar is about that state of mind change. We focus on the animals' perfection. And that is very different as well. What's taught a lot in the animal Reiki community now is finding out the diagnosis, figuring out the issues, and then focusing on those areas. Some people use the chakra; some people just visualize light beaming to the sore ankle or whatever it is—but they focus on what's wrong. 
Because of my unique experience with how that feels negative when you're suffering, I said, "Hell no, we're not doing that." We're going to stand in the light. And we're only going to see the light, and we're going to reflect the light back. We're going to be one in the light. The light is all there is. Everything else just dissolves in that light. I call it seeing with your Reiki eyes, but that is really seeing. That's not easy. That's why we have to practice. So the focus of our state of mind is really important with animals, because, again, [they] sense your thoughts. They're going to become uncomfortable and resistant to connecting with you if they sense your thoughts going to what's wrong with them. Your vibration totally changes when you start going, "Oh my God, they have this skin condition." Or if you look at them and say, "You're perfect and beautiful." You're not denying that they have a skin condition. But you're saying that doesn't define you—I see more. I see that beautiful essence of you. 
The fourth pillar is something that working with animals will teach you: meditation is a way of compassion. It's not a physical body position. You do martial arts. When you learn your forms or even your meditations to prepare for your forms, it's very strict. Your back is straight. Everything is in alignment. And that's very important. 
When you're working with animals, you might be in a barn with a horse. You could be in a pasture with a cow. You might be sitting outside, under a tree with a bird. You could be in a shelter environment, and there's the public walking in and out, so you have to shift where you're going. You could be walking in a forest with your dog. In all these places, it's possible to be Reiki. If we understand that Reiki is not a physical position, it's our state of mind and heart. It's our way in the world. It's like a way of compassion. Animals understand that. 
If you have ever taken a yoga class or something, everyone's meditating at the beginning. You have your cute little outfit on, and they have music, and everybody's all shiny and looking good. But for all you know, everybody in the class is thinking about something else entirely, totally distracted, not even focused. And the teacher will look out and be like, "Yeah, look how great the class looks." And you look around you go, "Yeah, everyone's so namaste. It's totally awesome, right?" Nobody knows. Well, let me tell you if you were standing in a pasture of horses and you look perfect, but mentally you're out to lunch, your heart is not in it, the animals will know like that! And they will not tolerate it. They'll just be like, "Whatever," and they'll just leave. 
I work at the care foundation usually in February. Although I didn't get to go this year, I've been going there for 10 years, working with exotic animals, rescued animals like alligators, crocodiles, monkeys, like everything. They're so sensitive to your state of mind. If you don't have your whole heart in it if you're not completely open and in that grounded space, forget it. They will have nothing to do with you. No way. It doesn't matter how great your yoga outfit is and how perfect your posture is. They're like, forget it.
It doesn't really matter whether I'm sitting or standing; my eyes are open or closed. If you're with horses in a pasture, you have to keep your eyes open to be safe. You're going to be aware. They can spook; you have to keep your wits about you. How do you meditate while you're still present? Well, the point of meditation is to be present. I know some of us meditate to go off into Lalaland, but animals show us that that's not why we meditate. "You do your thing, honey, but I'm not going to be involved." Animals will be involved when our meditation brings us here. 
Again, meditation is our way of compassion; the physical position of our body is not. In fact, with animals, we have to be really flexible. If we want to be in the barn with pigs, we have to sit on a bucket and move around. My students at Bright Haven used to go out with the goats. They would come back, and their hair would be green because the goats love to chew on their hair, but they had been chewing on alfalfa. They'd come back, and I'd be, "How was your treatment?" They're all, "It was awesome" with a big chunk of green slime.

DIR: That is holding space, right? You're not distracted. They're chewing your hair, and you still sitting with compassion and not worrying.
KP: And they're there with you because you're with them. It's an honor that they chewed on your hair because they didn't run to the other path. 
The fifth pillar is developing mindfulness with animals for peace and healing. For me, the essence of Reiki practice with animals is mindfulness. Learning to be here. Now in this moment and everything we do with Reiki—if it's the precepts, Hatsurei Ho, the symbols and the mantras, if we're doing hands-on healing for ourselves in the presence of animals—we're creating this space of I'm letting go of all the other stuff. I'm here with you now, 110%. I'm here with an open heart and open mind. 
To me, that mindfulness is ultimately the quality that animals seek in us. I remember once I took some students to Guide Dogs for the Blind to train and meditate with the dogs. They were so like perfectionists about their meditation practice. They were sitting in a room with the dogs walking around. They're inward, totally focused. At one point, one of the dogs came and sat in front of my student and looked at her. She opened her eyes, and she's like, "No, I'm meditating. Don't bother me; I'm meditating. Then the dog puts one foot on her, and she's still [trying to meditate.]. Then the dog licks her on the nose, and she's still [trying to meditate.] Finally, the dog goes, "Whatever." He just walked away. Afterward, I was like, "Why didn't you engage with the dog?" And she's like, "Well, because I was meditating." I'm like, "But what's the purpose of your meditation?" And she's like, "Well, to connect to them…Oh! Okay!" It was like a light bulb. 
Mindfulness, being here now, being present—that's what animals teach us. We can't zone out and be floating in space if we want to be with animals. 
The sixth and last pillar, I think, is maybe the most important one. And that one is that we honor animals as teachers and healers in their own right. If there's anything that could heal the human-animal bond on this planet, it's seeing through those eyes. We often see animals as products. We dominate them. We see them like we're taking care of them, but they don't really know any better. We're like the smart ones. Spiritual practice with an animal teaches you that animals understand energy more. They're more expanded in their view. They are spiritual teachers to us. If we can see the world through the eyes of animals, for example, a butterfly, we can learn so much about transformation, right? 
To me, that is the path towards healing for our planet. That is what our planet is missing right now: that harmony, respect, and seeing the sacredness in beings that are different from ourselves.

DIR: That is such a change of paradigm. Because we always feel I going to offer Reiki to animals to save them. We never let them be our teachers and healers. In that sense, you had a beautiful experience with snakes and healing. Would you mind sharing that?
KP: Sure. A lot of people hate snakes, and I have to admit that I am afraid of snakes as well. And They're just different kinds of beings, and some of them are venomous. So, there's this whole thing between humans and snakes, right? "Oh my God, a snake!" Right. You hear the old Buddhist teachers tell stories about how you kill the snake, and that represents something. Culturally in folktales, [snakes are] always the villain. Look at the Bible! The whole cultural paradigm with snakes is like a negative thing. Right.
After I had my surgery, I went to the Care Foundation. I was still pretty weak and in a lot of pain. But I'm like, "No, I need to go and be with the animals because it's so healing to be there!" That year I decided to go into the snake room to do Reiki with Leah, the vice-president of SARA, and my best friend and partner. We haven't seen that [room] before. They have like three walls in a room, floor to ceiling of the glass, you know, cages with the snakes in them. They have a few that you can hold that are tame, but a lot of them are like rattlesnakes, cobras… a lot of venomous snakes.
It's a little intimidating to go there and have the Cobra come up with the hood. But we're like, "No, all the animals are beautiful, bright lights. We should go in to do Reiki." Leah was on one side with the back wall, and I was on the front wall. We were setting our intention to do Reiki, and all of a sudden, instead of saying, "I'm here to help you and support you with Reiki." I'm like, "I could actually use some healing. I'm feeling like crap. I have been through a lot in the last six months." 
I just had this intuitive feeling that these snakes were healers and teachers. There was a rattlesnake right in front of me. It was all curled up, sleeping. As soon as I set my intention and put my hands on my heart, he woke up and brought his head up. Intuitively I brought my arm up, which was in a lot of pain after my surgery. We looked at each other through the glass, and he started to dance, to slowly weave back and forth. I followed his movement with my arm. We were like dancing together. It was like such a powerful, energetic feeling.
I felt almost like my heart was going to explode. My lower belly felt really dense and weird. But I'm like, "This is the snake sharing. This is an honor that he's dancing with me." It was kind of overwhelming, but [I let the fear go.] As soon as I did, it felt good. We were just doing this.
His name was Kane. He was a cane back rattler and was about six, seven feet long. I had this weird feeling that of like a bigger view. I looked at the wall, and every single snake was dancing with us. There were like two or three cobras. There was a boa on the bottom part. There were like… 10 snakes all doing this, all of us together. I said to Leah something weird is happening. She turned around, and all the snakes went down, back into their sleeping pose… I felt so much gratitude. I'm feeling like, "Oh my God, snakes show compassion to humans and are willing to connect after what we've done [to them in] our culture... They are dancing with me!" When I walked out of that room, my head felt really spaced out, and the pain in my arm was 80% gone. I was brought to tears.
I think that all the snakes felt that I didn't see them as scary, bad, or creepy. They probably thought, "This is weird, a human that's looking at us with different eyes. She sees us as the light. That's really interesting!" 
That's what I've really noticed with animals: whatever species it is, they sense and feel the way we see them. It's so important for us to open our eyes and see the light because we are all the same thing. We're all this beautiful part of this web in the universe. We all share that, and nobody's left out of it. A lot of people are like, "Oh, snakes, no, I can never get in the snake room, Kathleen." And I'm like, "I respect that. That's okay. You don't have to go to the snake room. But I'm just saying, if you did, you might be amazed."

DIR: It's about letting go of separation and feeling compassion. I'm so grateful you shared this story. If I could beam your message to every brain in the world, I would! Because for me, that is the core of the practice.
I want to finish the interview talking about SARA, your non-profit. I know it's very relevant to you. What are some of your goals for the future?
KP: The Shelter Animal Reiki Association (SARA) was something I started after my dog Dakota passed away. He's kind of our mascot. It's sort of dedicated to his memory because he was a rescue dog. He was also my first animal Reiki teacher and my most profound animal Reiki companion for 16 and a half years. 
I thought of all the animals in shelters that never find a home and have faced so much trauma in their lives. Nobody realizes all the gifts they have to give and all of the wisdom they have to share. All the light that they bring to the world— it's like this untapped reservoir of wisdom and compassion in the world. Dakota was that for me. I thought, what if I never adopted him? I would never have known. 
I thought, what could I do to help and support [all these animals]? To recognize their light, their gifts, their wisdom. Share Reiki. When I'm sharing Reiki with animals, when I'm meditating with them, I see them as my teacher. I see them as the light. I shine that back to them as we've talked about. And maybe others will see it. If they can see me seeing it, maybe they'll remember it, even though they've been traumatized. And maybe the next person who walks through looking to adopt will see it too.
My goal with SARA to share Reiki with is as many rescued animals on this planet as possible. We should be in the shelters, in the sanctuaries sitting opposite them and being the light with them. We started out in 2008, so this is our 13th year. We went from about 10 members to now about 200 members. We started out as a program of volunteer practitioners going in and offering treatments. Now we have educational programs we offer to staff to volunteers in many different organizations across the world. It started out just in the United States. Now we're also in Europe, India, Canada, and South America.
I'm so proud of SARA. We're the only organization that does what we do. Not only do we volunteer treatments and teaching—but we also give back a percentage. When we teach a class to the general public at a shelter or sanctuary, we donate 25 to 50% back to the organization. We've donated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last ten or 12 years. 
I'm so honored: the crew of volunteers in SARA are the best people in the world. They're amazingly selfless people. If you want to find out more about what we do and how to be involved, you can go to shelteranimalreikiassociation.org.

DIR: Where can people find your regular training and books?
KP: If you want to learn animal Reiki with me, animalreikisource.com. I have tons of different programs on there. I have a blog with tons of articles. I've got all my podcasts on there that you can listen to. And all my books are on my website and also on Amazon.

DIR: Kathleen, I really appreciate your time, Katelyn. For me, it's been a very moving experience. And I hope the whole world hears a lot more from you.
KP: Thank you for giving me this platform to share what I love and, hopefully, bring more people into that possibility of seeing animals in a more sacred way. I think it's what our planet needs right now.