DIVE INTO REIKI: Welcome to episode 13 of the Dive into Reiki podcast today with a lovely guest, Bronwen Logan. Bronwen is based in Australia, and she's a Reiki author, teacher, and co-founder of the International House of Reiki and Shibumi International Reiki Association. Due to her research into the Japanese aspect of the Reiki system since the early 2000s, Bronwen has been a major influence on how the system is taught and practiced worldwide. Her books, co-written with Frans Stiene, include The Reiki Sourcebook, The Japanese Art of Reiki, A to Z of Reiki Pocketbook, Reiki Techniques card deck, and Your Reiki Treatment. Bronwen also recorded the double CD Reiki meditations for self-healing and Reiki relaxation with Sounds True. 

Bronwen, I'm so grateful you accepted this invitation and that we all get a chance to know you better because I feel that we never see that other side of the International House Reiki. I would love to start with the same question I ask everyone on this podcast, when and how was the first time you discovered Reiki practice?

BRONWEN LOGAN: I would've been in my early 20s. I remember hearing about it then and thinking, what is this thing? And I remember some strange experience when I lived in Australia, and I went to some strange person's house, and they made me fill in all these forms. I actually have no idea what that was, but I remember that they were calling it Reiki. [Laughs]. I sort of went away from that thinking, "Huh? Okay." Then a couple years later, when I was living in Holland, my best friend came over to visit, and she had studied Reiki. She was doing Reiki on me all the time, and it was really lovely. That was a really excellent introduction. At that time in my life, I was trying to find out more about different practices. I was taking different meditation classes and just doing things to try to find out what might make me feel better in myself and stronger and happier. 

DIR:  I love when people come across Reiki through friends, especially a few years back when there weren't many professional practitioners. Right? Yeah. So what made you go from "I love receiving Reiki from my friend" to this is the practice that will, in a way, define your life.
BL: Well, I was living in Holland with Frans [Stiene, co-founder of the International House of Reiki]. We sold everything up and went to India. So yeah, it wasn't a holiday. We were going to travel through Asia, but he had very bad sciatica, which he'd had for a number of years. So we were looking for something because we were backpacking, you know. That's really hard to actually carry a backpack when you're in pain. So we were looking for something that could help with that. And we tried all different sorts of things and met different sorts of people. India is an amazingly [diverse] country. There are lots of different modalities and local indigenous things. That was very interesting.

Bronwen Logan.

 We went down to the South of India, where there's a lot of Ayurveda. That's like a traditional Indian healing system. We booked Frans into a little local place to have an ayurvedic treatment done, which is said to be very good for sciatica. We stayed there for a number of weeks while he was sort of going backward and forwards and having this treatment in the jungle. And at the same time, we were looking at healing modalities, and we came across a book. There was a book by Paula Horan. I think she's American and she lives in India. She had published a book about the system of Reiki. It was a very simple beginner's book. So that was really great. I remember sitting there, on the edge of the bed in the little room, trying to do this thing and not having any idea what I was doing. But very curious. So we thought that that would be an interesting practice to learn. 

When we went to Nepal, we came across an Englishman who lived there and was teaching the Reiki system. We were there for a number of months and studied through him. What he was teaching was a little bit all over the place, to be honest. But it sort of didn't matter in one way.

I did Reiki 1 and thought, "Oh, wow, this is truly amazing." And then I did Reiki 2, and I was just like, "Oh, this is something that could be—like you were saying before—like a defining moment. It's really something that will change everything, how I'm going to do things in life."

I was very fortunate at that time in my life that I didn't have a job to go to. I didn't have to do anything, you know, to be there for other people or do anything except really look at myself, see what was happening with me, and reach out to anything that could help me. So yeah, we then went on and did Reiki 3 there. It was great.

It was sort of mind-blowing this idea that we could teach this. So not long after being in Nepal, we went to Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas, and we rented a house there right on the very top of Dajeerling, which we called Reiki House. And we started doing treatments and teaching people. 

So that was sort of it—it was definitely not my intention. And in fact, the reason why I went to India first was because I thought the food was really great. I love Indian food. So That was the main reason. And once I got there, it's a bit of an addiction, India. It's such a fascinating place. And then I thought we'd be moving on to Thailand and wherever else in Southeast Asia. But that didn't happen. I ended up being in India for two years at that point. Yeah. 

DIR: I love how many people go to India for a yoga or a spiritual journey. You went for food and ended up having a profoundly spiritual experience. I find the roads that take us to our destiny fascinating. So, how did you realize there was more to Reiki practice than the "all-over-the-place" training you got?
BL: When I first studied, the guy sort of had all these little bits of photocopies of this and that. This was in the late 1990s, and we didn't really have computers. I actually did get a computer when I started teaching the system of Reiki. And set up my first ever website, which was very exciting. You know, this long scrolly page. But what [out teacher] gave us was, I guess, photocopied out of books or things like that. And it was from different books, and I was like, how does this all fit together? I didn't have much of an idea. And then the idea that I wanted to teach people. How do you teach something that you know there's something really amazing there, but you are not quite sure how to put it all together. We did ask a lot of questions of that teacher and in the end, he told us not to contact him anymore. He just didn't know the answers, right? 

DIR:  [Laughs] I had the same experience. I called a teacher to ask questions, and he hung up on me too!
BL: [Laughs] Yeah. I mean, that's a difficult situation, but it's a really great learning lesson, isn't it? It's like, don't be like that. Don't do that. I've never said to anyone [that] I can't answer something. Even if I don't know the answer, I'll go away and work it out. Right. 

We came back to Australia, [where my mom lives] because I was pregnant, and continued to build a business. I had already done a teaching English as a Foreign Language course in England. I had done a little teaching before I left Australia as well. I studied performing arts. So I used to teach performing arts as well. So, we came back to Australia, and I did a business course. That was really great. I think a lot of the problems with people who are practicing the system of Reiki and want to start a business [is that] they may not have those skills, and it's another important part of that. But you learn, right? 

[The course] included things like marketing, how to do finances, and all those sorts of things—making your mind tick, go over in a different way and think about how you can best do this. That was really interesting. Within probably a year of that, I also did a teacher training and assessment course here as well in Australia. So just to get more teaching skills up, I think that's really important too. Another thing that people, you know, when they're teaching the system of Reiki, they just don't have the skills for teaching. So they're not really sure. Maybe they might be approaching things from an angle that might not work for their students. So, finding different ways of how people learn and what's the best thing for them. And that really helped me in creating the Ki Campus, our student website.

 And just while I'm talking about those things, also doing like a basic counseling skills course, you don't have to be a counselor because it's not about being a counselor but knowing how to be with someone if they're really upset. If someone comes in the door and they're not feeling great, what do you say to them? Just really basic, simple things like that I think are really helpful.

And first aid would be the other one that I would recommend that people have. I just saw in Australia that our treasurer for New South Wales—the state I'm in—was walking down the street, and someone had a fit in front of him and collapsed. He had his first aid, and he helped that person immediately. Everyone was like, "Wow, that's fantastic." I think it's a really good thing to have that. You can help people who are in need, and, as a Reiki practitioner, you just never know what's going to happen.

DIR: I think it's important because many of us struggle when we go professional. We may be just holding the space, or, as some people like to say, the energy is intelligent, but there is human interaction involved. How do we communicate during our sessions and classes? How do we react when our clients do something unexpected or have emotional releases? Those are human skills, and learning them can only benefit the people we serve and us. 
BL: Absolutely. A lot. I mean, as we speak, the energy is still flowing. Right? But there are still other aspects to this existence. They are the practical aspects which I think will make a big difference. And in fact, you know, they're the things that really set the International House of Reiki up to be the International House of Reiki. And if I look even at the name—the International House of Reiki. I mean, I would never have called our business the International House of Reiki. We were teaching out of our spare bedroom, with a baby in the other room when we started in Australia. But when I did the business course, they made me choose a name. The names that I wanted; I couldn't have. So, it automatically said, this is what we recommend that you should use because no one's got this name. I thought, "Well, Frans is from Holland, I'm from Australia, and we studied in Nepal and taught in India—that'll do [laughs].

DIR: And now you will teach classes worldwide and have the ki campus online. You grew into the name.
BL: In a way. I've always had quite an open sort of feeling with this, I must say. I've always [had the idea that] if you want to do something, you do it to the best that you can possibly do it. I did actually find that that year of teaching in Darjeeling was a bit like… [a sort of] internship. All that I would do in my week was get up, teach, and practice. We would go out and do treatments on local people, or they would come to us. Every couple of days, we were teaching people who were traveling through. So, it was a mixture of local people and travelers that we were working with, but it was constant. It was lovely. In this house that we lived, we had a lady who would come and make us breakfast. She was actually meant to be the cleaner, but she didn't like cleaning, so she'd make the breakfast [laugh], and that was really lovely and delicious. All I can think of when I think of that is pumpkin and tamarin and homemade rotis. So beautiful. Then we'd work, go out for lunch, come back, work, and go out for dinner because we didn't really have a kitchen. Then in the evening, I'd write. It was just heavenly. So non-stressful. You could just focus completely on what it is that you want to do. And so, it was a really great experience before moving back into the big world of having to earn a buck and that sort of thing. And have a baby. 

Back in Australia, we started researching more, and the internet was taking off. That was amazing. We started contacting people all around the world and saying, "What manuals do you use? What do you teach? Who did you study with?" 

[We] started collecting folder upon folder of information and putting that all together. And then in 2001, we went to Japan. I had worked out to meet different teachers that were living there. We met Chiyoko, Yamaguchi, who's no longer with us. Hyakuten Inamoto, a pure land monk. He took us around, and we met another teacher who was from the Gakkai. It was an excellent way to ground ourselves a little bit more in what was happening in Japan or had happened in Japan. There wasn't that much happening in Japan at the time. I noticed that a lot of the Japanese people were very much interested in what we were doing in the West. They were into things like Dolphin Reiki and, you know, things like that [laughs].

And I was like, "This is really weird! We want to know what people are doing in Japan, and Japan wants to know what's been happening over in the West." That was an interesting experience. 

So, we got all this information, put it together, and I spent at least a year writing The Reiki Sourcebook. The thing was that I met this guy who ran a bookstore here, and he'd written something like 55 books, and it was a spiritual bookstore. I don't even know how we got to talk, but anyway, we ended up going out, having a meeting and me saying, "This is the idea for the book." And he's like, "If you know what it is you want to write, it's going to happen." I said, "Okay." And he said, "Actually, I've got a publisher in the UK who would be more than happy to have a look at it. Write a couple of chapters, send [I will] send it through." And I did and got a publishing contract. So, it was really easy [and] really lovely. 

The good thing was that I had a date to have it finished. So, all that information I had to collate, go through, and make sense of—and that was The Reiki Sourcebook. I was so thrilled about that. It was a great thing to have put together because it expressed the confusion that I'd had when I started learning. It's not a book for a beginner, but if you were a teacher that you could look into this book and go, "So I was taught this technique, where does that technique come from? Or this is the lineage that I'm in. What does that mean?" You know, who says what, where, what was introduced at what point in that lineage and because there was a lot of confusion around what the system of Reiki was at that time. I think that writing that book and then The Japanese Art of Reiki has really helped to clarify for a lot of people what the system is. What it's made up of. The idea is that there's a certain number of elements that you have to practice to be able to say that you're actually working with the system of Reiki. Because what I found incredibly frustrating was that people would go, "Oh yeah, I do Reiki." And I'm thinking, "What do they mean I do Reiki? You know, like I do spiritual energy. I don't understand that." I mean, we are spiritual beings. We're also physical beings. It was just very confusing. So if someone says they do Reiki, does that mean they actually studied a course? Or did someone say my grandmother told me how to do something? Which I don't invalidate at all, but it may not be the system of Reiki. 

 It's a bit like saying that you do Tai Chi or something. Now Tai Chi is working with energy and moving. Well, if I work with energy and moving, do I do Tai Chi? No, I need to actually learn the practices, right?

DIR: And also bringing to light elements like Reiki meditations that were not well-known at the time. 

BL: When I studied in Nepal with the English guy, there were meditations, but they weren't the same. I think that people realize that if you're going to do spiritual practice, there is some level of meditative practice in that. 

When I first came back to Australia, at that time, I was talking to another Reiki teacher, and she was going to me, "Oh no, no, no, there's no breathing practices in the system of Reiki. I teach the real [Reiki]." You have to go through that experience. I went through that experience, anyway, of having to try to work out what was and wasn't real for me. Most of the people that you would talk to had studied through Western practices, through Hawayo Takata, who had taught from Hawaii. A lot of them had different ideas. Trying to discuss this was incredibly difficult. And that also helped to write because you're trying to refine what you're understanding from what you've been discovering and putting that together... I think the problem there was that, in the West, people were very much focused on hands-on-healing.

One of the elements of the system of Reiki is working with your hands. But it's just one of the aspects. It's not the aspect. We were taught the precepts right way back in the beginning, but it was not discussed and not really thought about. If we think about it now, we can see that the precepts are actually out of the five elements; the one that these are the four elements are saying if you work with us, then you'll be this. So it's the more important part, right? If there is a more important part… If we can be those precepts, then we can be the then we are Reiki. Then we discover our true selves. We discover what it means to be what, ultimately, we would call enlightened. 

DIR: For me, the precepts make the practice so much more approachable. When I meet people and want to explain Reiki, I just use the precepts: a spiritual practice that allows you to let go of anger and worry and to become more grateful and compassionate. Who doesn't want that?
BL: That's beautiful. For me, the system of Reiki is incredibly simple. It's not bells and whistles, and I'm very much no-rules-Reiki… Of course, there is a foundation and a structure.

DIR: Yes, because if not, people can go a little rogue there [laughs].
BL: When we start making rules, it's all in the head, it's all this rational, you know? What I think, you know what I mean? So letting that go. 

DIR: Changing gears a bit here: I would love to talk about your experience guiding Reiki meditations. I really enjoy the clarity with which you guide them and the way you use your voice to hold the space. A lot of us in the Reiki community create guided meditations. What are some of like the dos and don'ts when it comes to doing guided meditations? 
BL: I think a lot of people love guided meditation because it helps their brain to latch onto something. I mean, the Zen thing where you would sit for hours and do [nothing is] incredibly hard. In our society, we are more intellectually based. We are too top-heavy. Guided meditation will help with that. 

Some of the dos of guided meditations are: 

I always say to people, record yourself first… and then listen back. Does it make any sense what you just said? Because you might forget to tell people something simple like just to close their eyes or whatever. You might not think about what they're doing with their hands. So and people are thinking, "Oh!" So instead of them meditating, they're thinking about, "Am I meant to be doing this, or am I meant to be doing that? So physically really helping people move into the space and knowing where they are. 

I always say that with Reiki treatments as well, that what you want is the person to be really, really comfortable. Because the more comfortable that someone is, the less their mind is going to be active. If they're uncomfortable, then their mind's going to go, "What are they going to do now?" There's just all this stuff going on in their heads. What we really want is for them to be able to let go and to be in the space. So, making someone comfortable in whatever way that is, I think that's really important. 

I mean, there are lots of dos and don'ts, for example, telling them how long the meditation's going to be. Because they might think when you start [that] it's going to be five minutes, or they might think, "Oh my God, do I have to sit here for an hour?" Giving them guidelines, really supporting the person, thinking about the other person, being empathetic, putting yourself in their position. [These are] really basic fundamental things to do. 

The other thing is [that] when we are speaking, and we do meditation, we are going into that space as well. So, we need to be careful that we don't end up going [inward] it and [our voice] just fades away. Ensuring that you're actually still in the space with the students because it's very easy to go into your own practice. As a teacher, you need to be in both spaces at once. And that is a little bit of a challenge, but it's something that you can practice and get better at. 

But even though it's great to be in that space, because then we are holding that space, we also need to be able to feel that space. We need to also have that sense of knowing that we are here and being aware of what's going on for the students. You don't know what's going to happen. And different students can respond in different ways… They might be shocked by what's happening or something like that. And you need to be aware if that's happening in the group and if you need to be there for someone.

DIR: So I know that you also extended your teachings to Reiki with animals because you love them. What is your approach to this?
BL: About? Yeah. I've always had animals in my life. But, you know, I always see humans as animals. I've had lots of humans in my life too. [Laughs].

DIR: They're many animals too, but that's a New York joke. [Laughs].
BL: Yes, but I'm talking about well-mannered animals, Nathalie! [Laughs]. I've always had some animals. I find in our society, the way that we talk to children is quite different to the way that we talk to adults... With children, there are so many beautiful picture books where the animal talks, the animal is the same as you—I'm talking about non-human animals. Yeah. The non-human animals are the same as you and me… It has feelings. It can feel pain. It can be sad. It can be happy. And children love that, you know, and they see that in animals. 

Definitely, as a child, I related to animals. I just felt they were the same. I still have this image of my dad cleaning out the pond, and he had all these tadpoles in water in a bowl that he'd gotten out of the pond. He's going to throw them away, and I'm like, "Don't throw the pet!" And this adult world not understanding that. And yet this adult world had also come from this child world. So, when children grow up… it's like the rules change, you know?

How many kids have asked, "Oh, what is it that I'm eating?" And someone will say, "Well, that's pork." "What's pork?" "Well, you know that cute book about the pig? That's a pig you're eating." And then the child has to grow up and accept that this is what humans do. But we don't have to do that. We can retain that connection that we understand as children and that we don't mind allowing children to understand. And that we almost encourage children to understand. And then we take the humanity out of the humans.

I don't think I lost that particular humanity, at any rate, you know? I've always really retained this feeling. Not being the Lord of, but sharing my life with other animals—human or non-human. It just feels very right to me. When I was a kid, I had dogs, cats, and rabbits. Now I have a pig, Flora. I've got dogs and cats, and I've got horses, and I've had goats. I've got chickens and ducks. We all share this space together. And they all tell me what they want or what they don't want, or whether things are good or not good.

People love coming here because the animals actually share the space as well. I don't have a pig style. I don't know if you remember what that is. I do because my mother had a dairy farm with a pig style, and it's like this little space with these big pigs inside it. And they have to live in the mud. And that's actually not how pigs in their natural existence live. Thinking about how animals live and how they are at their happiest and trying to make way for them to experience that in the same way that I'm able to experience it. So, you can say, what does that have to do with the system of Reiki?

Like I said, I'm a bit of a "no-rules" Reiki person. I'm very much about letting go and finding truth in a situation and using the precepts to help me find those truths. And for me, the truths are that these animals need to live and exist in the best way that they can possibly live. I allow them to go everywhere, but I create ways to make everybody safe. To keep everybody happy. It's more about living together rather than me trying to make them do or be something for me.

DIR: Like a living embodiment of the practice versus offering hands-on healing to the pig for ten minutes.
BL: Yeah. My pig is very chatty. I've heard people say that they've never met a pig as chatty. She tells you the whole story. If there is something wrong, she tells me this whole thing, and she's gotten it out of the system. She's an absolutely amazing character, and it's wonderful for people to see an animal that they think of as food. People just have no idea what a pig is actually like. To meet a pig, to experience that is really meaningful… So then they actually need to have a think about things and [food]—would you eat your dog? 

The other thing that I was going to say about that is that I totally believe that each of us, we create our own universe. We create this world and how [we] live. And this is the life that I have chosen. So I think people need to think about that. If we can do good within this universe, other people see that, and that affects other people. 

DIR: I love that! I think that sometimes we want to save the world, but it's such a big endeavor that we never do anything. [Yet] just by changing ourselves and becoming kinder and more centered, we actually can create change.  To close my interviews, I like to ask people like you—renowned Reiki masters with many years of practice and very respected—if you can share an "oops," 'Whoops," or teachable lesson. 
BL: I think from a very personal level that we all need to constantly work on ourselves. And I think as a teacher, maybe I can't think of a good whoop for you, but being a better listener is definitely… a really good thing to know. That when things don't work out how you imagine them, just understanding that that's the way things are. 

I think there are a lot of those just very natural human things that I wish that I could be better. The only thing I can just think about right now is that I had someone in a class who had PTSD, and I did actually know that, but I didn't ask for details. I wish I'd known much more about that experience before I went into the class because that person actually had really severe PTSD and was actually taking medications... I mean, everything was fine and it all worked out in the end, but, you know, I really felt like I had let myself down by not understanding the situation better and obviously having to do more managing in the class than what I probably would have had to have done in the first place. So, you know, understanding those things about people [is an important lesson.]

DIR: I have one last question: can you share one single tip to deepen our practice?
BL: I think that this relates to what I was saying earlier: the idea of letting go. Yeah. Especially if we're stuck. I was saying before, no rules. Really just letting go of what you think you should be doing or shouldn't be doing. Letting that all go and just sitting in that [beautiful open]. And when we're in that open space, then everything comes. 

DIR: Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful knowledge and wisdom with us. 
BL: Thank you!

Drawing inspired by Bronwen’s internview.

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.