Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	Life During Wartime, Talking Heads

The great Reiki box experiment
A while ago, I posted about creating and working with Reiki boxes.

Soon ather that post, I got the materials - paper boxes, a box of kid's watercolors, stickers, and glitter glue - and made two boxes. I haven't taken pictures of them yet, but I will (hopefully soon) and post them to the community. I will be making more boxes, but these ones seemed the most important to start with.

I also picked up a stack of half-size, colored index cards, with the intent that each one would have an individual need/person/whatever written on it.

One of the boxes was created to hold amends I needed to make to people; people I'd felt that I'd done wrong to at some point in my life. The intent of this box was to send an apology back to that person, and to release the shame and guilt I felt over what I'd done to them.

The other box held situations and people I've survived throughout the years. The intent of this box was to send back a little something to myself to help me get through those particular times, and to help me release my anger and shame and pain associated with them in the present time, but at the same time keep the lessons I learned from walking through those fires.

I filled out cards and stacked them up. Because ritual seems to appeal to my Inner Younger Self (it makes it special, don't you know! heh), I set up a little ritual space, complete with casting circle, smudging, lighting incense and candles, etc. And it's Younger Self (who is part of me) who seems to be the one in charge of the energy work, so of course I need to make it special for her, which means us.

Anyway, before placing a card in a box, I traced symbol 1 over it, and talked to the card, and poured everything into it I could in regards to what was written on it. I spoke my memories, and my apologies, and my thanks, and anything else that seemed appropriate, and channeled energy into the card, and when it was done, placed the card in the box. I did this for approximately 15 cards.

After I was done with the last card, I had a little bit to eat and drink, to ground out, then took down the circle. I let the candles burn out on their own (the incense was already done). I then perfomed the reiki dry-brush technique to disconnect from the whole thing for a while. I felt pretty limp after all that; I'd poured quite a lot of myself into those cards.

Starting the next day, and still going on now, I began working with the boxes. One at a time, I would put the box in front of me (sometimes with a crystal skull or grid behind the box), and go through the standard procedure for a Reiki session - ask guides for protection/help/etc, trace the three symbols over it, and place my hands over the box. As I placed my hands on the box, I would ask for the pain to be released, and for the lessons to be kept. My hands would become "stuck" to the box, and I would go into the standard Reiki trance, and get lost in the energy.

As the energy was channelled through me, I would feel stuff releasing. It's a little hard to describe the feeling - it's a sort of an internal swoosh, and my ears tingle and it feels like SOMETHING'S leaving, a piece of me, but one I need to let go of. After a while of this, tears will start coming out of my eyes, and I'll feel an emotional shadow of what's going. After maybe 7 minutes or so, I will suddenly "wake up", and my hands will be pushed away from the box.

Then I repeat it with the second box.

Sometimes, I get the feeling I'm done with a particular card. I will muscle test on each card, and there'll be at least one. Sometimes I know which card it is, beforehand, and the muscle testing is just to confirm it. I take the card, and burn it in a fireproof dish, then mix the ashes with water and pour it on the dirt outside, or occasionally in the toilet. And when I think about the person, or situation, again, just about all of the painful emotions associated with it aren't there anymore.

A few weeks ago I finished with the amends box, though as memories keep coming up, I will be working with it again. I'm still working on the survival box, and I add a new card to it every so once in a while.

I've also learned that some of those cards can't be burnt until I talk about what's on them with S. I'm very grateful he's willing to listen, and not hold any of it against me (or use it against me). (thank you)

I feel that it's time to create a couple more boxes - a manifestation box, and a box to help release personal habits.

I have rose bushes to prune today, so it will keep for a while.

But this has worked out much better than I thought it would. I finally feel like I've truly broken through some internal logjams.

Some people would say this is some sort of placebo effect. I prefer to think differently; I've felt the energy working through, and for me.