Reiki, Cupcakes, Rain

To anyone who read this post before, know that I deleted it and am reposting a completely different take on my weekend.  Honestly, a post entitled, "Reiki, Cupcakes, Rain" should have a much more positive focus than the one I had previously left you with.  So here's take two!

The extent of my recent social activities has rarely strayed beyond watching Disney movies and giving 10 year olds piggy back rides.  (Why are they called that, by the way?  I've never seen someone ride a pig... I guess you could... I won't speculate on what farmer's kids do with their spare time.)  Anyway, Saturday was amazing for three particular reasons.  First, it was my best friend Richael's birthday.  Happy B-Day!  She turned 24.  Yay!  (For some reason, every time I catch up to her, she has another birthday and is older than I again.)  So, birthdays are always special to celebrate with someone.  I told her that I couldn't make it to her party (which, originally wasn't a lie) so I hung out with her earlier in the day before I had to go to work.  Hanging out with Richael is always fun because she's smart, funny, and always has some new insight about life that I hadn't previously discovered or been exposed to.  (Maybe I should have named this post "I love Richael!" It's not too late to change it, I guess... LOL)  Anyway, this all led to factor number two: Reiki.  Because I don't think I can explain it particularly well, I will solicit the help of wikipedia in providing us with a working definition.

"Reiki is described by adherents as a holistic therapy which brings about healing on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels.^[36] The belief is that the energy will flow through the practitioner's hands whenever the hands are placed on, or held near a potential recipient."

Okay, I'm not sure that is actually better than I would have described it, but it'll do.  Essentially, the Reiki practitioner places his or her hands in strategic energy centers throughout the recipient's body with the aim of jumpstarting a more peaceful energy flow throughout the body.  Richael described the energy disruptions as vibrations that would ease turbulent energy flow.  I could liken this to one of two things: 1) Think of a tight, sore spot on your body that using vibrations and massages, eases the tension and allows blood to flow more easily to and from the spot. 2) Despite what TV says, you don't actually use defibrilators on people who's hearts have stopped, only on people who have heart attacks because the electrical activity in the heart is irregularly flowing.  The defibrilator sends a pulse through the heart that jumpstarts the electrical current and causes it to flow more normally.  I would liken either of these two cases to what happens with Reiki.  But I could be wrong.  Anyway, despite it being Richael's birthday, she offered to do a short Reiki session with me because I told her I'd been having problems sleeping lately.  (Eeep!  I told you she's an awesome friend!) She told me she'd been training in it before, but I never bothered to look it up for an actual explanation.  I didn't really entirely understand it when she explained it to me Saturday either.  But I trust(ed) her so I said, 'sure'.  The session was amazing.  It was also a little unnerving and completely disorienting.  I wish I could explain more to you, but it's one of those things that is best experienced on one's own.  I will say a couple of things to consider.  First, as with any connection with one's spiritual energy, there has to be a level of mindfulness present.  Both the practitioner and the recipient should be aware of what is happening and work together to create a meaningful session.  No, skeptics probably won't experience something great.  Second, intentions are good, but connections are better.  Maybe I felt the session to be so meaningful because it was being performed by one of my oldest friends--a person I completely trusted.  A side note on this, we both noticed that the 'revulsion' (for lack of a better term) we experienced during physical contact before was greatly diminished by transitioning.  Wow... that was an oddly passive sentence.  Let me rephrase that.  Since transitioning, I think we both feel that physical contact is much less revolting.  LOL.  Okay, R maybe you can throw some insight here?  I guess it really speaks to the importance of a body and spirit that is in tune with one another.  Finally, be prepared for some serious disorientation.  Maybe it was just me, but when I 'awoke', I couldn't figure out what planet I was on.  It was like I had literally slipped to another room, even though I was still awake.  I've never been hypnotized before, so I imagine it might be something like that.  I dunno.

So that was Reiki.  While I was doing Reiki, the cupcakes I had made earlier in the morning were cooling in the refrigerator.  (NEVER put frosting on warm cupcakes!)  The cupcakes were strawberry-vanilla flavored, to bring as an offering to my best friend when I surprised her by showing up at her party later in the evening.  :D  Okay, Richael, I'm going to brag a bit.  While they might not have been world-class cupcakes, I still thought they were awesome!  LOL.  I hope you liked them too.   Cupcaking is meaningful because it requires much understanding of chemistry in combining the ingredients, much patience in waiting for them to cook in the oven, much balance to keep from walking heavily on the floor near the oven (causing them to fall) and much love and positive intention to make them your absolute best.  Nothing but the best for my Richael.  :)

Okay, since you twisted my arm, here's a picture of the cupcakes.  ::silence::  Of COURSE I took pictures of my first quasi-culinary success!  LOL.  

You can check out more pics of the cupcake and from the party on my facebook (but you'll have to add me as a friend first.)  Hok, so that's it for cupcaking.  The rain?  Well, what can I say.  It's been raining a ton lately, which is okay cause I'm not ready for 90 degree weather... but at the same time it's just warm enough that mold is growing like crazy.  And I'm allergic to mold.  So, the very sick progression of suffering goes like this: 

Rain->mold->allergies->sinuses->Ethan is grumpy->everyone else suffers.

Oh well.  Hehe, so that's the end of my post.  Hopefully it was marginally better than the last one. Talk to you later.  Lots of love.