Lors de ma formation pour devenir professeur de yoga, j’ai eu l’opportunité de pratiquer le Reiki sur certaines des personnes qui se formaient avec moi dont Tina Dejonghe, journaliste belge qui m’a écrit ce magnifique texte pour relater sa rencontre avec le Reiki à travers moi.
Je tenais à vous partager ces jolis mots. Le texte a été rédigé en anglais et je l’ai laissé en l’état pour que rien n’en soit dénaturé.
THE DEFLORATION OF A REIKI VIRGIN
A sudden rush of goose bumps covering my arms. I stop talking, swallow my tears away. It’s Sunday night and I am sitting on a cushion in a beautiful wooden floored yoga room in Montanha Encantada, Brazil. My arms are hugged around my legs, I am surrounded by a group of strangers all entangled in their own tête-à-tête. It is the first day of the course. Tomorrow the course will start for real, at this moment we have an opening circle to introduce ourselves to each other. We have been asked to explain in pairs what brought us to this month-long Vinyasa Teacher Training. I feel tears burning behind my eyes. I left Belgium with a heavy heart. Enough break-up to digest for a whole year, way too much to share on a first encounter. Her big, brown eyes look questioning into mine. Her body language encourages me to keep talking. I struggle to find my words. She doesn’t need them. She knows. Goosebumps again. Not only my body this time.
A bell rings, it’s her turn to talk now. She tells me she is a reiki master and a naturopath, based in Paris but wandering all over the world. She is mysterious and classy, unsure if she is a woman or a girl. Her hair is shining with health, her big lips give her presence a sensual touch. She wears her spirituality unquestionably, like a well-suited coat. Her name is Virginie. Not like Virgin-ie, as in virgin, she tells me. I know, I’m not American. We laugh.
Later that night I go sit with her after dinner and ask her about her reiki mastery, not being quite sure what it means. Off course, I have met people who have had reiki sessions, but never had experienced it my own. And although I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a mystic heart, I was recently discovering a more spiritual side of myself. My degree in journalism however prevents me from stepping into stories without questioning them. I was curious, yet sceptical. "How does it work if you don’t touch anyone?” I ask. She touches people, she says. But you don’t have to. "But like, how does it work? What is the idea behind it?”. It is a form of energy healing, she says, remaining mysterious. I continue firing off questions. She looks at me with these enigmatic eyes of her and says: “It’s something you have to experience. It’s not tangible, you can only feel.”
A few days after this conversation we meet again in my room for my first reiki experience. She asks me to lay down on my bed. The room is dark. A heavy blanket covers my whole body. I feel calm. Safe. Open. The sounds of the Brazilian jungle by night sneak in through my window. Virginie adds some of her reiki music to complete the soundtrack for our therapeutic night in. My eyes are closed. I trust the process.
My eyelids are trembling. She hasn’t even touched me yet. She lays her hands on my forehead. Waits. Continues to my temples, ears, jaw, neck. She doesn’t move my skin, just touches it. I feel no physical sensation apart from her hands on my body and the bed supporting me. I breathe. Thoughts are running through my mind. I wonder if she knows what I am thinking about now. I am sure she doesn’t. Nobody can read minds. Right when I think this might turn into a really relaxing experience, her palms arrive onto my sternum. Something crazy happens. I am caught by surprise with a sudden sadness. My natural breathing accelerates, thick tears escape my closed eyes. A syrup like fluid is gulping out of a well at the region of my heart. Like lava out of a volcano, a slow but steady eruption. Something is opening up. I feel this sensation physically, like how you would feel a muscle being stretched. Thick waves of energy flow from my body into her hands, her hands into my body, my body into her hands. It hurts in beauty.
A clear image enters my brain. I know exactly where I am. I feel the evening sun on my skin, smell the red earth we were walking on, I hear the sounds of the African traffic, I feel his hands into mine. It’s so surreal. I never ever experienced anything like this before. Nauseating sadness and deep gratitude come together in this moment. I don’t question anymore if Virginie is feeling what’s happening to me, I know she does.
When the session is over, I cry again. I have no idea how to feel or what to think. She holds me. We talk. She shares some of the images she received of me during her session and gives me therapeutic advice. What she says is spot on and has been a guidance ever since. Although she will deny it in every language, this woman is magic.
Still today, after I have done research on reiki, I have no idea how or even if I would describe it to people. Virginie was right, it’s something you have to experience. It’s like wind, love or music. It touches you even though it has no visible shape. Every reiki session will for sure be different, every person is different, every day will be different. Maybe it wouldn’t do anything for you, and that is totally fine. But I encourage you to try it. Because the experience I had is one I cherish for the rest of my life.
