Tag: Reiki

How “Spider Boy” got his nickname

pearls of the spider - large

Last spring, when Spider Boy was about 20 months old, I was hanging out with him in the master bedroom. He walked over to the bathroom door jamb and pretended to grab something off of it. When I asked him what it was, he said, “A spider,” with a look that said, “Duh!” From there he went on to pick imaginary spiders off of any and all available surfaces — walls, comforters, chairs, the front steps, the car, my shirt, my (ahem) hair. In the beginning all black, they began to take on colors — first red, then yellow and orange, and slowly working up to blue and green and purple.

Spiders began to seep into all segments of our lives. The bedtime routine now ends with him being given spiders from different aspects of his day (from his friends at daycare or music class, from the park, from family members, from his loveys). When he first arrives at someone’s house, he’ll often stop outside of the threshold, squat, and pick up two spiders, one in each hand. If he’s feeling insecure, he’ll run out of the room saying, “I forgot something!” If you ask him what, he’ll tell you “Spiders!” as he grabs a few and brings them back inside.

He doesn’t just receive spiders, he also gives them. He will pepper his dad’s beard with spiders while they’re reading stories in bed. Often as I’m leaving his room at night, he’ll toss one last spider to me as I go out the door. He feeds us spiders when we’re all sitting on the couch. When we’re at our favorite restaurant and he’s flirting with the wait staff, he’ll (somewhat shyly) offer them spiders. When I’m upset, he’ll ask, “Mommy, do you need a spider?” And when his brother is crying, he’ll give Bean a spider; frequently a yellow one.

This is where it gets interesting. Because Bean usually *stops* crying after he receives a spider. What started out as a game, a fun exploration of imagination, suddenly seems like something else. Suddenly, it strikes me that Spider Boy has created a way to give and receive energy. I start to wonder if he has intuitively stepped into the realm of Reiki and has found a way that works for him to transmit and receive Reiki energy. I wonder if the color of the spider corresponds to the chakra it will most directly effect. I wonder if what is imaginary to me is just because I can’t see it, and if the world is full of colored energy that he’s just scooping up and calling “spider.”

While it could all be a coincidence, I’m not one to believe in coincidences. And so far, he has shown himself to be an intuitive and prescient not-so-little guy. It’s a new world we live in, and I believe the children of today were born to follow their sixth sense. Spider Boy and Bean are two of my greatest teachers in life. They are definitely seeing the world through fresh eyes, and I suspect it is my job to follow their lead, to open my eyes and find a new way to interpret the data that is flowing through me.

And so, spiders. Two can play that game. I now infuse my spiders with all of the love and Reiki I can muster, and throw in extras for good measure, because really, you can never have too much of an eight-legged good thing. Namaste.

Originally posted on Pachamama Spirit

Love is all you need

Angel

When I woke up this morning, there was nothing to suggest that this day would offer up a zen parenting moment. Life since the baby was born has involved a lot of sharp contrasts, extreme emotions playing out across each family member in a variety of ways. Our two-year-old son has been the hardest hit, especially since we had to move a week after his baby brother was born. We have spent the 3+  months since then observing him very closely, following his lead wherever possible in an attempt to return a sense of stability and security to his world.

The word I would have used to categorize today was “overly.” He was overly tired, overly sensitive, overly frustrated. Despite this, we managed to eke out a few enjoyable moments during our Halloween festivities this morning, then brought him home for an early nap. Unfortunately, that nap got started in the car, often the kiss of death for the rest of the day. As usual, this gave him the false sense of a second wind, and just intensified the “overly” he had already been feeling. It took several hours, but he finally succumbed to a deep, late-afternoon nap.

When he woke up a couple of hours later, he was disoriented and out of sorts. I went in to him and just rubbed his back. He settled almost immediately and we stayed like that for a minute or two. He’s never been a particularly cuddly baby, so at one point I straightened and removed my hand. He started crying and got up on his knees, grabbing my hand and pulling it back into the crib. I got back to rubbing his back and just breathing with him. I asked him if he wanted to cuddle in my bed, a new favorite pastime of his that often doesn’t include much recognizable “cuddling.” He grabbed his hippo lovey and let me carry him into the master bedroom.

I was already feeling pretty blessed to have had such an intimate moment with him, and was expecting this to shift into a more familiar silly and riled up moment. But his energy was still really quiet and subdued, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when he wanted to lay down on me as his pillow. After a few attempts, we found a position that worked well for both of us — a half sitting hug of sorts — and settled into it. That is when the magic happened.

Simply put, I held him. My arms were around him, hugging him, stroking his hair, expressing my love wordlessly. My mind was fully and completely focused on him in this moment. While I did send him Reiki, mostly out of habit, there was much more of a sense of “being” rather than “doing” to this experience. There were no expectations, no wandering off into analyzing what this all meant, no trying to figure out what he needed and whether or not I was meeting that need. It felt like I was listening to him on another plane of existence, listening to his need with an inner ear and answering it with my energetic love. We just breathed in and out and hugged each other, occasionally shifting our weight to get more comfortable, but mostly just staying completely still.

We stayed there for what felt like an hour but was probably less than ten minutes. His dad came in with his brother and they curled up on the bed with us, but it was like we were in our own bubble. And at the end of that time, whenever he had finished refueling, filling himself up with the love being offered him, he pushed off of me and said, “Mommy, let’s go play.” And then he slipped off the bed and ran into the living room.

Young children are so pure, so uncluttered, so simple. I don’t want to confuse “simple” with “easy” or even “basic.” But generally, they wear their needs on their sleeves, and if you’re paying attention and have the right vocabulary and your own batteries are charged up, those needs can be relatively easily met. But those three things — paying attention, having the right vocabulary, and making sure your own batteries are charged — are the most often missed. The complexity we experience as parents so often lies in our own lives, our own experiences, and how we learn to balance our needs with those of our children such that we can both grow and thrive in that experience of love.

Before I started down this path of motherhood, I feared that becoming a parent would mark an end to my spiritual journey. I have learned so much in the last 2+ years, so much that has informed the way I walk this earth, and on days like today, I recognize that it was not only a beginning, but perhaps the only way for me to truly experience the divine. Today I was blessed to experience true grace. As my son ran off down the hall, I was filled with both gratitude and the desire to share my spiritual journey once again, this time from the perspective of mother. Thank you for joining me on this blessed journey!

Originally published on Pachamama Spirit