UPDATE from Carol: Asia has been adopted to his forever family! The legacy of Reiki healing is like the vibration of a butterfly’s wings – infinite.

We don’t often share the private letters that SARA President Kathleen Prasad receives on a daily basis from so many animal lovers around the world who have been helped by her teachings. This one, however, touched our hearts so much with the good healing news that it brought, that we wanted to share it with our readers, in hopes that it will support, inspire and ground you in your important work for the animals who need you most! No matter what situation an animal has come from, Reiki can bridge the gap, no matter how wide, creating a bridge of healing. Never give up! With love, the SARA Team

Kathleen, what a gift you and your teachings are in my life. I’ve navigated through these past several months of working with shelter animals, able to see with astonishing clarity the integrity of your approaches in a shelter – most meaningfully during the past month as dog after dog was adopted. Of the large dogs from the most harsh of the hoarding environments, only one, a gentle giant, Asia, remains.

When I first met him, he retreated to the furthest corner of his kennel, and stood pressing himself into the corner, standing there, shaking. In the quiet rooms of my mind, I could hear you, guiding us who have been blessed by your work, guiding me through the Joshin Kokyu Ho meditation. I quietly, humbly moved slightly in his direction, settling myself on the kennel floor about 4 feet away from him; just sitting, breathing in, breathing out, picturing him whole and happy, lying on a porch overlooking a lake, walking with a cherishing human through a meadow…just breathing, and sitting.

After perhaps 20 minutes, he stood taller, seemed to have stopped shivering, and took a tentative step toward me. Perhaps another 10 minutes, inching nearer to me, finally relaxing enough to sit (now at arms-length away). Sitting, breathing, I place my hand, palm down, on the floor, about midway between us. Sitting and breathing, without words, we recognize each other at the level of Spirit. I walk my hand a few inches toward him. He trusts me enough to tentatively sniff it. He lays down, now only inches away. I sit and breathe.

I ask his permission to offer him Reiki. Silence, breath, a comfortable silence. I open my eyes and catch him looking at me, then quickly looking away. More moments, and he again sniffs my hand. I extend fingertips to barely touch his right ‘forearm.’ He remains calm. I quietly, lightly, extend my fingertips so that they rest gently on his ‘arm.’ Now, I realize, we are both, each in our own way, meditating.

We sit in silence, the big dog and I, a silence that speaks in a soothing, welcoming, warmth of energy flowing – Reiki, like a strong, light current under the surface of a once-roiling ocean. In the way we, practitioner and recipient, ‘just know,’ we return to the moment, to light and sounds and scents that seem to have just paused in the silence of moments ago.

This was the beginning of an odyssey we would share for the next several months. Yesterday, after a session in a quiet space with Asia – to which he, still absolutely unable emotionally to walk on a leash (his handler carried him) – Asia walked with me, each of us on our own end of the leash. His inability – till yesterday – to walk on a leash presented a big challenge to his being adopted soon. He’s part of my heart, and tears form (at missing him already, yet, tears of gratitude and joy), as I think that he will soon – thank you, Kathleen, thank you, Reiki – be able to go to that forever cherishing home they all deserve.

Kathleen, the gift you bring to all who know you, your life’s purpose, is immeasurable, and I don’t have words to adequately express my gratitude. My morning meditation and prayer time, always concludes with gratitude, usually expressed as, “thank you, God, for only sending us angels and miracles.” Kathleen, my friend, in the lives and hearts of so many your endeavor has touched, you and your work are both.

Carol Ann Allan