Significant milestones in Reiki have recently transpired. Not only did I acquire my own official Reiki (Holy Fire lineage) MASTER certificate as of last week (along with the rest of my class, featured above), but Holy Fire itself reached another milestone.

My having “leveled-up” to Reiki master means that I now have two additional symbols with which to heal clients during sessions. I’ve already experienced, and so can testify firsthand to, the uniqueness of these symbols’ energies, compared to the energies of those core symbols with which I’ve been healing clients all along (each of which also has its own distinct feel — and all of which I will, of course, continue to work with as I add to my personal Reiki toolkit).

As of three weeks ago, Holy Fire II energy has been replaced with Holy Fire III. This divine energy descended from the heavens to ignite the healers working with it (I think of it as a software upgrade, myself). I am honored and grateful to have been a member of one of the first classes ever to have been imbued with this latest manifestation of Holy Fire.

The same tools and techniques that have been central to the Holy Fire lineage of Reiki healing will continue to be used — only with a different energy. The Grace of Forgiveness comes through more powerfully with Holy Fire III, and the focus of its healing is less on what is being released during healing, and more on what is being revealed as the masks of the culturally created self are peeled away from the Authentic Self.

I experienced some most beautiful experiences during last week’s Reiki intensive.

During our first class meditation, the River of Life Experience, I had some of my own, most deeply ingrained masks come to mind; masks that ultimately came from having been raised in a society that equates one’s worth with their career success. I was reminded that shifting my focus to the positive, with a lens of Gratitude for all that I am blessed to have — as opposed to focusing on the negative, which renders judgments and criticisms of all aspects of reality — is fundamental to peace and happiness. (It wasn’t a happy reminder during the healing, though. I cried like a child whose Band-Aid was being ripped off of my actual flesh.)

In hindsight, it would naturally be the case that class healings began with the recognition and removal of personal obstacles blocking that which needed to be revealed. Later, on the same day, during the placement of the master symbol of the Usui lineage of Reiki, I felt an incredible lightness — that is, weightlessness — as if I literally were floating on cloud nine.

And, by the last day of the class, that incredible lightness became even lighter, as if I were filled with Helium.