March 2000, I was home from university and wandering around my local library. As I walked by a cluster of small reading tables, something about one of the tables on the far side caught my attention. A large book lay open on it, and despite it being out of my way, I stopped, turned around, and walked over to examine it. I curiously flipped through its pages and found the book was about something called reiki. Sitting down to read more, I discovered reiki was very, very similar to the kiko energy treatment my uncle in Japan had given me just a year or two before. I wondered if it could be the same thing. Reiki, the book said, was an energy sent out mostly from the hands. It had been and could be used to help people with illnesses.

I sat down and read the book from purple cover-to-purple cover and made the biggest discovery of all, that reiki and the ability to do reiki, could be passed from teacher to student. Reiki was not limited to those born with the ability; it was available to anyone willing to learn!

As I knew of no reiki teachers in the area, nor did I have the exorbitant tuition money described in the book, I set aside the idea as a distant fantasy.

Three years later I was living in Manhattan, New York City. My life had become very much that of working and socializing, but the idea of reiki stayed with me. The internet had finally become more mainstream and I found Ellen Louise Kahne, a reiki teacher in Queens who advocated for reiki in the community, even helping the city heal from 9/11. Our telephone conversation was brief. She told me she would be teaching a reiki class that very weekend. I signed up on the spot. I honestly had no idea what exactly I had signed up for, but figured I would find out once there.

Thank you for listening to my story… just for today.

With Love and Light,
Crystal Hayama Chen
Reiki Master-Teacher, Practitioner