In Greek mythology, Nestor was an elderly statesman with a penchant for lecturing the young. In Incline Village (Lake Tahoe), Nestor is a gray-haired bunny with a commitment to serve. When I first met her, Néstor had already received first and second degree Reiki attunements. How strange (and intriguing), I thought, for a rabbit to know Reiki! As a Reiki Master Teacher, I understood how someone could have attuned her, but I wondered: what exactly could she do with it? It turns out some pretty awesome stuff!
I started tuning into Nestor as part of my own service to his fellow human. To my delight, I found a bright and eager intelligence, intimately aware of changes in his home and in the world at large. He loves to travel with his homo sapiens and asked how he could best support their mutual growth. According to my favorite shamanism website, geocities.com/~animalspirits/:
Rabbit/Hare wisdom includes:
-Cheated
-paradox and contradiction
-Living by your own wits
-Receive hidden teachings and intuitive messages
-Fast thinking
-Modesty
-Moving through fear
-Strengthening of intuition
Nestor embodies such gifts, and his gentle but steadfast spirit passes them on to his own species and ours as well. I continued the occasional communication with Néstor, but always in the context of transmitting messages to and from his friend.
Since she had received Reiki certification from someone else, I never thought to assess when or if she might be “ready” for Master Teacher training. One day, Nestor’s human partner (my own Level 2 student) asked me if he would certify them both to Master Master Level. Implications and “goals” swirled through me. I don’t even invite all of my Reiki 2 students to become Master Teachers. How would you feel if you knew that I certified a rabbit? And what would other teachers think? Even as I explored these ideas, I picked up on Nestor’s accusations of “speciesism.” I felt like a Geico commercial: “Reiki. So easy even a rabbit can do it!” That’s true, I reasoned, at least for Reiki 1 and maybe even Level 2. As “universal life force energy,” Reiki can certainly flow through more people. At one point, only Japanese men knew Reiki and Dr. Hayashi refused to teach a foreigner named Mrs. Takata, the West would have missed out on some amazing healing.
I never limit the movement of students between the first and second levels, but I deeply respect the title of Reiki Master Teacher. It is not that RMT training means that one has “mastered” the universal life force energy. Hardly! Master Teacher training also does not require students to become “enlightened” or perfect in order to continue. I love teaching Reiki precisely because it doesn’t require these things. Still, the title of teacher implies a certain degree of understanding and awareness. To certify someone at that level, I need to believe that they are committed to an ever-evolving process of living Reiki as founder Mikao Usui describes it: “Just for today, don’t be mad. Don’t worry and be filled with gratitude. Do your job.” honestly. Be nice to people.” Simple principles, but powerfully transformative. I had no problem attuning a rabbit to Level 3, but in order to certify Nestor as a Reiki Master Teacher, I felt he needed more instruction on the potential and subtleties of this energy. Somehow he needed to transfer this information to Nestor’s psyche. But was such a transmission possible?
Animal encounters flooded my consciousness. After a brain injury in 1998, I spent six weeks in isolation at my parents’ home. As they worked, I longed for someone, anyone, to sit with me so I wouldn’t have to face my broken life alone. One day, the heart and mind cried out and a great horned owl appeared. In the height of summer, in the middle of the afternoon, this owl sat with me every day for six weeks, landing whenever I settled in the outdoor chair. In 2000, I saw a puppy leaping uncontrollably into four lanes of rush hour traffic, his frantic human screaming after him. From across the street, I locked onto the pup’s third eye and sent a simple verbal image: “Stop.” The pup wagged his tail and sat down as his breathless friend reached over and reattached the leash. The traffic had cleared and the man called out in a mixture of confusion, gratitude, and relief, “Um, thanks?” “No problem,” I told him. I also remembered the many times I “called” the animals to pose for my husband’s wildlife photography. They appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and allow photos to document the exchange.
OK, I agree, I can communicate with animals.
I envisioned myself as an external hard drive, loading files into Nestor’s brain, but she first surprised me with sophisticated Reiki 2 questions. She understood and used the remote healing symbol/mantra, allowing her to think of someone and “send” them. “. energy, but how could she best use the other symbols? In telepathic shorthand I taught him more subtle uses of other symbols, like clearing auras or recharging crystals. Reiki 3 teaches something known as “The Violet Breath”, and I attuned Nestor’s nose so that he could “breath violet” throughout the day. I had scheduled our time together for 11:00 in the morning, but decided at the last minute to start early. Nestor’s human friend asked me later if he perhaps had started our session at 10:36 am because Nestor had gone into a trance state for about an hour. This was exactly the moment of our instruction.
Nestor has proven to be an engaging and engaged student, who mentally “checks in” much like my human students do via email. However, the most amazing thing is that she has become a teacher. Nestor’s homo sapiens tells me that wild rabbits now visit Nestor, unfazed by nearby human activity. However, like my best students, she also challenges me and encourages me to embrace Reiki principles on an even deeper level. I often explain “Do your work honestly” as the Buddhist concept of Dharma, telling students, “Don’t hide your gifts! Be honest and creative about the ways you can serve.”
Play, Nestor. Thanks for the reminder.
*I wrote the above essay in early 2007, and our beloved Nestor has already passed away: but not before inspiring many animals and humans to become Master Reiki Masters! Nestor’s “mom” shared articles about his rabbit’s healing gifts, and those stories resulted in numerous Reiki Master Masters attuning their own animals to levels one, two, or three. I’ve also shared some of their stories and struggles with other pet owners to open their minds to possible communication with their own furry, scaled, and/or feathered friends.
On one occasion, Nestor helped me during intuitive sessions with a brain-injured man, and I shared this fact with his wife. That same week, another intuitive told her that “an unknown rabbit and a long-haired woman have suddenly appeared in her husband’s sessions. I don’t usually work with rabbits. I have no idea how it got there.” The wife laughed, delighted to find such “confirmation” in a field that seems to lack objective evidence. Although I offered under the radar animal communication sessions before Nestor, this bunny really pushed me to honor and offer those gifts in a bigger way. I have taught animal communication classes, facilitated sessions, and tutored animals in energy healing, including Reiki. Thanks to Néstor’s persistence, dozens of animals have avoided euthanasia because their owners were able to explore their true needs and expectations.
Often, animals express wishes to heal more proactively. Their behavior changes, and the humans notice that other humans treat their animal friends differently, too. After Reiki attunements, people begin to gravitate towards such dogs, cats, or other healing species. Animals that normally avoid each other start hugging or exchanging significant stars. Those who knew and loved Nestor may miss her on this earthly plane, but he certainly has left his mark on her!