I was very lucky to meet Frans Stiene and to be taught my Shinpiden level by him. Being introduced to his books by

Frans Stiene and me

Kathleen a few years ago, I found his and his wife’s whole understanding of Reiki to be a breath of fresh air. I arrived in the Cotswolds in early October of this year (2011). I had travelled across England by train, bus and then taxi. The venue for this Shinpiden workshop was in the middle of no where, making it very difficult for the taxi driver to find, eventually after asking someone in Winchcomb village I landed at my destination. I was staying at the Stable Cottages, Ireley grounds which were located next to the main house which was a beautiful Cotswold house.

I unpacked my things, and sat outside in the beautiful sunshine waiting for more people to arrive, as I ventured over to the main house, I was met by Frans. Having only ever seen him on a book or on his internet site, I was very nervous as to me I had never met someone famous before. He straight away put me at ease and was so very down to earth and grounded and had such a positive energy about him.

The first day I learnt about meditation, I realised that if I wanted to find what is hidden inside myself then I would need to use the meditation techniques to find out what is within me. I have always found meditation difficult as I am easily distracted. Frans helped me to think about the aim of meditation and to understand what meditation is. By not getting attatched to my thoughts and realising that there is no good or bad meditation was really refreshing. Direct experience is so important to understand what Reiki is all about. Frans made meditation really easy for me to understand in such a way that I would be able to practice it on a daily basis.

Being taught by Frans on the Shinpiden level was the most life changing experience I have ever had. For me he blew Reiki apart, he stripped away all of the layers and what was left was Reiki at it’s purest level. It was all about ‘being Reiki’ by being the precepts. It is about working on yourself and never being satisfied as you can always go deeper. Reiki is a life long practice and healing is just one element of it. The purpose of this blog for me, is how much this experience has changed me and my view of Reiki and how much this experience has helped me to be the best possible SARA teacher I can be. By me teaching my SARA students with the same enthusiasm and passion that Frans has and ‘perfect practice makes perfect’. SARA students in the UK will make such a difference to the animals that they work with too.

This deepened understanding of Reiki and my commitment to daily practice can only benefit the beautiful animals I work with at Remus. For  me that is what it is all about. If I can be a better Reiki Animal Practitioner and be in that Reiki space with the animals I work with and let go of ego and judgement I am definitely on the right path. Thank you Frans for showing me the way<3

…….. By Caroline Thomas

This is my first ever ‘blog’, first ever Workshop.Being part of SARA has truly changed my life! As I write this blog, I am still on a high from the wonderful day and adventure we all had.

It was the 31st of October, on a cool Autum day, that I arrived at Remus Horse Sanctuary full of excitement and fear. Today was the day, that I was going to run a SARA level 1 Workshop with, my lovely friend Brenda Oakley-Carter. Both of us being SARA teachers, we are very lucky to live quite close to each other.  I often feel that the ‘Universe’ brought us together!

The SARA experience started a few weeks before, when I was busy printing out the Manual, reading and absorbing all of the wonderful teachings that it held. Some of the information it contained was completely new to me and it required me to think about my own Reiki journey and path. As I read the Manual, everything made complete sense. I was amazed to see techniques I had never seen before. To be honest, it felt completly right, everything just fell into place.  I knew we would have no problems teaching the SARA way.

The students arrived at the beautiful Remus Horse Sanctuary, ready to begin on their own Reiki journeys. ( In a future blog, I will write more about the wonderful Sanctuary called Remus, I feel  so blessed to be able to offer Reiki there and to be a part of their team). Six students attended this Workshop, One being the founder of Remus, three volunteers and two people from the public. All with different back grounds.  We spent the morning learning about Reiki, coupled with attunements and techniques.  It was amazing to see how everyone embraced the new energy and were so keen to learn more. The energy at the workshop was beautiful.  In the afternoon we spent time working with the animals. As a group we left the class and went to offer Reiki to the donkeys. We set our intentions for the animals highest good and allowed the energy to flow. The donkeys moved around in between us before settling. Marigold who is a very old donkey and suffers with laminitis, finds it very difficult to walk. She found a space amongst us and lay down in the middle of the group.  It was easy to see that she was taking in the energy, at one point, she gently laid her head on the floor and gave out one large sigh. The students were amazed to see the effects that Reiki had on the animals. We moved on to a group of four stables, containing three horses on their own and a stable which contained two very young donkeys and a miniture horse, it had only been a couple of months before that they had been rescued from terrible cirumstances.  At this point we broke off into smaller groups  and offerred Reiki as before. What was so amazing was that each stable containing an animal had a different reaction to the energy. One horse carried on eating, showing no interest.  The miniture horse called Stix stood quietly as one of the students offered Reiki, and another horse called  Malibu just couldn’t get enough Reiki and stood with his eyes half closed competely in a Reiki trance. Each reaction helped the students to see that it truly was the choice of the animal to accept Reiki or to decide not to.

My biggest lesson from this Workshop was that it taught me to believe in myself and to have faith. The animals were the teachers, showing each student the true meaning of Reiki.