Reiki is a fantastic form of energy work. It\u2019s great for speeding recovery from injury or surgery, or for healing emotional issues and generally bringing balance and peace to anyone, human or otherwise. I love working with animals, especially dogs, and horses. But more exotic species are always exciting. This time, it was a juvenile gator at Brookgreen Gardens. There are several alligators on the property (wild, of course). This young three foot long gator had found its way into one of brick ponds looking for tadpoles to eat. It was notoriously shy around people, going under the water anytime someone came near. That\u2019s a good thing. I felt guided to offer the young one some Reiki. \u201cStinky,\u201d as one of the local regulars calls him, took to it right away. Stinky took lots of energy through me for several minutes, lounging on top of the water as gators sometimes do, eyes closed and enjoying it. When he was done, he started to move away slowly. It was an amazing experience. Keep in mind now, you should NOT attempt this with a fully grown alligator from any less than behind a fence! They can run faster than you. This little guy was no threat and we could comfortably be in close proximity, as he chose to allow it. Even this small, it\u2019s a good idea to stay out of reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A personal essay describing the author offering Reiki to a shy juvenile alligator at Brookgreen Gardens, with reflections on energy work with animals and cautions about keeping a safe distance from wildlife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1392,1394,1393,1391,1396,1390,1395],"class_list":["post-1858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary","tag-alligator","tag-brookgreen-gardens","tag-distance-reiki","tag-gators","tag-master-teacher","tag-reiki","tag-wild-animals"],"acf":{"recommend_blurb":"For readers fascinated by Reiki and animal energy work, a vivid account of a session with a young wild gator, along with a safety note.","citation_snippet":"Dr. Kathryn Messegee (Kathryn Colleen), \"My Life: Reiki For Gators,\" https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/my-life-reiki-for-gators\/","topics":["spirit","essays"],"related_book":"","buy_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7556,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions\/7556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}