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The following article by Amy Z. Rowlands appeared the Spring 2003 (Vol.2, Issue 1) edition of the The Reiki News Magazine. Beth Gray is my teacher's teacher. While my teacher, Denise Crundall of Melbourne, Australia has since left her body, I find myself more than a little interested in Beth, who remains, and lives in California. I have asked for and received permission to reprint this article in full. I have done this because there is much 'between the lines' that allow a very personal and intimate glimpse of one of the first Reiki practitioners in North America, more than the words convey. So with much gratitude to Beth for being and to Amy for writing here is my teacher's teacher, Beth Gray.
A Tribute to Beth Gray by Amy Z. Rowlands
Beth Gray was trained by Mrs. Takata and was an unusually powerful healer and teacher. Takata, taught her a remarkable healing technique which few of the other masters she trained were given. In the first decade after Hawayo Takata's death
in 1980, the twenty-two Reiki Masters she trained traveled across
the United States, to Europe, to Scandinavia, to all parts of
the world, teaching Reiki as they remembered Takata teaching them.
Among these teachers was Reverend Beth K. Gray. She had been my
Reiki Master for Reiki I and II, and was affectionately called
"Beth" by her students. It was a blessing and a privilege
to learn hands-on and distant healing from Beth in 1987, and to
assist afterwards in many of her level I and II classes until
her retirement in 1992. Beth taught Reiki as her beloved friend and teacher, Hawayo Takata, had taught her during many visits to the Grays' home in California during the 1970's. Beth began her own training with Takata in 1973, and soon after, established the first centre for Reiki healing in the continental United States, which remained in operation into the early 1990's. Takata initiated both Beth and her former husband, John Harvey Gray to the Master level. Beth considered teaching Reiki her calling, her passion, her joy. Although she taught many classes at her centre in Woodside, California, Beth also traveled to teach. In 1983, she made her first visit to Australia to teach Reiki and was so warmly welcomed that she returned year after year for almost a decade. By the late 1980's Beth was living half the year in California and half in Australia, actively teaching in both locations. In fact, the only two Reiki Masters Beth trained and certified were both Australians; Barbara MacGregor in Sydney and Denise Crundall, who made her transition on June 30, 2002 in Melbourne. In the spring and fall of each year, Beth visited Bucks County, Pennsylvania, despite the demands of her teaching schedule in California and Australia, and stayed with Reiki practitioner friends. During these brief visits, she taught weekend classes. Although she did not advertise, the practitioners she trained shared their experiences of Reiki and of her classes with friends, family, and acquaintances. In this way, her classes grew in size from a handful of students in a private home in the spring of 1987 Reiki I class I attended as a student, to around two hundred in a hotel meeting room in Flemington, New Jersey, just across the Delaware River from Bucks County, in the spring of 1992. This was the last of her classes at which I assisted. Whenever in front of a classroom of Reiki students, Beth Gray was radiantly beautiful, elegant, peaceful and fully present. The light in her blue eyes was dazzling, especially when she smiled. This light illumined her whole face, with its high cheekbones softened by the fall of short gray curls. Her eyes danced with a vibrant love of live, sparkled with laughter, and shone with tears of gratitude as she described her experiences with Reiki; she lived the Reiki principals and taught by the example of her life.
During Reiki I classes, Beth attuned her students four times, usually on Friday evening, on Saturday morning, on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday afternoon. Before each attunement, she would tantalize us with part of the story of Dr. Usui, completing it just before the final attunement. She would also lead us in a meditation on one of the Reiki principals. With the soothing music of "Prelude to Lazarus" by composer Steven Boone playing softly in the background, we listened to her voice gently inviting us to reflect on our lives and understand that we could choose, just for today, not anger, but to forgive, not to worry, but to let go and let God, to be grateful and to count our blessings, to be kind. When we returned to or chairs after each attunement, we sat in a "Reiki train", although Beth did not call it as such, it was like the traditional Japanese technique called Reiki Mawashi or Reiki 'circulation," placing our hands on the shoulders of the practitioner in front of us. As the people in the row behind us returned from being attuned, we felt the warmth of their Reiki-charged hands on our shoulders. Finally, when Beth had attuned everyone, she would return to the front of the room, sit quietly, and gently smile at us all. She would nod permission to relax our arms and shoulders and let our hands come to rest in our laps. The she would ask us, one by one, what we had experienced. Listening, she would smile with pleasure, nod encouragement, laugh with delight. Some students reported seeing swirls of purple light, even with closed eyes; some felt warmth and pulsing sensations in their hands; some heard the tinkling music of Beth's signature charm bracelet, worn because she herself heard bells when she was first attuned. By listening to the experiences others had had during each attunement, we learned to appreciate our own which made it easier for us to describe them when it was our turn. Sitting with our hands loosely folded in our laps or with one hand over our hearts and the other holding a pen as we took notes, we began to feel, with new conscious awareness, the flow of Reiki energy. And with each of four attunements, we opened ourselves more deeply to the experience of the Reiki energy. This opening was reinforced , stabilized and finally sealed, so that only the Reiki's pure essence- in Beth's words, "unconditional love" - could flow into us and through us for the purpose of bringing healing.
Although Beth believed, "Reiki is simple. A child can learn it." and advised us, "Keep it simple, sweetheart," she spent hours during each Reiki I class teaching student about the anatomy of the body under the practitioner hands in each position. While she assured us that her teacher, Takata, had said that it was not necessary to know anatomy to do Reiki, Beth herself believed it to be helpful to know something about anatomy in order to understand our client's treatment needs and to communicate them clearly to our clients and to those involved in their care. She provided to each student a little book which clearly showed the layers of organs beneath the skin, muscle, and bones. By connecting our growing awareness of what we were feeling in our hands with knowledge of anatomy, Beth laid the groundwork for understanding how our emotional and mental states contribute to our wellness or illness. For example, she told us that Takata had called the upper abdomen, at the level of the navel, the "emotional radio." This area is one that often draws Reiki energy quite strongly, simply because so many people in our culture are under stress. This is where people feel "butterflies in the stomach" or "swallowed anger." She gave us another little book, Louise Hay's Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them (ISBN 0-937611-35-2), for additional help in understanding how we store emotions in or physical bodies. Beth also taught us about referred pain and stressed the importance of applying Reiki to the 'original cause' - to the original site of physical infection or injury and the originating emotional or mental issues that make a person susceptible to illness and prone to injury. She acknowledged that, as we began to practice Reiki, most of our initial treatments would probably be quite informal - "band-aiding" a friend's headache or a child's scraped knee by applying our hands to where it hurts. But she encouraged us to set up a professional practice and offer clients more complete Reiki treatments by appointment, once we grew more confident as Reiki practitioners. To that end, on the final day of the class, under Beth's supervision, we paired up at bodywork tables and practiced providing a complete Reiki client treatment on one another. In addition to allowing us to simply relax and enjoy the experience of receiving Reiki, this gave us the opportunity to become familiar with the sensations of Reiki energy flow, comfortable with this new awareness, and conscious of the changes that signal a shift. By late afternoon, on Sunday of each Reiki I class, Beth had attuned us all four times, taught us Takata's story of Dr. Usui and guided us in meditations on the Reiki principals before each attunement; she had demonstrated to us and watched us practice the standard hand positions for self-treatment; she had also demonstrated a "walk-through" of a formal client treatment on a willing assistant and supervised our practice sessions with each other. She had answered many questions gently and with love, given us recommendations for future Reiki practice, and described possible additional training. At last, it was time to certify us as Reiki I practitioners. She called us, one by one, to the front of the room, where she gave us each a beautiful yellow rose, a certificate embossed with her seal and stamped in red with the japanese character for her name, and a congratulatory hug. I believe that most of us left with a sense of having received not only the gift of Reiki, but also her blessing. In the six-month intervals between Beth's visits, we practiced Reiki, experimenting to learn its effectiveness, exploring to discover its true nature. I, for one, enjoyed doing the Reiki I homework: "each night in bed, give yourself a Reiki treatment. See how far you get before you fall asleep." For the first few months after my Reiki I class, I fell asleep with my hands in Basic I, position, over the lower rib cage, penetrating to the adrenals. It took almost a year for me to get to Basic I, position 4, over the lower abdomen, before I fell asleep. Often, I would wake three or four hours later, still with my hands in position, before rolling over onto my side for the first time. Whether I completed the hand positions or not, I awoke feeling wonderful, physically better than I could ever remember feeling in my life. My fellow students reported similar experiences with the Reiki I homework assignment. Beth's thorough and loving instruction soon bore fruit. My first "Reiki miracle" was bringing complete healing to a horse the veterinarian had been unable to treat with any success. My second client, a San Diego man with chronic sinusitis, responded so immediately to Reiki that he had to blow his nose again and again, for about ten minute, until his sinuses cleared. I thought I had done something wrong, somehow making his condition worse. "No", he reassured me. " I am great. I can breath!" He had had pressure and congestion in his sinuses for the previous six months; the flow of Reiki had caused his sinuses to open up and drain. He was grateful and interested in learning Reiki himself. With stories like these and many others of using Reiki to bring healing to family and friends and acquaintances, and pets, we came together again at the appointed time to share our experiences and learn Reiki II from Rev. Beth Gray. Beth's Reiki II, Learning to Hear and Trust Our Intuition Seeing Beth again was always a joy. Simply being
in her presence was uplifting because she radiated the Reiki energy
so powerfully. As we entered the room, as we chatted with each
other awaiting her arrival, as we saw her walk to the front of
the room and turn to us with a bright smile, we felt the Reiki
energy quickening in the palms of our hands, tingling in our fingers
and warming our hearts, lifting us on its subtle waves into sacred
space for Beth always began her Reiki II classes by inviting us each to share an experience we had had since Reiki I. This was wonderful and profound. Supported by our own experience with the energy, we were easily able to integrate the lessons of the stories others shared: A young mother of a handicapped child shared her joy in connecting with him more and being able to teach him new tasks more easily - success she attributed to Reiki; a practitioner who had been diagnosed with Lupus reported that she had done daily self treatments and was now in complete remission. We listened to one another's stories and to Beth's comments with delight that became reverent awe. After hearing about our experiences since learning Reiki, Beth introduced us to Reiki distant (or absent) healing. She told us that we could use distant healing to treat clients and ourselves, as sell as our pets, farm animals, other animals, and our plants and gardens. We could send Reiki to our relationships, to our workplaces, and our co-workers, to our businesses. Then, in preparation for our first level II attunement, Beth led us in another beautiful guided meditation, as "Prelude to Lazarus" played softly in the background. This meditation, on the remaining Reiki principal "Just for Today, do an honest day's work," became a message of encouragement to us all to work with integrity and do our best. She attuned us each twice during the weekend class, usually once on Friday evening and once on Saturday, in the early afternoon. During these level II attunements, we held out one hand to be empowered to draw the three symbols used in Reiki II. As I will explain, this two attunement process for Reiki II was a different method than what Takata had taught most of her other master students, to whom she taught a one attunement method. Beth paced her instruction in the symbols slowly
and carefully, including an hour's drawing practice, with pen
and paper, for each symbol. To me, this felt not unlike learning
to print the letters of the alphabet in the first grade. Again
and again, we would initiate the form of an individual symbol
she had presented and attempt to follow it stroke for stroke,
while remembering to recite the name three times with each completed
drawing. We filled notebook pages. Finally, we showed the pages
to Beth, who would suggest any changes needed. Then, we practiced
drawing the symbol in the air, as we repeated its name aloud.
Again, Beth would approve or gently correct. Her goal was that
we would each have all three symbols perfectly committed to memory
before the class ended. She had promised Takata that she would
collect all drawings of the symbols at the close of each Reiki
II class, and afterwards, burn them. And this she did leaving
us with only our memory of the symbols as our only record. Beth made it clear to her students that the symbols were sacred and not be shown to anyone who was not already attuned to Reiki II or master. This was in the late 1980's and early 1990's before the symbols began being published in some Reiki books and also long before pictures of the symbols were published on the Worldwide Web. To this day, out of abiding respect for the Takata method in which I was taught and out of love for my teacher, I honour this instruction and I do not share the images or sacred names of the symbols with anyone who has not taken the appropriate Reiki training and received the attunement for them. What was most unusual in the way Beth taught Reiki II was her instructions in the use of the second symbol. Certainly, as for all Reiki practitioners, the second symbol was presented as the mental/emotional healing symbol; but for Beth and for us, her students, it also became the "talking symbol". Takata, cognizant of Beth's earlier work as a professional clairvoyant, taught her a special method that allowed Beth and those students drawn to learn from her to be able to receive intuitive impressions about the client's treatment needs and the original cause of any illness or disease condition. As far as I know, Takata taught only a few Reiki Masters to use the second symbol in an intuitive way, and she did not teach them identically. A special attunement process using two attunements instead of one was part of this process as it actually opened a channel to the student's mind that allowed this enhanced intuitive ability to be present. This gave the practitioner the ability to communicate with the subconscious mind of the client to find the original cause of an illness or condition and also allowed the practitioner to the communicate with the client's Higher Self. Communication with those who have passed on as well as spiritual beings was also made possible with this special attunement process and the instructions that went with it. With this instruction in the use of the second symbol came a discussion of the metaphysical foundations of wellness and illness. Beth truly believed that we have the ability to choose consciously how we think, how we feel, how we behave and that these conscious choices are the foundation for health and happiness. We discussed how Western medicine attempts to address the apparent physical causes of disease are often insufficient to bring about complete and permanent healing, with or without the help of Reiki and how Reiki, too, can fail to bring about complete and permanent healing when there are underlying emotional and mental reasons for the client to be sick. So Beth encouraged us to attempt to identify the hidden emotional and mental causes of illness, as well as any apparent physical causes. During this discussion, Beth reminded us of the teachings of Louise Hay, especially as presented in You Can Heal Your Life (ISBN 0-937611-01-8). She placed value on the process Louise Hay describes of reviewing the past to become aware of any resentment over real or imagined wrongs, and forgiving the wrong, the wrong-doer, and ourselves. She suggested that we might also benefit from reading Alice Steadman's book, Who's the Matter With Me? (ISBN 0-875162-25-8), which explores the emotional and mental causes of illness in a similar way. She encouraged us to read Peter McWilliams' book, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (ISBN 0-931580-57-9) and to notice any negative statements we make to ourselves or to others and to reframe them into positive ones. In particular, she talked about how powerfully creative are statements like these: "I'm sick and tired of...," "This is a real pain in the...," "I just can't handle... ." Making these statements, she cautioned, whether inside our own heads or aloud in conversation, is a bit like telling the subconscious mind to make us sick and tired and full of aches and pains. When we become chronic complainers, to ourselves or to others, we often develop chronic conditions as well. Our emotional state is also much more in our conscious control than many of us realize. Each day, Beth suggested when you wake up in the morning, imagine that you can go into a grocery store and 'select' what it is that you want to feel that day. Choose wonder. Choose laughter. Choose confidence. Choose gratitude. Choose peace of mind. Choose love. Accept joy. The last two injunctions became the theme of the second day's lesson, which preceded or final level II attunement. By exploring the metaphysical foundations of wellness and illness with us, Beth taught many of us a new way of thinking that deepened our spiritual understanding of the nature of Reiki. This understanding enabled us to accept more completely our own ability to bring healing on all levels in our own lives and to support the same acceptance in our clients. Conscious working with the metaphysical underpinnings of the process of healing now became integral to the practice. We had learned in Reiki I that Reiki is most effectively applied at the original site of the infection or injury. Now, if and when a client did not respond to hands-on Reiki quickly or completely, we could suggest that a client review the past, become aware of the emotions and mental states that had accompanied the onset of symptoms and do the work of forgiveness and release. Later, if I received an intuitive impression while sending distant healing to prompt the client to undertake a similar conscious healing process, we would know when it was time to offer understanding and support. We might recommend the client talk to a therapist, journal, draw, or engage in any method of creative expression to enable the client to safely express negative thoughts and repressed feelings manifested in the physical body as illness. To help the client design a healthier, happier reality in the present and future, we would suggest the client use the spiritual tools of meditation, creative visualization, and affirmations. As, as Reiki practitioners committed to our own healing on all levels, we might use the tools ourselves. On the final day of the Reiki II class, we practiced distant healing using a name and photograph provided by another student to connect to our unknown client. At the same time, we practiced the use of the second symbol as "the talking symbol". With bed pillows on our laps or on the table in front of us, our hands in position and flowing with energy, we "listened" for intuitive impressions, as well as changes in the sensations in our hands. From time to time, we would lift a hand from the pillow to jot down notes; for example: "basic I, position 2, intense heat on client's right side. Image of horse and rider jumping hurdle." Then we would return to position and continue the treatment. At the client's head, we would use the symbols as Beth taught us, and then attempt to engage our client in "conversation". Some clients were, in Beth's words, "chatty Kathies." Others were silent. Either way, we noted down what we felt in our hands and what impressions came into our minds. For a few students in each Reiki II class in which I participated or assisted, receiving impressions was easy; for a few, it seemed quite difficult; for most, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that at least some of their impressions were accurate, based on the feedback of the student who had provided the photograph and name to them. Beth assured us that with practice, using the symbols and the method she had taught us, the process of sending distant healing would become automatic; the energy itself, of course, would provide immediate healing. In time and with practice, just as we had become more sensitive to the subtle shifts in energy in our hands after learning Reiki I, so we would discover that we were becoming more comfortable with the experience of receiving intuitive impressions and more confident when we were accurate. Beth's promise to us of increased ease and confidence
using intuitive impressions to aid us as healers rested on a solid
foundation: a platform of repeated attunements (four for Reiki
level I, two for Reiki II), incorporating the second symbol intended
for this use, and including the third eye in the attunement process.
The attunement process patterns the practitioner's mind and body
to channel Reiki energy easily and effortlessly, below the level
of conscious intention, like breathing. With body and mind attuned,
the practitioner can focus on learning to "listen" to
his or her hands or his intuitions during treatments, and thus
quickly develop an understanding through experience of the nature
of the energy as unconditionally loving and constant. Practice, of course, was also essential. For Reiki II students who learned from Beth in the early 1980's, the homework assignment was to treat fifty different people in the fifty days immediately following the class. By the time I learned Reiki in 1987, she had reduced the homework assignment to thirty different people. In all of these thirty treatments, we were encouraged but not required to use the second symbol to receive intuitive impressions and invite "conversation." This was not an easy homework assignment. While some people successfully completed it, others faltered, stalled by self-doubt or plagued by concerns about invading people's privacy. Even those who did complete the assignment often continued it at a later time. Those of us who continued to use Reiki distant healing combining with the second symbol as Beth taught us have enjoyed a radiant change in our world view. With the use of these techniques comes a wonderful sense of the interconnectedness and unity in Spirit of all life. It is difficult to fear dying when you can "talk" to the dead, comforting beyond words to know that those who come into your life do so for reasons of love and useful to become aware of the impact of past life events on present life issues. It is helpful to be able to communicate to a doctor or nurse what is going in the mind of a patient in a coma and gratifying to be able to tell a veterinarian about an ailing animals thoughts and feelings. All of these become possible through the use of the second symbol as the "talking symbol" - a single 'element in the body of knowledge about Reiki that Beth shared. Beth Gray's contribution as a traditional Reiki Master to the collective good of all people, all living creatures, the living planet, cannot be measured. Although she is now retired, the impact of her teaching still ripples outward through sacred time and space into ordinary reality, touching countless lives with healing, changing hearts and minds from despair to hope. Yet she would not take personal credit for these positive changes; she would say, "Reiki is the healer." Beth taught Reiki in a secular way, allowing anyone drawn to her classes to learn, without regard to religion or lack thereof. Yet, sometimes, when a student pressed to understand the nature of the energy more clearly, she would quote Takata: "Reiki power God power." Then she would gently turn to the next practitioner who had a comment or a question, deflecting attention away from the magnitude of those words. In this way, she encouraged us to understand Reiki energy through our experience. So I share with you one of mine. In one of the last Reiki I classes at which I assisted, a beautiful young woman stylishly dressed in a suit and heels, and bound to a wheelchair, rolled herself to the front of the room and confronted Beth. A car accident had left this young woman paralyzed from the waist down and the doctors had told her she would never walk again. She was angry. Beth was kind. She listened with tender compassion and calmed her. She told the woman, newly attuned to Reiki, to just give Reiki a try. Today that woman teaches Reiki. She walks to the front of the room without even a cane, stands on her own two feet in front of her students, smiles, and begins to talk about a Japanese word. -end- Beth may be contacted via kathelin@allpossibilities.org Here is a link to Academy Health in New Jersey with another tribute
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All
of Beth's Reiki I and II classes in which I participated or assisted
she taught over three days, beginning on a Friday evening, continuing
all day Saturday, and concluding on Sunday. Beth taught all her
weekend-long classes in the same way in which she had been taught
by Takata, with loving and patient attention to each student and
great reverence and love for Reiki in her every word. 
On
this foundation of repeated attunements, students learned to "listen
to their hands" and to keep their hands in a position through
at least one cycle of Reiki energy before moving to the next position.
This is how Beth taught us to practice the hand positions for
self treatment and client treatment in Reiki I. We were told to
ignore the dictates of the clock, unless required to attend to
it by our profession role in a clinical setting. She also advised
us to ignore the prompting of the conscious mind to move quickly
through the positions. Instead, she urged: " listen to your
hands. Stay with the energy through a cycle in each position before
moving to the next, so that the energy can penetrate and accelerated
healing can occur. Following Beth's guidance, "listening
to our hands," we worked slowly and carefully through the
twelve standard hand positions on the front of the torso, the
head, on the back, and any additional positions that seemed appropriate
as we practiced self-treatment and client treatment. 
higher
learning. 
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