The OGM Retreat Begins

Svetlana needed to be at the hotel early to deal with various organizational issues, so it meant another early start and there was no time for breakfast.  She had, however, managed to arrange for me to check in early so that I could have breakfast at the hotel and some time to settle in before everything began.  I was very grateful for this as I was tired after another short night.

I was supposed to be meeting Juergen, one of the other docents, to organise some flip charts for the people to put ideas on as they registered. This needed to be done before breakfast.  I was delighted to discover that my room had a bath, so took a quick dip before the meeting, which helped me feel a bit better.  I then met up with Juergen and Anji who helped us translate the words we needed to put onto the flip charts into Russian.  Due to taking the bath I was late, so they had already more or less decided on the words, although they needed my input as an English speaker (Jueren is German).

We then helped to preapare the room, deciding to arrange the chairs in 3 concentric circles. In
the centre was a table with the photographs of the Spiritual Lineage, with candles and flowers.  Phyllis also set up her computer and a projector, so that Paul Mitchell could join us via virtual link.  

Then it was time for breakfast!  I was curious to see what would be on offer.  My breakfasts with Svetlana had been delightful: a fried egg, goats cheese that she had made, ham, rye bread, fresh tomatoes and one morning fried onions, mushrooms and aubergine.  At the hotel there was a similar range of foods: breads, sausage, omelette, salad, cooked vegetables, porridge made with buckwheat and chips!  This made it easy to keep to the diet I've worked out to keep my blood sugar balanced.

After breakfast our first session, which I'd been asked to start after the opening ceremony with a song.  I chose one I've taught many times that has simple words and a relevant meaning: Belle Mama.  I means beautiful Earth.  I was delighted by how willing to sing the group were - it made my job much easier.  This was the first time I'd led such a big group and I was also wearing a radio mike headset which I'm not used to. 

We then began the discussions, Phyllis explaining to us that for these days were were to be a part of the OGM circle, helping Phyllis and Paul to explore the Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki System further, to help answer some of the questions they have.  This was the biggest OGM Retreat so far - previously there were between 35 and 75 participants.  This time it was around 125.  Two of the docents gave a history of the previous OGM Retreats and how the role of docent began at the second retreat when Phyllis and Paul realised that they didn't want to facilitate the retreat, so asked a few experienced Reiki masters to assist.

One of the aspects I was very touched by in this first day of the retreat was learning that Kazakhstan is possibly the most pluralistic community in the world: there are 120 nationalities who live together harmoniously.  Reiki has also brought together people of differing ages, nationalities and cultures.  This reflects how Reiki offers us the possibility to go beyond our feelings of 'am I good enough' and 'am I safe' to recognizing our common humanity.  I first experienced this when I studied theatre in Paris with people from 26 nationalities, where although we didn't share the same culture, we discovered there were things we communicated through movement, tone of voice and way of being that transcended language and were commonly shared in our humanity.  In Reiki we also have the possibility of touching our essential humanity, enabling us to discover who we really are and bring our unique gifts to the world in a way that serves others.