I’ve had nine teachers in the Reiki classes I’ve taken so far: Reiki I and II, Advanced Reiki Training, Holy Fire® Master class, Online Master Training, Karuna® Master, and Animal Reiki. From the start, my first teacher, Tyann, was the mother of Reiki for me. It was after my initial Reiki class with her that I experienced the most profound opening—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We lived in neighboring towns and, after the Reiki I and II classes, we got together every few months. I shared with her the articles and poems I was writing about my healing experiences; they were just starting to be published in magazines and journals. Our lives overlapped for a shorter time than I expected, only six years. After Tyann’s untimely death, I felt unmoored to be without a teacher with whom to share my Reiki journey.

In 2024, I contributed an article to Reiki News Magazine titled “Legacy and Lineage,” in which I wrote about my search for the Franciscan sister Tyann once told me had been her Reiki teacher. I had limited information, only a first name, and so it took me some time to locate her teacher. Then, once I found Sister Mary, several factors kept me from meeting her in person: she lived in a home for nuns; her health was deteriorating; and it was at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, so visitations were still limited. I was disappointed but told myself it wasn’t meant to be. Beautiful synchronicities occurred during my search for her, though, which left me feeling connected to Sister Mary even though she died before we were able to meet.

Two years passed during which I continued my practice—daily giving myself Reiki; providing sessions to others (many of them since 2020 have been distant sessions); teaching occasional Reiki classes; volunteering as a Reiki practitioner at the cancer center in a local hospital; and putting together a book based on my experiences with Reiki. I still had the desire for a close connection with a teacher in my lineage, but I didn’t see how that would be possible.

And then the Universe gave me a nudge. While preparing to teach Reiki I and II classes last summer, I happened to take a closer look at the names on the lineage sheet Tyann had given me. I have no idea why I’d never noticed this before, but in the space connected to Tyann’s name, I was surprised to see, not Sister Mary but Kjerstina, a name I didn’t recognize or even know how to pronounce.

In the busyness of life, the file folder containing my teaching materials sat on my desk for weeks. Before putting it away, I contemplated whether it was worth going down another rabbit hole searching for this woman who must have been another one of Tyann’s Reiki teachers. Finally, because I wanted to clear my desk and put this matter to rest, I did a quick internet search on the name from my lineage sheet.

The first search result contained a phone number with an older prefix for home numbers in our town. What were the chances, I wondered, that this was the same Kjerstina and that number was still good? Boldly, I dialed the number, not sure how I would explain who I was looking for if someone answered. No one did. I left a confused message on an answering machine that gave no hint as to its owner.

Twenty minutes later I received a call from a woman who spoke with an accent. She confirmed that she’d been Tyann’s Reiki I and II teacher. We lived in the same town, just a few miles from each other. After she stopped talking, I blurted out, “I know you!” I recognized her voice from the cancer center where I volunteered, and she recognized mine. “You’re the woman with the big smile who always gives me a hug before I leave,” she said. I had been giving Kjerstina monthly Reiki sessions at the center for at least a year or two.

That was five months ago. We began talking each week by phone. I invited her over for tea one afternoon and she recounted some of her forty-year practice of Reiki. The first time I went to her house, it was to give her Reiki. Kjerstina’s lungs are compromised, and smoke from fires burning out of control on the edge of town was making it hard for her to breathe. She breathed easier after that in-person session, and I continued with distant sessions.

Then, a few months later when I called to check in, she sounded very weak and told me she believed she had her first instance of a Covid infection. I sent Kjerstina distant Reiki daily for weeks and asked three of my students and friends to also send her Reiki. My friend Beth and I took her soup and other soft foods. Worried we’d catch what she had, Kjerstina insisted we shouldn’t get close to her, so we passed care packages through her front window. At one point, she called to tell me she’d left a photo of herself with Tyann on the refrigerator for me. She sounded so weak, like she might be saying goodbye.

Thankfully, little by little Kjerstina recovered. It feels like we’ve been given an extension of time to spend together. You never really know how long your life will intersect with another’s. Last weekend, she invited me over for a homemade meal. She also wanted to give me a short Reiki session, my first from her. Ever since meeting Kjerstina, I’d been writing down questions I hoped to ask her one day. She suggested I bring that list with me. At the end of the afternoon, as we sat at her table drinking cups of herbal tea, she answered my questions.

Kjerstina has a long and interesting history with Reiki. In 1985, she saw a flyer at the massage school where she was studying to become a massage therapist for an upcoming two-day Reiki class. What attracted her was the kanji for Reiki on the flyer. She knew just by looking at the symbol that she needed to be in the class. The class was taught by Barbara West, with Phyllis Furumoto observing. Phyllis was the granddaughter of Hawayo Takata, the woman who brought Reiki to the Western world. During that class, Kjerstina offered to make the arrangements for Barbara West to come back and teach Reiki II the following year.

Later, when attending a Reiki retreat led by Phyllis and others in Oregon, Kjerstina volunteered to help with the planning for a two-week Master training Phyllis would teach in Colorado. Kjerstina attended that training, and while there, she was invited to a gathering of Reiki Masters in Idaho. After the Idaho event, Kjerstina felt complete in her training. By then she had become a massage therapist, and she continued to offer Reiki along with those sessions.

In 1992, Kjerstina was contacted by Louise Nowell, a Reiki Master from Arizona, who was teaching a Reiki class in a California town a short distance away. The two women felt a connection upon meeting. They made plans for Louise to return four weeks later to attune Kjerstina again to Reiki III and Reiki Master. The training she received from Louise was much more detailed and thorough than what she had received before.

Kjerstina taught Reiki I and II classes at two massage schools in our area; travelled to other states to teach; and gave some Reiki classes on trips back to Sweden, the country she’d immigrated from as a young woman. She initiated a few Reiki Masters. She has used Reiki for more than four decades—for friends and family and as a massage therapist and a caregiver.

During the course of our conversations, we’ve had fun realizing that our paths have crossed multiple times. We both worked at the same hot springs resort in the 80s, she as a massage therapist and me as a lifeguard, though not during overlapping years. We probably attended some of the same Unity Church services in the 90s. We know many of the same people in our healing community. We buy produce from the same small farm stand. And we both attended Tyann’s memorial service. But for some reason, we never met until recently.

In past months, I’ve been sharing sections of the manuscript with Kjerstina that I completed last year. The book, Unlocking Ordinary Wonders: How Reiki and the Healing Arts Opened My Heart, is a kind of memoir—stories and poems about my journey into the healing world, pieces I’ve written and shared in magazines and journals in the U.S. and other countries. Reading it has helped Kjerstina get to know me better. It feels good to have her feedback on the soul project that encompasses my practice of Reiki over the past ten years.

Kjerstina and I met in such an unexpected way that I felt a higher power at play, like maybe our destinies were linked. I asked how she felt about our meeting and how quickly we’ve become friends. She said she’s happy to have a new friend to share Reiki insights with because she has lost a lot of friends. One of her favorite words is “collaboration,” and she believes we’re meant to do something important together to help other people and/or our planet.

We’ve already talked about teaching some kind of class together. What we teach might be a Reiki class or it might be something more. Kjerstina is also an Interior Alignment® teacher, a Star Flower and Gemstone Essence Master teacher, and she has worked as a soul coach. Now she is mostly retired, enjoying walks on the beach and getting together with friends and family.

I received a call from Kjerstina one morning when she was ill. Because she was coughing and weak, it was hard for me to understand all her words, but I comprehended she was very excited about an “out-of-body experience” she’d had. She believed it was connected to all the Reiki we were sending her. She described being in a tunnel of light and feeling immense love. She was coughing so much at the time that I didn’t want to ask her many questions, but I brought it up later on the day we met for lunch. What she’d told me sounded like near-death experiences I’ve read about. I asked her if that’s what it was. Kjerstina no longer had a clear memory of what she experienced, but she said it might have been a NDE. She’d been told by intuitives in the past that on multiple occasions during this lifetime she’d need to decide whether to leave this world or stay. She’s had similar experiences before.

My last question for Kjerstina was what advice she had for new Reiki practitioners. “To be present with the energy flowing and not have attachment to the outcome. And that Reiki is the opposite of effort,” she answered. She also mentioned the importance of grounding with the earth after a Reiki session or at the end of each day. Like me, she believes Reiki is essentially love, and a spiritual as well as a healing practice.

This poem celebrates the deep connection between Reiki, nature, and the gratitude that arises when we pause to simply breathe.

I sense that the Reiki energy played a part in bringing Kjerstina and me together. I’m hoping this is just the beginning of a long friendship supported by Reiki.

Article by Carolyn Chilton Casas

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Carolyn Chilton Casas

Carolyn Chilton Casas is an Usui/Holy Fire® III Reiki Master Teacher, a Holy Fire® III Karuna Reiki® Master, and an Animal Reiki practitioner who explores ways of healing in the articles she writes for wellness magazines in several countries. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Amethyst Review, Energy Magazine, and One Earth Sangha and in anthologies including Radiating Our Reiki Light, The Wonder of Small Things, and Thin Spaces & Sacred Spaces. More of Carolyn’s work can be found at www.carolynchiltoncasas.com and in her poetry collections Our Shared Breath and Under the Same Sky. Her new book Unlocking Ordinary Wonders: How Reiki and the Healing Arts Opened My Heart will be released this summer.