Before I share my experience with Robin, I want to begin with a few simple definitions:
Shamanism is an ancient, nature-based spiritual practice centered around a direct connection with the unseen. It involves entering altered states of consciousness to communicate with helping and compassionate spirits for guidance, healing, and the restoration of balance. In this way, shamanism is rooted in a divinely connected relationship with nature.
Reiki is a Japanese energy healing modality in which universal life force energy is channeled through the practitioner to support relaxation, alignment, and the body’s natural capacity to heal.
Shamanic Reiki, as described in the book Shamanic Reiki (by my teacher, Llyn Roberts), is an integration of these two paths. It weaves together the channeling of Reiki energy with shamanic journeying, intuitive guidance, and connection with helping spirits to support multidimensional healing.
As a Shamanic Reiki Master Teacher apprentice, I’ve begun to experience how expansive this practice can be. It’s certainly not limited to working with people. There is an openness… an invitation to work with the natural world as well. To connect, to listen, to offer, and to receive.
Today, I found myself outside on a cold but sunny early spring day, moving through a practice known as Aimless Wandering. It is exactly what it sounds like. There's no destination. No plan. Just a softening of the mind and a willingness to be guided by something more instinctual.
I’m fortunate to live in a place where the ocean meets stretches of open land, and where paved paths weave alongside grasses, brush, and trees. The oceanside campground is still closed for the season, and the space is quiet, open, and largely undisturbed.
As I wandered in the empty campground, I noticed a robin standing in the grass beside the path. It wasn’t extremely close, but close enough to see clearly. I paused and consciously reached out to this bird, asking for permission to sit with it and share Reiki. There was a quiet sense of being met and a felt sense of permission to proceed.
I sat down cross legged on the pavement.
I rubbed my hands together to activate Reiki and held out my cupped palms toward the robin. I set my loving intention and called upon my spirit helpers, the Reiki symbols, and the Shamanic Reiki spiral. And then I simply sat.
For several long minutes, the bird remained.
It would turn its head from time to time, sometimes toward me, sometimes away. But it didn’t leave.
During this time, there was a felt sense that our energies had become connected. Not metaphorically, but experientially. It felt like a loop… like a continuous current moving between us. Something similar to the motion of a chain on a bicycle or a belt moving between two parts of an engine. A shared movement within stillness.
At the same time, my vision shifted. My eyes wouldn’t quite focus. No matter how many times I blinked, they remained in a softened, unfixed state, similar to looking at one of those old Magic Eye pictures that were so popular in my childhood.
And in that unfocused seeing, the bird appeared differently.
It stood out as its own being, clearly defined, and at the same time it was completely integrated into everything around it. The grass, the air, the light, the space itself… it was all one continuous textured field. The bird was not separate from it, and neither was I.
There was just this… shared presence.
Finally, Robin turned toward me, took a few small steps closer, and then lifted off into a nearby tree.
And that was it.
Simple. Brief. Complete.
As I continued aimlessly wandering, I noticed how this practice creates the conditions for these kinds of moments to arise. When the mind softens and control loosens, something more intuitive begins to guide the movement. You find yourself turning without reason, pausing without explanation, drawn by something that doesn’t need to be named.
There is also a quiet reciprocity that begins to emerge.
At one point, I found myself picking up small pieces of trash along the way. Nothing dramatic. Just one piece, then another. A simple, wordless gesture. A way of responding to the constant generosity of the earth with some small expression of care.
And in moving through the world like this, there is a great remembering.
Not as an idea, but as a direct experience.
A remembering of connection. Of wholeness. Of non-separation.
This is not something we create. It is something we notice… when the noise settles enough for it to be felt again.