0:00
The succession question for me had been one that has been foremost in my mind since 1983. And … of course back then I was so young, that I was gonna live forever, and we didn’t really have to think about it. But I did think about it because my grandmother’s death created so much havoc for all of us and at that time of course we were still in this conversation with Barbara Weber and I thought my grandmother could have been more clear and so on. And at the same time realizing how advantageous it was to have a restraining force, you know, this activating/restraining, it was fabulous. So…
0:57
And then in the late 1980s Paul Mitchell and I started to travel in … to other continents, we came to Europe first. And we often flew on the same airplane. And finally somebody, I’m pretty sure it was a German master said to me “you know, you guys shouldn’t fly on the same plane”. And I just laughed and I said “You got to be kidding me”. And she said “no, actually I’m not. I’m saying to you that you two have a responsibility that you’re not taking care of”. And I thought to myself, well that’s actually true, I guess accidents can happen. And at this point the Reiki community was so fragile that if Paul and I had died in the same time it would have shattered the community. I’m not saying that to feel like … you’re replaceable or anything, I just feel like if I was living responsibly as a leader, you know, I had to take care of that.
2:08

2:08
So we ended up not flying together, except for one time to Australia where we both forgot to ask each other when and where we were flying from and we ended up on the same plane. We came from totally different cities and ended up in Los Angeles on the same plane to go to Australia. So that was pretty funny. And…
2:33
Then about maybe 10 years ago or so… oh no before that, maybe 15 years ago I really thought, if I … my ideal situation about my successor is that they would appear now so that I could.. they could be with me and they would learn from me and so on. And I had in mind a young woman to do this and … basically it’s clear that she has her own path, that it’s not this. So I gave that up and I thought well, okay, if that’s not it then what?
3:20

2:07
Then all these new forms of practice started to pop up, some from my own students. And … people wanted me to control them. They wanted somehow from me to do a good job so that people wouldn’t feel like they could just go off and do their own Reiki. And I took it upon myself to really study the situation and decide if there was anything that I could do, anything at all. And in the midst of all this kind of contemplation time …. Shunjan Joop Hilger … I found out that he had trademarked
0301 these ähm Usui Shiki Ryo … no, 0304
the Usui System of natural healing as a phrase, Reiki as a phrase, the Kanji in Germany. And he had been awarded the trademarks. And I thought “oh… now what?”.
3:22
So in this whole process I had a partner, the Reiki Alliance, because many of their members were threatened by Joop’s use of these trademarks. And what was so, is that even though I wasn’t able at the time inside myself to trademark these things, I also didn’t feel like it was appropriate for another master outside the lineage to hold these trademarks. So we got into kind of out-of-court discussion about who own the trademarks, which cost both of us a lot of money and time and energy and … I’m sure agro… aggravation, sorry, it’s a slang (laugh).
4:14

13:03
Could I have done something different? No, I felt like I did my best. Unfortunately … (laugh) unfortunately my best was not nearly good enough. Ahhh… I was not prepared for this. I had no one in the community that would step up and be there for me. I had business men come and tell me … who were Reiki masters… come and tell me “Don’t get into this, you’ll regret it” and then walk away. They didn’t come and say “Listen, you need help. You need to know what you are getting into, I can help you with this” and eventually show me that this was not where I wanted to go. But nobody was willing to do that and that kind of unwillingness, I don’t blame them, I blame mys… I don’t blame myself, I just feel like I wasn’t open to it. And they didn’t feel the opening to come and support me.
14:05
So … I don’t know where that came from, but … It’s been my … If I have any regret in my whole time being recognized as the Grand Master, that’s the one. I never met Joop in person. I would…. Now I realize I should have several times met him in person. We only talked through attorneys. We never talked face to face. We didn’t go to court, it was settled out of court, so I didn’t even see him in court…. And I feel badly about that, because I feel like we only have the projection of who we think he or she or I was at the moment and it’s probably still present. I mean that’s where our relationship ended, so to speak. And that’s where it’s going to stay, because as human beings we can’t progress until we actually progress in real life. And that’s really sad.
15:20

0:00
0006 (räusper)
As a part of this system, there is a lineage and this lineage is like our ancestry and to just deny it or to say it doesn’t exist anymore is a lie. So in this system, there will be a lineage. What that lineage looks like, I don’t know. Is it one person that will succeed me? Is it a group of people that will try and do the work together? If so, then we really need a lot of work before I die. Is it possible for me to step back into a not so public role? Of course, I need to take care of myself, I feel that if I’m predominant, then… in visualness, then other masters will not have the opportunity to step into that place.
1:21

4:11
Reiki has a very unique kind of leadership to offer. So this means that we have, we need as far as I’m concerned, to grow into that leadership ourselves, which means that it’s not a hierarchy it’s a circle. The power is in the circle. And I have always said to people “I am not the top of the line, I’m not the world expert, I am a student of Reiki that has a specific duty to this system”. But everybody has as their own gift, their own understanding that they bring to the system. But their sharing of this gift is not so imperative as mine. That’s the difference.
5:12
I have always seen myself as sitting in a circle of masters, first the masters that Takata initiated and now that that circle has grown so small I can count on one hand the number of masters now alive, I think…. I look to another circle, the circle that I call the Master Body…
5:46
Are we able to sit together in a circle either virtually or physically and talk from our heart-mind (touches third eye), and to share our truth and to listen to the truth of others equally? Are we able to take the leadership when it’s important and then to give it to another person when it’s their turn to lead? 0618These are all 0620 (räusper) poss… all..in our, this..
06:25