Before I even knew what Reiki was, this healing practice kept finding me. My Tai Chi teacher became a Reiki Master and first introduced me to it. Then, over a period of sixteen months, three women who came to teach creative workshops at my Texas studio turned out — each one, coincidentally — to also be Reiki Masters. They arrived from California, New York, and Australia. The last one finally asked me the question I needed to hear: “With all your inclinations toward teaching and healing, why aren’t you studying Reiki right here in Kerrville?” She had a point. I had long sought to nurture those around me — helping them heal and grow through art workshops, Tai Chi teaching, and writing. Reiki felt like the natural next step: a dedicated system for promoting healing within myself and those I loved.
A Daily Practice Takes Root
I received my first Reiki training from my former Tai Chi teacher, a Reiki Master in the Sei Chem tradition. Reiki quickly became the first thing I did for myself each morning — calming and centering me for the day and addressing whatever discomfort had arisen. It proved a wonderful support for my occasional migraines, back pain, and allergy symptoms. My husband and I were delighted to find it brought real relief to his hips, both before and after his hip replacements. (Still under anesthesia after his second surgery, he asked for “more Reiki” — not more medication.)
My mother in her final years, my two grown daughters, and my two grandsons all regularly asked for Reiki. When my youngest grandson was two and a half, he had his mother call me one evening so he could say, “Nana, please send Reiki — my head hurts.” I’ve given Reiki to ill friends, to dogs, cats, and a horse, and even to a new rose bush. Word spread through family and friends, and a small Reiki practice grew at Ventana Al Cielo Studio. My clients have included a doctor, a retired State Department worker, a writer, a teacher, and a person no longer able to work due to disability. The particulars of who or what matter less than this: Reiki raises the energy within any living thing to a level that supports its own ability to heal.
Finding My Teaching Master
After several years of study, I received my Sei Chem Master initiation — and immediately felt a call to do more. Beyond practicing Reiki, beyond teaching it, I envisioned Reiki becoming accessible through my local medical community, where far more people might receive and learn it.
With my first Master’s blessing, I sought a traditional Teaching Master who could help me realize that vision. A few months later, I was fortunate to meet Penelope Jewell at the International Women’s Writing Guild conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
I signed up for Penelope’s five-day workshop on Personal Mastery — a course designed to help participants define their values and build a mission and vision from them. Her bio also mentioned she was a Reiki Master, which delighted me. When I looked further, I discovered that Penelope is a Traditional Teaching Master of the Usui System of Natural Healing Reiki, practicing since April 1985 and initiated as the first Teaching Master in New York State in 1988 — at a time when there were approximately 500 Teaching Masters in the entire world.
Penelope’s teaching lineage runs: Mikao Usui — Chujiro Hayashi — Hawayo Takata — Phyllis Furumoto — Linda Keiser Mardis — Penelope Jewell. Knowing your Reiki lineage means knowing who taught and initiated you, and who taught them, tracing the line all the way back to Sensei Usui in 1920s Japan. Not all practitioners know their lineage; I am honored to claim Penelope’s as my own.
Since her initiation, Penelope has taught Reiki across the United States and around the world — in Canada, France, England, Scotland, Wales, Trinidad and Tobago, Alaska, Hawaii, and in leper communities in Bali and Kathmandu. She was among the first Masters to bring Reiki as an integrative therapy into AIDS treatment, working at The Living Room in Cleveland and The Globe Centre in London.
Becoming a Master
For two years I studied and practiced Reiki in apprenticeship with Penelope — scheduling and assisting her public talks and demonstrations, writing Reiki articles for publication, hosting and assisting her training workshops, and developing my Master’s project: creating and maintaining a volunteer Reiki program at our local Veterans Administration Medical Center.
On March 24, 2010, I received my Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki Master initiation from Penelope Jewell. I am her twentieth Master Initiate. I remain close to nearly ten of her other Initiates — sending Reiki to them daily, gathering at annual retreats, meeting monthly on Zoom, and staying in regular contact by email and WhatsApp. Though we live across the world, we are united in family through Reiki.
Anne’s Vision for Reiki
Reiki is a natural healing art that anyone can learn — for personal support and for use with any living thing. It is not a religion and requires no particular belief system. Here in Kerrville, I see so many opportunities: Peterson Regional Medical Center, the Veterans’ Medical Center, cancer and cardiac clinics, wellness centers, palliative and hospice care, nursing homes, and the countless individuals who simply want to support their own innate capacity for balance and healing.
That vision extends globally as well. I became a member of The Reiki Alliance (TRA) in October 2017 — an international community of Masters practicing and teaching Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki, committed to stewarding the tradition as passed through the direct lineage of Usui, Hayashi, Takata, Phyllis Lei Furumoto, and most recently Johannes Reindl. I attend TRA annual gatherings, have served as newsletter editor, and currently serve as USA Southwest & California Local Representative. The Alliance has brought me lifelong friendships across the global Reiki community.
From 2021 to 2024, I served on the Council of Reiki Home, an international nonprofit dedicated to bringing Reiki closer to all communities while honoring every lineage and level of practice. Reiki Home offers webcasts, meditation circles, and a rich calendar of programs through its Reiki Campus — all rooted in the belief that expanding our conscious awareness of life’s wholeness improves the quality of connection between all living beings.
I have also participated in an international forum for Reiki as a professional practice, holding the vision for Reiki as a recognized, compensated presence in hospitals, clinics, and assisted care settings. Research in this area remains limited — it draws little of the funding that pharmaceutical development attracts — but what exists points to real value in integrating touch therapies like Reiki into acute care.
One promising example: the award-winning integrated medicine charity Full Circle Fund Therapies, which supports patients and staff at St George’s Hospital in London. Its project Connecting Reiki with Medicine introduces Reiki to critical-need patients, caregivers, and hospital staff, with well-designed research studies underway to build the evidence base. Funded entirely by donations — with no government or NHS support — it is important, patient-centered work.