Reiki classes are scheduled for August and September. Sign up available NOW at the website!

Caring Palms just added a Reiki 1 class for August 20^th, and a Reiki 2 class for September 24^th, both Saturdays. Classes will be held at the Holiday Inn Express, 1101 Beach Blvd, Jacksonville Beach (10 blocks north of the studio).

There is plenty of room for a large class, so the upper limit is high. Since this is costing Caring Palms to rent the room, we want to make as big a class as possible. It is important to register with a deposit or the full amount as soon as possible. A decision will be made a week before the class date to determine if there are enough students to hold the class. (Unlike in the past when classes were held at the studio, Caring Palms can not teach just one or two students as we are paying extra for the space.)

Cost of each class is $150, and it is six (6) hours with a lunch break. Class times are 10am to 5(ish)pm. The classes are open to anyone that wants to learn Reiki, and continuing education credits (CEUs) are available to FL massage therapists.

A lot of people have been asking for these classes, so here they are. Reserve your space, sign up for them now. For more information on Reiki classes, please see the website under Classes, Reiki.

Caring Palms has recreated its welcome video for the new location. Please enjoy.

There is nothing more peaceful than watching the gentle flow of water. It reminds us that in movement there is stillness. And in the stillness of movement, there is peace.

The same can be said for all opposites… within one, there is part of the other. Within noise, there is silence. And within silence there is noise. Even in the loudest, noisiest din, there is that center part that allows one to let go of the sound, to look past it until that we no longer hear it. In that moment, we find the silence in the noise. The same is true in reverse. In the stillness of silence, there is still sound or noise. We might hear air moving, our own breathing, some indistinguishable background noise. Yet, it is still silence. (This is why white noise machines exist, to give something that can’t be focused on so that we focus where we need to.)

When we look at clouds gently moving across the sky, what do we see? Aside from the figures we might make out of them, we see softness. And even in the gentleness of their movement, we see stillness. We see that peaceful calm of the moment. But we could carry this further.

In love, we could find hate. And in hate, we could find love. We see this when there is someone we care about greatly, and they make the wrong choices. We love them, but hate the choices they make. Or there is someone that we hate the things they do, but still love them as a person, a soul.

We could even say that in unrest, there is calmness. And in calmness, there is unrest. It is known that while we are uneasy, part of that uneasiness comes from trying to find the calm. It is always there at the center, and we just need to relax to find it. And when calm, we remember the effort and paths it took to get there. So each goes hand in hand.

What opposites do you see? And can you see the part of one within the other? Stillness, movement, noise, silence, love, hate, unrest, calm. In opposites we find sameness. And in all, we can find peace.

There used to be nothing like the old barbershop quartets where they sang in four-part harmony, each member singing in their own range creating sounds that are mostly forgotten. Sometimes one of the singers would do a counter melody, but it still harmonized with the group.

Harmonies are something that are missed nowadays in most music, and if it’s there, then it is often overshadowed by electric guitars. Back in the days of acoustic guitars, it gave singers a chance to harmonize, to meld. Yes, harmonies are missed in most music today, but it is also missed in life.

Rather than smoothly sail from one point to another, we tend to bounce off one thing into another, and another. We hear sound as noise, not harmony. Everything comes together with its own song and seems to clash with every other song out there. What we perceive is discord (or dat-cord if you wish).

But if we center on one sound, we hear its melody, and within that melody, we feel the notes. Now we add another sound, and see how it blends in, creating counter movements, coming in where the first goes out. We keep doing this until all the sound there appears as a whole.

Imagine sitting in a park by a pond. You hear the movement of the water. You combine that with leaves rustling as the branches are moved by air. Now add the sounds of the birds, the frogs, the crickets, each one layering in over the others. Now we have gone from a solo to a symphony.

Sometimes we need to break something down into component parts and re-layer them against each other to hear the harmony they make. Sometimes it is simply changing a note to change the sound, to go from a minor chord to a major, to make it be positive instead of dark and ominous.

What do you hear when you listen? What is your impression? What notes need to change to feel the full impact of the harmonies? Listen, notice, change, meld. Happy harmonizing.

There is an article called Calming the Mind that shows a similar process.

Since people do not see the t-shirt designs too often, a new shirt will be featured each month.