KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

October 12 through October 18, 2026

The Moon’s travels through Scorpio on Monday and Tuesday could make it difficult to get any traction or make any concrete progress, but Scorpio’s job is to drive us inward, where we can process and prepare for the outer changes we’d like to make. Take everything with a grain of salt and practice patience and flexibility to make the most of the ethereal start to the week. A Sagittarius Moon on Wednesday and Thursday will cast a lighter tone and more playful air to our movements, and with Pluto turning retrograde on Thursday, these are two more days that could prove difficult to see much tangible progress. Take heart, though, as a Capricorn Moon will take charge the last three days of the week, and we’ll be able to catch up in record time with all the obligations that have been awaiting our attention. Even though this is a somewhat hot and cold week, by Sunday, we’ll feel like we’ve accomplished a lot, both internally and externally!

Reiki: An Unconditional Love, by Raven Keyes

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

I'm blessed to have spent the whole of my career as a Reiki master in venues one might label "the establishment," such as operating rooms with renowned New York surgeons, and even standing next to Dr. Oz. My book, The Healing Power of Reiki, chronicles some of my personal stories about what it's been like to bring Reiki into the mainstream. In it I describe giving sessions in the locker room of the New York Giants and behind the barricades of Ground Zero after September 11th, but there's one important story that didn't make it into the book. It was still in the process of unfolding when my final manuscript reached its turn-in date, and though I couldn't have imagined it at the time, the tale even now continues to unfold. What you are about to read has taken place over the whole of this year, a journey of hope, courage, strength, and love. With my heart wide open, I share with you the amazing tale of My Reiki Valentine.

When Cassandra and I first met, we weren't thinking about the fact that Reiki is unconditional love. When she walked into my office, it was because she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and her surgeon, Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman, Chief of Breast Surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, had sent her to me. From the beginning, Cassandra faced up to her illness with surprising gratitude. You see, she had no symptoms and found out quite by accident that she had cancer. It had been discovered when she was hospitalized for something completely unrelated. The cancer showed up in her blood tests, and before she knew it, Dr. Feldman, whose work is legendary, was performing biopsies. It was discovered that her disease was quite advanced. When he told her about the Reiki option, she readily accepted and we began a journey together that was quite "rich" as she has recently described it; rich in many ways, all of them extraordinary.

Because of the kind of breast cancer she had and the amount of disease present, it was decided by her doctors that she would undergo several rounds of chemotherapy before having surgery; this meant that she would be having eight chemo sessions, each three weeks apart. For all those months, Cassandra came to me on the Wednesday mornings before her Thursday chemotherapy session. She called it, "her one happy appointment."

To say Cassandra and I became friends is an understatement. We were warrior women together! Our conversations before and after sessions during her chemotherapy odyssey were extraordinary—it's incredible to get to know another woman's heart under these circumstances. It was during these talks that I was able to tell her that Reiki is unconditional love from the universe, the power that heals. She connected her own love to this truth. The Reiki sessions we had together were powerful—she saw colors, she felt sensations, she flew, she slept! Her side effects from the chemo were kept at a minimum. But what was truly remarkable from my point of view was that her spirits were always high and she was never distressed.

That is, except for when we got to the weekend before her surgery. With her chemotherapy rounds completed, her surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, February 14th—Valentine’s Day. All the plans were quickly put in place—her brother would fly in from the Midwest to care for her after the surgery and the flight he was able to get so last minute would have him arriving while she was still in the operating room. Her niece was coming to take charge of our personal belongings while we went into the mastectomy with Dr. Feldman, which would be followed immediately by re-constructive surgery performed by Cassandra's plastic surgeon.

On the Friday before the scheduled procedures, Cassandra was called and told that her pre-surgery blood test showed that her blood was too weak from all the chemotherapy and that the surgery might need to be postponed. She called me, very distressed to say the least. I promised her that I would do distance Reiki over the weekend with the intention of building up her blood. The distance healing session I conducted was very powerful for the both of us, and it worked like a charm. When Cassandra went in early on that Monday morning for a final blood test, her blood levels were improved enough for the surgery to go forward. So we had our date with destiny on the day of love.

I remember clearly the moments as the surgery got under way. I was sending Reiki into Cassandra with my hands placed across the top of her head while sitting on a stool next to the anesthesiologist; I was behind the sterile field clipped high above her head so I wouldn't have to see what was going on. I could hear Dr. Feldman quietly pointing out to another surgeon on his team that the size of the tumor was still quite large, in spite of the rounds of chemotherapy. He mentioned how important her next phase—radiation—was going to be. For the rest of the surgery, which was long because of all the plastic surgery that was required following the mastectomy, things went along as usual. It wasn't until the surgery was completely over that I got the scare of my life.

Waking up the patient is the responsibility of the anesthesiologist. Once Cassandra's surgery was over, everyone prepared to transfer her to post-op, but she wasn't waking up. Long minutes were passing without her coming around. The operating room cleared out of all personnel, except for the anesthesiologist, who called for another doctor to assist—and me. The doctors were shaking Cassandra with force, over and over, calling her name, and still she wasn't waking up. Their conversation was terrifying to me: "I didn’t give her very much narcotic; I don't understand this," said the one who had overseen the operation. "Maybe she had a stroke on the table. I think I'll give her a shot of…"

"No, not yet," said the other doctor.

This was the moment in which I found I had overcome my aversion to seeing blood. I marched right through the blood on the floor, took Cassandra's hand, sent Reiki through her palm, and called to her. "Cassandra, come back. The operation is over," I implored. I held my breath. "Raven," she croaked as her eyes started to slowly open. I cried. Cassandra has a memory of this. She remembers that she heard people calling her, but she didn't want to come back, because she felt she still had things to do in that other place where she was. It was my voice, and the love we have for each other, that brought her back. And, of course, the power of the unconditional love that Reiki is. I can't imagine I'll ever have a more heartfelt Valentine's gift—the gift of Cassandra's life continuing on as part of mine!

There were complications involving the radiation treatments, but eventually they were done and Cassandra recently received a clean bill of health from all of her doctors.

Cassandra told me that she was "taken" with Reiki and that she wanted to study it, so we began her Reiki training together; she just recently took the final step in her Reiki studies. This past weekend, she completed her training with me and is now a Reiki master herself. I have no words with which to express what this means to my heart. And I can't begin to imagine how many people Cassandra will help, as a survivor of breast cancer, filled with the healing power of the unconditional love that is Reiki.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012. All rights reserved.

When I am half-awake and very relaxed in bed (between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m.), the fan next to me goes crazy like it will explode. This used to frighten me, and it would take a huge effort to open my eyes and turn it off or turn the light on. Now when it happens, I'm not afraid and can jolt myself into moving a lot faster. Most of my dreams have been people dreams for the past two years - so many people, places and situations. It's like I'm there in them or sometimes just observing. Sometimes I feel a male in my bed. The mattress moves behind me and he hugs me in the spoon position. The first time I felt him gently rubbing the back of my neck. It's not sexual, but it feels like he's very familiar to me even though I've no idea who he is. At first I was terrified, as it always happened when the fan was going crazy and it took enormous effort to jolt him off. Now I ask in my head if it's Ross, the man I love in real life, and if there's no reply, I build up to jolting him off much faster. This week when I asked, he replied with Ross' name and voice but very, very slowly. I relaxed and put my hand on his, and his hand felt much larger and rougher than Ross'. I wasn't afraid but jolted him away. I also see tiny pin pricks of light in my room a lot, and feel like there's something there. Once I heard and felt three women whispering next to my bed but couldn't make out their words. They haven't been back. None of these experiences are like my normal dreams, which I usually forget quite quickly. I have many weird dreams of Ross when we're apart. I'm often very tired after all these dreams, like I've actually been living in them. Also, over the past year, when I'm near where someone has died recently, I get a pressure in my chest and I know they're still there. I'm worried. Is all of this real? Other odd things have also been happening. Thank you for listening.

Kim

Astrea:

It's extremely difficult to pinpoint what's going on with you because the events you describe seem so various and unrelated. The common thread seems to be that all this occurs in the middle of the night, and where you sleep.

Also, things JOLT you, or you JOLT them. That is an extreme reaction; it makes me think you don't like what is going on. If these experiences are scaring you, now is the time to take some real action.

The first thing to look for when you're seeing and feeling things and hearing voices is some type of chemical imbalance in your body. Are you eating correctly? Are you on some kind of crazy diet? Are you gaining or losing weight in a hurry? Are there people who are unpleasant at your job, or is it a NEW job? What has changed in other parts of your life that could be throwing you off balance? Big changes in our waking lives can set us up for big changes while we are trying to sleep, too.

Diet can play more of a part in paranormal experiences than most people realize. Pay close attention to when and what you're eating by keeping a food journal for a week. Pay particular attention to what you're eating before you go to bed at night. Since we are what we eat, our dreams can definitely be affected by our diets.

If you're on any kind of regular medication, check with your doctor to make sure the dosage is right. Feeling someone is there when someone is NOT there is something to really take seriously. I don't think that you're having spiritual visitors; I feel there is something bothering you or something out of whack that causes you to see and hear all these things.

The fan I would explain as an electrical surge. The rest of it is being caused by something that is OFF in your physical and spiritual being. Although some of these experiences are rewarding, hearing voices can be very troubling.

If it takes a while to get behind the reasons for these events, you can use one of many tried and true old remedies to stop these apparitions for now. In case these are simple nightmares, put your shoes under the bed facing opposite directions. Pet a black cat and throw the fur it sheds over your left shoulder to banish bad dreams. Put an arrowhead in a glass of water by your bed to sever contact with the megrims. Tie a silver spoon to the lower left leg of your bed.

It's common to feel that pressure in your chest when sensing someone who has died but not moved on. You are extra sensitive to that. Try to move spirits on with kindness when you feel one come to you. If they didn't need our help, they would cross over immediately and we wouldn't feel them at all.

*****

Susyn:

It appears that most of these experiences happen when you are in an alpha state, that place between being wide awake and deep asleep. Many people have also noted that the hours between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. tend to produce lots of spiritual or paranormal activity.

Because you've had so many similar experiences during these hours, it's likely that your psyche is more active during that time and is able to invite in or better sense these events. At these times, we can be highly sensitive to alternate realities, energies from people who are at a distance, and spirits that may be surrounding us.

Sometimes you are just an observer of all these happenings, which suggests you could be astral projecting instead of physically experiencing things in your bedroom. When you dream of Ross, he may be astral projecting to you unconsciously. Until we master the art of astral projection, we are usually unaware of our ability to do it. When you are involved in these visions or when you awake and notice the fan speeding up, you are definitely experiencing paranormal activity, however.

The women you heard whispering may be entities that didn't mean for you to notice them. Once you did, they either left or became more subtle. As with the small pinpricks of light you see, which could be sprite entities, these could be harmless but annoying entities that you are able to sense, hear or see when you're in an altered state of consciousness.

Waking up exhausted from these dreams is a sign that your room may be a gathering place for all types of spirit encounters. When a room is filled with entities, they can often affect electrical devices in the area, such as speeding up the fan, turning a television off or on, or activating baby monitors or stereo receivers. Spirits emit electromagnetic energy, which is why they are often picked up by EMF devices.

You may want to place a tape recorder in your room at night to see if you can record any of these voices or sounds, or a small camera to verify the lights you are seeing or the fan speeding up. Once you have determined that these events are physically real, you should be able to eliminate much of this by smudging the room with a sage smudge stick or sage incense.

Another method that works quite well is to place a raw, unbroken egg in a dish at each corner of the room. Leave it there for seven days. Check the eggs each day to make sure they haven't broken. If one cracks, flush it down the toilet and replace it with a fresh egg. This ritual will absorb and ground any random entities that may be using your bedroom as their spiritual hangout.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.