about

What is Reiki?

Reiki is a Japanese word meaning “Universal Life Force Energy”.

Reiki practices aim to balance and restore this energy for physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Reiki practitioners channel Reiki toward a recipient, who voluntarily receives an alignment or attunement with the energy of Reiki.

The work can deepen on the recipient’s part as they keep a relaxed focus on feeling, aligning, and receiving.

Mikao Usui developed the spiritual but non-religious practice of Reiki in Japan around 1922.

Reiki has since spread worldwide and evolved into a diversified variety of forms and interpretations.

How often should I Reiki?

When our energy is harmonized as a whole, we are better able to embody it.

It can take multiple sessions to notice substantial shifts in energetic alignment and self-healing effects.

My minimum time required between our sessions is 24 hours. This is normal for a time-sensitive concern, acute stress, or continuing discomfort.

  • I recommend seeking professional medical advice with a licensed practitioner for any medical symptoms.

  • I would be happy to refer clients to other trusted providers.

  • If you suspect having a contagious illness, I may request our session to be conducted over a virtual call or a reschedule for in-person sessions.

However, most general wellness sessions wait 2, 4, or 6 weeks between appointments. Some wait 2-3 months between appointments.

You may decide what is right for you, but it can take some time to integrate the energies and observe the full effects of a session.

I usually recommend waiting no more than 6 months between receiving regular Reiki sessions for general energetic check-ins.

A Return to Self. . . *

Reiki, yoga, arts, and other mind/body practices are a time to return to self in an effort to strengthen our sovereignty.

In these sessions and gatherings, we make space to develop our joyful creative power within. This helps to activate the body’s natural self-healing capabilities. *

My goal is to co-create environments for deepening our connection with self, others, and nature. The ultimate mission is to nurture personal growth through aligning with what feels most present now. *

Each work and session is unique to what may arise. Charting these dynamics and intentions together can be a truly empowering process. *

When we honor our individual and collective journeys, we make the world a better place.

I believe that depth in present gratitude, truthfulness, intuition, and meaningful connection is essential for creating healthy people and communities.

One of my greatest joys is cultivating creativity, innovation, and inspiration.

My purpose is to grow alongside those I work with.

My intention is to foster stable and grounded spaces to encourage self-healing. *

In these practices, we can hone the inner worlds and unearth meaningful observations for mapping our own paths to self. *

*This work is non-clinical. Reiki, Yoga, intuitive readings, and the like are not therapy nor medical advice, but intended for attuning to the energetic fields, deepening personal growth, and feeling more connected to self. I recommend licensed professional services in addition to our sessions for the support of your wellbeing.

My Story

Childhood

Since I was a child, I have been deeply philosophical and spiritually minded. I’ve looked for the answers to life’s most difficult questions from when I can first remember. This natural passion led me into gathering philosophical, psychological, metaphysical, and esoteric knowledge. Being a sensitive and emotional empath, I quickly learned how dark and depressing the world could be, and how severely humanity lacks in spiritual growth and practice, despite having access to so much knowledge. As an empath, my standards for honesty, transparency, authenticity, and vulnerability were rarely met by others. In childhood, that lead me down a dark and confusing path. But when I found hope, it was always my determination to make the world a better place.

Later in my youth, I often went about this in ways that were ignorantly and harmfully rebellious. However, it isn’t the mistakes we’ve made that define us, but the lessons we learn and practice from them.

In the 2000’s, I participated in many wonderful dance and musical community theatre productions. This opened up a whole world of mind-body practices for me that have stayed with me since. Many incredibly beautiful and sometimes very painful lessons were learned during this time, but altogether profound for my development.

I remember taking my first Yoga class as a birthday gift from my mother in 2005, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I practiced Yoga on-and-off for many years and thought about becoming a Yoga teacher, but I didn’t begin my official yogi schooling until recently. This is because I learned to be very picky about where I was learning from and how. There were also not many options around me for learning Yoga back then, and I simply refused to learn from an institution that I did not resonate with.

Adulthood

This refusal was because in my early adulthood, I was often led astray by other well-meaning teachers in my quest for gnosis.

I even became a very staunch and outspoken vegan for over 3 years, to the detriment of my own health and energy levels. This failure happened despite working at a health food store and then a vegan restaurant in Naples, FL. I ate the fresh seasonal certified organic homemade foods, exercised A LOT, and took supplements for my missing nutrients on a strictly plant-based diet, yet I still suffered. This pattern of “extremism” continued when I returned home to Indiana, became heavily involved in religious activities, and came out online as an “ex-vegan” advocate. What can I say? I’m a passionate human being when I care about something!

One thing I did proudly accomplish in 2014 was getting my certificate in Permaculture Landscape Design from Oregon State University. I highly recommend the course for anyone wanting to learn how to sustainably grow organic food.

Other than this, I learned a lot from many teachers, but often not exactly the lessons they were trying to teach. Many of these people were simply trying to do their best with the knowledge that they had sourced from outside themselves. But we were all lacking something incredibly important: our sovereign intuitive discernment. This was something that I could not find easily or at all in the communal spaces around me, so I eventually gave up on trying to find it for a long time. I simply attempted to accept the information I was given as I tried to conform to the institutions that I’d rebelled against since childhood.

This chapter of staying busy began in 2015, while I was getting engaged, starting a family, and building a business from scratch after working multiple jobs. I basically made sure I was distracted enough to stop searching too deeply into the meaning of things. I intensively studied religious and natural wellness texts to memorize and practice the information, doing my best not to question much. This continued into 2023 when it did not end well. I walked away from institutions all-together as I was yet again disappointed with the blatant unapologetic hypocrisy. I simply gritted my teeth and continued to run my family and fast-growing business despite my loss of direction and religious deconstruction.

In 2024, a friend introduced me to breathwork as a birthday gift to help me with my stress levels. That breathwork class gave me an amazing mind/body experience, which opened up a new world of sovereign power I had never felt before. It inspired me to return to Yoga again, but this time more regularly since Pranayama Yoga is also breathwork. I was able to find a place in Louisville, KY where I could take a Yoga class and then a breathwork session back-to-back. I did this consistently for over a year, driving an hour there and an hour back each time between my busy schedules as a mother of 2 and employer to several others.

Reiki Introduction

After many unsuccessful attempts to fix my chronic shoulder pain from stress, I was gifted another birthday session in 2025, but this time with a Reiki master named Katherine Martin in Louisville, KY. I had barely heard of Reiki before, so I didn’t know much of anything about it. Katie gently introduced me to the world of Reiki during that first session in the Salt Cave. That hour-long session changed my life.

Afterwards, I immediately noticed that my shoulder pain was gone, along with an emotional release. (This doesn’t always happen in every session.) She was so kind, graceful, communicative, helpful, and understanding with me, but I knew this was something I needed to unpack privately. A bit overwhelmed with the experience, I sat in the parking lot for 2 hours, unable to drive safely until I had adequately processed my healing session and what it meant for me. (I don’t mean to scare someone away from their first session as I think the strong effects had a lot to do with my personal life events and my personality as an empath.)

Around this time, I also sought another Reiki practitioner and intuitive reader who encouraged me to continue with my spiritual development through Reiki and meditation practices.

In the following months, I had exponential growth, understanding, and healing in my mind, body, and spirit. I remember thanking Katie profusely for the healing after the first session, but she responded in a way that I did not expect: “Oh I didn’t heal you, you did that, and you did an awesome job.”

That response stuck with me, as I was so accustomed to being disempowered by the institutions surrounding me. After my second session with her about 5 months later, I came to the realization that I was also meant to carry on this work, sharing it with my local and online communities.

Over several months, Katie taught me Reiki Levels I & II via the Usui Reiki lineage method with William Rand’s books, the founder of Reiki.org During this time, I realized that my business of 10 years did not align with my new perspectives anymore, so I walked away from my old business (Perma-Earth Bath & Body) to start a new one: Earth Heart.

Currently

I am now working on opening a local co-op studio called The Hive with my co-facilitator, Jess O’Neill. And in addition to studying yoga, I am continuing my Reiki education at the Master Level for teaching others how to practice Reiki, too.

Even though I am still a student technically, that doesn’t stop me from helping others and deepening my work. After all, I am never done learning since we are all students of life. I often learn so much from my clients as well in these co-creative spaces. Each session has tended to be a transformative experience for both me and my clients, which is why I cannot force my availability into standardized schedules.

If you can’t tell by now, I personally don’t believe in gurus having all of the power and knowledge, as I have seen that does nothing but concentrate power for control and dependency.

My goal is to create spaces where the guide and guided are on equal ground with respect to the work at hand.

Your Invitation

If this equal sharing of the workload resonates with you, I welcome you to consider scheduling a session either in-person or virtually for us to grow on our individual journeys together.

My intention is to co-create a safe and self-healing space with my clients to facilitate the energetic alignments of our minds, bodies, and spirits. The ultimate goal being that we can bring our own sovereign powers and creations into the world with confidence, strength, and clear intentions. This will help us all in making the world a better place…

If you would like to keep up with more of my shenanigans, you may follow me or subscribe below for updates!

And if our community work fits with your aspirations, I hope you will join us on our quest for creating local and global peace together, which is what little Mariah wanted to do all along.

Written by Mariah in October 2026

Thank you for reading!

Questions or comments? Submit the contact form if you would like to reach out to Mariah directly.