Wild animals have been some of my most profound teachers over the years, and I am so grateful for the gifts and blessings they have offered to me in quiet moments of Animal Reiki stillness.
In this article, I’m going to share my best advice for creating gentle, ethical and powerful Animal Reiki healing moments with wild animals in your life.
Thus, you’ll notice there will be no hand positions suggested and no beaming or pushing of energy towards the animals’ “problems.” Our gentle, positive approach is what makes the Let Animals Lead® method so different and also so effective!
Why Offer Reiki to Wild Animals?
Wild animals still live close to nature’s natural cycles and are in tune with ancient instincts. Sharing an energetic space with them during Animal Reiki sessions helps us to open the doors to our own inner wisdom and earthly connections as well. It’s truly a gift to connect with the fierce energy of the big cats, the gentle energy of deer, the grounded energy of reptiles such as snakes and crocodiles, or the strength, solidity and humor of bears.
We, too, are creatures of earth and have an ancestral lineage of understanding the web of life and connectedness of all beings, we just have to remember it, and these animals give us the gift of this remembrance and thus help us walk the path towards a world of harmony and balance.
Perhaps within a peaceful, compassionate energetic connection between humans and our lesser-known cousins on this planet, we can find our way back to living together on this planet with mutual respect and harmony. My own lived experience being healed during an Animal Reiki session by a captive rattlesnake at The C.A.R.E. Foundation makes me think so.
Perhaps within the open-minded and expansive-hearted space of an Animal Reiki session with an exotic animal, who through human cruelty, has ended up in a captive situation, we can learn to see beyond external circumstances and remember that truly, in this moment, All is Well. No matter what our physical experiences may be, our spirit is always free.
Experiencing this deep understanding during an Animal Reiki session with a black leopard at The C.A.R.E. Foundation reminded me of this truth.
As you find ways to support these sacred, wild cousins by inviting them into the love and light of Animal Reiki, I encourage you to stay mindful and open to the deeper spiritual insights these animals can teach you. Anytime they choose to share space with us, it is truly a gift for your soul’s journey.
What Are the Best Places to Offer Animal Reiki Sessions to Wild Animals?
Try sharing Reiki with your wild animal neighbors.
Depending on where you live, you may have many opportunities to share Animal Reiki sessions with your wild animal neighbors. I’ve meditated in my backyard, only to open my eyes and see birds flocking to the trees overhead to join me and take a little Reiki nap.
I think wild animals in my area also now know that I am the “Animal Reiki person” because I’ve had amazing experiences of injured wild animals showing up in my front yard or right outside the house, wanting to connect energetically.
One day my daughter and I came home to a small vole near our front door. He was tremoring and looked like he had been poisoned. My daughter brought out a little saucer of water and I sat on the ground nearby and meditated. He seemed to have difficulty lifting his head and his eyes looked as if he was in pain.
He remained motionless, except for occasional tremors. After about 45 minutes, he woke up and seemed much more lively with a brighter look in his eyes.
He drank water and moved under some sheltering trees to rest. I moved inside and offered more Animal Reiki to him. Within the hour he had disappeared. I like to think he survived and went back to his family. The truth is, we never know how our Animal Reiki meditations are supporting animals, sometimes they get better, and sometimes they pass away.
Either way, over time I’ve learned to trust in Highest Good and whatever happens, even if it isn’t the outcome I had hoped for. In any case, the act of sharing compassion and love to this tiny vole, often seen in our society as something to be killed, I believe is important to healing the human-animal bond in our world.
In another instance, a neighborhood coyote was injured and kicked out of his pack. He wandered the surrounding streets for days, walking very slowly and seemed a bit dazed.
He began to show up in our driveway, looking up at the window where I do my work during the day. Each time, I would sense something, look out the window, and there he was. I would stop and begin my meditation for him. I didn’t go outside the house to do this, as I didn’t want to disturb him with my physical presence. After about an hour he would move on.
A few weeks ago, I came home from running errands and he was standing outside my house. I stood in the front yard (safely fenced) where I could see him and offered him Animal Reiki. He looked at me, lay down and curled up in the sun. It was an amazing feeling of connection, comfort and understanding, without any need for physical proximity.
I wondered if he would get better. I asked my students to remember him in their offerings (I named him Wiley). He disappeared for a couple of weeks, and then recently, I was out walking my dog in the morning along a narrow road nearby and a UPS truck began approaching. It was a narrow road, so I brought my dog up the hillside a bit so we were both off the road and safely out of the way.
As the truck approached, who did I see in front but Wiley, trotting healthily in front of the truck, also trying to avoid it like us. He trotted by us, closely too – maybe just 7-10 feet away – and he eyed us as he passed. Then just after he passed, he stopped trotting and turned back, giving me the most inquisitive look, as if to say, “Friend?” I said to him, “Hello dear one, yes we are friends, but keep going, out of the path of the truck!”
He turned and trotted away, and I haven’t seen him since. But he looked so much healthier, I believe he is making a good recovery from his injuries, and I know that somehow, he understands that I am supporting him.
Many of my neighbors see him as a nuisance. I’ve seen him being yelled and cussed at, chased with cars and trucks, and treated cruelly. I believe it’s so important to be a human in our neighborhood sharing loving-kindness with this dear soul. Again, it is a way to help heal the human-animal bond in our world.
Sharing Reiki in Zoos, Aquariums, Rescues and Sanctuaries
Many wild animals may live in captivity in your area in various types of organizations. Because zoos depend on selling many tickets to visitors, it can be stressful for animals because of all the human noise and chaos during the day. Although I believe there are better ways than zoos to house wild animals, I still support Animal Reiki Practitioners in visiting zoos, aquariums and other organizations, because these animals can really benefit from the calm peace of an Animal Reiki meditation.
It's wonderful to sit on a bench next to an octopus habitat and watch the octopus come out and come close, as if he is watching you and so interested in the meditation! What about meditating outside a tiger enclosure and having the tiger come close to the fence, stop pacing, roll over onto their back and go fast asleep! By creating a peaceful space in our own minds and hearts, we can help animals in these kinds of environments find rest, relaxation and a feeling of comfort and safety.
Whenever we offer wild and exotic animals (whether free or in captivity) an Animal Reiki session, we always want to ensure to value agency, preference, respect and positivity.
To ensure these things in the session, it’s important that animals feel free to leave the space if they wish. If this isn’t possible due to their habitat, then it’s even more important for us as practitioners to observe body language and respond quickly and respectfully to any indication that animals are uncomfortable with our presence.
How To Set Up Your Wild Animal Reiki Session
Find a space to begin.
Be sure to sit or stand far enough away that you aren’t disturbing the animal by your physical presence. Some wild animals don’t trust humans, and others may be re-released into the wild so it’s important that they don’t get used to our physical presence. It’s okay to offer the session from outside of their presence if the situation calls for it.
Set your intention.
Wild animals are very sensitive to your energy, both physically and mentally. We can begin a session by not approaching them physically, just finding a place nearby and setting our intention to dedicate all the energy of our practice to them. If they wish to join us, we invite them, but if they don’t feel comfortable, that is also fine.
Consider your emotional energy and let go of negative thoughts.
You might be sharing Animal Reiki with a wild animal because they are sick or injured. You might be sharing with captive wild animals who have been through past abuse or been captured from the wild and are in distress in a captive environment.
Often when we are sharing Animal Reiki with wild animals, we may be faced with the reality of human cruelty and the sad truth of animals being taken out of the wild, never able to return. This can cause great sadness and worry for us as animal lovers.
However, it’s important to acknowledge this within yourself, and then do your best to let it go. The best way we can help animals transcend their own discomfort or stress is for us to transcend ours and offer the most positive, beautiful and healing space possible.
Realize your energy is like a mirror to them: Our thoughts and emotions will reflect back to them and be felt. Thus, we want to make sure that our energy says to them: “You are perfect, you are beautiful, All is Well, and thank you for sharing this space with me, I am grateful.”
There is No Need To Touch, Hover, Point or Beam from the Hands: Just Meditate!
In fact, because wild animals are so sensitive, and often not trusting of humans, just thinking about our hands can feel unsafe to them. We can place our hands on our lap or on our lower belly and focus inward on our Animal Reiki meditation.
Wild animals are great teachers of “being” Reiki, rather than “doing” Reiki, because they will often become uncomfortable or leave the space if we inadvertently imagine “sending” energy to them.
I love to use this meditation, “Connecting with Trees” to create a space of peace and calm for myself that the animals can connect to.
What to Do During the Meditation
Just imagine you ARE peace, love, kindness and compassion. You are the light. Just shine. Simply invite them to share this space with you if they wish. Nothing to DO, nothing to FIX, only just TO BE. That is all, yes it’s that simple.
If your mind wanders, bring it back to peace and balance using your meditation technique.
How Long Should I Meditate?
Be flexible and watch the animals for their comfort and connection. Once they relax and connect, allow 30-60 minutes if possible. Depending on the animal, they may want a long session and so it’s nice to give them that option if you can.
However, depending on the situation, the time for your session may be less. The animals will often become more alert and leave when they are finished sharing the space with you.
Sometimes, wild animals will only slightly show themselves to you, for example if you are offering an Animal Reiki session to seals offshore while you are meditating on the beach. I always like to hold space for 30-60 minutes and allow animals to come in and out of the space as they wish during that time. I try to let go of my worries as much as possible about how much I’ll see them, how they will respond, what I will be able to see and so on.
How to End Each Wild Animal Reiki Session
Make sure to finish with gratitude, thanking the animals for connecting in whatever way they chose to. Depending on your proximity to the animals, you may or may not have been able to observe changes in their behavior during the session. I have learned over time to let go of my worries and expectations around this and just focus inward on my meditation for peace, love and compassion.
Take some time to reflect on the lessons the animal has taught you about life, healing, the precepts, Oneness and so on. It’s important to always consider the ways animals uplift and enhance the Animal Reiki space every time they choose to step into and co-create something new and special with us!
What Are Some Challenges Facing Wild and Exotic Animals?
The Wildlife Trade.
Wild animals are animals that are indigenous to the region where they live, however exotic animals are wild animals from other countries. Exotic and wild animals are often captured from the wild or bred in captivity and sold as part of the international pet trade, often illegally.
According to the World Animal Protection organization, around 200 million wild animals are kept as exotic pets in the United States alone. As pointed out in the Netflix series Tiger King, there are more than 5,000 tigers in captivity in the U.S.
There are many wild animals who are farmed for their skins or fur, and due to loopholes in laws, they are exempted from most state anti-cruelty laws.
How to help:
Add your name to some World Animal Protection direct action petitions to help animals.
Find out more about the Illegal Wildlife Trade and how the WWF is helping solve this issue:
Be a savvy tourist and get this: A Guide to Responsible Travel.
Loss of Habitat
Climate change, pollution, human agriculture, human/wildlife conflict, and more are contributing to the loss of habitat for wild animals and destruction of ecosystems and the natural environment. The destruction of our planet is having harmful consequences to all species, not just animals who live in the wild.
How to Help:
Support efforts for rewilding and compassionate conservation. Sign these petitions such as these from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Support Rewilding. Rewilding is the process of healing the environment, ecosystems and ultimately the planet. According to the Rewilding Institute: “The ultimate goal of rewilding efforts is to mitigate the species extinction crisis and restore healthy and sustainable ecosystem function in areas that require little or no human intervention or management.”
Support Compassionate Conservation. Compassionate Conservation is rethinking the field of conservation and animal welfare. It uses four core principles: help or do no harm; individuals matter; use good labels or no labels; and foster co-existence. Read more from Dr. Liv Baker, Director of the Mahouts Elephant Foundation.
Support ocean conservation work through the Ocean Conservancy.
Sign petitions created by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, including this one to save the North Atlantic Right Whale.
Support organizations such as the American Wild Horse Campaign and Return to Freedom.
Get inspired:
Read Marc Bekoff’s “A Unified Proclamation for Peaceful Global Existence.”
Watch My Octopus Teacher on Netflix and Blue Planet II on Discovery.
How Can I Help These Bigger Issues Facing Wild Animals with Animal Reiki?
Dedicate Your Meditations to Wild Animals, for We are all One.
“The Universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.” – Bruce H. Lipton, The Biology of Belief.
This quote reminds us that when we hold a space of positivity and light and invite healing to these situations, it ripples out.
“Being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world simply by changing ourselves. If I become a center of love and kindness in this moment, then in a perhaps small but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of love and kindness it lacked the moment before.” – Jon Kabat Zinn
If we can transform ourselves into a pure light of loving kindness, and invite wild animals to share this space with us – wherever they are and whatever they are facing – surely it will be felt.
Just as clearly as I felt myself lifted out of my suffering when my Animal Reiki community offered me Reiki during my cancer treatment, I know that wild animals can step in and share the light if we hold space for them.
The most important thing we can do is dedicate our practice to the situation of wild animals all around our world, and then use all of our heart, mind and soul’s intention to transform our energy into a space of All is Well.
If we can first let go of our own fears and worries around these issues, and then see each animal as perfect and whole in this moment, we can truly create the most beautiful space of love, harmony and peace. In this space, all healing possibilities exist.
As Chief Seattle said:
“Man does not weave this web of life.He is merely a strand of it.Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
I love this quote by Chief Seattle, and I would say the opposite is also true: whatever transformation into love and light we create within ourselves is also felt by our world. In this way, we can see that our Animal Reiki practice provides a way to bring light, healing and positivity to every part of our world and every animal in it!