Why "Indigo Moon"?

I have chosen the name Indigo Moon Reiki for many reasons.  The word indigo represents the color of the sixth chakra.  This is the brow or “third-eye” chakra which represents one of the highest stages of spiritual development, that of inner wisdom, intuition and progress towards enlightenment.  Vibrant colors like indigo can also help induce or release emotional states  (Capacchione, 2001).  Indigo is a deep shade of blue, a color which is reported to have “a relaxing, peaceful and calming effect” which also “lowers blood pressure, the heart rate and respiration”  (Balch and Balch 2000, p. 703).  Indigo is also the name of a dark blue dye.  I lived in West Africa for two years in the Peace Corps and I enjoyed shopping and bargaining for handmade, tie-dyed indigo cloth in the open-air markets on the coasts of Benin and Togo.  I still have many of these cloths that I now use to decorate my Reiki room.  Coincidentally, the word indigo is from a Greek word that means “from India” since the dye originally came from there.  I also believe many of the ancient healing arts developed in India thousands of years ago, so it is even more appropriate that the spirit of indigo is in the name of my practice.

The word moon carries many different connotations for me.  For one, it represents something that moves in phases.  Like the moon, people go through different phases of growth in their lives.  For me, my introduction to Reiki was the beginning of an incredible period of spiritual growth that continues to this day.  I am hoping that my clients, by receiving Reiki treatments, will also begin a new phase of their lives with increased spiritual, psychological, and emotional growth.

I also chose the idea of moon for my practice because, for me, it represents both the birth and death of creative spirit.  Most children are fascinated by the moon, and love to hear stories of the Man in the Moon. For me this symbolizes the wonderful child-like innocence and magic of belief in the unknown, order in the universe and hope for the future.  This is why I use a picture of a man in the moon as my logo.  Paradoxically, man landing on the moon in 1969 also represents the death of that same spirit. For me it symbolizes the apex of the growth of science and technology in Western civilization since the Renaissance.  We can put a man on the moon -- what can science not do!?  Although I applaud these achievements, I also believe that in the last hundred years or so, Western cultures have put all of their trust in science, and have lost their trust in their own intuition, faith, and natural healing.

If we have a headache, we run to take a pill, even though we may only need to lie down and take a nap.  If we hurt our backs, we run off to have back surgery, when all we may need is some yoga, stretching exercises and rest.  If we have a weed in the yard, we run out and buy toxic chemicals to kill it, even though we may only need to pull it out and plant something else there.  We think science has all the answers and yet we are becoming stressed out, burned out and ill at alarming rates.  One of the things I have learned in my Reiki practice is that science definitely does not have all the answers.

I have always heard that we use only 7% of our brains.  What is the other 93% doing?  Biologists say we have only explored 1% of the earth’s oceans, but what else lives in the other 99%?  I believe Reiki falls into the realm of the mysterious unknown.  I considered using the word sun in the name but life in pure sunlight is easy to see, easy to understand, and “plain as day.”  The word moon represents something not fully revealed, and not completely understood.  Getting a Reiki treatment is definitely out of the ordinary psychological or medical treatment, and it takes a bit of an adventurous spirit to jump into the unknown, but it is well worth the effort.  Contact me for an appointment.