Last weekend, two friends and I played a game of bocce ball in a park near Commercial Drive and we were approached by two young men who asked us if we had ever tried ‘reiki’. My friend Greg, who participates in the recreational drug community, tried to remember if he had ever done reiki, and then answered, “No, but I’d like to.” One of the strangers was a short, stolid Asian with a thin beard on his face, and his taller, Eastern European partner with curly hair, had ominous, heavy eyelids. They didn’t have drugs, but they wanted to alter our minds using a Japanese healing meditation.

The teachers finished their demonstration after the Asian man added some more energy to Brett’s invisible ball and told Brett to be aware that energy always flows through us, and I wondered how Brett could benefit from knowing about the energy in him, and if he could heal himself now. The strangers left us small pieces of paper printed with information about a free 10-day reiki retreat, then walked over to the skateboard park across the street to make more people feel weird. Brett and Greg said they didn’t feel any different but overall were glad they took the reiki from strangers.