(RNS) Growing up, Ani Kalafian had heard stories of how her great-grandmother, an Armenian healer living in Iran, had the power to heal by touch. But after her mother’s family migrated to the United States, and with the passing of time, her great-grandmother’s art was lost.
Kalafian, who lives in Glendale, California, has inherited her ancestor’s healing spirit and is seeking to piece together her techniques. The closest thing she has found is reiki, a Japanese energy healing practice that, like her great-grandmother’s art, involves channeling healing energy through the hands of the practitioner.
Today, along with guided meditation sessions and traditional coffee cup readings, Kalafian offers her own version of reiki, intuitively substituting Armenian words and symbols for the Japanese ones in an attempt to rebuild a practice lost in the tumult of family history.
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