In today’s hospitals, we see a brilliant show of hands–from the dexterity of a finely trained surgeon to the strong and efficient handiwork of a nurse. Soon, more hospitals might be adding the balancing touch of a reiki practitioner to their ranks. Pamela Miles, a reiki master with 27 years of experience, advises Western health care professionals on how they can use this Japanese practice of “laying-on hands” to help ease pain, relieve stress, and speed recovery.

It’s July again: sticky, humid, due to hit 94 today — and it’s my favorite time of the year. While others are wilting, I’m in my element, stretching like a big cat, true Leo that I am, and feeling my back unkink in the heat. July, the month of my birth, has traditionally been a wonderful time for me, a period of contemplation and re-alignment — chock full of gifts from the universe. This year I hike up to my new favorite place, a hawk watching spot in Mt. Kisco, NY. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place to meditate and reflect on the changes in my life this last year, and to muse on what I would like for the coming year…

Lick the Sky and Rule China: Dreams and Shamans in Imperial Chinese History From the Robert Moss Blog at www.mossdreams.com The imperial future of a dowager empress of ancient China was foreshadowed by a dream in which she rose to the sky and drank from it. The crucial role of dreams and shamanic experience in imperial China is another chapter in the history we weren’t taught in school…

Joseph P. Forgas writes, “Scientists are finding out how sadness works in the brain–and they’re discovering that it can confer important advantages. Sadness is not usually valued in our current culture. Self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behaviors, labeling sadness as a ‘problem emotion’ that needs to be kept at bay or eliminated.” From www.spiritualityhealth.com

The High Line is one of New York City’s newest parks: the first section opened in 2006, and subsequent parts in 2009. Built on an old, unused elevated railroad track and measuring about one mile long by about forty feet wide in some places, it is also one of the most interesting parks in the area. Unused since the 1980’s and originally condemned for demolition, it seemed the High Line would become one more story of urban blight. Then “Friends of the High Line” organized the community and began a massive public outreach program to raise funds and lobby the City and the Parks Commision to turn the old train tracks into a public use park.