Attunement

It’s Saturday afternoon and I arrive at the centre to find Hugh and Ayumi’s rusty bicycles chained to the railings while they sit in the office watching Japanese movies on YouTube.

Hugh and Ayumi have been volunteering their Saturday mornings at the community centre for over twenty years now. We guess them to be in their fifties or sixties, though we could be out by centuries. There is a timelessness to Hugh and Ayumi. We assume they will always be here because they always have been here and perhaps they always have been, full stop. 

Hugh is a small-boned Welshman who speaks haltingly and works part-time as a lollipop man. Ayumi is a flittering, bird-like Japanese woman who wears badly applied green eye-shadow and practices Reiki, a form of spiritual healing. We have heard from other users of the centre that in the evenings Ayumi can often be found blessing random strangers along the seafront and offering to heal their energy free of charge.

Sometimes Hugh and Ayumi will have squeezed a third chair into the office so that one of their friends can join them. They have two friends who regularly visit them on Saturday mornings; both are sad, long-faced, olive-skinned men who bring with them crumpled carrier-bags of uncertain contents.

One of the two men is called Emmanuel. Emmanuel, who appears harmless enough, is from Spain and works in Tesco. The other friend has a far more shadowy countenance. Imagine the child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on his day off, ill at ease, not sure what to do with himself.

Often I will only find Hugh in the office when I arrive because Ayumi will be upstairs using Reiki to fine tune the life force of one of these two men.

It has been explained to me that Reiki cannot be learned. Accredited practitioners of Reiki have to be attuned to the universe by someone who has themselves been attuned. While I remain sceptical of such practices, I often think it must be nice to be attuned to the universe. Obviously such a thing would be reward in itself, but I think it would also be nice if you received something official as well. Perhaps a certificate you could frame and hang on the wall or a laminated card you could carry in your wallet or purse.

Personally, given the option, I’d go for the magical glowing amulet. That way I could either wear it discreetly under my clothes, so as not to draw undue attention to my uniqueness or, alternatively, I could dress with it over my apparel for special occasions such as parties, where it would make for a good conversation opener.