About Avanti Healing Arts®.

Master Shinpiden Students meditating in Gassho2006

Learn how to live in the beauty of the present. At Avanti Healing Arts®, we offer Reiki and Meditation training programs and treatment promoting creativity, self-discovery, emotional healing and spiritual awareness. We specialize in Advanced Quality Training in Traditional Japanese Reiki, Meditation and QiGong in natural surroundings, our goal is helping you reach the highest level of well-being on your authentic path, always in accordance with your Higher Self. The focus in all things is upon peace, harmony, and joyful being.

Avanti Healing Arts® began in a tranquil woodland retreat in Northern Maine near the ocean. Now, our home is Estes Park, Colorado, in the majestic Rocky Mountains. Inspiring vistas open your soul for meditation and allow your true nature to emerge in the perfect place and way that is right for you. 

Long's Peak Sunset, Estes Park. ©Gianna Settin 2007

Reiki Treatment & Classes in Estes Park are offered in three locations, and soon to expand to Loveland. Schedule by going to our Contact page or through:

Mountain Bodhi---www.MountainBodhi.com--- a meditation center located on the quiet end of town at 427 W. Elkhorn Avenue, where Moving Meditation, Introductory Reiki Classes, Reiki Healing Dance®, and QiGong are held. For more information call Serena at 970-219-2683.

On The River Massage and Healing Arts---www.OnTheRiverMassage.com--- a healing arts center with a distinctly Japanese atmosphere located next to Starbucks at 356 E. Elkhorn Avenue, Suite 11 (not to be confused with another massage place with a similar name). Appointments with Gianna for Reiki, Aura and Chakra Clearing, and Emotional Healing can be made by calling Jacqui at 970-577-7455.

Avanti Healing Arts® Reiki Center ---Advanced "Master" Reiki Classes and Specialty Retreats are held in a comfortable cabin on the doorstep of thousands of acres of beautiful hiking in the Roosevelt National Forest a few miles outside of Estes Park. If you keep going you will reach the N. Boundary Trail of Rocky Mountain National Park.

                                  Wilderness at Avanti Healing Arts. ©Gianna Settin, 2009.

Natural elements are an intrinsic part of the Reiki experience with Avanti Healing Arts®. Attunements are held outside in the mountains if weather permits. At retreats there is more opportunity to have solitude if you wish to walk or meditate before or after class, or interact with others. Class usually starts at 9 AM and ends at about 5 PM. Often the Levels of training are broken up into half-day segments and spaced a few weeks apart for optimum learning.

                                                      
About Gianna...

Gianna Settin, PhD,  Founder and Director of Colorado-based Avanti Healing Arts®, teaches Gendai Reiki Ho, Usui-Tibetan, and Karuna Reiki®. She is one of only a few Gendai Reiki Ho Shihans offering training in this school of Japanese Reiki in the USA. She also was a licensed teacher for the International Center for Reiki Training for some years.

Dr. Settin is nationally recognized for her contributions in geriatric medicine and psychology with academic degrees from Columbia University and a doctorate from SUNY Stony Brook. She is an accomplished therapist with over 25 years experience in private clinical psychology practice and hospital administration, and has presented topics in health care and holistic medicine at hundreds of professional conferences and workshops, with numerous publications in psychology and Reiki (CV-Resume).

Gianna's Japanese Reiki Lineage after Usui Sensei comes through Kanichi Taketomi, Kimiko Koyama, Hiroshi Doi, Roberta Barnes (Gendai Reiki Ho,2007). She always remembers her first Level I & II Reiki class from Hope Pratt in a blizzard in Downeast Maine (Usui Reiki Shiki in the Reiki Alliance Tradition,2000). William Lee Rand founder of the International Center for Reiki Training was a mentor for many years and her first Master Teacher (Usui-Tibetan Reiki Master-Teacher, 2002). She studied with Laurelle Shanti Gaia (Karuna Reiki® Master-2003), Walter Lubeck (Rainbow Reiki,2005) and continues on with other Japanese Reiki teachers.

She began Reiki after an arduous month-long trek in Nepal in 1999 and, having observed a healing in the Himalayas near the Tibetan border that literally involved raising the dead, said "I have to know how that was done!" It just so happened there was a Reiki class the very next weekend. So many people come to Reiki in what seems to be a coincidental way but there are no accidents when it comes to following one's inner guidance.

Integrated into her practice and teaching is lifelong experience with Meditation starting with the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda as a teenager and continue now with QiGong. She has studied many energy therapies, Tibetan Buddhist and Native American Cherokee and Dakota medicine practices, and incorporates creative elements from her background in the arts and her love of nature into her work. Gianna has taught Reiki around the world since 2002. From a family of musicians, her first career was as a professional ballet and jazz soloist in France.

Calling upon this experience, she later originated Reiki Healing Dance™ now presented worldwide as a certification course. She has had a varied career, winding its way through veterinary medicine, dance, psychology, and work with plants, resulting in programs and therapeutic work with Animals, Elders, Trees and her specialty Emotional Healing. She is currently writing a couple of books and Reiki manuals on these topics, and is applying for grants to do a second DVD on Reiki Healing Dance.

Reiki is personal spiritual work, and there is no end to learning so it is not necessary to place it (or anyone) on a pedestal or apply concepts such as "mastery." This is nothing but ego; the greatest teachers are the most humble. Usui Sensei said that he never wanted to achieve the highest level of Reiki because that way he would always have more to look forward to learning. He is saying that the more you experience in this lifetime --- if you are really paying attention --- the more loving and compassionate you become. That is the true spirit of Reiki.

Teaching Reiki...

The goal at Avanti Healing Arts® is to support the authentic wholeness of each person --- not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Wellness is not about dependency upon a "guru" or healer, it is about learning to activate your own innate healing ability. It is also about being aware of your inner knowing --- intuition is within everyone's grasp! Even though Reiki is easy to acquire, you need to energetically absorb it. Reiki is taught at different levels over time for this reason, each one a prerequisite for the next.

Many people have some form of natural healing ability but they are not doing Reiki if they have not received a Reiki empowerment (attunement) from a certified Reiki Master Teacher. Anyone can read a manual and memorize a symbol but no one can experience "hibiki" (the specific sensitivity in the hands that is Reiki) without that transmission. Same thing for teachers --- it is the teacher certification course which instructs you (among other things) in how to pass on the attunements, and this cannot be learned just from reading a manual or watching a CD.

Gianna has taught most of her life (dance, piano, stress management, human relations seminars, psychology, meditation and various self-awareness and self-help programs) and says that she learns most from her students themselves. If no one asks a question, how does one further understanding? Open, interactive discussion is encouraged during training, and at the same time there is respect for your privacy concerning sharing of personal experiences.

No one goes home without having felt the Reiki energy during class --- and you will learn what to do with it whether it's giving a treatment for the first time or giving an empowerment as a teacher. In the Introductory levels hands-on practice is strongly emphasized along with familiarity with Japanese Reiki Meditations along with the use of intuition and intention. In the upper levels of Reiki, it is a spiritual exploration. Learning should be relaxing and exciting, not about performing but about enlightenment. It is fun to experience and learn, and very important in the midst of living to have a sense of humor (why do you think the Dalai Lama is always laughing)?

What is Reiki?

   "Reiki is an initiation into an amazing energy source that lets flow to you harmony and joy. It is a practical way to learn self-healing that also helps others, is easy to acquire and lasts a lifetime. Its spiritually guided energy works together with your existing beliefs and values. There are some who have combined "New Age" beliefs with Reiki but this is not its original purpose - Reiki does not replace your religious beliefs, your lifestyle or your values because it is not a religion and does not try to tell you what to do or that it is "the way." It just simply and safely offers you a method of being in the world that reduces stress and overcomes painful physical, mental, emotional and existential issues that keep you from being fully present. But more than this, Reiki is a way of being that directly connects you with your Higher Self, and this allows you to express your authentic nature. It is a wonderful voyage of discovery to access the many dimensions to existence. It guides you along your path in ways that you can only believe once you have experienced it" (Settin, 2003).

Reiki is Harmony.

    "How does this flow of life work? We are multidimensional beings --- not separate physical, emotional and spiritual parts --- we are greater than the sum of our parts, an amazing energetic vibrational network. There is no linear time or space. So the whole deal is about balance (not equality --- about equilibrium) so that there is not too much energy (Qi or Chi) or too little for optimization of your unique energy system. In Eastern medicine, it would means the free flow of energy in the meridians, the yin-yang of living energy, the harmony or resonance among many disparate parts that exist in any well-functioning system" (On Healing, 2008)

 Being in the Flow - Monhegan Island, Maine. ©2007 Gianna Settin

Reiki supports self-healing and allows space for discovery. 'Having experienced many other forms of spiritual, hands-on, and distant healing from the time of a teenager, I have to say that Reiki is the most gentle, reliable and transformational kind of healing I have ever known. I feel gently supported by Reiki. Whether giving or receiving a treatment or training, I am also having my energy harmonized and invigorated at the same time. Clarity of understanding and awareness occur during and after treatments that do not require mental activity or "meditation." Intractable emotional issues start to resolve without "working" on them. Sometimes the effect is immediate, sometimes a subtle change over a few days or weeks. Sometimes the change is difficult - yet it always brings about necessary outcomes. The point is: something always happens after a Reiki treatment or attunement! It offers a positive way to deal with life on life's terms" (Settin 2004).  

Reiki is grounding. "Perhaps the most important thing that Reiki has done for me is to have brought a solid, irrefutable sense of grounding into my existence, no matter what is happening. It has consolidated all of my experiences into a frame of reference that has given me the ability to

manifest what is right for me in this lifetime. There are other grounding influences in my life as well that help me on my path (such as gardening, walking the dog, washing the dishes, my family) --- Reiki is not the only one. But it focuses me in a way that transforms me where ever I go. In my personal life, I have more energy every day for the things all of us engage in to live: survival ("career/work", food, shelter); relationships; with other beings; creativity. Without this kind of grounding, I do not think I would have the joyful renewal of energy (healing) that I experience every time I give or receive love" (Settin, 2009).

Reiki facilitates connection to the Higher Self.

    "Since Reiki I have developed a level of trust in my Higher Self that surpasses anything I previously knew in this lifetime. My background in Catholicism and Tibetan Buddhism combines easily with Reiki to the point where I do not now identify myself with any polarity. Reiki is not a religion or New Age movement, and has no political alliances. It is an independent force field and a powerful spiritual catalyst that seamlessly interfaces with your Higher Self. For me, Reiki is different from other forms of healing because it works along with and draws inspiration from (not trying to change or alter) my beliefs and values. Reiki works for your greatest good, no matter who you are: young, old, atheist, agnostic, believer in God as your understanding guides you, believer in science or nothing at all--- it works for everyone. I have seen this proven over and over in the responses of my students and clients. We have in common one thing: we are fellow seekers" (Settin, 2005).