Illustration by Gaia Orion
The Color of Reiki
BY COLLEEN BENELLI
“A colour a day keeps the doctor away,
So colour yourself healthy, wealthy and wise.”
—L I L I A N V E R N E R B O N D S
Introduction
Reiki returns the presence of beautiful colors back to our bod-
ies and our lives. My Reiki guides tell me that Earth is the plan-
et of color. It is unique in creation in the variety, quantity, and
brilliance of color and when a spirit incarnates on the earth, its
physical body will be made of the same brilliant colors. Whether
human, tree, animal, or any other form that exists on this planet,
color is a common element we all share. My guides also tell me
that color is one of the main attractions of earth and a major rea-
son our spirit loves to live here.
Color is also an element of spirit. Our spirit is full of divine
color. When we are born, the colors of our spirit align with the col-
ors of our physical body—a kind of gravity for our spirit, connect-
ing our spirit to our body and connecting our body to the earth.
It is easy to heal with color and Reiki. Anyone can do it. Reiki heals with color
automatically. The healing power of color is given to us in our first attunement.
More than likely, you have already had similar experiences with Reiki and color.
Our chakras are the physical gateway for the colors of our spir-
it. Our chakra colors are the same as the colors of the rainbow.
Our root chakra is red, the sacral chakra is orange, the solar plexus
chakra is yellow, the heart is green, the throat is blue, the third eye
is indigo and the crown is violet. When our spirit incarnates into
our body, the colors of our spirit enter the physical body through
our chakras. Then they align and become in sync with each other.
And life is color and warmth and light
And a striving evermore for these.
—J U L I A N G R E N F E L L
When our colors are full and aligned, we feel secure, capable,
creative, expressive, compassionate, truthful, intuitive, imagina-
tive, inspired, and connected to spirit. It feels as if our actions
match our intentions, and that we are fulfilling our spiritual pur-
pose here on earth. Things seem to work out easily, serendipity is
present, and we can notice the blessings all around us.
www.reiki.org
When our colors are out of alignment or depleted, we can
feel as if the world is wobbly and not working easily for us—we
can struggle with creating and manifesting. Sometimes it can
be difficult to express ourselves or to know what we want; it
can be challenging to feel or we can feel too deeply; our intu-
ition may be blocked or we can feel as if we are “out of our
mind.” It can be hard to speak our truth and be heard. When
our chakra colors are not aligned, we can feel disconnected
from spirit and from the earth, and we often feel as if we are not
all the way in our body.
Twenty-year practicing psychologist Mia Rose says:
Healing colors repair the body in a marvelous way. A rainbow of
colors can be seen in so many things—water, snow, crystals... it’s
reflected everywhere. Color affects our emotions, which will be shown
through our bodies. We don’t even have to see color to be affected by
it. Our bodies, too, act as a prism in the light. When we are well, all
the colors shine through us in an ever-changing, rhythmical light show.
Color is nature’s healer. It can be prescribed to treat various
ailments just as drugs can. Its energy affects us physically (red),
mentally (yellow), and emotionally (blue). Color affects us in
totality. We can eat, drink, breathe, visualize, meditate, and
dance color. When we’re feeling off-color we can apply color to
restore the bank of health.
Reiki Heals with Color
Color healing is not a new idea. In his book, The Seven Keys
to Colour Healing, Roland Hunt writes:
In the ancient temples of Helipolis, Egypt, the force of colour was
used, not only as an aid to worship, but also as a healing agent. These
temples were oriented so that the sun shone through in such a way that its
light was broken up into seven prismatic colours and suffering ones were
bathed in that special colour which they needed to restore them to health.”
Reiki taught me about healing with color starting with my Reiki I
attunement. Color kept showing up in my Reiki sessions. My clients
• © REIKI NEWS MAGAZINE • SUMMER 2011 19
 THE COLOR
always told me about the beautiful colors they saw; then when I began
teaching, my students talked about the amazing colors present during
their Reiki attunements. These comments became more consistent, so
I started asking Reiki more questions about healing with color. I also
started working with chakra balancing in my Reiki sessions, so the
imbalances in the colors of the chakras started to present themselves. I
heard other Reiki practitioners talk of similar experiences, letting me
know that I was experiencing an aspect of Reiki that was not unique to
me. As Reiki will do, it taught me that it automatically heals the colors
of our body and spirit, but that there was more I could learn about the
separate aspects of healing with color if I paid attention.
The following are examples of healing with color that demon-
strate signs of imbalance that may be present when color is
depleted and also the results of the healing people received once
their chakras again vibrated with their full colors.
I remember one of the first times I recognized the absence
of yellow in the third chakra of a client. I was using the Japan-
ese Reiki technique of Byosen scanning over my client’s
chakras. Through the scanning, I found that his third chakra
felt completely depleted. Reiki showed me that the color yel-
low had drained out of his body during a very difficult relation-
ship that had just ended. Unknowingly, he had given his own
life force energy to this other person in an attempt to save the
relationship. Her demands had literally drained the color out
of him. For him, this brought about depression, low vitality,
and a loss of self-esteem. He couldn’t imagine what he wanted
in life anymore.
During his Reiki treatment, I placed one hand on his heart
and another on his solar plexus, and called to the divine essence
of yellow both from the earth and from the divine source of
color above, and filled his third chakra with brilliant yellow
color. It looked like liquid sunlight filling his belly. I watched as
the rest of the old, worn-out yellow transformed into brilliant
yellow light. Then the yellow edges blended into the green of
his heart chakra, and the orange of his sacral chakra. I then
completed his session by balancing and aligning all of his
chakras and colors.
After his Reiki session, his strength and creativity returned,
and he found new interests in his life. This Reiki session really
caught my attention, and I began to include the possibility of
healing color in the body more often.
In another early situation, I was asked to give Reiki to a young
boy with autism. This was one of my most powerful experiences
with the healing effects of color. My young client was very low-
functioning at the time, but his mother didn’t tell me he was
autistic. When I met him, he and I had such a telepathic connec-
tion that I thought we had had a conversation. During his Reiki
session, he fell asleep, and that night, he stayed asleep through
the night for the first time in his life. He had a miraculous
response to Reiki. After just a few Reiki sessions, he started talk-
20 © REIKI NEWS MAGAZINE • SUMMER 2011 • www.reiki.org
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ing and actually became high-functioning. During his Reiki ses-
sion, my spirit guides told me that he was missing some of his spir-
itual colors and spiritual minerals, and that this kept him in a
constant state of floating inside his mind. His mind was in a state
of weightlessness as he floated through the universe, unable to
keep his spirit or his mind here on earth.
In his treatment, I asked Reiki to infuse his body with the
spiritual colors and minerals he needed to be present in his
body and on earth. During the session, I noticed powerful color
entering into his body in every chakra. His body received
divine color from above and divine color from the earth. Vio-
let, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and reds entered in spir-
it form down through his crown chakra and divine color from
the earth—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and indi-
go—traveled up through his feet. I watched the colors from
above merge with the colors from below and align in each of
his chakras. The red from above merged with the red from the
earth and moved into sync with each other. This repeated in
every chakra. I also saw color entering his body from above and
below each chakra, as if from the ceiling and the floor. Red
from above and red from below filled his root chakra, and
repeated in each of his chakras throughout his body. Next I saw
the alignment of his spiritual colors with his chakras, then the
alignment of his chakras with the colors of the earth in order
to ground him here. At the same time that his colors were
aligning, I also saw spiritual minerals fill his body. The miner-
als were shown to me in the shapes of sand and stones that
came from different areas of the spiritual universe. I found
myself reaching my hand out above him, and Reiki guides
handed the minerals to me. I then blew them into his chakras.
The spiritual minerals blended with the colors of his physical
body, which grounded his spirit into his body, and then ground-
ed his body to the earth. His mind stopped floating and he
became present in his body.
When this little boy needed to see me to have another Reiki
session, he would tell his mother that he needed to go see “the
color doctor.” I don’t think he ever knew my name because he
knew me as the doctor who brought him beautiful colors. I
believe that he could see the brilliant colors even more because
of his autism. He talked about them in a way that made me think
that I didn’t see them quite as brightly as he.
My experience with this young boy taught me about Reiki
and color. After working with him, I finally realized that color
was a consistent healing aspect of Reiki. This little boy had no
filters and could see the power of color healing him. I am so
grateful to him for teaching me through our Reiki sessions and
to Reiki for changing his life. He was able to go to school and
even take Tai Chi classes. In his Reiki sessions I was shown that
he would live a full and thriving, happy life. His spirit told me
that he wanted to keep some of the gifts he had from his autism.
I eventually attuned him and his nine-year-old brother to Reiki
 THE COLOR OF REIKI

so they could give each other Reiki. His older brother wanted to
know how to use this amazing gift to help his little brother. He
said that he wanted to grow up and become a color doctor and
use Reiki to heal other children with autism! Over the years, I
have found that imbalanced color in all the bodies—mental,
emotional, spiritual, and physical—can lead to all kinds of ail-
ments. A recent client who is in her seventies had a series of
highly stressful life experiences that left her with a loss of mem-
ory, fatigue, and physical aches and pains. During her Reiki ses-
sion, I found that in one of her recent stressful moments, a par-
ticularly traumatic phone call had made her spirit jolt inside her
body. The result was that the colors of her spirit shifted out of
alignment with the colors of her body. The green of her heart
chakra was in her solar plexus and the yellow was in her heart
chakra. Her spiritual colors were incorrectly overlaying the
chakras of her body and it was affecting her mind and her emo-
tions. Her physical body exhibited strange symptoms that her
doctors couldn’t explain. During her Reiki treatment, Reiki
adjusted the colors of her spirit, mind, and body, and then
infused her with fresh color from the earth and new, divine color.
Then it aligned her chakras again. Although she was not aware
of what Reiki was doing during the session, she suddenly spoke
about the amazing colors she was seeing. Afterward, when we
talked about the Reiki treatment, she absolutely knew she felt
very different. Her chest felt completely new and full. She could
feel and imagine every shade of green again. It is one of the most
fascinating blessings of Reiki that people actually know how
their Reiki session has affected them, even when the results are
outside of what they normally believe. As in her case, she was
very aware of the color changes within her after the session. And
she said that the session seemed to identify what she had been
trying to tell everyone about her symptoms, but could never
quite put into words. Although it was very different from what
she had expected, she was delighted with her results. She imme-
diately felt better and clearer than she had in a long while.
In another Reiki session, I found that my client was not
aware of color in her external world. She had recently lost a
loved one and felt as if she simply walked through a grey world
every day. She was able to accomplish her daily tasks, but she felt
no inspiration, passion, or enthusiasm. It was as if the earth had
turned monotone in her vision—everything seemed dull and
lifeless and she had a hard time seeing beauty in the world
around her. During her Reiki treatment, we both felt the colors
of the earth flowing through her. The colors filled her aura and
expanded the light around her body. My Reiki guides told me
that she would awaken to the colors of the earth now and that
everything would be more vivid and alive. They said she would
see beauty with both her physical and her intuitive eyes. Her
passion returned, and she was blessed with inspiration and
enthusiasm. She flew home to Los Angeles the next day, and
while she was driving home from the airport, a rainbow appeared

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 THE COLOR
right in front of her on the freeway! She actually drove through
it! (This is very unusual for L.A.!) When I talked to her, she said
she felt so much lighter. She also felt clear-headed about some
big life decisions she had to make—that in fact everything felt
so much easier and brighter.
Color infusion and alignment is also great for babies. Of
course when working with babies, you won’t always have the abil-
ity to do this exactly as it is written in this article—because
babies move around a lot!
I recently had my back go out for three weeks. As I was giv-
ing myself Reiki, I asked for my colors to align with the colors
of the earth. Then I asked for my colors to be filled up with the
divine color of my spirit. In the beginning I couldn’t sit down
or walk. Each day, I gave myself Reiki and a color session. I
found that I was able to let the tension causing the pain in my
back to release, and I sent it into the earth. I also found that
this treatment helped me receive the benefits of acupuncture,
chiropractic, and massage. Today, I can sit and walk again, and
I feel about 90% back to normal (which has allowed me to
write this article)!
The examples above are just a few of my experiences in heal-
ing with Reiki and color. I find that I balance the colors of the
chakras in most of my Reiki sessions as part of my Reiki session
routine. Our chakras can easily get out of balance because of our
life experiences and struggles, and even if color imbalance and
depletion isn’t a primary cause of their ailments, almost all of my
clients can use a color infusion and alignment.
Reiki Color Infusion and Alignment
As a Reiki practitioner, I find that people’s colors are often
depleted. Almost every client has at least one color and chakra
that is out of balance. Using Byosen scanning over the chakras
can identify the lack of color within a body. There isn’t necessar-
ily a consistent feeling I get with Byosen and misaligned colors in
the chakras—most often, I just get a sense of emptiness.
There are several symbols that I believe enhance Reiki’s abil-
ity to empower us with color. I have described them below. How-
ever, if you aren’t attuned to these symbols, Reiki will still heal
with color. All of the Reiki symbols will respond to your inten-
tion. Just invite the ones that you are attuned to and ask them to
heal, balance, and align the colors of the body. In every Reiki ses-
sion, Reiki is always doing the work, so using the exact symbols
isn’t as important as allowing Reiki to flow through you for heal-
ing. It is also not important that you know a lot about healing the
body’s colors, or that you receive information about the colors.
Again, Reiki knows what to do; all you have to do is to let it do
its job.
The Distance Symbol is the Reiki bridge of light. When I
invite this symbol to heal with color, it creates a bridge of light
into our body for the colors of our spirit and the colors of the
earth. It gives the following Reiki symbols even deeper access to
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our spirit and our body by opening a pathway for them to enter
from the divine to the physical.
The Usui Master Symbol is the “Treasure house of the great
beaming light.” When I invite this symbol into a session for
healing color in a person, divine color shows itself to me as ethe-
real light descending from a source above. It enters the body
through the crown chakra, travels through each of the chakras,
through the feet, and into the earth. It has a different feel to it
than the colors of the earth because the colors of the earth are
physical, and the colors of the divine are spiritual. The Usui
Master Symbol helps the Divine enter the physical, filling you,
“the treasure house,” with great, beaming lights from the divine
source of all color.
The Tibetan Fire Serpent symbol connects the divine essence
of the earth with our physical and spiritual bodies. When I invite
this symbol in with color healing, it shows itself to me as the col-
ors of creation from the earth, rising through the feet, up through
each of the chakras, and out the crown chakra. The colors of the
earth fill every cell of the body. It also connects us to the earth
and the rhythm of her heartbeat within us. It reminds us that we
are natural beings made of the earth and that our body holds the
beautiful light of our spirit.
The Usui Mental/Emotional symbol heals our mental and
emotional bodies. When used with color healing, it will align the
colors of our mental and emotional bodies with the colors of the
physical and spiritual bodies.
The Karuna Reiki® symbol Kriya balances our chakras. When
I invite this symbol to heal with color, it shows itself as a very
earth-centered, practical symbol. It balances our left and right
sides, and aligns each chakra with the chakras above and below
it. It connects us to the gravity of the earth and grounds our spir-
it to our humanity and to the planet. I use this symbol to align
the colors in the chakras both vertically and horizontally. In
other words, the colors enter vertically through our crown
chakra and through our feet. They also enter us horizontally.
Imagine that as you are lying there, the colors also enter each
chakra from above us (as if from the ceiling) and from below us
(as if from the floor).
The Karuna Reiki® symbol Rama empowers our soul essence
within our body. When used for healing with color, its job is to
bring our soul essence into our body and complete the alignment
of our colors by synching our mental, emotional, spiritual, and
physical bodies. I use this symbol last.
The following session style can be used for yourself with Reiki,
or it can be used for your clients.
Reiki Color Session
1. Invite the Reiki Symbols and prepare yourself, the room,
spirit and your client.
2. Ask for the Reiki to align and balance the colors of the
mind, body, and spirit.
 THE COLOR
3. Give Reiki, using the hand positions for the head; use all
the Reiki symbols you are attuned to.
4. Give Reiki to the crown chakra where the
colors of the divine enter through the
crown and into the earth. Use the
Usui Master Symbol if you are
attuned to it.
5. Give Reiki to the feet
chakras, where the colors of
the earth enter the feet
and travel out past the
crown chakra above the
client. Use the Tibetan
Fire Serpent symbol.
6. Now be aware as each
chakra empties itself of Solar Plexus
its old colors and then
ask Reiki to fill each
chakra from above the
client (ceiling, spirit) and
from below (floor, earth).
7. Place one hand on the
root chakra, and one on
the sacral chakra. Notice
the color coming into the
chakra vertically and hori-
zontally. Allow the old color
to leave.
8. Move your hand from the sacral
to the solar plexus chakra and the
root to the sacral.
9. Move your hand from the solar
plexus to the heart chakra and the
sacral to the solar plexus.
10. Continue “stair stepping” up the chakras
until there is one hand on the third eye and
one hand on the crown chakra.
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11. Invite in the Karuna Reiki® symbol Kriya and ask that the
colors be bright and at full power; then ask them to align the
colors of the spirit and the colors of the mind and body.
12. Ask the colors to move into sync with the
earth and the colors of creation.
13. Close the session with the Karuna
Reiki® symbol, Rama with your hands
Crown on the sacral and third solar plexus
Third Eye chakras. Invite the person’s soul
essence to return to the body and
merge with the colors of the spirit,
Throat
mind, and body.
Heart This technique can be used for
yourself or for others. I find myself
taking moments throughout my day
to connect with the colors of the
earth and to call them into my
Sacral body. I may do long meditations
connecting with the colors of my
body, or I may take just a moment
several times throughout my day to
Root call color into my life force and body.
It is easy to heal with color and
Reiki. Anyone can do it. Reiki heals
with color automatically. The healing
power of color is given to us in our first
attunement. More than likely, you have
already had similar experiences with
Reiki and color. Reiki naturally brings
bold and vivid color back to our lives.
When we are in full color, we view the
world through rose-colored glasses!
1
—Colleen Benelli can be reached at colleen@reik-
ilifestyle.com, or by phone at 503 912-0664, or
through her website, www.reikilifestyle.com.
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