Olivea Kazumi Shure is a healer, teacher, and spiritual guide whose unique Mystic Medicine Healing sessions blend Reiki, shamanic practices, sound, and deep presence. Currently based in Okinawa, Japan, Olivea shares how her practice has evolved, the heart-opening power of tea ceremonies, and how remote healing can be just as potent as in-person sessions. In this interview for Mystic Mag, she offers a soulful look into her healing philosophy and the magic that happens when deep care meets sacred energy.
How do you combine Reiki and shamanic practices in your Mystic Medicine Healing sessions, and what benefits do you see for your clients?
I always open and close the sessions with Reiki, so at the very least clients will receive Reiki in the beginning and the end. This is so that whatever flows through for the client, whether it’s Reiki or shamanic activations or intuitive healing, it’s all held in the hands of Reiki. I purposely do this every time I hold space for others from my respect and deep appreciation for Reiki. And also because Reiki is its own protection.
Sometimes clients will need more Reiki than shamanic healing, so it will depend on various factors. But both practices complement each other in a way that’s lovingly customized for a full healing experience. One of my students brought this to my attention recently when she asked about Reiki and shamanism (many of my Reiki students are also shamans or are interested in shamanism). She asked if they were the same or like best friends helping and supporting each other. And I responded immediately that they were best friends.
What I do as a shaman is not unlike descending into a kind of Dantean inferno to either bring light to what’s been forgotten and/or retrieve the person’s spirit from it. Staying connected with Reiki the entire time and having it be the basis of pure light and love on which to return for the client and myself is essential and is what a Mystic Medicine Healing is about.
When I first started singing (an element of my shamanic healing) for my clients I noticed they automatically began to breathe more deeply and fully, sometimes in such a drastic way that moved them to tears. Many people over the years have remarked that the songs sound like something from their cultural background or spiritual traditions, like some medicine reaching out to them from another place or time. I don’t sing in any man made language but the frequencies are universally understood by our bodies. They are customized too. Sometimes they are high pitched and angelic and other times ancient and deep. All are activating in a way that only sound can, to recompose a person’s cellular makeup, water structure and memories within them. The physiological effects for most are that they are deeply relaxed and at ease, and yet sometimes very energized and almost buzzing afterward. No matter the reaction, something always gets freed.
Something else that I include, as a personal offering, is time for talking before and after. I know it sounds like it’s nothing special compared to the energy work, but I remember how grateful I was and still am when someone gives me the attention of their listening. There’s something profound that happens within us, especially mentally, when we are lovingly and unconditionally witnessed and listened to. So Mystic Medicine Healing also includes listening, for mental healing.
How do you ensure the effectiveness of your remote healing sessions, and what feedback have you received from clients about these experiences?
While there’s no way to “ensure effectiveness” with a healing session, also I don’t know what that means, I did ensure that I felt good about it, and that I could offer it with integrity, first before moving to Japan.
A big part of why I moved to Japan was to take better care of myself. At the time, my physical health was declining rapidly and in such a mysterious way that the doctors couldn’t understand. I knew deep down that it was time to go and I had to act quickly. Also, as a healer if I’m not healthy I simply can’t do my work. I knew moving to Japan would be better for me but I wasn’t sure if or how I could continue to support my clients from the other side of the world. It was a difficult, almost impossible decision to make on my own. So I decided to try it out. I took a trip to Japan and offered remote sessions to a few clients while I was there.
The outcome was more than I could have expected. One client thought it positively helped her in a way that felt different than an in-person session, as if the healing energies moved more deeply and faster somehow, and she could relax quicker because she was at home. Another client, an older gentleman, who didn’t believe in remote healing at all trusted me enough to try it out. He was amazed that he could hear the songs better which brought him into a deeper state of receiving than ever before. Each person shared that their experience was remarkably different, and always deeper, which encouraged me. Plus they didn’t have as many distractions, or the added stress of moving about and transporting themselves home afterwards.
They were already there. And everyone could simply go to sleep right after, as in receive a session in bed in their pajamas and then close their eyes. I thought this was very beautiful and more supportive of their nervous system health as well. I also felt better. It was like as I was taking better care of myself I could take better care of them too. From my end, I was indeed able to go deeper and faster for clients. Like what I previously offered in an hour I could offer in 20 min or even less, remotely. So you could say one remote session is like receiving 3 sessions in one. Being able to offer my clients a deeper level of care helped me make my decision.
And also, just because a remote session doesn’t require a physical office it still requires a physical office. What I mean by that is that energy is everything. If the energy of a place and space doesn’t feel right, I can’t offer my full integrity to the client. I’ll even go very far out of my way to rent a house, hotel room, or some other space for a remote session if and when necessary. One year I was teaching a Reiki class remotely and the energies where I was just weren’t right somehow. It was a huge expense but it felt right to rent a house in a smaller village for the class. Also it was an enormous adjustment to travel and get settled into a new space, all the things, just to have it feel right, but that’s what had to be done. Nothing is done arbitrarily or because it’s convenient, for remote healings, everything in the physical world has to be and feel “just right”. When we work solely with energy there’s a greater responsibility to keep the energetic space as clean and clear as possible. Of course nobody can see it but they can feel it. The attention and preparation it takes to hold an impeccable energetic space is what supports everyone’s well-being in the most optimum way possible. Across the board, genuine care and caring is empowering and spiritually elevating for everyone.
What is the purpose of the Reiki Tea Ceremony in your sessions, and how does it help open the heart and mind for healing?
Oh thank you for asking about the Reiki Tea Ceremony! Its primary purpose is to help each person return back into their bodies in a simple way, that’s easy and hopefully also fun. Whenever I offer a Mystic Medicine Healing for a group, I will always open our time together with a Reiki Tea Ceremony. This allows each person to feel comfortable with me, each other, and themselves. Without genuinely trusting our environment we don’t feel safe enough to open our hearts. Reiki Tea Ceremony is a big heart-opener and once the heart is opened in such a way, magic and healing happens very easily.
Reiki Tea Ceremony also invites each person into an alternate reality, a peaceful space beyond our world that’s surrounded by Reiki (I call it a “Reiki bubble”) almost instantly. During the ceremony I invite each participant to connect with their imagination and together, I do it with them, we each create a magic medicine drink, an elixir, for ourselves. And then we drink it! You can think of it like Alice in Wonderland meets Reiki meets whimsical wizardry meets Japanese tea ceremony.
Each Reiki Tea Ceremony is different because I prepare and customize each one specifically for the participants. Even if I have a community Reiki Tea Ceremony, I always prepare in the same way: Everyone has to reserve beforehand so I can meditate on each person to understand what they need healing for. And then I’ll begin to build an energetic space with each person in mind. This is what I do for everything I offer so each experience is personal and carefully crafted with pure and unconditional love.
How has your time in Okinawa influenced your healing practice and approach to spirituality?
Being in Okinawa for all these years has allowed me to root into my maternal heritage, which was essential for my personal healing. I’ve also been hugely influenced by the kindness of the culture which has helped me to grow as a healer in ways I never imagined could be possible. I’ve learned about kindness not as a nice act but as a way of life that’s dynamic and full of fire inside while maintaining a firm rootedness in gentleness, tenderness and cheerfulness with our outward expression. It’s a masterful way of being!
Honestly, I could write a book just answering this one question. There’s so much more I could say.. ! It’s impossible to speak about my time in Okinawa without becoming very tender. My time here has been all tenderness. I was allowed to grow up again, this time from a place of peace. I think I might be an adult now, but I was a baby when I arrived, I knew absolutely nothing. Coming here has changed me, my healing practice, and my understanding of the spirit world in profound ways. I’m able to hold a deep space of respect for the spirit world that no one can teach because it has to come from the body. And so everything I do from being rooted in this place of security and peace within me, from my healing work to my relationships with close friends and family, it’s all an extension of what Okinawa has and continues to give and teach me everyday.
The biggest thing I’ve learned here in Okinawa is that we create the magic we experience. No miraculous or mystical experience is given to us without it being a direct response to our committed efforts to improve our lives and our genuine caring for others.
In Reiki the last of the five principles states, Just for today i’ll be kind to every living being. Being in Okinawa has helped me to understand this on a cellular level. Being kind to every living being begins with being kind to ourselves.
How do you incorporate emotional and spiritual healing in your sessions, and what transformations have you witnessed in your clients?
Emotional and spiritual healing go hand in hand so when we feel better emotionally, and also mentally, we are becoming lighter spiritually. Keeping our emotions clear and staying rooted in cheer is more powerful than we can imagine for our spirits. Maintaining emotional vibrancy is paramount for a happy existence. One of my Reiki mentors here in Japan constantly teaches me this. When we are “vibrant” emotionally, we are attuned to and connected to a highly creative force, which is our life force. This is the “ki” in Reiki. Or in Chinese medicine it’s referred to as “chi”. That’s why after practicing Reiki we always feel better in all the ways that we need. I literally look at my students’ faces after a class or a practice and they are radiating their own unique beauty, completely glowing like the sun. A big indicator that we are healing something spiritually is by how we feel emotionally.
I had two mothers who lived in different states across the U.S. reached out to me recently, within the same few days, asking for healing. It was interesting because they both had adult sons they each worried about night and day. As I was sending each healing remotely, I noticed that in a cosmic and unexplainable way that their sons were helping them to receive healing for themselves! It was so beautiful it brought me to tears. Their souls and spiritual essence was receiving love and light in a way they’ve needed for a long while, and it could only happen because they were pushed by a certain piercing emotional pain to reach out. They each told me they felt so much better after. One woman remarked that she had never before woken up without worry.
And for me as well, the happier I become the better I’m able to access medicine from various realms for others. Recently my beloved Reiki mentor shared with me the role of a Reiki Master is to show my students my dance of happiness. It can be metaphoric but she had me dancing with my hips moving side to side and arms in the air and we were laughing so hard there together being so silly. Anyway, she said show them your dance, and then invite them to dance with you (like she was doing with me). And whether they do or not, thank them with your whole being, and then keep going.
