Can vines benefit from reiki therapy?

A reiki practitioner, who aims to improve the “flow of energy” in vineyards, says that business is booming.

Virginia Samsel makes a living out of detecting subtle “changes of energy” in vines. She sees her work as being part of a biodynamic approach to viticulture and claims she does not always have to be physically present in a vineyard to enhance its energy flow, though she finds it helpful to examine a map of the site.

The intent of the work, she says, is to “assist winemakers and growers in connecting and listening to their land.”

“I try to tune into the site and connect with what comes across as the personality of the site,” she told The Sunday Times. “I start to get a feel of how that site wants to interact. And as that develops, you start noticing energy shifts and asking, ‘where’s the energy coming from?’ Then you build on it and start digging into what’s really happening with the site.”

Solutions can include adding plants to a particular spot, or using crystals to “redirect” energy.

Before branching out into reiki, Samsel worked in the wine business for more than a decade, both as a buyer and as a distributor. Since beginning to offer her services as an ‘energy consultant’ to vineyards in 2020, Samsel has established a number of winery clients including Montinore in Oregon and Ardure Wines and Stirm Wine Co., both in California. She believes she is currently the only practitioner offering this kind of healing specifically to vineyards.

According to Samsel, vineyards can either be extroverted or intraverted.

“Some would benefit from more outsider interaction, while others can be more reserved and like to be reassured of stability,” she writes on her Instagram page. “Tapping into energetic lines helps the whole vineyard system, winemaker included.”

Through using her hands she says she can “feel the rhythm of what’s happening, and how fast it’s moving.”

Samsel further explains: “In certain areas of a vineyard the energies might feel more dense and you want to bring something in that can help break that up. It could be by encouraging butterflies or birds to fly through the space; or, if it’s more earthbound, planting some root vegetables that can bring that energy deeper into the earth.”

Working with Stirm Wine Co., for example, she suggested that the owner of the property create a “buffer” by installing a fence and planting long, tuberous vegetables like potatoes to help aerate the soil and release a build-up of pressure that she detected. She explained to the San Francisco Chronicle that this would help the vineyard to “know where it’s working” and prevent if from sending energy to places that aren’t a part of it, like the plot’s adjacent parcel.

“A lot of times feelings will come up, like emotions that are not my emotions, but that are tied to the site,” she says. “I’m sure that for some people this doesn’t make any sense for the way that they’re working at the moment . . . But it might be something where it comes back around and it does begin making sense to them.”

Samsel sometimes also incorporates tarot into her work, and like to time her vineyard visits with the full moon to tap into “the rhythmic timing of rest and celebration”.