Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Kara Barnett
Kara Barnett is a Reiki practitioner, helping people heal through Japanese techniques for stress reduction and relaxation. She had spent her last three years as a Reiki practitioner working with cancer survivors in the Philadelphia area, and felt it was time to expand her practice, but didn’t know how.
In her meditations, she spoke to God and asked for an answer: “God, we both know I’m at a crossroads. I need a direct hit.” She meditated on where else she could be beneficial and realized that her work with cancer survivors had given her a lot of experience dealing with the subject of death.
She went home and Googled the term “hospice.”
Crossroads Hospice was the first hit.
“I was at a crossroads, and God sent me to Crossroads Hospice,” she says.
In addition to her Reiki skills, Kara brings her musical talent to Crossroads and often plays an instrument called the gamelan. Played like a xylophone, the gamelan is a series of metal tubes that produce soothing ethereal tones.
“A lot of patients have dementia, depression or no energy. When I play the gamelan, they can just relax and enjoy the music,” Kara says “I get a squeeze of the hand, a smile, a nod. Music is healing. It’s not all about language and words.”
Kara has only been a Crossroads volunteer for three months, but she already loves it. “When I get a new patient, I get this envelope with their name, age and a contact phone number. They come into your life, and it becomes a divine connection.”
One patient in particular stands out for Kara: a 64-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. During their first visit, Kara played the gamelan. As Kara played, the patient was mostly unfocused. Towards the end of her visit, Kara began to speak of finding joyful moments and the patient locked eyes with her. They connected. In that one moment, the patient was happy and simply said, “Please come back.”
Kara says, “People expect hospice to be draining and depressing, but it’s not at all. When you give, you get so much more back.”
