Today is 14 February, and you know what special day that is? No, not the V-word – it’s World Sound Healing Day!

Every day is a sound healing day for me. Reiki is one of my most frequently used, go-to energies, as you all know, but singing and drumming are two of my every day methods. They are such simple, accessible portals into the work, and they bring an exceptional power to any energy work. I have never used sound healing (of any kind – singing, drumming, chanting, rattling, even whispering) that hasn’t amplified and brought more depth to the intention I’ve held.

All my Propolos students know I can’t resist a healing song as a method of capturing a healing ceremony, the recording becoming a portal into the energy I raised in the ceremony. The students in my current co-teaching adventure with Sorita d’Este, The Four Elements: Transformation, are in the process of discovering how much I love layered toning work to call in healing and magic. One of the Air Magic offerings calls in the individual voice of the participants, and that one has been really powerful! (You can still join us for The Four Elements course, the Air and Fire lessons, 2 hours each, were recorded and there are still 3 lives to go, plus all the additional recordings I’m making for each – link here.)

For me, calling in song is a natural part of the healing process. All my clients and students, regardless of of the work they come for, get some form of this. And actually, I do it for myself all the time in less formal settings. I drum for myself if I need an answer. I rattle to cleanse my space. I sing to change my mood – not healing songs or anything fancy or ceremonial, just folk music or something! I sing in the shower to call in the day. I sing to the land while I am out walking in it. I do some form of this vibrational work every day.

Sound healing is not music

Ok, sometimes sound healing is music. Some people are able to do that really well, taking something that is essentially ceremony or prayer, and turning it into something super listenable as music. Deva Premal does this in a really accessible way – I recommend going to one of those live concerts. At the end of the “song”, no one claps. Instead every one sits in the silence afterwards and lets the energy that was just raised gently rain down on the crowd. I went to a workshop with Deva Primal, Miten and Manose years ago and one of their teachings was that the silence is just as important as the song. That their whole reason for singing was to find the silence that comes after.

Carolyn Hillyer and Nigel Shaw are one of my favourite examples of this too. I have never been to one of their concerts and not sang along, not been enraptured by the (mostly handmade by them) instruments, and/or not shaken my thing on the dance floor with wild abandon! And yet, their concerts feel very distinctly more like ceremony than a gig; indeed, that is their intention. If you ever get a chance to see them live, do it!

But, notable examples aside, sound healing is a form of vibrational work that amplifies your healing magic. It is not music. It doesn’t require musical skill, or lyrics, or a talent for singing. Hell – it doesn’t need to sound good. Sometimes it sounds objectively shocking! But what we are doing here isn’t to sound good. It is to take a healing or magical intention, then summon and move energy to bring that purpose into being. It is, quite simply, magic.

Where does the Reiki come in to it?

Reiki is a rich and powerful system of energy healing, a mix of surrendering to a strong flow of source energy and the use of skills to direct that energy for the highest healing outcome. And, traditionally, it is not much associated with sound healing – with one exception, which I’ll get to below.

The thing is, Reiki is such an easy flow of energy, and operates on such a wide spectrum, that it actually lends itself to being combined with other forms of healing work better than perhaps any other system. That’s why so many of us use it with crystals, body work, spirit guides, angelic work etc. It’s not core to what Reiki is, but it’s so easy to combine them and, if it’s backed up by proper knowledge, then it really works.

Back in 2008 I learned Reiki Drum Technique, which are from methods developed by Michael Baird in Arizona. This course really broke down the walls I had put up between my shamanic and Reiki practices and, although I don’t use those exact techniques anymore, it was a great influence on me as I developed my own path in this work. None of my Shamanic Approach to Reiki courses would exist without that work. It taught me not to be so strict in dividing my systems of work. It taught me that my beloved Reiki could be channeled through the drums with extraordinary ease – and to profound effect. And it taught me that one of the easiest way to avoid the tiredness that can come from medicine drumming work is to combine that work with Reiki. It’s a win on every level.

My approach to Reiki Sound Healing

As well as combining Reiki and medicine drumming, I have long been a fan of the one bit of Reiki that does lean into sound healing ideas: the kotodama. The kotodama are a set of chants that (roughly) correspond to the Reiki symbols that are used far more frequently. They hearken back to an ancient time in Japan where armies could be stopped dead in their tracks by the calling of the right power sound – well, you guys know I consider Reiki to be steeped in shamanism!

I don’t know how the Reiki kotodama would have been used in the original system, but commonly in western Reiki those of us that use the kotodama have been taught to use the chants silently in our head, like a private mantra. While this absolutely does work – no question – it always felt to me like a waste of an opportunity to make good healing noise!

My students know I like to experiment with sound, and I have spent many years working with groups to weave intuitive healing songs while channeling source energy and holding magical intention. Alone, I have recorded healing ceremonies layer upon layer to create sound baths out of healing songs, including the kotodama (see below).

Which is to say that my Reiki Sound Healing weekend is not traditional Reiki, nor does it use Reiki drumming or kotodama in the ways you may have come across. Sound healing can be gentle, and it can be wild – each healing journey, medicine drum healing and healing song must be given the space to become whatever it needs to be. And that requires a group of healing adventurers, willing to draw on that Reiki current and then let the song happen…

My Reiki Sound Healing weekend is on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April, here in the heart of Glastonbury. The spaces are limited to 8, which is small enough for everyone’s needs to be met over the course of two days, but large enough to make that good healing noise. Open to Reiki 2 and Reiki Masters, I hope you will join me to weave some wild songs! Full information and booking here.

Links for you

Interested in sound healing? Here are some fun links for you:

Reiki sound healing weekend 13 & 14 April

Healing Song Circles – every Sabbat in Glastonbury with my co-facilitator Laura Daligan, next one Wednesday 20 March.

The Four Elements: Transformation – you can still join and receive the Air and Fire recordings, joining the remaining Sunday night classes for the remaining 3 weeks.

Propolos – my monthly subscription service providing self healing resources (and healing songs aplenty) for healers.

Voice work for Seidr and Healing – an interview I did with Katie Gerrard last year.

My healing songs page, for irregular updates on my healing songs.

Not a Reiki person yet? Why not?? Come and join me on 16 March in Glastonbury for a powerful initiation into a healing gift that will be with you for the rest of your life – Reiki 1: Shoden.