The Reiki Sound Healing weekend is in two weeks – but you might be wondering, “er, what is it?” So I thought I’d answer some of the questions people have asked, here on the blog!

Is it the same as Reiki Drumming?

In a word, no 🙂 Reiki Drumming is a system put together by Michael Baird, a Reiki Master based in Arizona who was also a drummer. It was put together in the 1990s in response to an issue that can come up when drumming (or doing any sound work) for healing: a depletion of energy in the healer. Although I am a shamanic healer, this depletion issue is one of the reasons I believe Reiki to be the most important tool a healer can have at their disposal.

In 2008 I trained with Sarah Gregg in the Reiki Drum Technique (Sarah had trained in Arizona), so I am fully versed in the Reiki Drumming method and am a qualified Reiki Drum practitioner and Reiki Drum Master Teacher. I taught this technique myself for years and always got great results and enjoyed the weekends, but I don’t train in this method any more. I owe a great debt of inspiration to the time I spent Reiki drumming, but my other influences are equally represented in this powerful weekend.

How my approach is different

To answer this properly, I need to separate it into the two main tools explored over the weekend. Let’s start with the drums, and then we’ll move in to the rogue singing!

Medicine drumming

The Reiki Drum method is quite specific and contained. Two main healing approaches are taught and both are very carefully constructed – for anyone who hasn’t worked shamanically before or has no experience of sound work it is a very safely held entry point, and very in line with the way that Reiki is taught here in the west. The Reiki drum journey, for example, has a clear time line for students to follow, with specific drum markers to show clients where they are on the journey, and solid recommendations on how to use the symbols at certain points on the journey. For those who are not drawn to the shamanic energies so strongly – which are wilder and earthier than how we tend to think of Reiki – this is a beautiful way in to using the drum for visionary work.

My drumming work is much freer and my focus is very much on building the intuition and freeing the creativity of each individual healer. I therefore do not teach the use of the drum as a constructed healing method so much as I encourage students to draw on their power as Reiki healers to trust in the drum as a doorway into a deep, shamanic experience – both for them and for their future clients.

While both methods work and can have powerful results, they hold at their heart a different premise and goal for the healer.

Attunements

I don’t believe a student needs to receive an attunement to connect with a drum – I have witnessed Reiki people pick up any drum (and many other instruments!) and use their astonishing abilities of connection – gifted to all of us by our initiation into the Reiki system – to connect in and do great works of healing with only moments to connect. To make a deeper connection with a drum, journeying to meet and work with its healing spirit is required, and that can happen over time and with any number of drums.

A particular drum is not provided as part of the course, students bring their own drum with them and are free to bring multiple drums to be in the ceremonial space and to experiment with the differences between them if they wish. Most importantly, the doors are opened for students to know they can connect themselves with Reiki drumming through multiple tools.

Healing song

Oh my god, singing! Don’t worry, there are no solos and no songs to learn – vocal sound healing is not the same as making music and no singing experience or ability is required. But singing is probably the most obvious difference between this course and the Reiki Drum healing course I used to teach years ago in London and Kent.

Healing song is one of the absolute core practices in my work. I use it for everything – healing, meditation, prayer, magic, group work, one on one work, solo work. Everything. Sometimes the voice wants to be heard alone, and sometimes the drum does, but more often than not I cannot separate these two powerful tools. As a shamanic practitioner and as a priestess, for me these things go together.

I do cover the use of symbols with the drum of course – as Reiki people this works for us! But I also lean heavily into the Reiki chanting – the Japanese kotodama – to open another gateway into deeper healing. Most Reiki people, if they were taught the kotodama, were taught to use them silently in our heads to channel energy more strongly. Again, this definitely works – but we have been missing a joyful opportunity here as Reiki people! I think we should all be singing together, as often as possible – not for what it sounds like, but for the far greater power it opens us to. So, that’s why singing is half of this course.

Why have I created this course?

Alternative question – wouldn’t it have been simply to teach what I’ve been taught, and do it the way I used to? Well, yes – but where’s the fun in that 🙂

It actually was fun teaching it the old way, but here’s why I’m not doing it anymore: it doesn’t reflect the way that I work as a practitioner. Separating drum and voice work, deliberately, never works for me when I’m with my clients. Timing drum beats doesn’t work for me either – in my experience all drums play themselves. In truth, save for the case studies I did for my Master Teacher certification and the Reiki Drum classes I taught, I may have never used the Reiki Drum journey technique. I appreciate the construction of it and can see why it works, but it simply doesn’t suit my intuitive practice – for me, healing is a creative art.

It also doesn’t suit my clients – who are almost always energy workers themselves, who come to me to open a doorway into very deep work. Those are the people I work with, and those are the people I train – either experience intuitive practitioners or those who are called to that visionary path.

Why should you come on this course?

If you’re here on my blog, you are most likely called to the path of the visionary healer. You are creative, intuitive and you care about the deep work in the hidden places. What I often refer to as “soul-level healing”. You like skill and knowledge – and you’ll certainly get that with me, all my students know I will work you hard every time you train with me! But you also value that current of wildness that runs through the path of the magical, visionary healer. And that means you need that powerful mix of ceremony and play, room to experiment and dive deep while also holding the honour and reverence due to this sacred work.

If all that feels true to you, and you are also a Reiki 2 level or above, please grab your drum and come join me! The Reiki Sound Healing weekend is on 13 & 14 April in the centre of Glastonbury. You can find the full course information and the booking link here.

(Already a Reiki drummer and want to come join me for a different perspective? Let’s talk – there’s loads for you here.)