There are many fascinating ways that the shamanic drum can benefit Reiki practice. Drumming in nature is one of the ways that reiki practitioners can work with the drum to help us feel more a sense of belonging and anchoring. Drumming outside in nature also helps us to deeply connect with mother earth, the spirits of the land where we are, the nature beings, elements and many other plant beings and creatures outside.
When we combine the drum with Reiki we can ask for information, insight, guidance and healing. We also have the opportunity to offer healing where it is needed. This is an amazing gift and opportunity to raise the vibration of your home and community where you live.
This short video talks you through how you can do this and it will give you a few tips on working with your drum and Reiki to connect with nature.
Watch the video below and follow these tips.
- Prepare your space as a sacred space like you would if you were inside and also prepare yourself. For example, you may wish to say a prayer to the spirits of the land where you are or simply sit in reiki for five to ten minutes with your hands in the gassho position (the prayer position) or do a self-treatment. This will relax you and help you feel grounded.
- You may also like give an offering to the land if you are outside. When you are attuned to Reiki this is the easiest offering to give! It’s absolutely marvellous to be able to beam reiki out into the space or you might feel guided to place your hands on a specific tree or place your hands actually onto the earth. There so many different ways and many offerings you can read about those in my books. It’s really about honouring the spirit of the place where you are. You may wish to light a candle or offer seeds and flowers for example.
- You may wish to create a sacred space with different representations of the elements with like holy water for example or incense, herbs to burn as an offering.
- Turn off phones and any distractions
- Invite Reiki to flow in the way that you have been taught. (if you’ve been sitting self-treating or in gassho reiki will already be flowing through you).
- Sit with your drum and invite reiki to flow through you as you hold your drum between your hands with the intention to connect with mother earth or a tree or the land where you are connecting.
- Create your intention: decide what is it that you want to do here. Do you want to meet a tree, connect to mother earth, send healing. You can for example ask to be shown what healing is needed here on this land. Do you want to meet the nature beings here? Choose your intention wisely. Always have a really specific healing intention.
- If you’re trained above reiki level one you’ll know of the symbols so scribe the symbols onto the drum head. You can do that in a number of ways: with your dominant hand or you could also use your drum beater like a pencil. If you’ve learned any other symbols as part of your training then you can also place those on your drum head as well.
- Now that you, your space and your drum are ready, with your intention in your heart you are going to start drumming
- There are many different techniques with Reiki and the drum for example you can drum the different Reiki symbols and change the vibration of the drumming depending on the symbols that you are channelling. But keep it simple to start with.
- Drum for as long as you feel the need to drum. You might want to start with just 10 minutes flowing seeing how it’s going. You might find yourself moving, walking around, guided as magnetically guided to be with certain plants or certain places on the land. This might be an indication that those areas or plants are in need of healing.
- When you feel ready to complete stop drumming and place your hands on the drum. Say thank you and have it as your intention that the Reiki stops flowing as you would to close a Reiki treatment. Thank all of the the spirits and guides present, the plants, creatures and landscape that you can see and all of the unseen that has been helping you behind the scenes.
- If you have received guidance or insight during the drumming about some healing that was needed or some guidance in terms of what action needs to be taken regarding the land, the trees, the plants or nature beings then it’s really really important that you honour that. You might want to actually ask for further guidance in which case you can either sit in gassho and meditate with reiki or you can do more drumming.
- If there’s no guidance or if you just feel ready to leave the space you say thank you and leave the space and close down the space so that it’s really clear that your drumming is complete. Disconnect from the environment like you would do if you were disconnecting from a client following a treatment. Sometimes I might visualize myself in a lovely ball of reiki completely disconnecting and waving goodbye to the land and the plants where I have been working so that I feel disconnected and I will wash my hands just like you might do after giving somebody an in-person reiki treatment. I might also burn any herbs to cleanse me and the space if there feels like there’s been some big energy shifts. There’s all sorts of different practices we can do and just because you’re outside it doesn’t really mean that it’s any different from being inside so you still have to really honour the space and open it up and prepare ourselves and close it down in the same way that you would if you were inside a treatment space.
- Always make notes. Journal and write down the insights that you are given because if you don’t write them down they leave you like little vanishing dreams. Often we miss some really important messages if we don’t take note of the subtleties that occur when we have drumming journeys or deep meditations or shamanic experiences.
I’d love to hear in the comments about how you like to work with your drum and Reiki and where you feel drawn to connecting with the drum in nature.
If you would like training in how to work with the drum in your Reiki practice then get in touch!