How Shamanic Training Deepened My Sound Healing Practice

Recently I attended a graduation ceremony for fellow practitioners from The Chacana Spiritual Center. Having had some time now to integrate my own experience in the program, it was especially meaningful to witness others reaching that milestone and stepping into the next stage of their path.

Watching them complete the training reminded me how deeply the experience shaped my own approach to healing work. The apprenticeship emphasizes humility, respect for nature, and learning to work in relationship with forces that many traditions recognize as part of the living world around us. Much of this wisdom draws from Indigenous traditions that honor the natural world and our relationship with it, and I continue to approach these teachings with humility and respect.

Those teachings gradually began to influence the way I approach my sound healing sessions today.

Sound as Sacred Space

One of the most meaningful shifts for me was learning to approach a sound session as a form of ceremony.

Before beginning a session, I take time to open sacred space. I call in the directions to create a container that feels grounded and protected. I also ask for guidance from my spirit guides so the session can unfold in a way that best supports the person receiving the experience.

This small ritual shifts the atmosphere of the room and helps establish a clear container for what follows.

Working in this way has also influenced how the energies of the elements have become part of my approach to sound sessions. When a space is opened with intention, the experience of sound can begin to take on different expressions that I feel are connected to the elements. In many ways, sound can act as a bridge that invites these elemental energies into the space.

Air can bring a sense of clarity or openness in communication. Fire can spark motivation or creativity. Water can help a person release old emotions or stagnant energy that may be ready to move. Earth often brings a sense of grounding and stability.

These elemental energies often emerge naturally through the instruments and the intention behind how they are played.

Where My Sound Healing Training and Shamanic Training Meet

My training in therapeutic sound through the Sound Healing Academy introduced me to the ways sound and vibration can influence the body and mind and how different instruments can support relaxation and energetic balance.

Later, during my Shamanic Practitioner Apprenticeship through The Chacana Spiritual Center, the focus shifted in a different direction. The apprenticeship moves through the teachings of the medicine wheel, with several months devoted to each direction. Along the way there is a strong emphasis on personal healing, reflection, and exploring philosophies that invite people to develop a deeper relationship with ceremony, nature, and sacred space.

While the training was not focused specifically on sound, the experience naturally began to influence the way I approach my sound healing sessions today.

Opening sacred space before a session. Calling in the directions. Inviting guidance. These practices gradually became part of the way I begin each session and the way I relate to the instruments themselves.

Bringing These Paths Together

One of the instruments through which I explore these ideas most deeply is the drum. Drums have long been used in many traditions to support meditation, grounding, and altered states of awareness.

Exploring the drum from this perspective eventually inspired me to create a class called Power of the Drum, where I share ways of building a deep connection with your own drum and exploring how intention, sound, and creativity can work together in healing practices.

Today these influences shape the sound healing sessions and classes I offer at Sagewave Sound here in Melbourne, Florida, where I continue to explore the relationship between sound, ceremony, and personal transformation.

Attending the recent graduation ceremony offered a moment to reflect on how much the apprenticeship influenced my path. The teachings around ceremony, sacred space, and relationship with the elements gradually found their way into the way I work with sound today.

What once felt like separate areas of study gradually wove together into something more integrated and deeply personal and I am so grateful to have had the experience.