Ep 32: Awakening to Plant Spirit Reiki and the Rhythms of Shamanic Drumming

Embarking on a transformative journey, Fay Johnstone shed her corporate identity and found a world where energy, intuition, and nature intertwine. This episode unfurls her fascinating story, from the first brush with Reiki  to the rhythmic heartbeat of shamanic drumming.  I also weave in my own experiences, revealing how our paths crossed through spiritual synchronicity.

Through anecdotes and practical guidance, we illuminate the path to engaging with plants as living, breathing partners in healing, offering insights tailored for both seasoned Reiki practitioners and newcomers alike. This episode serves as an invitation to open the senses to the lush tapestry of plant spirit Reiki and the grounding call of the shamanic drum, fostering a partnership with the natural world that transcends the ordinary.

Fay Johnstone combines over twenty years of reiki practice with elemental qigong, plant medicine, and creative shamanism to bring the healing power of nature to assist us with our personal transformation. As well as studying Herbal Medicine, she ran an organicflower and herb farm in Nova Scotia for some years before returning to the UK and settling in Scotland. The path of the drum and reiki has led Fay to connect even more deeply with nature and plants. The author of three books: Plant Spirit Reiki, Plants That Speak, Souls that Sing, and her latest book Shamanic Reiki Drumming. Fay offers training and retreats from her garden in Fife, Scotland and has an online community with monthly offerings.

Connect with Fay
 www.fayjohnstone.com
Fay's books are here
Substack community 
Fay's Instagram
Youtube
Facebook Page

Books mentioned:
Artist's Way - Julia Cameron
Plant Spirit Medicine - Eliot Cowan
Healing Wise - Susun Weed
Plant Spirit Healing - Pam Montgomery
Stephen Harold Buhner - anything by him!

Transcript

Rose : 0:03

Welcome to Chat Off the Mat, the podcast that explores the journey of healing and self-discovery where energy, spirituality, mind and body intersect. Hi, I'm your host, rose Wipic, and I invite you to join me as we explore ways to invite more holistic practices into your life. We will feature experts and practitioners who provide insights, tips and practical advice. From Reiki to Chagang, chakra Balancing to Shamanism, this podcast will be your guide to understanding how these practices can lead to more harmony and greater energy. Whether you're seeking stress relief, emotional balance or a deeper connection to your authentic self, chat Off the Mat will provide you with insights and inspiration, so let's start discovering the possibilities that lie within you. Are you curious about different modalities and tools that can guide and help you on your healing journey? Do you notice what calls to you? Do you hear the whispers and feel the nudges that pull you towards a certain direction? For me, I had been drawn or interested to drumming not the Ringo-Star type drumming, but the Shaman drum. To hear and play that slow and steady beat that grounds me and also can send me into a trance. One day. Searching the internet for both drums and how to learn how to play one led me to find Faye Johnstone. Coincidentally or should I say synchronistically she just published a book on Shamanic Reiki drumming and had an online course, which, of course, I registered for. She has also written books on using plant energy in her practice.

Rose : 2:05

Faye is a practitioner of creative Shamanism, a plant spirit guide, teacher of Reiki and Qigong, and an author. She integrates and shares these practices through her teachings in order to help you create a richer experience. I am so excited to share with you my conversation with Faye. She shares her story of working in the corporate world to one day receiving a strong nudge to begin a different journey. She also offers practical ways you can integrate drumming and plant energy into your own healing, whether or not you are a Reiki practitioner. It is true, when we listen to our own internal guidance, it can open doors for us that we never thought we'd walk through. I hope you enjoy my chat with Faye. Today's guest is Faye Johnstone. Welcome, faye. I'm really, really excited that you're here today and chat off the mat.

Fay : 3:11

Oh, thank you so much. I'm absolutely delighted to be here all the way from not so sunny as Scotland, but Scotland nonetheless.

Rose : 3:19

Faye is a teacher of mine and I've invited Faye to come onto the podcast so she can talk about her practices as a Reiki and plant practitioner, drummer, shaman and healer. I've read your books and you used to live in the city, so you used to have a past life. Before becoming a healer and teacher, you worked at a corporate job, found an inner calling to follow a different path, particularly to work with plants and integrating them into your Reiki healing practice. I would love to hear more about your personal journey which may inspire our listeners to perhaps follow their own inner calling on a different path in life.

Fay : 4:03

Well, okay. So I think first things first. Your listeners need to know that actually I was quite a slow burner. My spiritual past I ended up learning Reiki because a friend said hey, there's this thing called Reiki. It connects you to healing and it enables you to heal yourself. You want to give it a go? And I just went. Yeah, that sounds amazing. And that was literally me starting on my Reiki journey and I'd always been interested in past life stuff, meditation, things like that. But I feel that that's the way the universe presented this past me is by saying, well, she's going to take a long time to get there by herself, so we'll just give her a nudge from one of her friends. And so I started doing Reiki. But this is what I mean by a slow burner.

Fay : 4:55

For everyone listening is that for a long time I was walking in my sort of job that I thought I ought to do, doing all the things I thought I should do, and then on the side, I've got my Reiki hands and I'm doing meditation and I'm reading I'm such a devour books and information, so I'm kind of trying to read all this esoteric stuff. And this is it's 24 years this year that I was birthed to tune to Reiki. So I'm talking about an era when we didn't have all this information out there. You had to explain 100 times to someone what Reiki was because they just didn't. Well, certainly in the circles that I was moving in, you know, my friends would just humor me and go okay, you can practice on me because they were being kind, not because they really understood what I was practicing. So that was kind of how I started and what you were referring to there is I had this sort of, if you like, this crisis moment where I realized I got to the stage where, on paper, I had all the things, I had a great job, I had income coming in, I was living in Paris at the time.

Fay : 6:09

I mean, even that sounds glamorous to me now. That was, it was all of that, it all looked great and it all looked like this person doing the things that you know, doing the things on paper that we expect, someone who's. I had a nice education, I went to university and it was all like me ticking off these milestones and then I had this kind of crisis point where I like realized I was deeply unhappy. And I got to that point and I'm going to share. This is one of the practices which I still swear by today, and some of the listeners might be familiar with the author, Julia Cameron. She wrote the book that she's very famous for, the Artist's Way. So I'm talking about me in my mid-twenties finding the artist's way.

Fay : 6:56

And I just started. I was doing, I was practicing self-reiki anyway, because I was I was reiki level two at the time and then and then. So I'm sort of doing all this behind scenes. I'm showing up to business meetings but then, behind the scenes, I'm, you know, doing my morning pages. And it was through one of these, this process called the artist's date, where, julia, one of the suggestions is that you take yourself up on a date and you spend time with yourself. You spend time with your creative self. And it was one of these artist's dates where I took myself to.

Fay : 7:29

It was just like this door pulls me in all these beautiful flowers and plants and I just I bought as many as I could and I took them back to the apartment where I was staying and I couldn't have told you what they were. I knew nothing about plants, but I didn't really. You know they. They were speaking to my heart, they weren't speaking to the head that has they. Oh, that's the gladiola, that's, that's the marigold, you know it was. It was this heart connection and it was from that moment and I really thought you know what? I need to stop this. This is not, this is not helping me.

Fay : 8:04

And so I then, gradually, I moved back, I moved out of the city, I moved back to the UK, I started growing vegetables, I started studying herbal medicine and I started actually working for a company that was all to do with conservation. So I was suddenly like and this is what I say to people is, you know, we give the universe an inch, and certainly this is the case for the plants. You give the, you give the plants an inch and wow, they come in, they take a mile. All they need is that little crack in the door, this little willingness. Or, in terms of the universe, you know, the universe needs a willingness to change or willingness to see something differently or to say you know what? This isn't working, there must be another way. And then things start to open up and energy starts to shift and expand.

Fay : 8:51

And that's what happened to me when I got myself, when I, when I had that awakening of and it wasn't an awakening, it was just a realization of you know what I'm actually miserable. These cocktails and high heels are not making me happy. I need to, I need to, you know, I need to get back to what's true, what's me, and so, and then, that wasn't really my. That was where it all started, and this is why I say I'm a slow burner. I wouldn't. This didn't happen overnight. It happened.

Fay : 9:21

It was just a real process of me coming, if you like, if you like, grounding myself, coming back to myself, perhaps discovering parts of myself that I hadn't been looking at, because I thought I was doing the whole. Well, I should do this, and this sounds like a good idea. Oh, yes, I can do that. I need to do that without thinking, well, what do I want to do? And then, when I started to kind of follow the nudges of what I wanted to do, that was when we ended up. I say we are talking about myself and my husband he's now my husband. We went to Nova Scotia. We ran a flower farm for five years, you know, and all of this was really you know.

Fay : 10:01

And because I'm a and when I say to people, you know, I'm attuned to Reiki, and so Reiki is with me in all of this. There isn't a day that I wake up and I don't have Reiki and I'm not Reiki and I'm not connecting to Reiki. So the underlying practice is Reiki. You know that's been coming through this energy awareness and so on. But I still want to say that actually, julia Cameron's morning pages, I still do those Now this day. You know, I still do my morning pages. I have had years or moments where I have not done them, but I do my morning pages every morning and I write, free flow, three pages of whatever's in my head, just to clear the channel and then, once that's on the page often it's anxiety, it's to do list, it's the things that you're frustrated with, concerned about I write those down, get those three pages done and then something else can come in because that has been seen. So I still do that practice today.

Rose : 11:09

That's a great practice. I've actually done it myself for many, many years, on and off, and I'm planning on doing it again. But what I'm hearing as you're telling me that story is that you were aware you had an awareness of that plant or those plants or that store calling to you. So you're in tune already to your inner guidance, and I think one of the things I often speak about on this show is encouraging people to do that. So you did that, but that doesn't come overnight. A lot of people don't trust that instinct, and you did, and once you did that it opened that door and it was life changing for you.

Fay : 11:50

So I'm hoping it's leaning into the trust, isn't it? That's where we, you know trusting oneself, and actually, when this comes down to the plant and I know we're going to talk about talking to plants soon but when we start talking to plants, for example, or even shamanic journeying, working with the drum, or even, you know, practicing reiki and feeling sensations and so on, what happens mostly for us is because we're taught not to trust ourselves. We're taught to trust, you know, the teacher or the other person with authority, or we're taught to trust the pharmaceutical drugs and not the body or whatever it is. We tend to think that we're wrong, and I used to. I used to have a phrase that was so ingrained in me my automatic response was I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And actually it's my. I have to thank my husband for saying to me and if I ever say I don't know, now he looks at me and he says, yes, you do, and I stop myself because we do know, but we're so used to just sort of being in that place of no, I don't know, I couldn't possibly know that, and so actually, yeah, it's that trusting, isn't it? Coming back to trust and trusting our first feeling? I think that's what I say with the plants is trusting your first response, and it's like that with Reiki, isn't it? Yeah, and we?

Fay : 13:22

I find also, the thing which has tripped me up so many times and it still trips me up today, is when you know and this happens as a teacher, you probably experienced this as well, rose is that we have students and we ourselves will come when we start to compare ourselves to other people, and there's always and I always say this, there's always someone in the class who's receiving amazing sensations or messages or healing, or it's mind blowing, and that throws us off because we start to compare what we're experiencing and we think, oh well, mine isn't so dramatic or vivid or colorful and I'm not a visual person, and all of this story that we tell ourselves.

Fay : 14:05

And it's important for us to sort of start to reconnect with self and think, okay, well, that's that person's experience. Let me talk to myself, let me understand me and how I talk to myself and how my body talks to me and how I connect to things, because we're all very different and that's what I see time and time again students tripping themselves up and I hear students say to me oh, I'm not a visual person, I can't do traumatic Reiki drumming, for example I can't do the journey experience because I'm not visual. And my response is well, visual is one sense. We're multi-sensory people, so it's not a movie that you're trying to watch, it's something that it's a whole body experience. So that's an example of we have to reframe things. We have to tell ourselves yes, I've got this. How do I talk to myself?

Rose : 15:03

Yeah, I think it's getting out of your head and really coming into your heart and feeling things in the body. In a lot of senses, I also encourage my Reiki students to trust their own inner guidance. They often say to me well, I don't get visions when I'm doing Reiki on a person, or impressions. I'm like well, don't have any expectations, don't feel you, just let it go and be open to receiving. So yeah, that's a very important message. Thank you for sharing that.

Rose : 15:31

So let's talk a little bit about the plants, and you work with plants and I've written a book about plant spirit Reiki and you mentioned in your introduction I wanna read this to the audience that it's a three-fold journey, that it is not like herbal medicine or aromatherapy, but the focus is on connecting with the plants and nature as conscious beings and working in partnership with them in whatever way that might be for our own healing. And I thought that was a very powerful statement and as soon as I read that, I could feel your intention behind what you do, that connection you have to the plants and wanting to share that with everyone, and it made me more aware of the power of plants. I mean, I look at my backyard and I see right now just the trees, but they're powerful and they speak to me and you integrate all of this into your Reiki practice. Can you just share some of the practical ways anyone whether someone's a Reiki practitioner or not they can incorporate into their own day to connect with the healing power of plants?

Fay : 16:40

Sure, and I love this question. It's like my favorite thing. So I think, though, one of the things is we've got ourselves very disconnected. We think that we're here, we're human and they're out there, those plant things, and actually we're all part of the same magical, mysterious earth-wide web. We are all connected, we're in relationship with these plants. The plants are giving us their oxygen. Through their processes, we breathe out carbon dioxide, the plants work with the carbon dioxide for all their complex processes, and then they produce oxygen. They're giving us oxygen. So we're already in a relationship with them, and then, as beings on this planet, the plants were here first. Guys, we came along afterwards.

Fay : 17:30

So, for a start, we've got the dynamic all wrong, and actually, so what we need to kind of almost like really get back to basics and ground, I feel sometimes we forget. Think of a tea, a plant. It's a plant, and even now, with oat milks and almond milks and coconut milk, we're consuming plants. Plants give us nourishment. I think I'm wearing a cotton top. That's a plant. So it's almost like remembering this relationship and honoring it some way, and sometimes that can just be a simple. It's just like almost like turning it in your brain and thinking, wow, this cup of tea I'm drinking it was originally a plant, or the coffee that was originally a plant that was growing perhaps in Columbia and has gone through this process and arrived here. And it's just this reverence of wow, thank you, and one of the really, in a sense, the language of nature is through the heart and we get to that space through gratitude.

Fay : 18:40

And this is obviously very easy to do. If you walk out of your front door and you're in this beautiful countryside, I mean it's very easy to go. Oh wonderful, oh goodness me, isn't this tree beautiful? So it's for folks who live in a city. You're gonna say, well, that is much more challenging, and I agree it is much more challenging. But you can still find the gorgeous trees that grow on sidewalks they'll be lovely areas of parkland that have been maintained and just finding a moment to feel appreciation for the beauty that these plants are creating and for this connection, and even through the breath, just simply breathing, we are breathing the plants and the meditation I do is I breathe you.

Fay : 19:29

I say that as I breathe in and as I breathe out, I'm saying you breathe me, and that's a really simple mantra, to kind of do with a favorite tree, and really I mean the way to connect with nature is to get your coat on, get outside. That's what you've got to do, and even in the winter you know, we're coming out of the Scottish winter here it's the case of get your coats on, wrap yourself up, find a tree, connect, you know. And when I say connect, it can be a simple just looking at a tree and smiling. In that, you know, and really feeling it in your heart, just feeling wow, that's a magical being right there, it's beautiful or whatever it is you're feeling. One of my students he kind of flirts with the flowers when they're in there and out in the summer and he's like saying, wow, you're so beautiful.

Fay : 20:21

Hello may I smell you, you know, and just really this interaction of so imagining that, having fun, pretending that the plants are your brothers and your sisters, they're your relations, they're your friends, and finding the beauty, even if it's on your way to work and you're taking, you know, you're taking the subway or the bus and there's just nothing in you just feeling like, well, there's just nothing. Here, there is always something and there is always the earth. There is always the earth that you connect with through your feet and there is always the breath which is connecting you with this relationship that you have with plants. But I think the thing to remember and you know, and if we all had loads of money, I'd say, yeah, buy yourself fresh flowers every day, wouldn't that be great? I don't buy fresh flowers every day. That would be very unsustainable in so many ways.

Fay : 21:14

But bringing I often talk about bringing the outside in. So if there is any way that you can bring something from the natural world into your environment, and obviously, if you live you know, I live by the sea shore here and I've got woods here I can bring in seashells, bits of bark, fancy leaves, a twig. That's easy for me. It's hard for you if you live in a city, but to have images that touch stones that you know make your heart sing, like even if it was an amazing place that you last went to on your holidays, on your vacation, even if it's an amazing beach with a gorgeous sunset or a gorgeous wood that you went for a gorgeous hike in these types of images that fill us up, and having images like that around the work environment, the home environment, screensavers and so on. And I'm just going to give you one more thing, because I know I'm rambling, but just also to remember fragrance is really really key, I find, and things like you know, even like today I've probably put some face cream on and I had some hand wash.

Fay : 22:22

You know my hand wash was something like Mandarin. You know that's the plant that's fragrant and skincare is awesome fragrance. I mean, I'm a real sort of old fashioned person. I love rose, I love lavender, all those kind of. I'm a floral person. Find out what aroma you enjoy, because that is the way of connecting with the plant as well. So there are many different levels that we can go through with the plants and then, obviously, if you're consuming herbal medicines and herbal teas, we're into another relationship with them, or if we're, you know, putting herbal salts on our food, if we're consuming a plant based diet and so on. There's just all these different ways that actually the plants are nourishing us. But we can be nourished just really from a very visual, sensory experience. I just love experiencing plants through the senses, so the smells and obviously the way they're impacting the visual of kind of our landscape. It's really a key way to connect.

Rose : 23:26

As you're speaking about this, I feel this. I think this feeling in my heart space that I have such more of an appreciation, as you're talking about this, and how I really want to create more of a relationship with plants. It's just, it's a lovely feeling that I'm feeling and I love how you talk about that relationship. We forget that it is a relationship, that they're living beings and that we should not take them for granted in any way, and that they're here for us and we're here for them, and it's just lovely and I love. Even if you don't live in a country where you can have the flowers, invite them into your home screen savers right, we're looking at our screens all day, or. I love that. Those are amazing ways to connect with nature. That's very lovely.

Rose : 24:12

I'm also well, even though my name is Rose, I'm more of a citrus person and my dad was from Sicily and there was lemon trees and he brought that here. He, in the winter, he would have lemon trees in his garage and the perfume from the lemon flowers are Amazing. I wish I can share that with everyone right now and I would just sit there and smell those beautiful little flowers and then they would produce the most beautiful lemons. You know he would bring into his environment a piece of his homeland that he's not there. He wasn't there so he brought it here.

Fay : 24:55

So yes, thank you.

Fay : 24:57

That is so magic you know, what I'm going to share, another story. It's actually a thing for people to think about. So this is what you've just shared there, Rose is you've shared a story of a plant which is really interwoven into your family and into that part of you. So I would refer to that plant as the lemon tree, as the plant spirit ally for you. That plant, you know, if you were to smell that plant, for example, you might even think of your father. You know you would think or you might even remember at a time. You know it would be very connected through its aroma, to memories and so on.

Fay : 25:38

And so my challenge for everybody listening is for you all to think about the plants in your life. You know, and so for me I could go well, yes, there was a big horse chestnut tree that me and my neighbour used to climb when we were seven years old. That's a significant plant for me in my life. For others it might be. Oh, I always remember, you know, the fragrance of my grandmother with her lavender or with her sweet peas. So this is a challenge for everyone. Just think about the ways that you're already in relationship with plants and you might not have thought about it up until today, even if it's like oh well, my mum used to always make lamb on a Sunday and we'd have, you know, mint sauce with rosemary. You know that kind of relationship they're weaving their way into your story and that is a way. That is a way, in a sense, that we can start. Sometimes that's the starting point for us and to sort of opening to this relationship that we're in already with the plant.

Rose : 26:41

Yes, invoking those beautiful memories and, fortunately, my sister's maintaining those, those lemon trees and she did gift me one last week, a lemon from one of those lemon trees and I and I eat the whole lemon Not the outside, but it does. It brings beautiful memories. That's a wonderful exercise for everyone to do and I do hope everyone does that. I did want to mention the trees are very powerful or very. I have a relationship with trees. I walk by trees and they call to me and so I go and talk to them because I could hear them. They're like come over here and talk to me, or hey, and then we have a conversation and I could put my hand on a tree and just tune in and I receive messages. What I want to talk about, too, is your Shamanic drumming. I was called to work with a drum. I searched the internet and came across you and I signed up for your course, bought your book and that's how we connected through your course, which I absolutely love. It's about integrating drumming and Reiki. So when did you first?

Fay : 27:48

discover the drum so well, it was interesting. I started working with I don't gosh I don't know necessarily how it came about, but I was very interested in shamanism and I did a very basic. I did a basic course, a six week course in shamanic practice, and that was when this was so. This was my, if you like, my first discovery of the drum. It was literally somebody drumming for me and I was learning how to do a shamanic journey and connect with spirit guides and so on, and that was an experience. Again, it is. Yeah, it's about 15 years ago that I started that experience and then I discovered there was a lady who was teaching something called Reiki drum and I just had that call of well, I've got to do that and I had that. I had that feeling that I felt almost like that oh my God, in my head I thought everyone's, or in my mind of what in my feeling was oh, everyone's doing this, and actually I was one of the first people that she taught. It was just really strange, but I just knew that I needed to go and connect with the drum, and so that my first experience was actually a training weekend. So I've had experiences of somebody drumming for me and listening, and then listening to a cassette tape in those days of drumming to practice, this experience of being in this expanded state of consciousness with the repetitive beat of the drum. And then, you know, to my sheer delight, on this weekend, I learned how to work with the drum in my Reiki practice and I was given my first drum, and that was yeah, that was in 2009. But what happened for me in that weekend is it just almost like it was like dipping my toe in the water. I was like whoa, this is just not enough information, I need to know so much more. It was like it was the tip of the iceberg. It was, it was, and it opened really an absolute kind of worms for me, which I have been answering and, you know, discovering ever since. And this is so, this is the path that I'm on led. You know, really, the transformation and the power of the drum has, for me, just opened up a work I think I say in my book. It really opened up this world of suddenly think it wasn't oh well, it wasn't what is, it was actually what if? And it suddenly really expanded my, my sense of being, my sense of connection, my consciousness into this world of possibilities, because that's what the drum does, you know, and it shifts the pattern of the brain. And so I started down a path of shamanic practice and just learning from different teachers, and I was really fortunate I had two teachers in the UK. Then, when we moved to Canada, had two teachers in Canada, and then when I moved to Scotland, I had a wonderful teacher who I trained with for three years in Scotland. So I have been, if you like, growing ever since.

Fay : 31:01

I connected with that drum and I've still got my original drum today. I've got many other drums some you can't see them, but some of them are up here on the wall and I've. So I've still got the original drum and I drum. You know, I have different drums for different aspects and the drum, the drum, is the guy really. So that's the journey.

Fay : 31:25

It was, in a sense, reiki that took me, that showed me that way, and, like I said, I call my practice shamanic Reiki, drumming because you, I feel like you can't take the Reiki out of me.

Fay : 31:38

So when I'm, when I'm working as a shamanic practitioner, when I'm using the drum as one of my tools, then I'm working with shamanic Reiki, because the Reiki is going to come through.

Fay : 31:51

So the drum is necessarily the only tool I use. I also use a raffle, or I'll use bells, or I use my voice, use Reiki and also the plant and different sort of aspects of the plants as well. We sort of talked about it previously, when you read the intro of my plant through Reiki book, how when I work with plants, we're not working with them like they're a medicine or rather a traditional medicine, like a herbal medicine that you were in, but we're using the sort of the plant and and in that way it works very well, with the drum, the Reiki and the plants kind of working together, finding a pathway, shall we say. And so yeah, for me the drum is very expansive, it's very transformative, it's very powerful. You know, we know that just from the way it can shift energy. If I was to beat the drum really loudly, you know boom. We've all experienced the power of sound, so that for me the drum, it continued to be a real teacher.

Rose : 32:51

But I've been using the drum as a way to clear the energy. So before I did the podcast, before we got on the podcast, I took my drum and I was banging it around the room using Reiki to just clear the energy, and I'm slowly starting to incorporate that in my Reiki practice. So I encourage those people out there that are Reiki practitioners to pick up Facebook and learn the practices, because they're not difficult but they're very powerful, and also to use the drum for yourself. What are ways that, let's say, a person who may not be a Reiki practitioner wants to get a drum and start using it and I do wanna encourage people to, and I will put the show notes, by the way, Fe for your course and your books for people who would like to take a look at those. But for someone who is not a practitioner and wants to use the drum, maybe some simple ways they can incorporate it into a ritual of theirs to connect with spirit or to journey.

Fay : 33:52

Yeah, so just to clarify when I'm talking about drumming, I'm not talking about kind of African Gembe drumming. I'm talking about a handheld drum that you can use your. You can either beat it with your hand or a mallet, a beater. So it's a frame drum that I'm gonna put.

Rose : 34:07

I'll just show you, but I need to get that. There you go, just like that.

Fay : 34:10

And that's great because that's the synthetic, that's the vegan drum and obviously if you're going to have a drum which is made with animal skin, you'll have the connection to that animal as well with that. So that's why different drums have many different qualities. So, and I suppose also what I should say is I've not, when I work with a drum, in a shamanic way, I'm not working with it necessarily to make music, to play beautiful melodies. I'm working with it very specifically to kind of enter a different state of consciousness through repetition of beats, to basically shift the brain wave in my brain or in a client's brain, for example, and to really get into this expanded state of consciousness, to basically it shifts us out of who we think we are.

Rose : 35:06

It's out of body almost.

Fay : 35:08

Absolutely.

Fay : 35:09

And so what can you do personally? So well? Interestingly, when I first started using the drum with clients I actually I was teaching meditation at the time and I was going through all the mindfulness things and I just suddenly thought, oh my God, this is going to take forever, because I could see everybody really struggling. And that's when I started. I just picked up my drum and I said, right, everyone, this is what we're going to do. And I played the drum and then it wasn't instant, obviously, but it was very much like a moment where everybody went. You could see the brain wave, the shift in the room break, the mind suddenly quietening down and it connecting with the drum, and just you could see the rhythm shifting for everybody.

Fay : 35:57

So one way is through we can work with the drum in meditation because it really will help us get out of this thinking mind, the chatter, the mind that we have to as a human operate. We can't do Zoom calls and emails if we're kind of in this expanded state of being, but so we have to as humans. We have to balance, we have to be in this world, but actually when we want to get into a more harmonious state and experience the wholeness of who we are. That is when a practice like drumming or meditating with the drum can be really useful and that's something that we can practice by ourself. But you mentioned the shamanic journey and that's a way that we work with the drum to access well, we kind of, we use the drum, if you like, to ride the beat of the drum to access information from other worlds, from this shamanic world. So we want to, in a sense, we shift out of this reality and the drum helps us go into an expanded state of reality where we can access these different aspects of ourselves, different aspects of what we call in shamanism, the different worlds of this upper, middle and lower in traditional shamanic practice. And in this state we can access and meet spirit guides, we can connect to inner wisdom or our higher self for deep healing and information.

Fay : 37:29

So, if we think of the tradition so I'm talking about a practice that, if we want to, a shamanic practice which we can use to help others, we can use it to help ourselves. And if you think of traditionally the shamanic or the shaman, if you like, the village shaman, the village of medicine woman, the medicine man, they are from indigenous tribes who they had these practices, through lineages and so on, and they would get into trance states like this through the drums, through psychoactive plants, through all sorts of different ways. The drum is just simply, in a sense, it's one way that you can access that state of expanded data consciousness to bring back the information, to help yourself, to help others, to help your community, and really that, in a sense, the intention it's not all service to self, it's how can I bring back information, healing, wisdom that's going to benefit me, that's going to benefit others in my community, and that's where, in a sense, the intention that we can journey with. So journeying is a simple process that you can learn with the drum. You can journey for yourself it's nice to journey for other people, though or you can simply, as I learned all the ideas ago.

Fay : 38:49

I learned through listening to a tape, listening to an audio. That was a drum, and there are these. If you're learning a sort of traditional journey, there are different sort of stages of the journey, so it kind of has a beginning, a middle and end, a proper intention, so that the space is set up correctly and you're prepared and protected, and so on. So the journey process can be just absolute. It can be game-changing for people. I've seen people's faces at the end of journeys and their eyes look like the lights have been turned on because they've been able to access a deep, a piece of the puzzle. Shall we say that in their ordinary life they just weren't able to access it. But the drum helps us shift into this other state. Or you can go to the Peru and do an ayahuasca ceremony if that's what you need to do, but the easy thing to do at home safely is to work with a drum.

Rose : 39:52

And you don't have to have the physical. You can do find I don't wanna say tape, because I have cassette tape in my mind now.

Fay : 40:01

Playlist.

Rose : 40:02

MP3 is. Use one of the streaming services for music to find a tape. I find that it grounds me when I use my drum if I just beat in a gentle way and I've used it for my classes it grounds people you connect with like the rhythm of the earth, which is kind of nice. But I wanna mention something I had. We were speaking not long ago and I had asked you a question for an answer and you said go and use your drum and go within and see what answers you come up with. And I was like, yeah, that's a good idea. So I did that.

Rose : 40:36

I'm not gonna ask, say what the question was, because it doesn't matter, but the fact is I actually I don't remember if I drummed myself and then paused and went into this state or listened to one of your drumming audio files from the course, but I was able to go within and connect with a guide that actually showed me what I needed to do or the answers to my question, and it was so powerful. We always have the answers within. Kind of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz and oh, I can't remember the girl's name with the red shoes right now. Yes, and how, linda the good witch, you always have the answer. You always have the answer inside of you.

Rose : 41:16

So we all do. But drumming is such a powerful way to connect with your inner wisdom or your inner guide, and it's grounding and the vibration of the sound is just healing. It heals, it moves energy in the body, and when I tell people when I'm doing Reiki on someone and I use the drum because it's something different, I tell them that it helps to move the stagnant energy in the body as well. So then they're more comfortable with that. And then the next thing you know, they're just sleeping on the table and Reiki is flowing. So that's a wonderful thing too.

Fay : 42:02

See, that's a lovely practice too. I know it's in my book, but you know I was talking about personal practice. We can do with the drum, to do a body scan with yourself with the drum, so to drum your the drum, so you sort of drum over your body and just or just drum actually, let me get it right start drumming and then just notice in your body where you feel the beat, where how different areas of the body are feeling in response to the beat, because that can show us where we need healing or where we need attention. And then what we can do is we can either you know if we're ready practitioners, we can rate, we practice Reiki, or we can sit in meditation and breathe and send our breath to the this area of the body.

Fay : 42:50

So, yeah, the drum can be used and this is like a diagnostic tool almost, to kind of help us find out where our I mean, you know, because we're an orchestra, we are this beautiful pattern of energy moving. You know, I'm not my physical body, I'm not my mind, I'm this beautiful rhythm of energy. And what happens in life is, you know, things happen to us, things occur and my beautiful rhythm starts to actually, it might get a bit off, it might get a bit missed the line or out of tune If something throws me off, and actually the drum, because it's this beautiful sound wave, can help bring back the, the harmony, if you like, to our orchestra. And so that's the ninth way you've reminded me there, that diagnostic that we can do.

Rose : 43:38

I love that. The harmony to our orchestras beautiful, that's lovely. So we've talked a lot about your personal practices using the plant and the drum Journey self Reiki. Can I ask who are some of the people or teachers I did mention? There are some shamans and and a friend of yours that introduced you to Reiki. Any others that have inspired you along the way?

Fay : 44:04

I did love. Sadly he's, he's passed away now. But Stephen Howard, you know he's to write so beautifully about plants and the lang, the heart, intelligence, if you like, of of us and the plants and he and he was, he was, it was a nature poet really. So he was an inspiration for me. And also the work of Elliot Cohen who he wrote plants for medicine and I was lucky enough to meet him. He Nova Scotia came to and I was beside myself with excitement to think that, you know, somebody was coming all the way to Nova Scotia of all places to do a workshop and so I got to meet him and also Pam Montgomery, pam's great. She wrote plants spirit healing with Pam's book. I think she might have written another book.

Fay : 44:57

So those were very influential for me in terms of this whole. It was that kind of confirmation of yeah, there's something in this plan, there's, there's more to plant medicine than making herbal medicine. However, there is a herbalist, she's quite controversial and she's called Susan weed and she I wish I could remember what the book was. Anyway, I had one of her herbal books and it only, it only dealt with about, you know, a handful of herbs, but each chapter she wrote, she made the plant come alive, like for dandelion, she gave dandelion and accents, and dandelion was, you know, introducing himself like these, and I just, and that for me, it really impressed me. I thought, wow, plants, personalities, and so these, these kind of. I think for me I was needing that person, I needed to see it sort of from someone else, because then it may, it helped me go yeah, that's what I see, that I see plants, personalities. I appreciate, you know, I can, I can relate to that. What happened to me was very influential. I thought, yeah, I totally get that. That is singing, that is singing to you know what, what I say so and yeah, so those are some just brings to mind in terms of that and working on the farm, you know it was this I was, you know, I had lots of lovely herbalist, like Rosemary Gladstaff, for example, who were influential for me in terms of, like, how I'm making my herbal medicine. But it was when I started to get into this aspect of plants, of feminism, that those teachers were really influential for me in terms of affirming I suppose is the word I'm looking for. They were kind of saying, yeah, this is happening and I'm like, yeah, that's totally happening to me. Yeah, and if that was, you know, always, so it was, if you like, it gave me the green light. I just that's why I started writing about my experiences and also I suppose I was just writing about them, I was just experimenting because that was, for me, the, the.

Fay : 47:21

I suppose the thing that has helped me is doing. It sounds really boring, just doing the work. It's just you got to do it, you can't do it, talk about it. You know Instagram about it. You know you got to do the work. And when I was running that farm around the farm for five years, it was a flower and herb farm, but I mean, there was obviously a lot of work to do with plants and we're just with the plants, and obviously I had my Reiki and my shamanic practice as well. So it was this whole thing of being being nature and being in relationship with nature and living it. So it was, we were living it, we were living it daily. So, and I actually did some, there was the beautiful, I suppose, in a sense, the community that I lived with in Nova Scotia, in Pasama Gouche. They taught me, they were brilliant teachers for me because I was. You know. I'm saying this because I think it's important for people to hear.

Fay : 48:25

So when I studied herbal medicine, I dropped out. I didn't want to be a clinical herbalist. The long story is to what happened to the school I was studying with. But the short story is I didn't finish my training. So there I was, not having got the piece of paper that officially said, oh, I'm a clinical herbalist. And I beat myself up about that for many years. And then, when I'm in Nova Scotia, my community is asking me well, faye, could you do a talk at the library? And I'm like no, I can't do that because I'm not a herbalist.

Fay : 49:00

And I remember being at the market one day and I had all my herbs with me, the ones we grew, and I made some herbal products and some teas and so on. And the lady, a lady, came up and she said, oh, wow, you're a herbalist. And again I went, no, no, no, I'm not a herbalist. And because I was so stuck with this whole idea of, because I didn't get the certificate from the school, I wasn't herbalist. And that community, I mean, I remember this lady saying to me well, you're a herbalist. To me, you know much more than I know about all these plants growing here, and so that really was a really deep learning for me. And they were right I knew I had years under my belt of, and connection to, the plant, the plants, and so, yes, and it was this, it was this encouragement to share what you know, just share what you know, and that's what I started doing.

Rose : 49:56

The universe brought that woman to you to validate, right to validate, and sometimes that's all we need. We need someone, we do the work, we're experimenting, we're curious, we have a pile of books, we're reading and learning, and sometimes it just takes someone to say yes, but you are a healer, or shaman, or Reiki healer, whatever it is, and and and that's the nudge, yeah, and it's great. Yes, to do the work, to experiment. I wrote this down to actually live it. Those are things that we need to do.

Rose : 50:28

And and I want to end by asking a question around ceremonies that I know you do ceremonies regularly. I subscribe to your sub stack, I guess subscription, and you offer that with the, with the paid, but you do that if people can also do it separately and pay for that. But but there are these wonderful ceremonies that you use the drum, you introduce plants and you do it seasonally to honor the changes in the seasons or the shifts on the seasonal wheel, and, and I think that concept is starting to really come into play here in the States, and I and I and I want to compare the states that the other place, but you know, we're we're a little behind in practicing certain certain things, but recently you did one for Imbolc and it was just lovely. And what do you feel is the importance of these ceremonies or rituals? And maybe talk about, besides what I mentioned, some of the things that you incorporate in your rituals. But why is it important to honor these changes, these shifts and season?

Fay : 51:35

The naughty part of me wants to go because it's fun and it's good to get together and celebrate. So I started. I was probably about okay, maybe not quite 20 years ago, but certainly 15 years ago, let's say I was I was really learning about. Well God, no, it's in my. It's in me because I've been brought up in the bridge shards, it is within me. You know, when I'm, when I'm seven years old, at school, we're having to dance around the May Pole, which is part Beltane, the celebration on the 1st of May, which is all about fertility, you know. So it's within me. You know, and I grew up with Morris dancers and again, this is groups who dance in certain times of the year. So I think it, it's within me, it's part of, and you know, and I don't know if you have these in the States, but we have Harvest Festival and I'll never forget when I was six, I had to. I was a beetroot and had to sit in church and I had to say beetroot at the top of my voice because we were celebrating the harvest. So I, yeah, so I grew up in a rural village in the UK, so it is part of my heritage, it's part of me. When I started, I started studying, I did a course with the, with OBOD, which is a Druid organization here in the UK, and I did that many years ago.

Fay : 53:00

And again that brought it back to my attention, the, that what we have in the what, what you might call the pagan year in the States. You might know it as that. So there are these different festivals throughout the year and it's pretty much like every six weeks. It means, oh, it's a bit of a get together and actually what, what, and they follow, you know they, because they include the salsas and the equinox, they're kind of they're following the position of the sun. So we're going around the year. It's kind of cutting the year as a piece of cake and what. They're just really interesting opportunities to check in with yourself.

Fay : 53:40

See, how am I feeling? How does the time of year affect me, what's important to me, what's not important to me, what's shifting and also to it makes us more aware of our environment, because we noticed which plants are coming up, which what's. You know, what are the birds doing? What am I eating at this time of year? How are my energy levels? What is the daylight? Like you know, and I think one of the things I found hard actually about what I lived in Nova Scotia is because the seasons were slightly different and so my sort of traditional wheel of the year.

Fay : 54:13

I was thinking, you know, we did like the first of May, and I'm thinking, but this isn't the first of May, this isn't you know, because again, the plants were slightly not as I'm used to them being in my body. You know, I'm used to it being a certain time of year and I'm seeing daffodils or I'm seeing the catkins on the willow. So it's an important way to kind of ground in your environment and to remember again this relationship that we're in with the natural world. And the reason that that is important to me is because it helps me feel supported and it helped me feel that sense of connection. And so when I'm having my wobbly days, when I'm kind of in the teary kind of add on what to do with my life you know all the silliness that happens I can go out to a tree, I can sit down and I can feel where the energy is that will support me for what I've created, that I'm going through.

Fay : 55:11

But also gathering in ceremony. It's a way to pause and sort of see how you are like. I mean, in a sense, there are some people that will follow the cycle of the moon and every full moon and dark moon. You know they will have these and it's lovely to be in a cycle really and honoring the, and also for us, historically, you know there are plants which are associated with these different stages of the year and what I encourage everybody to do is you know, I'm it's almost like don't necessarily read it from a book that says time of year. You know this plant is this and this is the energy it's like, feel into it. You know so. The next one we've got coming up with what equinox coming up spring equinox for us in the northern hemisphere, and you know so that's the equal amount of daylight and and, and I don't know what they're saying daylight, nighttime.

Fay : 56:09

It's equal. Right, it's equal. And so that's an opportunity to ask yourself you know well where, where, where is the balance in my life and what needs more balance? And just again, asking ourselves these questions and we can feel the support of the, of the environment that we have around us. So, again, if you're in a city, that environment is still supporting you, you can still notice, even if you like no, I live in narrow with no trees, it's like. Well, I'm sure you can notice how much daylight there is or how, how the temperature feels, or sometimes there's a feeling in the air, and it's just becoming aware of your surroundings because for me, like I said, it's a sense of belonging and support that we get and we realize we are not alone. We're part of a much greater whole and we're a very important cog in this mighty web of wonder. And even though we can't see the full picture, we're just doing our thing and we know, because we can feel this connection with the community unseen and seen around us.

Rose : 57:21

That's beautiful. I love that. I hope that people find a way to connect with you. If you want to mention briefly where we can find you or audience can find you, I'm going to put everything in the show notes.

Fay : 57:33

Sure, so my I've got my website, which is page johnstoncom. You can find me on Instagram. I'm plants that speak on Instagram, though I'm rubbish at social media, but I do publish on my sub stack account, which is soul Awakening with Fay Johnstone, and that is what Rose was. I have a YouTube channel as well, which is Fay Johnstone , but Rose was a was sharing that if you subscribe on sub stack, you'll get all my newsletters, and there's some free events that I that I do regularly, and also for paid subscribers. Each month there's a, there's an event, whether it's a chigong or an online ceremony or something like that.

Rose : 58:12

Yes, and you also. A Shamanic Reiki drumming course coming up, I believe, soon.

Fay : 58:19

I do. All the events will be. All the events are going to be on my website as well as my online courses. There are some online courses there that you mentioned shamanic reiki, drumming and plants, but Reiki as well.

Rose : 58:34

It's some that you also host in Scotland. One of these days I will come over and be a part of one of those in person classes with you.

Fay : 58:43

Yeah, I should plug that, because I have an amazing garden by the sea. We have a year it's beautiful place for retreat and also the plan for summer school, which happens every year in June, july time yet dates are on the website for that and that's the five day plant immersion. So that's really kind of just immersing yourself with plan and connecting to what wants to come through you. You know, led by the plan for with, led by the plant. So that's a really wonderful experience. If anyone listening thing oh my God, I've got to do that Then come and join us in the summer.

Rose : 59:19

Yes, you may see me there one day soon, I hope. Thank you so much for joining us on chat off the mat. I really appreciate your time and your energy here. Thank you.

Fay : 59:28

Thank you, thanks everyone.

Rose : 59:32

Thank you for joining us here on chat off the mat. We hope these stories have inspired you and help you on your wellness journey. As we conclude this episode, we encourage you to reflect on the insights gained and consider how they can be woven into your own narrative. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with those who might benefit. Your support helps us in our mission to spread awareness about the power of transformative healing. Stay connected with us on social media and feel free to reach out with your own healing stories or topics you'd like us to explore in future episodes. Your voice is an essential part of this community. As we part ways for now, carry the wisdom of these stories with you and brace your own healing journey and may be filled with self discovery, resilience and the unwavering belief in the power that resides within you. Until next time, this is Rose Whipitch, wishing you a journey filled with healing, growth and endless possibilities.