Vandana Shiva and the Seed Freedom Movement

Vandana Shiva, a renowned scientist, philosopher, feminist, author, environmentalist and activist, is currently leading a campaign to create a global citizens' response on the issue of seed freedom. In a recent interview, Shiva explains why the two week campaign on seed freedom against major corporations, which culminates on World Food Day later this month, is so important and the consequences of failure. In 1991, Shiva founded Navdanya, a movement which aims to protect nature and people's rights to knowledge, biodiversity, water and food. It does this by setting up community seed banks that generate livelihoods for local people and provide for basic needs. In a July 2012 interview with Bill Moyers, Shiva explains that seed is the source of life and that corporate control over seed means control over our lives, our food and our freedom.  

Black Sky, White Sky: A Shamanic Novel

Black Sky, White Sky is a novel by Ken Hyder, a Scottish percussionist and member of the British-Siberian experimental music ensemble K-Space. After making a series of trips to Siberia to perform and study with Tuvan shamans, Hyder has published a semi-fictional account of his shamanic experiences. In his ethnographic novel, Hyder recounts an American artist’s apprenticeship into Tuvan Shamanism as it rises from decades of Soviet repression. After years of working in secret, the shamans form group-practice clinics, but rivalry among “black” and “white” sects leads to in-fighting – with deadly consequences. The author is a fine storyteller, rendering all of his characters in order to provide his readers with the possibility of communing, as he has, with these contemporary shamans. 

Drumming in the Great Kiva of Chaco Canyon

I have made pilgrimages to sacred sites throughout North America, but the Great Kiva Casa Rinconada in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico is the most powerful place I have ever drummed. A Great Kiva is a large, circular, usually subterranean structure that was designed and used by Anasazi peoples for ceremonial and communal gatherings. The two masonry box-like vaults found on the floor of most Great Kivas are believed to have been covered with planks and served as foot drums. I first drummed here in 1991 when the NPS still allowed entry into the kiva. The sonic phenomena within a kiva transcend the usual range of auditory experience. The walls of the stone structure reflect, amplify, and transform the sounds of the drum, resulting in some extraordinary harmonics. Drum sounds become distorted and seem to expand and move around the chamber due to an acoustic phenomenon known as standing waves. As sound waves reverberate between the walls, they either cancel or combine, causing certain resonant frequencies to either completely disappear or intensify, change in pitch, and develop vibrato. Within a kiva, it is possible to compose an entirely new auditory universe from the architecture of sound itself. Click here for a guide to Anasazi sites of the Southwest.

Drumming with Intent

Our creative potential is far greater than we realize—we all possess the power to manifest our intentions. Shamanic drumming is a time-tested technique for transforming our intentions into reality. The drum serves as a concentration device for stilling the mind and focusing our attention. Shamans have understood for centuries that sustained focused attention on a specific intention, while in a state of inner silence, channels our creative energy into manifesting the physical equivalent of the focus. The key is to focus your energy to that point on the drumhead's surface that you are striking, not beyond it. Transfer your energy and intention into the drum, stroking it firmly, yet gently, until it sings and hums. With practice, you learn just how much energy to send out to achieve a desired result and how much to retain so that you don't tire. To learn more, read my guide to shamanic drumming.

Fire on the Mountain: A Gathering of Shamans

Fire on the Mountain: A Gathering of Shamans is a documentary about the connection between consciousness and nature, as embodied in the spiritual traditions of Indigenous Peoples, whose ecological metaphors of the sacred are so relevant to the modern world. The film chronicles an historic 10-day gathering of shamans from five continents, who travelled to Karma Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in the Val Saint Hugon in Savoy, in the French Alps, to discuss their concerns with H.H. the Dalai Lama and high-level representatives of the world's religions. This documentary embodies the wish of these Indigenous People - all traditional wisdom-keepers, shamans and medicine-women - who requested us to communicate their message to the world. View the video.