Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide

I am pleased to announce the publication of the Kindle eBook edition of my new drum guide. The paperback will be available in a few weeks. This book is the culmination of twenty-five years of shamanic circling. Since 1989, I have been involved in facilitating shamanic drumming circles and hands-on experiential workshops nationwide. Many of the participants in my seminars were inspired to start or join drumming circles in their communities. Over the years, a number of these shamanic practitioners have shared the specific challenges and issues their circles experienced. This ongoing networking with other practitioners evolved into the Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide. This comprehensive manual provides guidelines for creating, facilitating and sustaining shamanic drumming circles.

A shamanic drumming circle is essentially a modern adaptation to an ancient form of cultural expression attributed to indigenous shamanic peoples. In indigenous cultures, the term "drum circle" would not be used. Rather, the term "ceremonial drumming" or "drumming rite" would be more accurate. 

The shamanic drumming circle is the most powerful way I know to connect with the spirit and oneness of everything. Everything has a rhythm, and that rhythm is circular. Drum circles provide the opportunity for people of like mind to unite for the attainment of a shared objective. There is power in drumming alone, but that power recombines and multiplies on many simultaneous levels in a group of drummers. The drums draw individual energies together, unifying them into a consolidated force that can be channeled toward the circle's intended goal. Look inside my new book here. View the YouTube book trailer here.

Interview with Sandra Ingerman

Sandra Ingerman is one of the respected leaders of the neo-shamanic movement here in America. She is the author of eight books including Soul Retrieval and Medicine for the Earth. Sandra has been teaching for over 30 years. She teaches workshops internationally on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She has trained and founded an international alliance of "Medicine for the Earth" teachers. Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times.

In a recent interview, Sandra shared her struggle with depression and how she used the methods derived from the beliefs and practices of traditional cultures to create her sense of well-being. Sandra says, that even though shamanism has been practiced in cultures that seem to have little in common with our modern society, the underlying philosophy is timeless for its relevance to humanity. She states "shamanism is a way of life." It reminds us that everything is alive with energy and that we are all connected to and inseparable from a universal web of life. She believes that so much of the mental illness we see today largely comes from our disconnection from nature. Watch the interview here. 

Solo Time in Nature

Trail through the Tatoosh Wilderness

When was the last time you took a hike into the forest or a walk onto the beach alone? When you go solo in nature, the entire experience is different than if you're with someone else. Hiking with other people, there is little hope of seeing any real wildlife and not much solitude. Solitude allows time for self-examination, relaxation away from the daily grind for awhile, and a chance to meditate, contemplate, or just zone out for hours at a time. The longer the solo immersion; the more transformational the experience.

I did my first solo in nature at the age of twenty (1974); backpacking for three days in rugged Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. That first trek challenged and inspired me to pursue more outdoor solo adventures. Many of my most memorable experiences took place during solo journeys into nature. My longest solo was a (1980) three week backpacking trek through the Salmon Mountains of Klamath National Forest in Northern California. It was an epic adventure and transformational experience that I will never forget. I recounted my backpacking adventure (and shamanic initiation) in my book Shamanic Drumming. At the age of 59, I still spend solo time in nature. I no longer backpack, but still like to go tent camping alone for days or weeks at a time. I always return home feeling spiritually renewed. My inner self is most nourished when I am immersed in nature.

Shamans have always gone solo in nature because they knew that the only way to recharge was to connect with nature's healing energy. What better way to reenergize than to sit in a deep forest, or next to a waterfall for a few days and nights? Shamans knew that some of that natural power could be gathered and stored using shamanic techniques and then applied later to their active endeavors. There is no reason why an ordinary person cannot learn and apply similar techniques to recharge, gather, store, and apply the renewed vitality gained from solo time. To learn more, read my journey into nature and shamanism, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits.

Yup'ik Shaman Masks

For many generations the Yup'ik (real) people of Alaska have created beautifully expressive masks for their traditional dances and ceremonies. Over the long winter darkness, dances and storytelling took place in the qasgiq (communal men's house) using these masks to honor and connect to the beings that made life possible in the Arctic environment. The masks were said to have made the unseen world visible. Masked dancing was once at the heart of Yup'ik spiritual and social life. It was a bridge between the ancient and the new, the living and the dead and a person's own power and the greater powers of the unseen world.

Many of the masks were visual representations of the shaman's journeys into the spirit world and often portrayed spirit helpers. The shaman either carved the masks himself or directed their carving. Masks were carved from driftwood collected on the shores and painted with natural pigments. The symbolic meaning of color varies with the creator of the mask and the story he or she is relating. Recurring colors include red which may sometimes symbolize life, blood, or give protection to the mask's wearer; black which sometimes represents death or the afterlife; and white which sometimes can mean living or winter. Painted spots appear on many masks and even on some participants. They represent snowflakes, stars, or eyes, depending on the mask's story. As in healing, the artist's touch may have been as significant as the mark left behind.

Masks were decorated with teeth, beads, animal hides, feathers and other organic materials related to the story being portrayed. They differ in size from forehead and finger 'maskettes' to enormous constructions that dancers need external supports to perform with. Ingenious theatrical devices were created and hung from the roof of the communal house, and beautiful costumes were sewn, all as part of a complex enactment of sacred stories.

After Christian contact in the late nineteenth century, masked dancing was suppressed, and today it is not practiced as it was before in the Yup'ik villages. However, the art of making masks is once again making its way into the traditional lifestyles of the Yup'ik. The elders are trying to get the young people involved and it's still a work in progress, but the revival of mask making is a hopeful story of Yup'ik continuity. 

"Drumming for the Orisa"

Colin Townsend is a cultural anthropologist and drummer who published a study on the ways identity is constructed among a group of drummers at Oyotunji Village, South Carolina. Oyotunji Village was founded by Oba Oseijeman I, born Walter King of Detroit, in 1970 with the purpose of providing African-Americans in the United States with a geographical, political, and cultural space to experience African culture. Modeled after Yoruba culture of southwest Nigeria, members of the community practice a religion known as orisa-voodoo.

Throughout the year, festivals are held dedicated to various orisa, "deities," in which the drummers play a crucial role in the religious experience of the orisa-voodoo adherents. An essential part of Yoruba culture, drumming acts as a musical bridge between humans and orisa, enabling orisa-voodoo practitioners to petition the orisa for guidance and intervention in their daily lives. Drumming traditions at Oyotunji Village provide drummers with a repository of cultural knowledge and practices from which to draw, while at the same time offering them a creative outlet capable of reshaping and redefining those very same traditions.

Townsend examines various processes of identity formation among the drummers as part of their musical apprenticeship, during which they learn not only how to play the instrument but also about Yoruba culture in general. He employs an analytical framework involving a "subject-centered musical ethnography" within a three-dimensional space of musical experience including time, location, and metaphor. Read "Drumming for the Orisa: (Re)inventing Yoruba Identity in Oyotunji Village."

To learn more about African drumming, I highly recommend Sule Greg Wilson's informative book, The Drummer's Path: Moving the Spirit with Ritual and Traditional Drumming. Wilson provides a useful introduction to the many different styles of traditional African drumming. This is an intriguing work that shows the relationship between drumming, spirit and health. His writing offers an interesting insight into the physical, metaphysical and spiritual aspects of drumming.