The Cosmic Center of the Drum Circle

Indigenous cultures have been practicing community percussion for thousands of years. Although most of us did not grow up in an indigenous rhythmic musical tradition, we can still tap into the healing power of the drum circle. People have gathered in circles since the beginning of humankind for a very good reason. The circle is a container for building community and celebrating life. All are equal in the circle; no one is above or below. In a circle, each person's face can be seen; each person's voice can be heard and valued. Like the hoop of the drum, the circle represents the wheel of life. The plants, the animals, the minerals, and the elemental forces of nature all exist within the circle. All creatures walk the circumference of the wheel of life, experiencing birth, life, and death. After completing a cycle of learning on the sacred wheel, each one returns to the source, the Great Mystery at the center of the circle.

Every drum circle has a center, which represents the cosmic axis of the sacred space. In circle culture, it is customary to set up a centerpiece or altar that is appropriate for the purpose of the circle. A simple altar can be created with a cloth, a candle and other symbols that mean something to you. For example, if it is a grieving circle, a photo of the person who has passed away can be placed on the altar. If it's a circle of celebration, a symbol of the reason for the celebration can be included. It is customary for participants to bring offerings, sacred objects and fresh cut herbs to place on and around the altar. The circle participants will decorate the center with these objects as a way of making it their community space.

Although an altar is not essential, it provides us with a focus to pray, meditate and listen. It is traditional in circles to speak into the center. The idea is that everyone's voice is added to the center, and it is from the center that the wisdom of the circle will begin to emerge. Once someone has spoken into the center, their contribution becomes part of the circle. It becomes part of a collective, evolving story, a pathway to unity and understanding. When a circle meets regularly over an extended period of time, extraordinary things happen. As members learn to trust the process, the circle itself becomes the teacher. Participants both contribute to and benefit from the group's collective wisdom and experience. Individual visions coalesce into one common vision and mission. To learn more, look inside Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide.

The Book of Ceremony

Ceremony is essential for a healthy and balanced personal and communal life. Many persistent personal and social problems can be linked to the lack of ceremony. Ceremonies reduce tension, anxiety and stress, produce deeper self-awareness, and connect us to our community. They connect us with our deepest core values and our highest vision of who we are and why we are here. That's why shamanic teacher Sandra Ingerman wrote The Book of Ceremony -- to help us recover the sense of deeper meaning and sacred connection that makes ceremony a powerful tool for transformation and healing. "Ceremonies have always been used to create transformation," writes Ingerman. "Performing ceremonies creates a bridge between the material world we live in and the world of the unseen, the divine, the power of the universe." This practical guidebook is recommended to anyone seeking to engage the powers of the unseen world. Look inside The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life.

Shamanic Synchronicity

Carl Jung, the eminent psychologist, defined synchronicity as "meaningful coincidence," one that involves an internal psychological event that corresponds to an external observable event. Jung's premise is based upon the synchronicity of the universe. This is the proposition that the human experience is a microcosm and reflection of universal law and order. Humanity is the universe, occurring in every moment. Each human being is a hologram of the Cosmos, a weaving together of universal information from a particular point of view. As American author and human potentialist George Leonard put it: "Each human being consists of pure information expressed as rhythmic waves that start as infinitesimal vibrations of subatomic particles and build outward as ever-widening resonant hierarchies of atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organisms, families, bands, tribes, nations, civilizations, and beyond." At every phase of unfoldment, every entity is interwoven through the resonant web of information that is the universe.

Jung held that synchronicities mirror deep psychological processes, convey messages the way dreams do, and impart meaning and guidance to the degree they correspond to emotional states and inner experiences. A synchronicity is a coincidence that has an analog in the psyche, and depending on how you comprehend it, it can inform you through intuition and emotion. As anthropologist Michael Harner put it in his book The Way of the Shaman, synchronicities are considered "a kind of homing beacon analogous to a radio directional signal indicating that the right procedures and methods are being employed." So be on the lookout for synchronicities, for they confirm that your shamanic work is producing effects beyond the bounds of probability or coincidence.

Soul Slavery

We live in a time of accelerated change and transformation. Mother Earth and her inhabitants are undergoing a fundamental, evolutionary change -- a change that many of us will experience first-hand in this lifetime. Some call it the Kali Yuga, the age of maximum darkness and ignorance; a time when the dark forces of the unconscious are at their strongest. Others refer to this unfolding event as the Turning of the Age or a Great Shift in consciousness that was foretold long, long ago.

Earth changes are intensifying now. Great shifts in energy are taking place at this time. The veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is growing thinner and it is starting to get very dangerous. There is a major battle going on in the spirit world between the light and the dark, and it is spilling over into the material world. It is not hard to see that, even though we live on a planet that surrounds us with beauty, there is a lot of darkness manifesting within humanity. The dark is making a bid for power. The light is countering every move made by the dark; the light will ultimately prevail.

In this epic battle between the light and the dark, human beings are being used as commodities by the dark. The dark feeds on human energy, or life force, just like a parasite feeds on its host. The darkness needs the light of our souls, for it has no inner light to sustain it. This is why human souls have been held in slavery or servitude on Earth for centuries. Millions of people are now under the power of darkness. The dark uses mind control to enslave its victims. They are manipulated into believing they cannot be free, but human beings have free will. Freedom of choice is our human birthright and gift from the Creator.

When the Creator created the world, he gave humans the option to choose between good and evil. At any moment, each of us is confronted with choices between good and evil forces. The dark forces were created so humans could realize their inner powers and develop the soul. The darkness consistently tries to make people choose between the good and bad and tries to tempt them to choose the bad. Its goal is to force us to behave in opposition to our true soul, to be bad. When we choose good over evil, we grow spiritually and bring more light into the world.

Many earthbound souls are also enslaved against their will by the dark. An earthbound soul is one who chooses not to "cross over" to the other side when their physical existence ends. When we die, there is usually a graceful transition into the afterlife. But when someone suffers a traumatic death such as murder, accident, war or suicide, they may not have an awareness of where and who they are. Other souls are held back by grieving relatives who cannot let them go. The purpose of funeral rites is to open the mourners to grief to unleash this powerful emotional energy and channel it in such a way that it will convey the newly deceased soul to the afterlife. If not channeled properly, grief is useless to the dead and dangerous to the living. Unfortunately, many of the psychopomp myths and rituals that once helped people prepare for this final rite of passage have become lost or forgotten.

We need to pray for these souls and make that a new intention in our rituals and invocations. We need to pray for the liberation of all who are under the power of darkness. Pray for the best possible outcome for all souls, living and dead. The Creator is helping all enslaved souls to choose for themselves. In the struggle between good and evil, we are all being called upon to choose which side we are on -- the light or the dark. This is not judgment day. It has nothing to do with religion or ideology. This is about human existence, free will, and each of us claiming our sovereignty. Sovereignty is the supreme power to self govern -- to be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. If we claim our sovereignty, we can shape a truly New World. To learn more look inside The Great Shift.

The Suppressed History of Woman Shamanism

Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research women's history internationally and understand how systems of domination established and perpetuate themselves. Her goal is to restore women to cultural memory, to restore awareness of the full range of female experience and contributions, power and oppressions, all that has been omitted and edited out from textbooks and mass media. Throughout history the majority of writings and teachings known worldwide on shamanism have been from the masculine perspective.

From Buryat Mongolia to Gabon Africa, it was well known that the first shaman was a woman. According to a Chukchee (people inhabiting the northeasternmost part of Siberia) proverb, "Woman is by nature a shaman." Yet the female dimension of this realm of spiritual experience has often been slighted. Mircea Eliade (author of the authoritative "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy") believed that women shamans represented a degeneration of an originally masculine profession, yet was hard put to explain why so many male shamans customarily dressed in women's clothing and assumed other female-gendered behaviors.

In fact, women have been at the forefront of this field worldwide, and in some cultures, they predominate. This was true in ancient China and Japan, as it still is in modern Korea and Okinawa, as well as among many South African peoples and northern Californians such as the Karok and Yurok. There are countless other examples, including the machi of the Mapuche in southern Chile and the babaylan and catalonan of the Philippines. Read more.