Drum Circle Facilitation Issues and Challenges

An excerpt from my book, Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide.
 

Drum circle facilitation can be challenging at times. In his book Drum Circle Facilitation: Building Community Through Rhythm, Arthur Hull recounts the story of a rip-roaring drunk who showed up at a closing celebration and graduation exercise for a facilitator training workshop in Japan. Throughout the program, the drunk offered a good balance of challenging distractions and disruptive behavior for the beginning-beginner facilitators. After the circle, Hull critiqued the event with the graduates. He told them that the presence of the drunk was a blessing in disguise and represented three types of challenges that facilitators encounter in drum circles. As Hull puts it, "He was an unconscious distracter, a random factor disruptor and the kid who would not behave."
 

According to facilitator Larry Dillenbeck, "Another challenge to circle facilitation is when one person 'triggers' another and people get upset. Sometimes that can quickly spread and dominate the energy and attention of the group. I've seen it handled two ways that seem opposite, but both were effective at the time. One facilitator asked the people to leave the circle and resolve the issue outside, which they did, and allowed the rest of the group to continue with the session. Another time, the facilitators used the incident as a way of processing and using shamanic skills to bring resolution within the group. Even though it was a deviation from the plan for that day, it was a great demonstration of healing and the skill of the facilitators to 'hold space' and deal with the matter elegantly."
 

"Traditionalists" can also present challenges to leadership. As circle keeper Madge Peinkofer points out, "My biggest challenge is when a person joins the circle with specific beliefs about what is right or wrong in 'their tradition.' They usually have strong feelings about 'their way' being the right way. They can bring the energy down very quickly and change it in a way that makes others feel uncomfortable. One way I handle this is to listen respectfully until I feel the integrity of the circle is being compromised. At this point, I politely intervene to explain that all people are honored in this circle and our only rule is that everyone be respectful of others. I then redirect the attention and energy of the circle to an activity that gets everyone involved." Another way the facilitator can address this issue is to clarify the focus and intent of the circle from the beginning. As Larry Dillenbeck suggests, "I think part of what helps in those situations is when the facilitator sets the 'tone' or 'Spirit' of the ceremony at the beginning by setting the intent to honor all attendees and their particular beliefs and traditions and invite the attendees to do the same."
 

Shamanic circling requires that we allow space and encouragement for each member to bring forward their thoughts, feelings and concerns. Circles that are able to communicate well with one another are better able to withstand personality clashes and discord. Membership concerns might include issues of attendance, tardiness, confidentiality and sharing in the circle. By bringing forth these issues, they can be diffused and often lose their power. Circle issues might also include ego work. It's not unusual for some individuals to be seeking personal power. The spirits will often resolve this but if not, people may be asked to leave the circle.

Meeting Author William S. Lyon

While visiting my family in Kansas for the holidays in 1991, a friend of mine introduced me to William S. Lyon, the co-author of Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota. We met Lyon at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. Lyon received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1970 and has spent his career in the study of North American Indian shamanism, mainly among the Lakota. He first met Wallace Black Elk, a renowned Lakota medicine man, in 1978 when they jointly conducted a summer session course at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. In 1986, Lyon left academia to spend full time traveling in the U.S. and Europe with Wallace Black Elk and Archie Fire Lame Deer. Over the next four years, Lyon taped the many talks given by Black Elk that resulted in the 1991 publication of Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota. This highly-acclaimed book is entirely in the words of Black Elk.
 

Lyon had some great stories to share about his travels with Wallace. On one occasion, Lyon accompanied Wallace to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. They walked out into an isolated area far from habitation to attend a sweat lodge ceremony. Hanging in a tree near the sweat lodge was Chief Crazy Horse's sacred pipe or Chanunpa. Lyon asked Wallace if he was concerned about someone stealing the pipe. Wallace answered, "No one will ever take that pipe. One time we came out here to sweat and the pipe was gone. We went into the lodge and asked the spirits to return the pipe, and sure enough when we came out of the sweat, that pipe was hanging in the tree."
 

Wallace told Lyon that when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, a lava tube opened beneath the mountain and a column of lava is now flowing from Mount St. Helens all around the Pacific Rim or Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. Wallace said that this is a sign that the Earth Changes have begun. The phrase "Earth Changes" refers to the Indigenous belief that the world would soon enter a series of cataclysmic events causing major alterations in human life on the planet. This includes natural events, such as major earthquakes, the melting of the polar ice caps, a pole shift of the planetary axis, major weather events, solar flares as well as huge changes of the global social, economic and political systems.
 

Lyon also recounted the story of Wallace's silver eagle pendant being stolen from the altar at a sweat lodge ceremony in Ashland, Oregon. Just as he did at Pine Ridge, Wallace went into the lodge and asked the spirits to return the pendant. When he came out of the lodge, the pendant was back on the altar. Lyon was convinced that Wallace was one of the most powerful shamans in the United States. Wallace passed away on January 25, 2004 at his home in Denver, Colorado.

The Pyramid of the Magician

I first visited the Maya ruins of Uxmal in March of 1995. It was a transformational journey of self-discovery -- the culmination of a lifelong dream. The archaeological site is located about 50 miles south of Merida, the vibrant capital of the Mexican state of Yucatan. Uxmal was the greatest metropolitan and ceremonial center in the Yucatan during the Late Classic Period, flourishing between the seventh and tenth centuries. It was a seat of power in the southern Puuc region, the low range of hills in the otherwise flat lowland forests of the Yucatan. The city is home to two large pyramids and various temples, plazas and a ball court. Ancient raised roads called sacbes connect the structures, and also were built to other cities in the area such as Chichen Itza. The majestic temples of Uxmal are unique in their type because they were built on various levels and their facades are notable for the intricate stone latticework. The city's limestone structures have ornate carvings, friezes and sculptures embedded in the architecture.
 

The Pyramid of the Magician is the first building a visitor encounters when entering the ceremonial area of Uxmal. The pyramid stands out from other Maya structures because of its rounded corners, considerable height (115 ft), steep slopes and unusual elliptical base. I walked to the base of the pyramid and made a tobacco offering to the temple guardians, seeking permission to enter the shrine. I climbed the steep steps of the east staircase to the temple at the summit, known as the House of the Soothsayer. The elongated temple has an entrance on each side of the wide stairway. Each door of the temple represents the mouth of a cave leading into the heart of the sacred creation mountain. Inside the sanctum of the cave sits the portal that leads to the spirit world.
 

I entered the carved stone temple to find three ornate vision chambers. I sat cross-legged on the floor of the central chamber to meditate. I closed my eyes and stilled my mind by focusing on my breath as I inhaled and exhaled. I invoked the Vision Serpent, the Maya deity who serves as a gateway to the spirit realm. I asked for insight into the origins of Uxmal. This is what happened:
 

In my mind's eye, I could see into the distant past. I saw Plumed Serpent (the Maya creator deity) and three lightning deities, known as Chaac, K'awiil and Yaluk, create the Earth out of the primordial sea and populate it with animals. They wanted to create human beings with hearts and minds who could keep the days of the calendar, but their first attempts failed. When these creator deities finally formed humans out of yellow and white corn who could talk, they were satisfied. They used lightning to open up the Maize Mountain, making the maize seeds available to mankind. The three lightning deities then instructed the first people in the ways of language, culture and the spiritual sciences.
 

The core beliefs and principles of all spiritual cultural traditions originate from the thunder, lightning and rain deities. They are the source of all religious transmission, both ancient and new. As with many Mesoamerican cultures that based their living on rain-dependent agriculture, the ancient Maya held a special devotion for the deities controlling rain. The lightning deities had a particularly strong relationship with shaman-kings because kings were considered to be rainmakers and were able to communicate with the gods of rain, lightning and storms. Kings were initiated by the rain deities, thus becoming their human counterpart.
 

I could clearly see that Uxmal had an ancient and ongoing use as a mystery school dedicated to preserving, protecting and perpetuating the original wisdom teachings transmitted by the lightning deities. The so-called Nunnery Quadrangle of four palatial structures to the west and behind the Pyramid of the Magician was actually used as a school for the training of shamans, priests, calendar daykeepers, astronomers and mathematicians. The Nunnery Quadrangle was a school where teachings were not only transmitted orally, but were transmitted through didactic architecture -- or architecture as a teaching tool. The Maya intentionally used geometric forms to encode their cosmology in the architecture to educate initiates about natural laws and principles. The Nunnery Quadrangle is an enduring example of the sacred science and the high wisdom of the ancient Maya.

The Drum and the World Tree

In world mythology, the World Tree is the axis mundi or central axis of the Cosmos. The World Tree could be considered the core fractal of creation which serves to manifest the Universe. Images of the World Tree exist in virtually all cultures, and represent the world center and/or the connection between heaven and earth. The axis mundi links heaven and earth as well as providing a path between the two. Many ancient cultures incorporate the myth of the World Tree, Tree of Life, or Tree of Knowledge as it is also known.

Shamans believe that this cosmic axis and the Cosmos it unites exist within human consciousness. According to shamanic cosmology, there are three inner planes of consciousness: the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. The roots of the World Tree touch the Lower World. Its trunk is the Middle World and its branches hold up the Upper World. Humans did not invent these inner realms; they discovered them. Far from being a human contrivance, these archetypal worlds are inherent in the collective unconscious, the common psychological inheritance of humanity. They are woven into the matrix of the psyche, for we are a fractal of creation. They are a part of our psyche, a part of us whether we choose to become aware of it or not.  

Through the sound of the drum, which is invariably made of wood from the World Tree, the shaman is transported to the axis within and conveyed from plane to plane. As Tuvan musicologist Valentina Suzukei explains: "There is a bridge on these sound waves so you can go from one world to another. In the sound world, a tunnel opens through which we can pass, or the shaman's spirits come to us. When you stop playing the drum, the bridge disappears."

The inner axis passes through an opening or hole through which the shaman traverses the inner planes in order to mediate between the needs of the spirit world and those of the material world. It is an inward spiritual journey of rapture in which the shaman interacts with the inner spirit world, thereby influencing the outer material world. In the shaman's world, all human experience is self-generated. Experience is shaped from within since the three realms or resonant fields that define our experience of reality exist within each of us.

The cosmology of the drum

In the shaman's world, the drum is a most sacred instrument. The double-headed drum is believed to embody the sacred forces of the Cosmos through its sounds, structural features, contents, and connection to shamanic trance. The various parts of the drum also symbolize the structures of the world. Cosmologically, the drum depicts a microcosm of the Universe with its three zones -- the Upper, Middle and Lower Worlds. The two drumheads symbolize the Upper and Lower Worlds.

The rim of the drum symbolizes the Middle World and is connected to the World Tree through the wood of the frame and its association through all trees back to the First Tree. Like the World Tree, which links the earth and sky, the rim links the two sides of the drum -- the yin and the yang. A double-headed drum unites the sacred feminine and masculine aspects of the Universe within itself. It restores the balance of these polar, yet co-creative elements.

The two drumheads also symbolize the two states of existence -- unmanifest and manifest. When a double-headed drum is vibrated, it produces dissimilar sounds which are fused together by resonance to create one sound. The drumbeat is the tuner sound, the sound that fuses the unmanifest and manifest aspects of vibration into one resonance. The sound thus produced symbolizes Nada, the cosmic sound of AUM, which can be heard during deep meditation.

From a shamanic perspective, caretaking the drum and playing it properly during ritual fulfills the destiny of the human spirit -- to sustain the order of existence. In the rapture of ritual drumming, the shaman brings the World Tree into existence, opening a path of communication with the world above and the world below. Materialized in the drum, the trunk of the tree goes through the Middle World; its roots plunge to the nadir in the Lower World, and its branches soar to the zenith in the highest layer of the Upper World. The drum becomes the axis mundi or central axis through which the shaman maintains the world's equilibrium.

The Shaman's Drum

The drum, sometimes called the shaman's horse, provides the shaman a relatively easy means of controlled transcendence. Researchers have found that if a drum beat frequency of around three to four beats per second is sustained for at least fifteen minutes, it will induce significant trance states in most people, even on their first attempt. During shamanic flight, the sound of the drum serves as a guidance system, indicating where the shaman is at any moment or where they might need to go. The drumbeat also serves as an anchor, or lifeline, that the shaman follows to return to his or her body and/or exit the trance state when the trance work is complete.
 

The sound of the shaman's drum is very important. A shamanic ritual often begins with heating the drum head over a fire to bring it up to the desired pitch. It is the subtle variations in timbre and ever-changing overtones of the drum that allow the shaman to communicate with the spiritual realm. Part of the shaman's training involves learning to hear and interpret a larger range of frequencies than the normal person can. The shaman listens and finds the right tone, the right sound to which the spirits will respond. Through the many tones, pitches, and harmonics of the drum, the shaman communes with the subtle and normally unseen energies of the spirit world. 

Tuvan shamans believe that the spirits of nature create their own sound world, and it is possible for humans to communicate with them through the sound of the drum. According to Tuvan ethnographer and former shaman Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, "We understand the spirits answers mostly from the tangible results of the communication, in terms of benefit or harm. But some people actually hear the spirits singing." Tuvan shamans use the drum to convey to the spirits of a place their greetings, any requests, and thanks. It is a spiritual practice designed to help human beings relate to all of nature. Tuva (southern Siberia) is one of the few places in the world where the shamanic heritage has remained unbroken.
 

Drumming opens the shaman's inner, spiritual ears and eyes and also calls the helping spirits. As Tuvan musicologist Valentina Suzukei explains, "By changing and listening to the frequencies and overtones of the drum, the shaman is able to send messages to, and receive them from, both the spirit world and the patient. For example, the shaman might use the overtones to send signals to the sky, where they provoke a voice from the cosmos; in turn, the cosmic signals are caught on the drum and reflected to the shaman through the creation of subsequent overtones."