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."

Dark Ecology

Scientists have determined that we are now living in the Anthropocene age: the new epoch of geological time in which human activity is considered such a powerful influence on the environment, climate and ecology of the planet that it will leave its legacy for millennia. The Anthropocene is notable as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric, and other Earth system processes are now altered by humans. In the Anthropocene, humans move from a biological to a geological agent. The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago with the end of the last glacial period.
 

The awareness we've gained in the Anthropocene is not generally a happy one. Many environmentalists now warn of impending global catastrophe and urge industrial societies to change course. Philosopher Timothy Morton, however, stakes out a more iconoclastic position. He wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs, from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that we are 'above' other beings. His ideas might sound weird, but they're catching on. Morton, whose most quoted book is called Ecology Without Nature, proposes a perspective that sets him apart from all those scientists and social commentators warning of the impending disaster that is global warming. Instead of raising the ecological alarm of the apocalypse, he advocates what he calls "dark ecology," which holds that the much-feared catastrophe has, in fact, already occurred.
 

Morton means not only that irreversible global warming is under way, but also something more wide-reaching. "We Mesopotamians" -- as he calls the past 400 or so generations of humans living in agricultural and industrial societies -- thought that we were simply manipulating other entities (by farming and engineering, and so on) in a vacuum, as if we were lab technicians and they were in some kind of giant petri dish called "nature" or "the environment." In the Anthropocene, Morton says we must wake up to the fact that we never stood apart from or controlled the non-human things on the planet, but have always been thoroughly bound up with them. We can't even burn, throw or flush things away without them coming back to us in some form, such as harmful pollution. Our most cherished ideas about nature and the environment -- that they are separate from us, and relatively stable -- have been destroyed.
 

Morton likens this realization to detective stories in which the hunter realizes he is hunting himself (his favorite examples are Blade Runner and Oedipus Rex). "Not all of us are prepared to feel sufficiently creeped out by this epiphany," he says. This is a hard pill to swallow, but there's another twist: even though humans have caused the Anthropocene, we cannot control it. That might sound gloomy, but Morton glimpses in it a liberation. If we give up the delusion of controlling everything around us, we might refocus ourselves on the pleasure we take in other beings and life itself. Enjoyment, Morton believes, might be the thing that turns us on to a new kind of politics. "Even if it's true that we really are screwed, let's not spend the rest of our lives on this planet telling ourselves how screwed we are."

World Tree Meditation

The ancient Maya had a rich shamanic tradition. To open a path of communication between the spiritual and earthly realms, Maya shamans entered sacred time and space at the top of great pyramids. For the Maya, the establishment of sacred space involved the connecting of the Earth with the heavens -- to bring them into accord. To rejoin the two separated worlds and regenerate the order of the cosmos, shamans performed rituals to create a portal to the Otherworld (nonordinary reality). The sacred universal space that they created was the center of the heavens and the center of the Earth.

 

Centering the world was a way of materializing the World Tree. To the ancient and modern-day Maya, the whole world is generated, organized and evolving according to the World Tree or Wacah Chan, as it is called in Mayan language. The Maya believed that the world of human beings was connected to the Otherworld along the Wacah Chan axis which ran through the center of existence. This axis was not located in any one earthly place, but could be materialized through ritual anywhere on the Earth. Most important, it was materialized in the person of the shaman-king, who brought it into existence as he stood enthralled in ecstatic trance atop his pyramid-tree.

 

In order to understand how Maya shamans perceive the cosmos, make use of this simple exercise to enter sacred time. Sacred time, unlike ordinary time, represents the cosmic order. It's the foundation of rhythm and motion. It's the glue that binds the universe together. 

 

1. First, select a location where you will not be interrupted. It must be a quiet space, at least for the duration of the exercise. Smudge the space and yourself with the smoke of an incense or herb. Among the Maya, copal is traditionally used, but cedar or juniper is acceptable.

 

2. Stand facing the East, with your feet parallel, about six inches apart, and your toes aimed straight ahead. Your knees should be slightly bent, removing any strain on your lower back.

 

3. Close your eyes and focus on the breath as it enters the nose and fills your lungs, and then gently exhale any tension you might feel. The Maya believe that the tree provides us our first breath, which is spirit, so offer thanks for this gift of life. Continue breathing with a series of even inhalations and exhalations until you are calm and relaxed.

 

4. Imagine that you are the World Tree standing at the very navel of the universe. Your roots tap deeply into the underworld, and your crown touches the heavens. Visualize Polaris, the North Star (the star that the earth's axis points toward in the northern sky) directly over your head.

 

5. Now visualize a spiral of energy ascending out of the earth, moving up your spine, the trunk of your own inner World Tree. This energy is grounding, centering, and abundant. In fact, all possible blessings and abundance come to you as a result of this fiery energy.

 

6. Now imagine another spiral of energy descending from the heavens above, entering your body through the crown of your head and traveling down your spinal column into the earth. This force embodies higher spiritual knowledge and power. It unites you with the totality of a dynamic, interrelated universe. This is the energy the Classic Maya called itz, the "dew of heaven."

 

7. Visualize these two energetic forces as spirals of white light, one moving from the sky into the earth, the other from the earth into the sky. Together they form a symmetrical double spiral traveling up and down your spine, like the double helix formed by the plus and minus strands of DNA.

 

8. Now stretch your arms out from your sides so that you stand as a cross-tree at the center of all things. To the Maya, the cross is but a symbol of the four directions, the outstretched arms of the great World Tree, and of the fourfold universe itself. You are that universe.

 

9. At your right hand, to the South, are gathered all the masculine or yang powers of the cosmos. Since the Maya trace their ancestry through patrilineal descent in the male line, these masculine powers include all the living members of your family. Maya shamanism teaches us to honor all our relations, so for the moment you must forget about any issues you may have with these people. Love them regardless. Also at your right hand are all the attributes associated with maleness, including your sense of power, authority, and assertiveness.

 

10. Now focus on your left hand. Here in the North are gathered all the feminine or yin powers of the cosmos. So, whether you are male or female, see all your intimate relations, as well as the actual women who come into your life, on your left hand. Once again, forget about any issues you have with these people, and simply love them.

 

11. Behind you, in the West, lies the past. Your ancestors and the collective spiritual power of all those who went before you reside in the West. When your own time comes to pass on, you will become part of this vast collective unconscious. 

 

12. In front of you, to the East, lies the future. Your children and the spirits of those yet to come are in the East, for they are part of your future. This is the direction of your spiritual path and destiny.

 

13. Breathe deeply and contemplate your own World Tree. Become totally open, yielding, and receptive until it becomes part of you. Materialize the World Tree at the heart of the world and help sustain the cosmic order.