#shamanic drumming
It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my new book, Shamanic Journeys: An Anthology. This book is an anthology of shamanic journeys that I have taken over my 35-year exploration of shamanism, the most ancient and most enduring spiritual tradition known to humanity. Each inner journey has a unique story about what led up to the trance experience, and what I learned from it. They were powerful life-changing events for me. Journey work is therapeutic and liberating. My trance experiences were healing, insightful and empowering. They often triggered the cathartic release of suppressed emotions producing feelings of peace and well-being. The process restores emotional health through expression and integration of emotions.
Shamanism is based on the principle that innate wisdom and guidance can be accessed through the inner senses in ecstatic trance. We can engage the blueprint of our soul path through the vehicle of journeying. Shamanic journeying is a time-tested medium for individual self-realization. We can journey within to access wisdom and energies that can help awaken our soul calling and restore us to wholeness. It heightens our sense of mission and purpose, empowering our personal evolution. I invite you to journey with me into the inner realms of consciousness.
An excerpt from my new memoir, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.
In the fall of 1991, my wife, Elisia, and I decided to travel for several months visiting bookstores and promoting my first book, The Shamanic Drum. At the time we were living in Bend, Oregon. We put our personal belongings into storage and ventured south through California and the Desert Southwest. We visited national parks and the Pueblo villages of Zuni, Acoma and Laguna.
After departing Laguna, we visited friends in Albuquerque. We spent the night in Albuquerque and then headed north to Santa Fe. We stopped at Cochiti Pueblo along the way. Cochiti Pueblo is renowned for its deep-toned ceremonial drums. Cochiti drums are crafted from hollowed logs, usually aspen or cottonwood–trees native to the high desert climate. Wet cowhide is stretched across the hollowed log and fastened with rawhide lacing. Different cowhides create different tones, and experienced Cochiti drum makers know the characteristic sounds of different skin types. Drums may also feature traditional artwork on the rawhide drum heads.
We arrived in Cochiti on a Sunday and roamed the sun baked streets of the ancient adobe pueblo looking for drum makers, but none were open for business. We circled the great round kiva that stood at the heart of the village and then spotted a hand painted sign in front of an adobe home: “Storytellers Here.” A storyteller doll is a clay figurine made by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. The first contemporary storyteller was made by Helen Cordero of the Cochiti Pueblo in 1964 in honor of her grandfather Santiago Quintana, who was a tribal storyteller. It looks like a figure of a storyteller, usually a man or a woman, and its mouth is always open. It is surrounded by figures of children or animals, who represent those who are listening to the storyteller.
We parked in front of the house and knocked on the door. A smiling middle-aged man opened the door and invited us into his home. He invited us to sit down on comfortable armchairs in the living room and asked if we would like to see some of his daughter’s storytellers. We nodded our heads, and he called out to his daughter to bring out her pottery. A dark-skinned, beautiful young woman entered the room with some of her exquisite hand painted figurines. Elisia purchased one of the storytellers and thanked them for their hospitality. The Cochiti people are known for their hospitality and friendship towards visitors who are welcomed to many of the annual ceremonies. I asked them if they knew of any drum makers open for business. The man shook his head no and suggested that we visit the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe where Pueblo artisans sell their wares.
We headed north to Santa Fe and made our way to the Palace of the Governors. The Palace of the Governors is an adobe structure located on Palace Avenue on the Plaza of Santa Fe in the historic district. It served as the seat of government for the state of New Mexico for centuries and is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States. Pueblo artisans display their handmade wares on blankets under the portal of the Palace of the Governors. We strolled the plaza and admired the fine work of the artisans, which included pottery, textiles and jewelry made of traditional materials such as turquoise, coral and silver. At last we came upon what I had been searching for: Cochiti drums. Renowned Cochiti drum maker Gilbert Herrera sat on a folding camp chair with his drums displayed on a colorful blanket. Gilbert, a fourth generation drum maker, learned the craft from his father, Redbird. I purchased a log drum with a deep resonant tone and complimented Gilbert on his fine craftsmanship.
From Santa Fe, we drove to Taos and visited the famed Taos Drum Company. The owner gave us a tour of the large drum making facility. I left a copy of my book with the owner. We then visited the shop of resident artist and third generation drum maker Frank Mirabal in Taos Pueblo. Mirabal, a Taos Pueblo Indian, followed the example of his father and grandfather and became a drum maker. He acquires and processes the hides: deer, elk, buffalo, horse and cow. The frame of each drum is made from a hand-hollowed log of aspen or cottonwood: trees from his area that will not dry and crack easily. The pitch of the drum depends on the diameter and the depth of the drum.
We purchased three of Mirabal’s beautiful log drums, one of which was later gifted to Wallace Black Elk, a traditional Lakota elder and spiritual interpreter. Born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Wallace was one of the original spiritual advisors to the American Indian Movement, a grassroots organization formed to address issues of poverty and police brutality against Native people. He was present at the occupation of Wounded Knee and was instrumental in the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978.
Happy vernal equinox! I hope you’re safe and remaining hopeful despite the horrific world events taking place. It’s a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. The past two years of the coronavirus pandemic have been filled with unprecedented challenges and uncertainty. Immersing myself in a writing project was my way to cope with a global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. The isolation and prodigious amount of free time provided fertile ground for writing my life story. So it is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my autobiography, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.
In this spiritual memoir, I recount my journey into shamanic practice. It has been a lifelong process–a path that continues to unfold. I am sharing my journey and learnings because many people in today’s world are being called by Spirit to become shamans or shamanic practitioners. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of Nature, of Spirit and of Self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from Nature and Spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of Nature.
The narrative of my story moves from my first ecstatic experience as a youth at a church revival to my mystical shamanic awakening in the wilderness, transformational pilgrimages to sacred places, working with indigenous wisdom keepers, to the experiences that prompted my writing, particularly my trance experiences “riding the drum” or Spirit Horse. Studying with Native elders and shamans, I discovered my shamanic gifts as a drummer, storyteller and ceremonialist.
A journey into shamanism is a pilgrimage of the soul. My journey has taken me down many spiritual paths. As a youth growing up, I embraced the teachings of Christ; I later studied and practiced the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism, all of which have their roots in shamanic practices from the earliest tribal communities. Shared core principles and truths weave a common thread through all spiritual traditions. This golden thread runs through the lives and the teachings of all the great prophets, seers and sages in the world’s history.
Ultimately, all contemplative spiritual practice leads to the evolution of conscious awareness and union with the divine in the present moment. The perennial wisdom traditions teach us that the “here and now” is eternal, unchanging and omnipresent; it should be the primary focus of our life. When we are not present in the moment, we become a victim of time. Our mind is pulled into the past or the future or both. The present moment is all we ever have. The eternal now is the fundamental ceremony of life. When we bring ourselves fully into the present moment, our life becomes a spiritual practice and an opportunity to ride in beauty on the windhorse of authentic presence! I invite you to look inside Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.
My fellow drummers, please join me at your altar, shrine or sacred space to drum and pray for the people of Ukraine. Our prayers do not have to be complex or eloquent; just simple and sincere from the heart. The power of prayer should never be underestimated. Words have the power to transform substance. As responsible human beings, let us affirm a world of peace, harmony and balance. Let us cultivate care for life and one another. See things as they are, in process of change, without fixation on imbalance. If we focus on conflict, we will get more conflict. However, if we focus on peace we will get more peace. As soon as we focus on a goal, the Universe will take us in that direction.
We can put our prayers into the drum and then send them out into the circle of life on the voice of the drum. The sound waves of the drum create a bridge to the spirit world. When we play a drum, the sound can be heard throughout all realms of the spirit world. Through the drum, we can engage the spirit world to effect specific changes in the physical world. All change begins in the spirit world and then is manifested in the physical world. In the shaman’s world, all human experience is self-generated. Experience is shaped from within since the creative matrix of the Universe exists within human consciousness. For the shaman, changing reality is not just an ability, but also a duty one must perform so that future generations will inherit a world where they can live in peace, harmony and abundance. Aho!
As a rhythm seeker, I spent much of my life exploring the rhythms of many of the world’s shamanic and spiritual traditions. As I learned the drum ways of various world cultures, I found the same rhythmic qualities underlying all of them. Like the colors of the rainbow, each culture has its own hue or identity, yet each is a part of the whole society. Although the focus or intent differs from culture to culture, rhythmic drumming invariably has the same power and effects in all traditions. The resonant qualities and attributes of these rhythmic phenomena are universal and come into play whenever we drum.
The universal power of rhythm is the effects it has on consciousness. Recent studies have demonstrated that rhythmic drumming produces deeper self-awareness by inducing synchronous brain activity. The physical transmission of rhythmic energy to the brain synchronizes the two cerebral hemispheres. This shared resonance integrates conscious and unconscious awareness. The ability to access unconscious information through symbols and imagery facilitates psychological integration and a reintegration of self.
The ethereal rainbow arching high into the heavens symbolizes this harmonious union of intuition and intellect. In her book Voices of Our Ancestors: Cherokee Teachings from the Wisdom Fire, Dhyani Ywahoo states, “We are the rainbow, each of us. When we speak of rebuilding the ‘Rainbow Bridge,’ it is to bring into harmony the left and right hemispheres of the brain, to renew the flow of our intuitive mind.”Regarding rhythmic stimulation, she says, “Chanting and drumming were also a significant part of the learning, balancing activity of the right and left hemispheres of the brain.”
In his book Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing, anthropologist Michael Winkelman reports that drumming also synchronizes the frontal and lower areas of the brain, integrating nonverbal information from lower brain structures into the frontal cortex, producing “feelings of insight, understanding, integration, certainty, conviction, and truth, which surpass ordinary understandings and tend to persist long after the experience, often providing foundational insights for religious and cultural traditions.”
Brain hemisphere synchronization connects us to the guidance of our own intuitive knowing. Intuition reveals appropriate action in the moment for a given set of circumstances. Synchronous activity appears within consciousness as the most natural thing to do. One can readily perceive what aims are in accord with the cosmos and not waste energy on discordant pursuits. By allowing the intuition to lead the body, one attains clarity in movement. So long as one follows one’s intuitive sense, one’s actions will be in sync with the true self and ultimately the cosmos.
