Drumming 101 Feeling The Beat in your Soul!!!
Ayse Hogan
The kind of drumming I’m speaking about is not a solo that you might hear Phil Collins do in his song “I can feel it, coming in the air tonight”., as awesome as that drumming is. In saying that, let’s talk about that drumming for a second. How does it make you feel to hear a drum solo in one of your favourite songs? Happy? Relaxed? Joyful? Energized?
Drumming has been used as a form of healing going back to well before Christ, actually, by the most original of religions. It was primarily used by Shamans in their various journeys in order to discover what was healing for the ones they were guiding. What I mean by journeys is that Shamans would take those who wished healing on journeys to other realms and within themselves to find their healing, using the drum, but that is an article for another time. For the purposes of this article, let’s just talk about the basics of drumming using a frame drum and a beater.
So what are the benefits of drumming???
A lot actually, let us start by remembering the first sound we ever heard, which was the beating of your mother’s heart while in the womb. It allowed you to feel safe and secure and kept us calm and at peace. The monotone sound of a drumbeat…that beat…. beat…. beat…. beat…beat…will restore the proper flow of the energy in your body and the vibration will heal the cell walls.
The healing vibration will reverberate through the bones, the organs, tissues, mind and emotions. The gentle beat of a drum will alter the brain wave patterns and can easily bring you into a natural meditative state of relaxation, a oneness, also known as trance. It does this by inducing both your alpha and theta brain waves.
What happens next is that your stress becomes eased, anxiety begins to release with the sound of a gentle drumbeat from a frame drum, as illustrated in the picture. It allows us to be present, at this moment, right now by bringing us back to ourselves, to the beat of our own hearts, perhaps even becoming in tune with the pulse of the blood flowing through our veins.
Throughout our lives, many of us have collected a barrage of blocked and/ or congested energies. This can come from medications, trauma, stress, dysfunction to name a few places as there are many reasons. We tend to keep this negative and stale energy that no longer serves us around like hoarders, mainly because we don’t know its’ there. Just imagine a house full of stuff from who knows where all piled up until the occupant can’t move anymore and how unhealthy and unproductive a place that is…now transfer that same image into yourself and picture all this blocked, negative and stale energy all piled up until it is holding you back and making you feel really bad about yourself and your situation.
A shaman practitioner, like myself, can use a drum to help you free that congested and blocked energy….to clear the clutter so to speak. There is an ancient healing power in the vibration and the rhythm, strengthening our connection with our soul. This vibration and rhythm will cleanse your energy field and harmonize your energy flow. It will synchronize your mind, body, and spirit and reconnect you with earth energy which in turn will ground you giving you focus and clarity.
All this from the beat of a drum, how fascinating and glorious is that?
