Drumming the Soul Awake

with Jaime Meyer

Drumming as Spiritual Practice

Drum group leader Jaime Meyer says drumming is one of the oldest ways humans have entertained themselves and one of the oldest prayer tools. There is something about drumming that opens you; the drum opens places in your being that modern industrial culture has coaxed—or slammed—shut for many reasons. Drumming works on everyone, but in different ways. There is no right or wrong way to drum.

Some people say that drumming helps to uncover and liberate your “indigenous soul”—that part of you that remembers and yearns for "the original fragrance of the flowering earth," that part of you that remembers and yearns for the what the Celts called the "Oran Mor," the great song of the universe, of which each living thing (from an ant to a supernova) is a note. Drumming opens you, plain and simple. And that is why it is both incredibly fun and incredibly beautiful. I hope that you will find this to be true, as I have.

See More about drumming with Jaime.
See More about Jaime.

Fall 2007 Schedule

Sessions run from 7:00-9:30 PM at the church.

November 2
November 16
December 7

Past Groups - Monthly Letters

The following letters were written by Jaime to prepare participants for the next drum group.

Past Drum Group Letters

About Drum Group Leader, Jaime Meyer

Jaime Meyer, a member of First Universalist Church, is a playwright, drummer, father, husband and gardener who holds a masters' degree in theology and the arts from United Seminary of the Twin Cities. Twenty of his plays have been produced in various cities across the USA. He co-founded the first theatre in the world for the Hmong community (a refugee population from Laos and Vietnam) and managed it for ten years, mentoring dozens of writers and actors, and playing to over 100,000 people, most of whom had never seen live theatre before. The Minneapolis Star Tribune calls Meyer’s writing “…enormously seductive. It’s farfetched whimsy with thickly textured thoughtfulness. It’s like metaphysical cartoons on speed.” Since 1984 Meyer has studied cross-cultural shamanism, mysticism and the spiritual uses of drumming from many cultures. Among others, he has studied with Ailo Gaup, Martin Prechtel, Sandra Ingermann. He has also completed two-year Celtic shamanism training with Tom Cowan.

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In the long and winding hollows of the heart
Where neither sun nor moon,
But only pale amber light, shines
from the long and winding hollows of the heart.
There, rest awhile
There you may call my name
And I will come.
And I will come
As quietly
And as gracefully
And as certainly
As the dew is called into grass
Just before dawn
Coaxes the morning glory blossoms
Open.

--After a poem originally by William Sharp (aka Fiona Macleod, 1855-1905).
Adapted by Jaime Meyer
© 2002 by Jaime Meyer

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This page last updated on10/24/07
© 2003 by Jaime Meyer

First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

www.firstuniv150.org