Introduction to Drumming

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.

There’s a poem that comes to mind that I think has a lot to do with how you should view the drumming experience. It’s from a German painter who called himself Wols:

Do not explain music
Do not explain dreams
The elusive penetrates all
You must know: everything rhymes.

When we drum, part of what I will encourage you to do is let go of analyzing, let go of explanations, let go of judgments. When you do that, it is my experience that the Divine (whatever that is) flows in to the spaces occupied by those energies, and you may be filled with the sense that everything rhymes.

A little historical perspective: We usually think of drums as African, and we do use some African style drums in our group. But we primarily use a type of drum called the “frame” drum. The “Native American” style drum (hand held, played with a stick) is a frame drum, as is the tambourine (a frame drum with jingles). These types of drums are found nearly everywhere on earth. In the biblical book of Exodus, Miriam, the sister of Moses, plays the frame drum while the women rejoice (in trance) over the miracle of the parting of the sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army (Exodus 15:20). Psalm 150 tells us that the frame drum, along with other instruments, is to be used to praise God. As the Roman Empire became Christianized, the frame drum all but vanished from the Western world. Percussive music was banned as “mischievous” and “licentious” (which it is). The drum and cymbals represented, to the church, the devil’s pomposity. In Western culture, the drum became an instrument of war, not an instrument with which to praise the holy. This, to me, is an example of what happens when we try to suppress the mystical energies present in us—prayers praising the life force transform into chants praising the death force. This is why it is crucial to re-open our mystical energies, because it is clear that death chants have a grip on our culture.

Hand drums were eliminated from early Christian worship because of their association with the divine feminine—the goddess. The drum’s roundness evokes images of the full moon, the pregnant belly, the womb—all images important to the female based mystery religions that populated the Middle East at the time of Christ. In historical Goddess worship traditions, as well as in cross cultural shamanic traditions, the frame drum is the primary instrument that invokes trance states necessary for spiritual transformation—this is certainly something that priests and hierarchies found (and find) threatening.

What to Expect in Drum Group

The first hour of each evening will be all drumming, with a little bit of explanation—but not too much. We will then take a break (tea and cookies will be available). We take the break for two reasons. First, to relax a little and get to know one another. And second, so that anyone who does not want to attend the second hour—which is more directly about prayer—can leave. I never want to force theology on anyone.

In hour two I will lead the group in a ceremony specific to that month's theme as outlined in the letter to group members (see letters). You are totally free to view everything we do in the monthly drums in your own way: as interesting theatre, as useful psychological exercises, as soul work, as all of the above, or none of the above. There is no right or wrong way to approach this work. All I ask is that you approach the work with wonder, imagination, and an open mind and heart.

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This page last updated on June 8, 2003

First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

Jaime's Introduction to Drumming

(Excerpted from the February 2003 letter to drumming participants)

What to Expect in Drum Group

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