June 3, 2003

Dear Drummers,

This Friday will mark for us the beginning of our three months of summer drums. In the Celtic shamanic tradition, summer is linked with the direction South, with the element fire, and with inspiration, music, creativity, wildness, complex human skills, expansiveness, the sun, feasting, joy, and sensory pleasures.

One of the ancient Celtic writings attributed to the shaman Taliesin says this:

I give thanks to my creator who put into me a soul with the seven powers: earth, air, fire, water, mist, flowers, and southerly wind.

These words point to the Celtic view of the soul, and how different it is from the ancient (and modern) Western view. Plato popularized the idea that the soul was a pure essence trapped inside the prison cage of the body. The early Christian writers picked up on this and expanded the cage to become all of the “fallen world”—or essentially, that all of life was a prison—a punishment—from which we could not wait to escape.

The Celtic view affirms first and foremost that the world is not fallen, but blessed. Matthew Fox went deeply into these ideas in his seminal—and incredible—1987 book Original Blessing. Taliesin’s words also affirm something else that is important: that our soul has many powers—we have in us a multiplicity of soul powers, not just “a soul.” I find this increasingly crucial to remember in our modern world, which is putting so much downward pressure on our souls—trying to make them seem smaller and smaller. The Celtic shamanic view affirms that our souls are organically related to the soul of the elements, which make up all of creation, and which are present in all created things. We are in organic relationship, through the very make-up of our souls, with all created things. Everything shares the same soul DNA.

One further idea commonly expressed in Celtic writings is hinted at in Taliesin’s words—that our soul can take on different forms, that in a way, we are our human selves, but we are also the earth, the mist, the hawk, the bee, the snake, the salmon in the pool and the glisten of the wave on the water of the pool, the beam of light in the glisten.

Between now and Friday, you may take a few moments to ponder the ideas here, and to trust your own multi-dimensional soul powers, which call to you in so many ways, in so many languages, and which can transform into myriad shapes.

The basis of shamanic work—and I think all spirituality—is the triad of Intention—Attention—Trust. If you do meditate on these ideas, do it with intention of calling to your soul, and then pay attention to what kinds of images and messages you receive, and then trust that these messages are real.

In hour two of Friday I will lead you in a ceremony to call the wild, wandering, transforming, multi-powered soul into our presence. As always, 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. Power comes to those who make themselves porous.

For those of you new to the drumming group, I encourage you to read some of the other letters to drummers I have sent over the months, or to check out one of the web sites that carries information on our drums.

http://www.firstuniv.org/drum/drumhome.html (see in particular the February 2003 letter for some introductory information on drumming)

http://www.jaimemeyer.freewebsitehosting.com/


See you on Friday!

Jaime