The heart’s beats are the song of the soul. Its continuous drumming is the persistent remembrance that life is precious. Our lives fill the silence which follows every heartbeat, and are stored therein.
The Ancients knew the connection the beating of our life’s drum had to the earth’s heartbeats, whose mediating silences are filled with the changing of the seasons and the passing of time.
The drums reminded us of that rhythm. The constant beating of the drum reminded us of basic truths – both of ourselves and of the world around us. It was a tool to align the three beats together, creating a conversation that words seldom convey, similar to the communication between a mother and the baby in her womb.
And drums told stories of healing and love. This drumming brought peace to the enraged mind; it brought answers to the worries of every-day life; and it brought a blessing to the village.
Drums and their usage was respected, and considered holy. I remember the nightly ceremonies where the beating of the drum directed the participants’ movements, just as other beatings timed everyone’s movements. I also remember the respect the drumming commanded, for it had a primal call within it, as an ancestor calling from beyond, whispering something into our lives.
I remember when people started telling stories of war with drums. The drumming reminded people the primal respect war requires, and brought the excitement war demands. Men of war wanted to control the drum, and through it control their people. The fervent wish, when the drumming quickened, that the warring will end faster, or that our soldiers would fight faster – as their actions were directed by the drums – was only partially answered.
And the beating of the drums in war resounded throughout the world, and the ancient respect of a holy tool it once commanded was replaced with a bloody one. Healers could not use it for healing, as it brought painful memories to the wounded in war. For the few ceremonies that were not related to war that survived the practitioners did not want to use the drum, lest their ceremony be mistaken for a provocative action.
Only outside war can the healing of the drum be heard. Only to one who listens within can find audience with their mother through the drum’s beating. Although the sacred art of drumming was left to the medicine women to remember, from generation to generation, the stories humanity will have to tell for their work to come to light once more are still far down the river of time.
Midst Woodland Halls 