Shamanic Drumming

chocorondo · Thu Sep 30, 2010 1:34 pm

: Thanks for sharing! :thumbup: I'm gonna try it out.

Wiccan Warrior Alex · Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:27 pm

I made my first shamanistic journey to drumming music. I've done a lot of different meditation music, celtic, celestial,
piano, violin, flute, harpsicord, etc, but drumming stands alone. When I get home tonight, I'll write up one of the visual focus I use
to move into the otherworlds using drumming music to share here. Namaste, Alex

chocorondo · Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:29 pm

Wiccan Warrior Alex wrote:I made my first shamanistic journey to drumming music. I've done a lot of different meditation music, celtic, celestial,
piano, violin, flute, harpsicord, etc, but drumming stands alone. When I get home tonight, I'll write up one of the visual focus I use
to move into the otherworlds using drumming music to share here. Namaste, Alex

Sounds amazing! I'm looking forward to your post, lady Alex. :thumbup: I'm always looking forward to learning something new.

Ashino Tsume roshi · Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:50 pm

There is a meditation where the Windhorse, and the Drum merge and your spirit rides the Windhorse-Drum into other worlds, times, dimensions, whatever.

The video and also classes by a friend of my cousin Carl, a guy named Michael Hamer (books & classes), and very helpful ...also the book Shamanism by Mircea Eliade...although you have to realize that many Mongolian, Siberian, Tibetan, and Nepali Shamans may do many of these classic actions differently, or slightly differently, wheras Hamer & Rliade have "their learned tradition" that is true and workable, but it is in a realm of many similiar practices....Think of a herd of dogs, all very similiar, but with different personalities...
Caiyros

Wiccan Warrior Alex · Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:25 am

When you meditate to drumming music, first picture a ball of light above you head. Draw this light in thru your crown chakra
to the bottoms of your feet. Feel this light wrap around you like a blanket. It may feel warm or tingly, it is very comforting.
This light will protect you on your journeys. Anytime you may become afraid, just concentrate on the light and it will brighten
and surround you. Anytime you feel afraid, picture the light surrounding you. If need be, you can move quietly away from whatever
is frightening you. If you need to return to your physical body, pull the blanket of light around you and focus on
your physical body. You will be drawn back into it, slowly wiggle your fingers and toes, then open your eyes.

It's a good idea to make sure all outside distractions are quelled before you start. Close you door, shut off the telephone, put any pets
out of the room if they are prone to jump up on you when you are meditating. Because this will shock you back into your body with a jolt,
and you may feel disjointed until you ground and center yourself.

You may sit or lay, after picturing the light, and relax all parts of your body from your toes up to your head. Tense each body part then relax, working your way up. At the beginning of each meditation, stop beside a small well and drop all your troubles in the well, one by one, and watch them sink out of sight. This is symbolic, and important in your journey so that nothing negative weighs upon your mind when you enter the shamanistic journey state.

The cave: A shamanistic journey of initiation

The journey into the cave is one of the oldest of the shamanistic traditions.

Picture yourself in the foothills of a large mountain range. In front of you lies a valley between two mountains. It is covered
with large boulders and small trees. You pick your way around the large boulders as you ascend up the mountain within this
valley. As you come around a large boulder, you find it is hiding a low entrance into a cave.

You have to duck your head to move into the cave, but as you move further back along this passage into the womb of the earth
the ceiling becomes higher and the sides wider, so that you can stand up.

The light from the entrance reflects off clusters of crystals that line the high cave walls and ceiling. You can just make out in the
dark center of a cave, a blanket spread out on the floor. You walk to the blanket and sit down. You are alone, isolated from the outside
world, but you feel safe here within the womb of mother earth. You hear the soft beat of a drum. Then you realize, this must be the
heartbeat of the earth. The beat of the drum surrounds you, envelopes you, and makes you feel comforted and secure.

A figure enters the cave and makes their way to sit before you. This figure may be male or female. Fae, elf, diety or guardian spirit.
This being will ask you what you are seeking. Take as long as you need to think thru the answer you give. Ask any questions that you
may have, for advice may come to you as a resolution to an issue for which you seek guidance.

If you seek to follow the shamanist path, tell the being before you that this is what you seek. If you do not feel you can make such
a commitment at this time, say so. It's okay. Now is the time to end your meditation and bring yourself back into your body.

If you do seek to commit to the path, listen carefully to what this being has to tell you. When you have finished talking, this
being will hand you a gift from the otherworlds. It may be a feather, a stone, a crystal, a piece of wood carved like an animal,
a piece of fur, a plant, or almost anything. Accept it and know that this gift will come to you at some point in the physical world.
It will become important to you in your future journeys.

The being before you rises and goes to the back of the cave. You follow thru a narrow hall to a spring that bubbles up out of the
rocks. The being dips a small clay bowl into the water, and offers you a drink, then pours the water over your head. You realize
this water is not wet, but is liquid light. It is warm and comforting. You see drops on your arms and hands that glisten with light
for a few moments before fading back into the darkness.

Your companion sits beside you by this little spring and begins to drum softly. The cave walls pulsate with the drum. You feel healing
and changes going thru your mind and body. Let the sound of the drum absorb into you, then flow freely thru you. YOu may see visions floating before your eyes. Observe them closely.

Your otherworld companion reaches out and taps you between your eyes. Your consciousness spins off into time and space. If you listen
closely, you may receive more messages at this time.

Slowly, you feel yourself coming back into the cave. You feel warm, comfortable and secure. Lie quietly for a few moments before you get up, thinking over all of what you have heard and seen. You may feel like taking a nap at this point, this is perfectly okay.

When you finally exit the cave, take a few deep breaths. Allow yourself to adjust to the physical world. Pull your blanket of light around you and think of your physical body. Wiggle your fingers and toes, then slowly open your eyes. Be sure to write in your journal the things
that you experienced in the cave.

The next time you meditate you may be lead to a different place, or you may return to the cave. You have embarked on a magickal journey
that will take you to many places in the years to come.

Namaste,
Alex

chocorondo · Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:50 am

Amazing! Very beautifully written and very informative too, lady Alex. :thankyou:

I have saved the entire post for future reference. And I really do hope in the future I'll be able to experience "journeying into the cave". Now if I may ask a newbie question please. When I meditate to drumming music does it mean I embark on a shamanistic journey? Will it be possible for one to "journey into the cave" when one is not familiar with the shamanistic way / traditions?

I'm asking because I am not familiar at all with the shamanistic way / traditions but I enjoy meditating to drumming music.

Now I'll try to look for more of this drumming music.

Wiccan Warrior Alex · Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:44 am

Since the topic was shamanistic drumming, I put my post into that context. You do not have to be
interested in shamanism to enjoy drumming, but most people who are interested in shamanism use drumming in some form
or another. Does that make sense?

The shamanistic path is a solitary path. It is not connected to any religion. The shaman has the ability to consciously move beyond the physical body into other realms of existence, to parallel worlds and other spaces physical and non-physical. These movements into other realms happen with a shift in consciousness, which is usually described as a trance state. The shaman, depending on what needs to be accessed can move in various levels of the trance state to help others. Once a person begins to travel this shamanic path he will soon realize that his everyday perceptions of the world are different than most people and for most who embark upon this path, there is no turning back.

To get to states of consciousness which the shaman needs to achieve to help him/herself and others, one embarks on a mission of self discovery. We learn to tap into earth energy to begin with, drumming, in it's most primal state, invokes that union of mind and energy within us.

Could you choose not to follow the shaman's path and still meditate to drumming music? Absolutely. But don't be surprised if the
experiences you have during meditation to drumming music inspire you to move farther into the other world realms than you have ever experienced.

Namaste,
Alex

Alycat79 · Sat Oct 02, 2010 1:10 am

Amazing post, Alex! Thank you so much for sharing it.

I hope I can find my way to the cave some time, though I don't plan on taking the Shamanist path. But it sounds like an AMAZING journey!

theDowser · Sun May 31, 2015 8:47 am

I recently came across this track in an iPhone app called, Get High without drugs...

The writer describes a track called, Yucatecan Trance Induction beats. You can find this track on youtube and download to your iphone. Looks like a really good track for meditation.

Here is something from a website, http://karmajello.com/entertainment/mus ... beats.html

In the late 1960s, anthropologist Dr. Felicitas Goodman was hired by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health to help investigate the religious trace states of 486 societies around the world. Her most revelatory findings weren’t in the drug-induced voodoo séances of Haiti or weeks-long meditation ceremonies of India, but in “conservative” Catholic churches throughout the Yucatan of southern Mexico. There, indigenous people had hybridized pagan beliefs with those of Christianity to create a weekly mass service unlike any other.

Part of the mass included Trance Induction Beats, in which a drummer would tap out a pulsing rhythm at 210 beats per minute on a hollow gourd for about a half hour. (A similar tempo was later discovered by scientists in the 1960s to induce the deeply relaxing Theta waves in the brain.) Goodman discovered the pulsing drum rhythm was effective in lulling not a few, but all members of the church congregation into a deep trance, usually within the first ten minutes.
Wondering if the indigenous Yucatecs were just easily coaxed by Trance Induction Beats, Goodman tested the rhythm on a group of western students, many of whom were not prone to entering trances through other methods. Within fifteen minutes of Yucatecan Trance Induction Beats, every one of the students entered a hypnotic, trance-like state that lasted until the experiment was over.

Aeryn K Angel · Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:52 am

One YouTube video that I have found to be highly effective in trance inducement is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugOQMCP8C00

Shamanic Drumming

Login • Register