Category Archives: Drums

Ceremony, Drums, Moccasins, Workshops

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The Medicine of Moose a Moccasin Workshop.

I’ve been drawn to work with moose medicine for some time.  I am  eager to birth a sweat lodge and a community drum of moose hide.  It hasn’t been right timing just yet.  I’ve used a thick tanned  moose hide with an unusual finish as inserts between the inner and outer layer of moccasin sole leather, cushioning the steps very nicely.  I hadn’t worked with moose hide quite like the one that came forward last week for a pair of moccasin.  OMG!  Sumptuous, butter soft, caramel color leather.

* I just got scolded by Steller’s Jay.  I have hides – deer, elk and horse – hanging on the deck railing, it’s such a gorgeous October day. This mornings fog, a cozy blanket, gave way to the sun and now the hides are soaking it up.  I offered ceremonies to honor their spirits.  These hides have given as much as they’ve received already.  Wopila!  Saturday they will be birthed into drums at the Bainbridge Island Bodhi Center.  Today, Steller’s finds them in his way.  Too bad!

Back to the moose, Alces alces.  I watched the moose in this photograph a few years ago while at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado .  There were several in a loose group, cows and juvenile, who kept my attention for hours – they were browsing casually through the grasses, willows and aspen twigs, paying no mind to me.  Moose are such massive animals, beautifully muscled, they were quiet and graceful as the moved their hulk with ease within the branches and briars of the meadow. They came so close I felt I must be invisible, holding my breath I backed away as silently as dry grasses and shriveled leaves will allow giving them the space they deserve.  I’ve been fortunate to see moose in Washington, Idaho,  Alaska and Canada also.  Rare sightings that thrilled me.   While the population of moose in Colorado seems to remain stable, their numbers are markedly diminished in across North America yet the species as a whole is still consider of least concern in efforts to conserve their population and habitat.  As the reach of climate change deepens, while mining permits are still being issued and habitat loss continues, the threats are increasing to the wellbeing of the majestic moose.

“Moose are in jeopardy across the U.S. – from New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine; to Minnesota and Michigan; and even Montana. One of America’s most iconic animals is at risk of becoming just a memory. It’s time to take action on climate change.”  National Wildlife Federation

The fact of this makes working with the medicine of moose an even greater honor.  Rather than getting lost in the conflict that accompanies these disturbing facts, I embrace the opportunity to be present with the needs of this magnificent creature.   What are the tangible and concrete practical measures that must be taken allowing their numbers rebound?  And to keep their environments are healthy and abundant?  What are the prayers that are needed so the needs of moose are met?  What apologies need to be made to the moose nation for the acts of mankind can I make on our behalf?  What other ways can I be involved in the conservation of habitat or protection of the overall ecosystem in which the moose resides in North America?  I remind myself that my vote counts despite what seems a dismal political landscape.

The Athapaskan would pray to Raven to assist in their hunts of the moose.  Thus when the moose appeared, it was a special and sacred gift.    The moose can teach invisibility, shape-shifting, depth perception, acute judgment and ability to negotiate landscapes.  Moose carries a feminine energy from its association to water and great maternal energy.  There is a primal strength with moose.  Their ability to dive into the depths of water reflects the ability of an individual who aligns with moose to go into the depths and draw new life and nourishment from it. When moose comes into your life, the primal contact with the feminine force and void of life is being awakened.  It is an invitation to learn to explore new depths of awareness and sensitivity within yourself and your environs. ~ Paraphrased excerpts from Ted Andrews Animal Speaks

Moose hide moccasin
Moose hide moccasin

Join in and attend a Moccasin Workshop October 18-19. In this workshop you will commune with the spirit of the animal – moose, buffalo and elk are available, each carrying their own powers to support your walk in the world – your everyday and any ceremonial needs you may have.  With every stitch you can call on the wisdom of the four-legged and your ancestors who walk with you.

“Barbara I have to tell you that your moccasins are more than something to wear on my feet. I LOVE wearing them, as they hug my feet, giving a sense of security, tenderness and love. I slow down my steps when wearing them – mindfulness? reverence for a feeling I don’t fully understand? I’ve already had the feeling that I NEED to put them on, and once felt they were on, when they weren’t! Thank you for sharing this medicine. I will continue to try to be mindful every time I wear them. In gratitude.” ~ Marge

Reserve your seat and confirm your hide preference.

Deep gratitude for the moose’s medicine!  Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

 

 

 

 

Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Moms and Kids, Rattles, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Workshops & Circles ~ Autumn 2014 Schedule

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The Ceremonialist Children’s Circle

September 13, 2014 ~ noon to 4pm
Join in this open circle to celebrate the coming Autumnal Equinox.  Open to girls and boys ages 9 to 13, both moms and dads are welcome.  We will honor the abundance of the season and the turning of the wheel here at Echo Lake. Email Barbara for details on what to anticipate and what to bring for sharing.

Rattle Crafting Workshop

September 14, 2014 ~ noon until complete
In this workshop you will learn to craft a rawhide rattle that will be perfect for clearing energy, for meditation and journey work, for calling up your allies.  Craft with horse, deer, elk, bear or buffalo hide, using cedar, fir, driftwood, bone or antler as your handle.
Register to attend this workshop or email Barbara for details.

Wing Medicine Workshop

September 20, 2014 ~ noon until complete
Learn to use smudge for clearing and cleansing with a feather fan. Craft a medicine wing to use in your personal or professional practice that serves your needs at this time. Wing Medicine is a powerful way to tend to the energetic needs of the mind, body and spirit of the individual, family, office and community.
Register to attend this workshop or email Barbara for details.

Drum Birthing Workshop 

September 27, 2014 ~ 10am until complete
What is calling you – deer? elk? bear? buffalo? horse?  Each voice is unique, the power of the four-legged is immeasurable.  The Standing Ones give us a sacred hoop that holds the hide yet it does not contain it – instead it is a vehicle that gives rise to voice and one of its purposes in the world.  Use a Shaman style hand-drum for journey work, for meditation, for the joy of it. Register to attend this workshop or email Barbara for details.

New @ The Bodhi Center on Bainbridge Island       

Drum Birthing Workshop – October 11, 2014

Rattle Crafting Workshop – November 23, 2014

These workshops are being taught at the beautiful and tranquil Bainbridge Bodhi Center on Bainbridge Island, WA.  These two workshops are being offered at a special reduced rate.  Space is limited.  Register to birth a drum and register to craft a rattle on this website or email Barbara for details.

The Ceremonialist’s Children Circle

October 12, 2014 – 11am – 4pm

Hard to say what sort of fun and adventure we’ll have this day but we will for certain!  There’ll be sweetness and ceremony, outdoors and discovery.  Come and see for yourselves!

Moccasin Crafting Workshop       

October 18 & 19, 2014 ~ 10am to 8pm each day
This two-day workshop is a great time in community sewing moccasin that are just for your feet!  These hand crafted one of a kind moccasin are sewn from the hide of the buffalo who will support your walk in the world with sweet guardianship. You will have a pair of moccasin you won’t want to take off. Register to attend this workshop or email Barbara for details.

Feeding the Fire Ceremony   

November 7, 2014 ~ 4pm until 9pm
This circle is a celebration of the feminine open to any girls that are nearing their moon time and beyond.  Invited are Mothers, Aunties, Grandmothers or any other Woman who is supporting this girl as she grows into a young woman.  Our time together is a common narrative of what it means to be in the skin of a woman, a sacred feminine being.  We share a place at the fire with stories, songs and respect. A simple and healthy shared meal honors our ceremony.  Email Barbara for details.

Ceremony, Drums, Workshops

Sweat Lodge Drum Workshop

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A few minutes before 6am the rising sunlight touches the crowns of the hemlock, cedar and fir trees that stand in the south, part of the hoop of Standing Ones on Echo Lake.  They are illuminated, golden, I hear them singing a morning praise song.  Osprey is already fishing – his cries seem in response to their song.  Within 20 minutes the sunlight kisses the earth with good morning.  My own yard is in shadow still while the trees that live here – Lewis, Carlton and Freeman to name a few, all have golden rays that dazzle in their crowns.  So slight the breeze, the lake is still, many Swallow skim the surface for their breakfast.

Sweat lodge drums will be birthed here today.  I am eager for this workshop, both buffalo and elk medicine have been called for.  The hoops are deeper than a hand drum by more than double, made of cedar wood to withstand the moisture of the lodge.  These Chen Chegas, the drum, are double sided with hide and extra energy is required to bring them into being.  It strikes me that the added physical effort to birth a lodge drum is in keeping with the depth of an inipi ceremony.  Birthing these drums is ceremony.  The keepers of these drums walk in a reverent way, deeply understanding the responsibility and meaning of carrying their drums.  With the drums come the songs – which are prayers sung for the People.

“Since the drum is often the only instrument used in our sacred rites, I should perhaps tell you here why is it especially sacred and important to us.  It is because the round form of the drum represents the whole universe, and its steady strong beat is the pulse, the heart, throbbing at the center of the universe.  It is as the voice of Wakan-Tanka, and this sound stirs us and helps us to understand the mystery and power of all things.”                        – Black Elk

The Buffalo medicine is a strong guardian, ever giving of all that is needed.  It teaches us that there is always enough and reminds us of our obligation to act –  our way in the world is supported and still it is incumbent upon us to shoulder our own load .  Elk offers steadfast stamina – we can easily get from here to there.  Elk teaches self-reliance as well as balance within a community.  This medicine will carry one far.  The Cedar tree spirit will strengthen the inner potentials of these four-legged spirits and the two-legged who will carry these drums.  Cedar offers a protective healing energy.

These drums are not yet born but already so very powerful.  I look forward to this day and to the day when I sit in a lodge and hear their voices beating with my own heart song and the heartbeat of us all – sitting in the Center of the Universe.

Two Great blue Heron are flying over, side by side above the lake – I don’t recall ever seeing two at once here before .  I feel their gift and selfishly bid them to stay, wad in the waters, fish, build your homes here – it is always a good day on Echo Lake.  Pilamaya, Pilamaya!

Ceremony, Drums, Thoughts About This and That

Inipi – Sweat Lodge

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I am going into an inipi today.  There is a need in my community.

I’ll be honest, today is my first free day in quite a few days and tomorrow begins another long string of days filled with activity. Relaxing by the lake edge in my hammock with nothing to do is so completely appealing to me.  Oh, the urge to luxuriate is strong.  But there are needs in my community – there is homelessness, illness and death amongst my people, two ceremonies are coming in a few short weeks – the energy needs to be clear to hold good space for those who will cry for their vision and for those will dance for joy.   What is more important I ask myself – resting or attending to another?

These ways I choose to live are not necessarily easy ways.  I am often asked to step up.  This got me to thinking about the value of being selfless.  Selfless service a teaching of Swami Radha and a subject I think I know well.  What can I learn about this now?

My thoughts expand to those who offer themselves in selfless ways. To those who tend to the Elders and the dying.  And those that teach others how to read, or clean the house of the disabled,  to those who add coins into a homeless person’s cup.  And those who build urban gardens so others don’t go hungry while learning to eat healthy and give back themselves.  To the countless organizations in distant lands willing to serve in danger zones.  To the minister who would offer last rites to a soldier on the battlefield, to the soldier.  I cannot even list all of the goodness done by others for the benefit of another.  I give thanks for those that have generous minds and hearts that step in to give of themselves.

Am I selfless I wonder?  I do not consider going into the sweat lodge to pray to be a wholly selfless act.  As others receive what they need, so too, do I.  As others become whole, I am made whole.  We are all related.   I am willing to forgo my plan for the day as there are needs in my community.  I do look forward to the opportunity to pray and purify, to listen to the lodge drum and the singers of sacred songs.  In the inipi I am connected to the whole of the Universe.  We are all connected in this way.  The hammock will to wait.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

Inipi is a Lakota word meaning sweat lodge.  It can be read about and understood as a sacred ceremony in the book The Sacred Pipe.  This book is Black Elk’s accounts of Seven Sacred Rites of the Oglala Sioux.   A medicine man who shared is vision and journey, Black Elk is oft quoted for his wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Rattles, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Experiential Gifting

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In our consumer driven society, where most of us truly have far more things than we need – an experiential gift is both meaningful and worthwhile.

A Soul Proprietor Learning Workshop is a gift of significance.  Each time we come together to craft, we create purpose, intention and substance.  Whether for a celebration occasion like birthdays and anniversaries or to deepen time with family and community – a children’s day, girlfriend time, male bonding, new babies, emotional and spiritual healing or for no reason at all – schedule a time to immerse yourself and your intended  in a positively influential endeavor.  The time spent together creating is a lasting gift – wing medicine for smudging, a talking stick for council,  a drum to journey with, a rattle or custom fit moccasin crafting – a gift that can alter life in a good way for many years to come.

The experience of a medicine gift nurtures the mind, body and spirit of the one receiving as well as the one who gives the gift, the medicine working in subtle and mysterious ways.

Gift for the joy of it!

Blessings for your good health, happy and whole hearts and all the help you might need…. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

Drums, Medicine Objects, Rattles, Thoughts About This and That

Rest, Respite, and Releasing the Density

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Stepping into the forest, the outside world can so easily be shed.  The vibration of the trees slows my thinking and begs for me to be still, stand with them in golden radiant sunlight, let them hold me.

This mighty Western Red Cedar tree is one of many old growth trees along the hike to Dorothy Lake, part of the bounty of the PNW.  My dear friend and I walked the trail up to the lake yesterday, sat in the warmth of the sun with our feet I the cold water – sweet respite!  We come from and practice different traditions yet we are always going in the same direction.  Each time we hike, we talk of the generosity that comes from embracing the light, from shedding the density of fear.  We know it exists, even within us on some levels, flirting with and luring us to old patterns and ways of being.  And still we know the feelings of happiness and peace that we live with every day by not holding onto the fearful places or by getting twisted up in the fear mongering that is so prevalent today.  Life is good.  Resting within the forest is such an incredible boon.   I am so grateful that fear doesn’t rule my life any longer.  That I know in this lifetime I am called to seek the light.  Share it out from an open heart, one of many gifts from the forest.

I am grateful too for the Standing Nation, these beautiful trees who we cannot live without.  They clean up our filth so we have fresh air to breathe!  Om!  Wopila!  They are my friends too, like the sweet companion I hike with – I am grateful!

Says Ted Andrews, “All cedars have a fragrance that is cleansing and protecting.  It has been used in rituals and ceremonies to prepare a person or an area.  Native Americans used it for it’s purification properties.  A staff made from cedar has the energy of protection, and it can open opportunities to heal imbalances of an emotional or astral nature.  Cedar is a tree whose spirit and essence will strengthen and enhance the inner potential of the individual.  This is a tree tied to strong healing energies.  Its energies cleanse the auric field, especially at night while the individual sleeps.  It helps the individual to balance the emotional and mental bodies and can stimulate dream activity, which brings inspiration and calm.”

I use cedar wood in the crafting of rattles and icabu, the hoops of drums and for medicine staffs and talking sticks.

Across my Path

No matter what crosses my path internally or externally, I will keep going this direction, for it is calling and I am willing to met it.                    Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

Drums, Thoughts About This and That

Drumming in Wild Places

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When I travel, go camping or just get out to the Snohomish River for a walk I more often than not bring a drum along.  Over the years of doing so, I have discovered that the places I go drum the drum.  I hold the the icabu, the drumstick, but it isn’t me that determines the beat.  The river will.  The Pacific ocean certainly did when I was there recently.  The Ancestors do, too.  A stream will send up a gentle voice calling.  Whereas the ocean’s rhythm is forceful and intense matching the immensity of it.  It is often surprising what comes through.  Delightful.  Beautiful.  The drumming connects me deeply to the vibrations of the Earth.

I haven’t had the experience of drumming in a city, on the city street.  I am so curious what this energetic might be.  Have you done this?  Pease share your experience.

Soul Proprietor will be offering a Drum Birthing Workshop this Sunday, June 8th, 10am until complete.  Will you join in?  Birth a drum?  And let it’s voice drum through you?  Take it to the street?  Or wild places?

Email barbara@soulproprietor.org or sign up via a comment on this blog post to state your intention to join allowing me to properly prepare for you.

Looking forward with joy.                             Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

Drums

Horse Medicine

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Ready to adopt:  Shaman style horse hide hand drum with rabbit fur wrapped hand-hold on 16″ cedar hoop.   This drum was pulled from the withers of the horse hide, the markings are unique, strong and quite beautiful.  The accompanying drum beater is also on polished cedar wood and adorned with horse hair.

Horse medicine can set you free from physical or emotional constrictions.  Offering stamina and the strength needed to get you through, helping you to know you are more powerful than you thought you were.  The horse medicine balances sensitivity and compassion with warrior energy – it teaches patience, community leadership  while supporting you with personal freedom to wander into new adventures.  Horse medicine allows for transit and journeys into new dimensions with confidence.

Be well in all your adventures.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin