| 17 August 2009
Vibrations created through drumming travel through the body at a profound level, a cellular level and any trauma that is held in the body is touched, vibrated and loosened, and hopefully if the rhythm is played well, it can be released. It is similar to tapping on a glass of water and bubbles will come up from the bottom and rise to the surface eventually and naturally disappearing through vibration resonance.
Drumming has been used for thousands and thousands of years, and it is probably one of the first instruments, after clap sticks, to be used by human-beings... the original drums were made from stretching an animal skin over a hollow piece of wood to create sounds. Not much has changed to this day.
Real healing can happen if a ceremony is done properly. The rhythms follow a sequence, everyone is connected, and a clear intention is set at the onset. In Africa these polyrhythm’s are as old as humanity itself and western science with all of our technology has only just developed the tools to prove what African Ancestors have know intuitively for thousands of years, that rhythms and music have the ability to alter our brain waves and by doing so have the potential for healing and transforming both mind body and spiritually uplifting.
I’ve been to ceremonies in Zimbabwe where ancestral spirits are called in. These types of ceremonies have months of preparation for what they are going to do, so that the people know they are going into sacred space before they actually begin the ceremony. The most important effect of this is to align to the intention of the ceremony.
Often in Zimbabwe, a ceremony will call in an ancestral spirit to resolve some form of conflict in the village, some issue that doesn’t seem to be able to be resolved and is causing a ripple effect where it starts to affect the whole community.
The ancestral spirit is called in because the ancestral spirit has no agenda. An Elder in the village may have an agenda, or just a position to uphold, and an ancestral spirit has no investment, which can sometimes provide a clearer resolution.
Drums are used to help build the energy in such a way to invoke the spirit, and the villagers will start to prepare the energy when it is first decided to perform the ceremony. They might stop drinking alcohol, having sex, and some dietary restrictions to clear the space for the ceremonial entry of an ancestral spirit, and they will create offerings to the spirit and perhaps begin washing twice a day under a special waterfall.
This could begin up to a month before, creating a process where the whole village will put their energy into the preparation. This creates a mutual alignment where they unify their focus and strengthen the intention for the ceremony. So all the energy is brought in to a focal point when the ceremony starts and they begin to play the music.
The music begins the journey. It may begin softly and as the music builds so does the power within the sacred ceremonial space. Rhythms are developed for a particular intention, and they are layered in such a way so as the last rhythm will travel into the next, without a break, and this builds energy. Through this process the music becomes one, the people become one and any egoic sense of separation literally dissolves.
We can apply this powerful practice to anything we want to do. Once you set your intention you can begin to prepare by making offerings, cleansing your spirit, your body, your home... preparing the space to be ready for the perfect time, when you reach your intention and you are then ready and aligned to achieve what you want to achieve.
Recently I was part of a ceremony on the beach of Byron to drum out a friend who had just passed away. I had learnt an African funeral song from West Africa and the melody, the vibrational quality of this particular song felt perfect for this occasion— to open up the heart and take us into an incredibly magical space. I find death to be the end of one journey and an amazing beginning of a new journey. The quality of the energy field when a spirit comes in and when a spirit leaves is exactly the same; the energetic feeling that surrounds a birth is synonymous with what surrounds a person’s last breathe.
The first time I created a rhythm to send a spirit off was when a well-loved local friend and musician, Vision, passed away a few years back. I created a rhythm especially in honour of Vision and we played it as his body was carried, to be lowered into a little boat—because he loved the water. It was truly a beautiful ceremony, and drumming Vision out was in true alignment with his spirit. The song was specifically singing to the heart of his loved ones so they could cry together, in public, and release their grief. In West Africa they are called the Wailers and come to funerals to sing songs to help people get into their grief and really wail at the funeral so families and friends can release their deep sadness.
We have a lot to learn from these ancient ceremonies.
In Zimbabwe I have seen village people processed by Ancestral spirits. In one ceremony I remember we played music all night, actually I danced at that particular ceremony. There were six M’Bira players (thumb piano), and one N’Goma player; that’s a type of drum. They were playing in a Dari, a small mud brick hut used as a spirit house. The walls of a Dari are rubbed with different colours of clay and then polished with a wax that leaves an impressive shining quality when lit by firelight... absolutely beautiful. During this particular ceremony the inside of the Dari was covered with black clay and it was full of smiling people. Throughout the night the music and dancing was continuous, as some slept other kept building the energy. Our son Hopi was there for this ceremony, and I remember he was one of the few who danced consistently throughout the night.
There was an old woman there, maybe around seventy years who had TB and was very frail. For most of the ceremony she just sat quietly, then suddenly she leapt up and started dancing very powerfully and jumping higher than anyone else in the Dari. The music became wild and the energy was contagious as everyone continued to dance and the old woman’s “secretary” (the person who looks after the person who is embodying the ancestral spirit by giving them special clothes to wear and other ceremonial tools) started to adorn the old woman. At a certain point the music came right down and she was given a staff and then she started speaking in ancient Shona. It is the secretary’s job to translate for the rest of the village, as it will be like someone speaking Shakespearian English to us today and most of us would not understand that language. Similarly the secretary deciphers the ancient language coming from the ancestral spirit and helps to translate when questions from the villagers are asked. The ancestral spirit will speak directly to the secretary, and the secretary will relay the messages to the people present at the ceremony.
In this particular ceremony there was an unresolved conflict between two family members in the village. That particular night the spirit also spoke to some of us who were there visiting, not me directly but others I was traveling with, and they said that what the Spirit shared with them was completely relevant to their life situation.
After a while specific music was played to send the Spirit back to the realms of the unseen world, where the Ancestors dwell.
When music realises a certain quality it activates the electro magnetic field between the worlds. In Zimbabwe this is called N’jinji and they have been using N’jinji for thousand years... it’s a science—an ancient tool, a knowing that everything exists simultaneously and vibrates to a certain frequency. This is what music and rhythms do, they can heal people and open us up to have access to information from other worlds. The N’jinji is created through and by the music, the vibration, parts set up to play with the space between the beats, and this opens up the field between the worlds, so the spirit can pass thorough, and of course once the spirit enters, they stop the music and the spirit will stay, and then they have to release the spirit so they open the field up again and the spirit will pass back. Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes other spirits come in when the field is opened up again.
The ceremony continued until the sun came up and different spirits came to share with the villager’s wisdom for correct conduct and truths to resolve conflicts. The Chanting, hypnotic rhythms on the M’biras, Hoshos (shakers) and N’gomas (drums) never lost a beat or the energy to hold the ceremony in an ecstatic state with nothing but human energy (no drugs). These ceremonies are really amazing experience to witness.
There was another woman in the village who many had thought to be crazy, but when they took her to a spirit doctor it became apparent that there was a restless spirit in her that had something to say. It was necessary to find the right song to release that spirit which can take some time (she was probably near a ceremony somewhere when the spirit entered her).
They found the song which could calm the spirit, and after that it spoke through her because she wasn’t so agitated, because it had been trapped in her for a while. There was an unresolved conflict between two family members of her village, a brother and a sister, and spirit couldn’t rest because it was a Grandmother spirit, and something she had left behind had been taken and gone to the wrong person. It was as simple as that, and once this was resolved the woman who had been possessed returned to her natural state, after FIVE years of living in torment—labelled ‘mad’.
It must start to make you wonder about all the people in our westernised society that are labelled as ‘mad’—or considered to have a mental illness, and we, in the west, medicate them and suppress them. In other cultures, music and vibrational tools are used to resolve situations of unrest within a community, or within a person them self. I cannot say that this happens in every single case, but it is a commonly successful practice, once the right song is found.
Drumming is not about the beat, it’s about the space between the beats. Space creates the music, it creates the rhythm. When I am teaching drumming I tell my students that I don’t want them to focus on the beat, I want them to turn their attention to the space between the beats, because that’s what creates the music. It’s the shifting and the moving of the space that creates the feel and energy, and the beat is marking a point in time.
I teach African drumming every Thursday night at Ewingsdale Hall, and I play for my wife, Cheze’s African dance classes as well. Drumming is a de-stressing tool and we facilitate workshops as a team-building tool for corporations. Cheze and I also visit schools, and it is truly wonderful to watch the way children immediately and naturally respond to rhythm. I have personally witnessed the healing power of rhythm in my own life and for many other people who have found themselves drawn to the ever-growing circle of Rhythm Konnections. Australia people are starting to wake up and seeking alternatives to the dominant model of pharmaceutical medicine. Drumming can raise your vibration and assist healing, from depression to cancer… it’s all about the space in-between.
To contact RHYTHM KONNECTIONS phone: 02 66857927 mobile: 402 678220 / 411 843386
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