The first step in making drumming a spiritual practice is realizing we are not making anything or forcing anything. We are dropping. We leave our ego at the door. What does this mean? It means we have have to drop our egos and come into the room humble and open. When we are humble we are open and when we are open we can receive.

If your ego is blaring, ‘me, me me” then it is difficult to recieve. Drumming is as much about receiving as it is giving. It is yin and yang united. Djembe Bara means “unity of the drum”. Djembe means “bringing together”.

Drumming is the harmony and balance of yin and yang, positive and negative, call and response and tension and release/ It’s a perfect of microcosm of the universe.

Surrender the belief you are in control. That it is you, Joe or Jane drumming and controlling.
Once you surrender that it is not you, it is not your creativity, it is not your licks, your feeling your rhythms and accept that you are a conduit, rhythms and energy pass through us… then you can receive the energy the drum has to offer. Then we can receive and share with others the true gift of healing that drums have to give.

I would like to use a cup as an example and water to represent energy or flow, knowledge wisdom and muisc. If your vessel, your cup as a holder is not shaped in a form to hold or receive water, it is difficult to hold or receive water. If you pour water into a poorly made cup it leaks or blocks the water from entering.

In order to shape your conduit, your cup or container so that you can hold knowledge or let it pass through you, you have to shape your container.

We do this by the study of hand techniques. We study how to make sounds on the drum and speak the language that the drum is capable of. If you can not speak clearly it is just mumbling with out meaning. How can you sing a beautiful song or chant or make a prayer if you can not speak clearly? If you go to a kirtan to chant you don’t sing or chant, “blah blah blah”. You sing or chant the words. Drumming is the same.

Once you have learned to speak, there are mantras or rhythms we learn that have meaning. When you repeat these rhythm mantras over and over again with out ego then we can receive and give the true spiritual and healing energy that the drum has to offer.

Doing whatever you want, flapping your hands, making radome noise on your drum and banging about is not spiritual or healing energy. It’s chaos (disorder and confusion). And maybe for some it’s therapy or feels good. And that’s great. However, we have become obsessed in western culture with this need or desire “to be”, to do, to change. To do “our own thing”.

You already are, there is nothing to be or to do. The rhythms are already there. They have already been created. You just have to play them. You don’t need to overcomplicate things. You don’t need to change things. We are ready to change before we have ever even experienced what is already there.

Drumming can connect us directly to spirit, to the unity and love all around us. Give it a chance with a free, open receptive mind. Sit and be the watcher and allow the energy to change though you. Just play. It’s not about doing or how much you do on the drum.

Leave your ego at the door.