April 8th, 2012

Hazelnut had some very exciting news for me early last week. Apparently, there is a holistic center near her house practicing everything from reiki and massage therapy to acupuncture and chakra balancing! Even more exciting, the building holds a free drum circle the first Saturday of every month, so we decided to go and check it out. The group is led by a woman named Wendy, who follows a Native American-based path, so before the group opened she led a small blessing outside the place, calling upon the spirits of each direction and giving an offering of ritual tobacco. Then, Hazelnut and I, along with the other group members, of which there were about 10, got into a circle and drummed for about an hour and a half. It was moving, both physically and spiritually, and was an all-around great experience. Many of the drums there for use had been made by Tom, a group regular, and were simply gorgeous. None of them were extensively adorned, but the simple naturalness of the drums was beautiful. He also made a number of drumsticks, and little feather decorations. He had tied the feathers with rawhide, and each came with a glass bead that he had also made. Everyone received one of these to take with and enjoy. I'm putting mine on my altar, perhaps with my BOS. The group ended at 8:45, at which point I returned home. Has anyone else had the opportunity to go to something like this? If so, what were your thoughts?