Healing Rhythm Of The Gods…

African drums are iconic of Africa and have been an intrinsic part of life since antiquity.

The ancient Mande (Manding) peoples of modern day Mali, Sene, Gambia, Cote d`Ivoire, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Liberia were the founders and rulers of the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires that existed at least as early as the third century and lasted through about tenth century.

These empires knew their existence was fired by the drum spirit and used it as a powerful tool to win wars and build spiritual energy and courage for battle.

Today, drums are still played to communicate, celebrate, mourn and inspire. But in prehistory, drums were played during times of peace and war, planting and harvesting, birth and death.

When the drums are being played, it is said the gods awaken to connect with ones deepest levels of soul – pulling on the strings of the spiritual within and pulsing across the collective unconscious.

Recent biofeedback studies show that drumming along with our own heartbeats alter brainwave patterns (increasing alpha) and dramatically reduce stress.

In a recent study by UK researchers thirty adults who were already recipients of mental health services but were not receiving antidepressant medications were enrolled in a 10 week program of drumming versus a control group of 15 who didn’t. The two groups were matched for age, sex, ethnicity and employment status.

By six weeks the drumming intervention group experienced decreases in depression, increased social resilience; by 10 weeks they saw further improvements in depression, alongside significant improvements in anxiety and mental wellbeing. These changes continued to be maintained three months follow-up.

The drumming intervention group also saw their immune profile shift from a pro-inflammatory towards an anti-inflammatory response

But for Africans this is not new news. In antiquity and in some parts of the world still today, Africans sent urgent messages across remote and scattered villages with a certain type of drum, and used other types of drums ceremonies like weddings naming rituals and healing the sick.

Drumming is part of our culture, it is in our genes, inseparable from who we are, and when the slave trade scattered Africans throughout the world, it started to reverberate across nations – irrevocably altering the world of music that still influences the cores of our soul.

When you drum, you feel something stir inside. It’s a primitive string that vibrates through you, as if a super natural power takes over and puts you in a spell where you suddenly remembered where and how everything started – our roots.

You listen to the voices of the gods, you feel connected, you see colours, your spirit takes over and your heartbeat follows the rhythm and a spiritual communication becomes possible.

Nothing eerie here, or weird, or uncomfortable as some may think, it’s more of merging with everything else around and feeling the vibration of all living things all at once – where everyone becomes equal and as if everyone just know everything instantly.

When you are in tune with yourself, you can truly enjoy the drum spirit and relax in your own beingness and pure consciousness.

As Layne Redmond once said, drumming is really the oldest form of holy communion and healing. It is something beyond the words and concepts of logic and ego. It brings a sense of oneness and pure joy.

While the science on drumming’s therapeutic value continues to accumulate and is increasingly compelling, it may not at all be necessary.

The most important thing to remember is that drumming is something one must directly experience in order to fully appreciate and understand it.

“Rhythm is a heartbeat. It’s the first drum, a story in sound that reveals our imagination and celebrates our power. Rhythm is the multi-culti common ground of the human family.” — Tony Vacca