The drum that traveled with me

There are times when what appears to be a detour becomes the truest path. When the land invites us, and the instruments speak.

What began as a journey home from the Sunray Elders Gathering unfolded into a rich convergence of waterfall, stone, and bear, an initiatory return carried on the voice of drum and the stillness between.

I wandered up a mountain pass I hadn’t planned to take, drawn instead by the feeling of being quietly led. There, I found a trail I’d never walked, and a pair of waterfalls I hadn’t met. Not the thunderous falls we often seek out, but subtle, singing ones, cascading down mossy stones, offering cool pools just deep enough to be immersed in the song of water, with faces in the rock whispering their own medicine.

It was on this path that Bear appeared. First, a cub on the way there. Then, upon returning home, a grown male, stepping into view just after I arrived. Bookends of presence. Bookends of knowing.

Before I left, I had asked which drum might accompany me. There were three bear hide drums resting in the back of the house, each with their own medicine. But one — a 20” drum with a voice still strong despite the summer’s humidity — called with clarity. Its song was loving and deep, steady and resonant. It had been resting in wait.

That drum traveled with me.

And as the days unfolded, it held its voice through every offering I made. Its presence became integral to the practices: one a waterfall blessing, the other an exploration of sacred feminine and masculine forces, vitalized through the intentional relationship between drum, beater, and rattle. Another involved becoming the column of living light, weaving sound into the blossoming flower of joy.

Each moment was underscored by the drum’s voice, the bear’s voice, grounding us in the ancient and the now.

The final waterfall, encountered on my way home, became an initiation of its own. I entered the waters, let the falls pour over me, and found myself inside the very practice I had been offering to others. That of alignment. Of right, of living, relationship. Of surrender and song. Of opening to receive the blessings and gifts of those who have gone before, the Ancient Ones, pouring down upon me through the living waters.

The bear drum’s resonance still echoed in me, not just as sound, but as presence, as pulse, as wisdom.

Blessings,

Zacciah Blackburn

Zacciah & Dorothy, Emissaries of Sound™

and Sunreed™ Team