I’m not sure about you, but in my case, I long for balance and often can’t find it. Oh, I know it when I’m in it, but sometimes it seems far beyond my grasp. I am certain, though, that being out of balance is a powerful incentive to get back into it.
One sure way of returning to that wonderful state is to find a rhythm. And it awaits in the Balance Drum.
This is a very lively drum, so even the faintest tap will awaken the start of rhythm and reverberation and expression and relaxation, all the kin of balance.
In many esoteric traditions, balance was viewed as having achieved the right relationship between the Ying and Yang, the male and female parts of ourselves.
In an astonishing and beautiful tale, a favorite if eclectic spiritual writer/explorer/teacher, John Lash, writes that the first generation of men born on earth were born from women who were trees.
Metaphorically, Lash reports, this seemingly odd idea represents the glorious regeneration of life through the immersion of oneself with the forces of nature. But, deeper still, he says, the story of the birth of men from women who were trees goes back to the very origin of our species, and to the Goddess Sophia. The earth, according to that legend, was formed when the spiritual essence of the Goddess became manifest in matter. And in that state, the planet flourished and was full of new species of life constantly flowing from her. It was only later when the energy of the hunter/shamans from elsewhere became manifest here did a certain tension develop. The men were stalkers, the women, dreamers. And thus began the still present difference between the sexes that can both attract and repel people in the so-called “battle of the sexes.” But it also represents the burgeoning ecstasy of life that only these opposites can manifest when in union…and in balance.
(Read Lash’s story here.)
Even though I have studied comparative religion and philosophy for many years, it was not until recently that I discovered these stories which Lash retells. And yet, in one of those synchronicities of life, it seems quite natural that, as a shamanic practitioner, I have long been enamored with trees and, in effect, part of my life mission is to honor them even when they have been struck down by nature. It can only be love that compels me to make these particular drums, when I could otherwise use fresh wood and make one much faster. But with this love affair, the scenario becomes one where a drum is born from a man.
And somehow, that seems to bring a certain balance to me.
Thus, the Balance Drum offers a symbolic journey to balance, combining the qualities of both male and female in each of the sacred directions. The drumstick, too, carries these symbols, as some of the leather used is rough, while the rest is soft; as are parts of the exposed wood.
The sassafras tree from which this drum came was claimed early in its life, no doubt the result of poor growing conditions, which weakened it and made it vulnerable to attack by insects. It is the way of things and thus, this tree passed into its next phase of existence when a part of it was reborn as a drum. It carries the scars of its former life, just as we do.
But the sassafras has long been associated with healing and nourishment, and is rare in that it sprouts three different kinds of leaves. These I consider to represent Mind, Body and Spirit. And when these three are in harmony, we have Balance, indeed.
Play the Balance Drum, and you will know what I mean.
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