This beautiful Elk Drum has a wonderful voice, but it is also a silent teacher. Its scars reveal truth.
It is so very important that we always acknowledge the symbiotic relationship we have with nature. Man, with ego, generally assumes primacy and domination of this Good Earth. And while he may do damage, sometimes great damage to our planet, he will in the end return his physical essence to it. That is the House Rules in this place, and a good thing. It is the wheel of life.
With natural drums, the same principle applies. The wheel turns and beings of wood, flesh and soil give themselves back to the Earth to be used again. In the interim, though, they turn over their exited physical bodies for sacred use in a drum intended to honor All That Is and to lend aid and support for others that still live. Thus, like all of us who carry scars of life, the drums may reflect the hardships endured when precious beings inhabited their bodies. Winds, ice, floods, barbed wire, thorns, predators. You will see their scars on the drums, including this one, just as we see each other's scars.
It is good to honor the life that once animated a drum head, or the frame of a Lightning Drum. Play the drum with deserving reverence for them.
I always invite the spirits of these beautiful ones into the midst of the sacred circle, and hope you too will hold your own drum in your heart and honor it with due respect. The scars and imperfections you see in it remind us that neither drum nor man can claim primacy. But life itself endures, witnesses sunrises, rainbows, beauty.
Can we help to make it better while we are here, to salve the wounds, to bring hope? Join with a drum and your own heart to find the answer. Scars are only skin deep. Love lives inside of all.
