Best Viewed and Heard on Desktop or Tablet
New!
Prepare For A Deep Dive With
Red Tail Hawk
Lightning Drum
The Entire Ensemble
Is Available Now
* Red Tail Hawk Lightning Drum
* Custom Made Drum Stand
* Custom Drumstick
*All Accouterments & Accessories
$2,499. (USD)
Free Shiping To Any U.S. Address
Cannot Be Exported
Meet This Extra Special Medicine Drum
Shaman Bob's Personal Overview
Red Tail Hawk has been in every prayer and in every drum I’ve ever made and Including this, her namesake: The Red Tail Hawk Lightning Drum.
During the past year or so while working on this drum, I’ve felt as if Hawk's three-pound body was lightly and silently perched on my shoulder to celebrate our precious time together while she observed her pupil attempt to make a drum and a drum stand worthy of her and reflective of her story and wisdom.
I am certainly not the first two-legged who sought to display a love for Hawk. It is cherished by many indigenous and spiritual traditions as a powerful totem. Many recognize her as the embodiment of grace, keen vision, protection of family and community. Of additional personal interest to me, Hawk is deeply associated with Lightning Beings and Thunderers in some traditions and definitely in my own practice.
Watching hawks slowly rising into the azure sky, sometimes obtaining such a height as to make them appear invisible, is to witness a delicate and mesmerizing sky waltz. Hawk has taught me these dancers are tracing a spiral path through the interstitial spaces of the universe to deliver our prayers. (See video, “Hawk Dance” on this page.)
A similar state of awareness occurs during a shamanic journey when the shaman’s spirit body melds along a spiraling path through stages of ever-increasing clarity leading to the Greater Reality. There, luminous spirit beings and others counsel the shaman by providing answers for someone who suffers, or for personal growth, or to guide in the exploration of All That Is.
Everything about this Drum and drum stand reveals a deep desire to serve a shaman, or perhaps other spiritual seekers, as it offers vital visual symbolism through shining copper spirals, hand-dyed and painted feathers, artisan beads, activated lightning-struck wooden helpers, and much more. Finally, perhaps two of the greatest attributes for healers/seekers who play this Red Tail Hawk Lightning Drum are a very strong and spiritually prepared drum and, like its namesake, a powerful voice. That which was once destroyed by brilliant light and deafening sound can now echo the thunder of luminous connection and spiritual healing.
Simply watch the videos here while listening to a drum sounding the spirit voice of Red Tail Hawk.
Aho & Namaste,
Bob
Questions/ Comments for Bob?
Her Inner and Outer Story Through Pictures
A Special Addition
Bob crafted this unassuming yet vital symbol-filled Tiara to surround the drum's top. Its humble appearance denotes Hawk's preferred daytime home and the wonderful blue sky that embraces all of us in this beautiful world. (The Tiara is not often portrayed on the site, an oversight for which we apologize.)
Partic
-ulars
Four copper spirals grace the ends of the drum stand's "Hawk Perch," (i.e. the top where the Hawk Drum sits). These symbolize the Hawk's gradual spiraling ascent during a "Hawk Waltz," sometimes disappearing entirely into realms beyond sight. This movement and outcome is akin to a shaman's journey. (See "Hawk Dance" video)
Bob prays while blessing the sturdy Red Tail Drum in preparation for ceremony. Note the thick cherry wood frame, colorful beads on strong lacing and the silhouette of his hand through the top of the drum head tightly laced in a traditional pattern around the bottom.
This thick leather pad fastened inside the frame hides something special beneath it, the Drum's Heart. It consists of a small cache of emerald chips that serves to cohere this Lightning Drum's energy and thus its life. Bob signed it to assure this as his authentic Thunder Valley Drums Lightning Drum.
A PORTAL?
A lengthy embedded copper inlay with red lacing trim outlines the symbolic "Hawk's Spiral " upward and around the drum stand shown here. Observers sometime note a soaring Hawk seeming to disappear when achieving great heights. They may likely attribute the scene to their own poor vision or to conditions being too bright and/or too far away for them to see.
Shamanically, seeing a hawk disappear far up in the sky may suggest merely witnessing the hawk's way of passing through an opening into the Upper World. It is all quite similar to the way a shaman may pass through a portal into the same world during a shamanic journey. The natural cavity in the drum stand symbolically represents this beautiful event.
Beautiful Groups
Four colorful groupings of special beads, lightning wood talismans and copper charms are carefully placed at the cardinal points around on the drum's body. Group One is shown here .
So much beauty!
First, look at the bottom center where hangs a particular carving. Bob fashioned five of these for the drum. And get this-- they are made from pieces cut away while Bob hallowed out the center of the drum! He then carved and smoothed them into tail shapes you will commonly see on Red Tail Hawks, even complete with a color hew similar to them because the wood is red cherry. And don't forget, just like the drum, they are made from the wood of a cherry tree struck by lightning.
The rest of the group contains more unique items like a cross-section of wood cut from an apple tree limb, several wooden tube beads, copper- encircled horn beads, etched copper and glass bead, and a small 30-year-old rectangle Bob cut away from the remains of a lightning-struck tree he recovered from his farm.
We lack space here to detail every item on this beautiful drum, but know that Bob adds each piece with the love and respect he always holds for the spiritual energy they share with a sacred drum.
Light As
A Feather
Bob hand-dyed and painted four small domestic goose feathers to resemble the tail feathers found on Red Tail Hawks. One each is placed in the sacred directions around the drum stand.
The feathers were dyed in different color hues known to represent the wide color variations found throughout Red Tail's vast territory across the U.S. and both north and south of there. Some varieties are even white, though not labeled as albinos but leucistic, a term denoting a certain trait of reduced feather pigment but normal coloration in eyes and skin. These white hawks remain a part of the Red Tail family, however, and are considered quite rare.
(None of the feathers on the drum stand are white, however.)
Please note: Sorry, but the dye used on the feathers is NOT colorfast.
The "Perch"
The "hawk perch" holds the Hawk Drum on top of the drum stand. It reproduces scratch marks and wear patterns similar to those Bob has seen near nests in the wild and while visiting a hawk rehabilitation center in the region.
Evi-
dence
This is evidence of what can happen when a copper tack encounters the Cherry hardwood body of the Red Tail Hawk Lightning Drum.
Beautiful Groups 2, 3, 4
All four Groupings are exquisitely placed on long drapes of soft durable suede lacing color-matched to the hues quite similar to those witnessed among a range of Red Tail Hawks. Black, buff, white, cream, brown, beige, burnt umber, chestnut. And of course, RED!
Beads range from various gemstones-- jasper varieties and pipestone in particular-- to artisan-made clay, along with an abundance of copper, copper painted, lava, ceramic, horn and a few, due to the need for color balancing, synthetics.
Bob hand-dyed and painted four small domestic goose feathers to resemble a variety of red tail feathers pictured in various journals. Please note: the dye is NOT colorfast.
Measure-
ments
Drum:
Lightning-Struck Hardwood Cherry
Height: 4" (tapers for best playing angle)
Width: 10"-11" (varies, trees aren't symetrical)
Frame Thickness: 1/2"-2" (varies)
Weight: 3 lbs. 6 oz.
Stand:
Recovered Cedar Log and Crosspieces
Height: 9 1/2"
Width: 13" square
Weight: 3 lbs. 5 oz.
Drumaker's Secret
Drummakers working on all-natural drums made from a hardwood tree like cherry know that tacks will often be needed to "keep the lid on." Trying to stretch a soaked, slippery hide over a thick frame of varying widths and an asymmetrical shape often requires an anchor to hold it fast until it shrinks and dries to form the drumhead.
As part of his reliance on the spiritual properties of copper, Bob insists on using only copper tacks. Tapping one through a folded slick hide and inside a hardwood frame requires patience and getting used to bent tacks.
With the Red Tail Hawk drum, and even though a few tacks bent inward and thus could not be retrieved while making the drum, Bob decided to let all tacks stay where he tapped them in.
"I sensed the frame's thickness and asymmetrical interior would require the tacks to stay put to assure the best voice from this special drum," he said.
And sure enough, his intuitive decision paid off. "Well, he continued, "it's the best voice I've ever heard from such a diminutive drum."
Short Clips of Long Ago Hawk Sightings on His Farm and Recent Ones Too
Video: "Beautiful" I keep saying...and Hawk Answers!
Video: The Hawk performs a graceful swoop as a Pesky Crow barks in the
background.
Bob Note: I captured two of the poorly recorded video snippets here (Above) with a tiny mid-90s version of a digital pocket camera in one hand and my five-year-old daughter's in the other on our small farm. Easy to spot the improved quality of the more recent cell camera.
It's inevitable, even to this day, that I get childishly giddy when a hawk flies into my eyesight in this everyday reality. Such was the case back then with one video, "Beautiful," where my voice sounded younger than my age along with a severely limited vocabulary in my bedazzled state engendered by the Hawk's charm. All while I pled with her to remain circling over our heads. Sweet daughter was wide-eyed and uncharacteristically mute trying to take it all in. Hawk voiced her thoughts quite more eloquently and to the point, I believe she was smiling.
Video: Drumming Segue to the
Drums' Tiara
Video: Playing on the drum stand
Video: Playing the drum in the sun with his Thumb!
