Group drumming and the Immune System

Hi All,
This article validates what we already experience and know from our weekly drum circle. Please join us this Tuesday, September 13, 2011 for a special drum healing for me before my surgery next week.
Many blessings,
Pat



New Medical Study: Group Drumming Boosts Immune System


A brand new medical research study indicates that group drumming boosts the immune system. Published in the January, 2001, issue of Alternative Therapies, the groundbreaking study was performed at Meadville Medical Center's Mind-Body Wellness Center, Meadville, PA, by a team of MDs using control groups and blood tests.

Led by well-known researcher, author and cancer expert Barry Bittman, MD, CEO of Meadville Medical Center's Mind-Body Wellness Center, the study showed that group drumming actually increases cancer-killing (NK) cells which help the body combat not only cancer but other viruses, including AIDS. In their findings titled Composite Effects of Group Drumming Music Therapy on Modulation of Neuroendocrine-Immune Parameters in Normal Subjects, they found that one group drumming method in particular correlated with increase in NK cell activity, Lymphokine-Activated Killer (LAK) cell activity and chemical changes that together signal a strengthening of the body's natural immune response and a direct connection between the external senses and the natural immune system. (For details of this research study see http://www.amc-music.com/drumstudy.) According to Dr. Bittman, "Group drumming tunes our biology, orchestrates our immunity, and enables healing to begin... When our hands connect with a drum that vibrates with energy, vitality... and unity, we become whole again." Dr. Bittman's weekly radio program, Mind-Body Matters, is syndicated nationwide on NPR. For more on Dr. Bittman: http://www.mind-body.org/bittman.htm.

This new medical research follows recent biofeedback research showing that even brief heartbeat drumming can double alpha (a light meditative brainwave) and reduce stress. We now know that stress depresses the immune system and has been linked to nearly all diseases. Drumming has also been used successfully with Alzheimer's patients to focus attention, with war veterans to end trauma, with addicts in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, and with prison and homeless populations to enhance self-esteem. Progressive corporations like Motorola, AT&T and Levi-Strauss have drummed with middle management to promote team spirit building. Widely published research also indicates that playing musical instruments increase children's learning abilities. This appears especially true of those instruments that can be played intuitively, like the drum. Qualitative studies have shown that drumming enhances right-brain functions such as intuition and creativity.

"The beauty of drumming as opposed to other activities is that you can take it anywhere, teach it in only a few minutes and offer it to groups of ill and well people alike," Bittman says. "Composite drumming enables people to enjoy myriad psychological and physical benefits. While immersed in this form of music making, their tension is rapidly transformed into a joyful, moving and enlivening experience. I believe group drumming should become an integral component of whole person care."

"The drum is the Great Spirit's favorite instrument That's why we were all given a heartbeat..."
- Mano, Navajo Elder



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Flower Power in July

This is a photograph from the second apprenticeship gathering last weekend. Flower essences being solarized in the labyrinth!


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Sandra Ingerman's Transmutation News

For those of you not familiar with Sandra's Medicine for the Earth work here is her website for Transmutation News. Written monthly she gives many suggestions for journeys or meditations we can do on a daily basis to heal ourselves so that we may heal our Pachamama. I hope you will check it out as a way of continuing the awesome work we do in the weekly drum circle.
http://www.sandraingerman.com/transmutationnews.html

Summer solstice is on Tuesday, June 21st. Drum circle will be meeting at 6 with a dish to pass followed by a fire ceremony. Hope to see you!


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We will be in the Yurt tonight!!

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After drumming circle last night I found this article to share

Shamanism and the Spirits of Weather
By Nan Moss and David Corbin
© Shamanism, Fall/Winter 1999, Vol. 12, No. 2


"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
— Charles D. Warner Dudley editorial in the Hartford Courant, August 24, 1897


Inuit Song
The arch of the sky
And mightiness of storms
Encompasses me,
And I am carried away
Trembling with joy.1

More Pieces to the Puzzle

It is Saturday afternoon at the Pathwork Center, deep in the heart of the mysterious Catskill Mountains of New York. Twenty-three people lie quietly on the floor with bandannas over their eyes. The resonance of drums fills the room with harmonious and compelling vibrations. I am drumming with David in the center of the room by a simple altar cloth and lighted candle. We are drumming for people who vary in their ability and level of experience, but all have done this before — the celebrated shamanic journey to the nonordinary realms: worlds of compassion, wisdom, and grace. Today they are attempting something new: a search for a spirit of weather, and if they find one, each has a question to ask on behalf of our circle. The excitement is palpable.

Our drumming continues and I am somewhat surprised to feel the familiar desire to journey also, even as I drum. I gaze around the room and everything seems peaceful. I look at David, his eyes wide open and watchful. I indicate I wish to journey and then close my eyes as I drum and drum and drum...

I journey to the Upperworld with several of my power animals, asking to meet the Spirit of Weather. I do not know why, but I feel ecstatic. We fly through a layer of storm clouds, up and up, searching until we finally are face to face with a "cloud being." He is imposingly large, with lightning shimmering in his eyes, and when he speaks, snowballs tumble from his mouth. I feel glad to have my power animals nearby. I introduce myself and respectfully ask the cloud being for a teaching for our community. I am genuinely surprised, even dismayed, as he "lets me have it." He is unmistakably annoyed! He tells me that our culture has essentially forgotten him; that in times past, people all over the world spoke to, prayed to, and worked with him. Now he is ignored. Now, our science and "knowledge" attempt to depersonalize and de-spirit him. So he creates aberrant, rough weather to get us to take notice, to puzzle over, and to know that we do not know. As I feel this spirit's mood, I am speechless. I offer only a "thank you" for his teaching and promise to share this with the circle and community.

This journey left me much to wonder about. Though I have held a passion for weather all my life, and thought I recognized the aliveness, the spirit in all things, I saw that I still carried our culture's world view of weather as purely physical forces—awesome forces—that we were getting better at describing and predicting. Although some still notice connections between moods and weather conditions, and we personalize hurricanes and typhoons with our own names, this is the limited extent of our understanding beyond the physics of weather. Without realizing it, I had been participating in the collective cultural arrogance that leaves little room to see, hear, or feel spirits of weather. The extravagant concepts of rainmaking or weather-working were considered taboo by me, elusive in a realm betwixt and between myth and that which is too complicated and too dangerous.

Why explore or even attempt to relate to the spirits of weather? Is this merely a tangent of more important spiritual endeavors and truths? Each of us is profoundly affected by the weather, though we may only be minimally conscious of this. How many of us are aware of how our moods, behavior, and physiology change in response to the weather? Behind many of our most powerful experiences with Nature are forces of weather. A weather event has the capacity to draw us out of the relative isolation of our daily routines. It brings us together, all sharing the experience. And interestingly enough, weather is the one subject that we usually feel safe and willing to comment on with strangers!

Journey Suggestions for Working with Weather
For those who are interested in exploring their relationship with the spirits of weather, here are some journey suggestions:

What would an alive, harmonious relationship with the spirits of weather be like?
How can I prepare myself to harmoniously and effectively work with the spirits of weather?
What are the ethics of working to influence the weather?
Consider how we, collectively as well as individually, may affect the weather. Not only by the vast amounts of pollution and resource depletion that sustain our huge population and modern life styles, but even by our psyches and emotions, and sense of connectedness or disconnectedness from the natural world. There are indigenous and non-western people who recognize this connection and live in the truth of our relatedness to all. They embody what our ancestors must have for a very long time: an alive relationship with the spiritual forces of weather. This relationship is expressed in the principle of reciprocity: as above, so below; as within, so without; which is real and operative in our world and lives, independent of our conscious understanding.

To embark on a path of exploration and conscious relationship with the spirits of weather is to walk on a path of spiritual learning and experience that helps us relate to our sense of connection with all of Nature. In so doing, we can heal the rending wound of disconnection with Nature from which most of us in the modem world suffer. Along this path we encounter profound opportunities to experience and foster harmony in ourselves, and hence, in the Universe. It is a way to go somewhere following the lead of the spirits, and to enhance our own well-being, that of others, and of our Mother Earth along the way.

A Salish word from the Pacific Northwest, skalalitude, describes what life is like when true kinship with nature exists: "when people and nature are in perfect harmony, then magic and beauty are everywhere."2





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Drum Making Workshop Saturday May 28th

Saturday from 9:30-3:00







Cost:$150

Create your own unique drum in sacred circle. All drum making supplies included for making a 15-16 inch natural skin drum. A vegetarian lunch will be provided.

Space is limited. Please call at 607-279-0444 or email me at dancingdrumha@aol.com




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Prayer for Waters of Japan

Tracy Brant from drum circle sent this out. Please read and then send your prayers. Thanks!


FULL LETTER AND REQUEST

Water Ceremony with Dr. Masaru Emoto

Location Global Event - Please join us in prayer right from where you are - for a special Water Ceremony for the waters at the nuclear plants Japan. This Thursday at 12pm in YOUR time zone. Thank you for your love and support!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More Info A letter from Dr Masaru Emoto...

To All People Around the World,

Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan!
...
By the massive earthquakes of Magnitude 9 and surreal massive tsunamis, more than 10,000 people are still missing...even now... It has been 16 days already since the disaster happened. What makes it worse is that water at the reactors of Fukushima Nuclear Plants started to leak, and it's contaminating the ocean, air and water molecule of surrounding areas.

Human wisdom has not been able to do much to solve the problem, but we are only trying to cool down the anger of radioactive materials in the reactors by discharging water to them.

Is there really nothing else to do?

I think there is. During over twenty year research of hado measuring and water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration of human prayer no matter how far away it is.

Energy formula of Albert Einstein, E=MC2 really means that Energy = number of people and the square of people's consciousness.

Now is the time to understand the true meaning. Let us all join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet earth. I would like to ask all people, not just in Japan, but all around the world to please help us to find a way out the crisis of this planet!!

The prayer procedure is as follows.

Day and Time:
March 31st, 2011 (Thursday)
12:00 noon in each time zone

Please say the following phrase:
*"The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to make you suffer.
Please forgive us. We thank you, and we love you."
*
Please say it aloud or in your mind. Repeat it three times as you put your hands together in a prayer position. Please offer your sincere prayer.

Thank you very much from my heart.

With love and gratitude,
Masaru Emoto
Messenger of Water

http://emotopeaceproject.blogspot.com/









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