Why Do I Drum For Birth?

Pisac Peru

Peru

From 2009-2011, I gave birth to three beautiful children at home. The experience of becoming a mother and the journey of giving birth at home is part of what inspired me to become a doula in 2011. I'm extremely passionate about helping women awaken and empower their divine feminine through conscious, blissful birth and in doing so, reach altered states of expanded consciousness, in which, have the power to enlighten your life for years to come. I'm also passionate about changing the paradigm of birth in the modern world, healing birth trauma, helping babies come into the world peacefully and educating couples on how important the natural Limbic Imprinting is that happens at conception, strengthens while in utero all the way to the birth and beyond.

The way we are born has profound effects on the humans entire life span and even that of their community. I hope to see whole communities continue to transform by women becoming empowered in birth.

In this Video  interview I describe more about why I became a Birth Doula and began attending births.

Later in January 2013 my husband, myself, and three small children (ages three, two and 5 months old), sold all we owned in order to embark on a life changing adventure. For this quest, we had to overcome many fears in ourselves, but we did so in order to honor this incredible call my husband felt toward the healing potential of ancient Peruvian Shamanic traditions. Soon we embarked on our big move to the Sacred Valley Peru in the heart of the Andes. For 6 months we experienced and witnessed ancient indigenous community, ritual, shamanism, and sacred plant healing, rooting form the depths of the Amazon all the way to the Qero's high in the Andes. 
Although we embarked upon this journey seeking plant medicines and healing, we realize now that that was only the beginning of a lifelong immersion into our true potential and mission. The experience was life changing, enlightening, paradigm shattering, profoundly beautiful, and excruciatingly hard at times. But in the end, it was so worth it! (You can read more about that journey at Picnics In Peru.)

The Vision

The Maloka the ceremony took place in.

Sean and I began our journey in Peru, each with a solo 10 day retreat, immersing ourselves into the medicine and intense inner healing work. After each of our first retreats with different Shamans, we took turns attending sacred medicine ceremonies, about one or two ceremonies each, per week, while the other stayed home in the one room hostel with the kids. During one particularly special ceremony in the heart of the sacred Andes mountains, I experienced a unique vision so to speak, a psychoactive vision, like a waking dream. Many of my ceremonies before this night were very vigorous and hard, yet always very healing, despite all of the tears shed. I felt my ceremonies seemed to be so different from some of the experiences my husband had spoken of. I longed for the beauty and insight he had connected with. This night however, this ceremony was different, the shamanic facilitator was a woman. Its so perfect that for what I would experience tonight, the space would be held with pure feminine energy. From the plant spirit herself to the the medicine songs and the immense love, compassion, and deep feminine energy that emanated throughout the entire ceremony by Marnita. Thanks to the incredible wisdom and energy she conducted with, and the work I'd already previously done, I had the beautiful experience I'd been waiting for. And I was not the only one. After the ceremony, men and women alike gave praise and thanks to Marnita for blessing us all so deeply with Divine Feminine presence that night. As the ceremony began and eventually deepened into a journey, my heart began to open, a shattering rather, in a way that light was beaming in and out from my core. This was something I've never experienced, but that felt so expansive I could fit the whole world in it. I asked the question "Why was this never my experience before?" The answer came immediately: "First you had to clear away all that was blocking you in order to create space for what you will see tonight." In that moment I was so grateful for the hard work that had led to this point, the nights of sobbing and releasing pain and damaging conditioning that had been long buried. Then as the sacred music carried me away I began to journey down a path of understanding my passion and path in birth work. I was able to explore my deepest fears and receive answers that profoundly changed my perspective of life and death, birth, and the service of holding sacred space during labor. I felt completely connected to divine love and purpose throughout the vision. During parts of it, I sobbed tears of gratitude for what felt like hours. But throughout the entire experience, that deeply moving feminine energy kept flowing in, as though guiding me on it's gentle but powerful wind from one realization to the next. I was witnessing from an altered state of conscious awareness, the journey of a woman's labor and birth and the profound healing that took place as her baby was born still. The immense healing and perspective gained from that part (death&rebirth) of the experience is for another post another time. However the vision eventually came full circle as  I saw the same woman again, birthing a baby that thrived with those first sweet cries every mother longs to hear. In the vision I could see that I was using music, rhythm, a guitar, and ancient ceremonial tools such as a rattle and drum, as well as singing. I felt as though I was being guided through a teaching of sorts by the divine mother archetype. The vision was quite long and detailed but some of things that stood out were: the very long journey of the laboring woman through a death and a rebirth, her healing, the perspectives I gained, how hands-off birth can be and how helpful it is to hold space using rhythm, ancient songs and healing objects. I watched as the sacred rhythm transformed the energy in the birth and the beat itself would carry the women through each contraction as she seemed to be in a whole other world. The steady beat opened a portal that she seemed to use as she transcended the physical realm into the spiritual. Yet at the same time the beat served as a reminder that we were here, grounded beneath her holding the space for her while she completely surrendered to her most primal instincts as she journeyed. It was a scene of birth I'd never physically seen before  but that seemed so familiar, so possible; as though it's what we all know to be wildly freeing and true deep down. The birth process had divinely healed and transformed this mother. She was a new person, lighter and yet more full than ever of love, wisdom and power. In the end of the vision I was relieved with the insight that I didn't need to search for the manifestation of this vision in the physical realm, or even try and figure out what to do next, but that staying precent was key. It would all unfold on its own time in its own way. With the healing of great fears I had stored inside, I now felt deeply driven and devoted to this path as a doula, birth advocate and someday midwife in a way more passionate than ever before. To this day I have endless love and thanks to that dear Shaman Sister who so impeccably held the space for a ceremony of deep feminine healing, age old wisdom, and heart opening. I also owe so much love and gratitude to an amazing medicine woman who I went to see the very next morning after ceremony to help me ground and integrate everything that happened the night before. She's been a steady rock and encouragement on my path. Through her gentle yet magical and intense sessions, I've been more able to step into the embodiment and alignment of my higher power with confidence. 

The sacred Valley Ruins

The vision in that ceremony was very aligned with what I'm passionate about in deed, yet it was a bit abstract to me and it was extremely hard to stay present and not try and decode every aspect of it. Rather, to just sit with it and have gratitude. Not to mention the concept of 'presence' was very new to me as well and practicing it was not something I was used to. In the ceremony I overcame some huge hurdles and fears through the vision. The gift of a new perspective on life and death has been one of the most valuable insights I've ever experienced. I was very drawn to the power and beauty of the energy in the vision through holding sacred space in birth, the open space for healing when fear is released, and using rhythm to carry and support a mother through her laboring journey. But I didn't know how I was meant to apply that...yet. Especially since I'm not a singer, and had never touched a drum or rattle. At that point, I thought only talented musicians or shamans used such tools, and these were not talents I felt resided within me!

Yet one of the teachings from a dear Shaman's wife to me was that: "Anything I'm shown in ceremony is simply a part of me, a part that already resides within me, whether it be light or dark. None of it is to be feared, but rather, embraced; having gratitude for the new awareness of this thing. Some things are brought to light for healing and others for their potential or activation. As you shed the layers of conditioning or ego, one layer at a time, more and more of your true self is revealed underneath. Then, as always, the REAL work begins when the ceremony ends. How will you integrate the things you saw, felt, or learned in ceremony and apply them in your life to bring about the healing of our earth and all its inhabitants?"

 At the end of the ceremony, a man sitting next to me turned and hugged me deeply. We spoke all about our individual experiences and I shared with him how deeply moving my experience was that night in being shown aspects of what it looks like to hold sacred space in birth. He began to express this idea he had about my work as a doula and the work of midwives. He said he could envision a documentary that shed light on the need for this change, or resurgence of age old wisdom in birth around the world, bringing children to the world rooted in peace, building the new paradigm and so on. At the time, I thought that he planned to produce this new documentary himself. I was excited to see where this might lead. However as time went on, his journey led him deep into the Amazon and we lost touch for quite some time. We never spoke of the documentary idea again. 

The Unfolding Begins

After this 6 months of beauty, bliss, healing, connecting with Pachamama, learning from so many incredible people, sitting in profound women's ceremonies, medicine ceremonies, and celebrations in the Sacred Valley, our time had ended and we returned back to the states.  Soon enough I find myself attending and supporting the labor of a woman birthing in a hospital in Utah. This mother was hoping for an unmedicated natural birth, and we had only a  short time to connect and plan before her birth. I knew how deeply she wanted a better experience than her last birth. Unfortunately, the birth didn't go as planned and after very little support from her care providers, ultimatums, and being completely exhausted, eventually she was wheeled back for a cesarian section. The moment she was out of sight, I started to cry, to sob uncontrollably in her dark, empty delivery room. These surgeries can be life saving and very crucial for some mothers, of course. But in so many C-section cases, (actually the majority), they're the result of unnecessary medical intervention and protocols that are not supportive of a mother's and baby's natural physiological birth process. These kinds of protocols protect hospitals and staff more than the mothers and babies themselves. The cascade effect of intervention, combined with the undermining beliefs of care providers, are all to often the root causes of the Soaring C-Section Rate in the US, as opposed to a true emergency necessity for surgery. Witnessing birth trauma conjures some of the most heart wrenching feelings I posses, and is one of the most important reasons I became a birth advocate. Birth trauma to mothers and babies has devastating consequences and a far greater impact on families and society than what we're told or have been conditioned to believe. 

      At every turn my thoughts were focused on deeply emotionally and physically supporting this mother through her journey as I stood by her owning her own voice. Every time I walked to the nurse station prior to the surgery to get this mother some water, new towels, ice, hot packs, pillows and so on, I was met with low whispers, the disapproving and cold stares of people who felt we were on opposite teams. Why am I here I asked myself? What can I really change? Regardless I kept a smile on my face, and soft tone in my voice trying to bridge the massive gap between what they wanted and what the mother wanted. Though, in the event of a hospital birth, creating great relationships with staff is an important aspect, my primary objective is supporting the client's needs and wishes. Unfortunately it's not always easy to maintain the balance. In my case, this part of being a doula has shown me that the fact that sometimes you need to let go of being liked by staff in order to help a mother express herself and take control over her birth. Yet over time, I realized that often my die hard advocacy attempts were futile. When birthing options are presented by the doula, or care providers,  IF the mothers deep healing and empowering work hasn't been done first, and if  a mother wasn't ready to own her voice, then fighting for the clients birth more than she has the capacity to lead and or do herself, then the attempt becomes a lose-lose for me as well as others in the birth community. Doulas are doing such an important work to bridge these gaps in the treatment of pregnant women and babies, that we need to nurture outstanding relationships with hospital provides in order to keep the door open and line of communication flowing as true and lasting change develops. 

Anyhow, as I waited for her to return from surgery, I sat in shock, reminded of how terribly backwards the system and our modern birth culture is today. I started to feel totally lost and defeated even though there was nothing I could do to change the course of events that led to this point. Living in Peru showed us a divine, holistic way of living in daily communion with the earth and it's natural rhythms. Witnessing people actually living this peaceful way of life for some time and then suddenly being back, smack in the middle of modern America was jarring enough and I just wasn't prepared for the abrupt reality check once I stepped back into my doula work.  I was devastated for the mother, the couple, for the baby and for what I had no control over. I do believe deeply that for whatever reason this was part of her own journey; she has the great opportunity to learn, grow, and find great empowerment and so much joy from it. Yet believing this doesn't always soothe the pain of witnessing trauma in the present moment. Read this to find out how strong c-section mama's really are and link to information about v-bacs. 

While trying to halt the incessant tears in her hospital room, something happened. I suddenly had a complete flash back of that one ceremony in Peru where I was shown the vision of drumming and holding sacred space in birth. Truly what felt like a full body experience. It was as if I was right back in the exact spot in ceremony feeling every emotion and sensation all over again! My heart swelled in love and gratitude. My eyes swelled endlessly with more tears. The thought came to me that I'm going about my doula work backwards. I'm skipping a vital preparatory portion in the journey of pregnancy and birth. That yes, many mothers will take a birth class of some sort, understand all their options, practice coping/relaxing techniques, listen to positive birth affirmations, make a detailed birth PLAN, etc..  and that will be tremendously helpful BUT there is still something very much missing. Women may know all they need to know about birth, but if they are shackled with deep rooted fear, haven't learned to step into the power of their own voice, access their own intuitive wisdom, trust themselves, heal deep childhood wounding, heal their own birth trauma, and connect with the baby while still in the womb, then the work is only half done. But how do we really help women to embody this healing and empowerment before birth? As women in our culture we have all been, in one way or another (there are many), embedded with negative beliefs about our bodies, our power, our worth, and most importantly our VOICE! This deep rooted conditioning, wether we consciously recognize it or not, does affect all aspects of our lives, especially in the pivotal community shaping practices of pregnancy and birth.
As all of these thoughts are flowing in, I could almost taste the sensation of being in ceremony again. I could see the drum beating that primordial rhythm in my heart. Over and over, my thoughts kept returning to the drum as I could recall the feeling of beating it in ceremony. I felt deeply through my entire being, both spiritually and physically, that the drum was calling me. That in some way the drum would be a tool for women to heal and find re-connection through. The vision in ceremony was pulsing through my veins and my heart was pounding as though the ancient archetypal rhythm of drumming in birth was beating within my actual body.  Something that was encoded on a cellular level, something I didn't need to learn, but that I needed to reawaken! I grabbed my phone and googled "drumming for birth". Very little came up. I knew though, that my search had just begun. I had never really touched a drum but I knew I needed to. I sat the rest of the time waiting in such awe, love, tears, and excitement. I knew that something had shifted inside me. That although this experience was very painful to watch and almost had me wanting to quit being a doula altogether, it had awakened something vital to my life's path!  

The Red Drum of Sisterhood. True Feather Photos

The Drum

The next morning when I returned home, I hopped on my computer and the very first e-mail was an invitation to Nikiah's red Drum making class. The synchronicity was undeniable as my heart felt called, yet again.  After sharing this with my dear sister she gifted the class and signed us up! We made our first shamanic drum together. This special drum was weaved in sacred sisterhood as we infused our intention into the purpose for it. The drum making workshop itself was spiritually connective and a really exciting way to get my hands on each component of the drum, building appreciation and intention with every step.

Over the months I began to build my relationship with the drum. Drumming for myself and begining to  journey through inner realms opened up by a unique rhythm and beat of the drum. Though I didn't have words to describe the feeling then, it was as if every time my hand tapped the drum or began to beat, I could feel an existential rhythm beginning to pulse through my heart, giving way to love, expansion, and the divine expression of my inner goddess that had been too long suppressed. This was incredibly empowering and healing for me. Enormous amounts of gratitude flow through me for the journey that had led me this far.

I'm so deeply grateful to inspiring teachers, healers, and guides that manifested along my path after I had returned from Peru. Through some of them I was very thrilled to hear of drumming as an ancient tool of birth, confirmed by someone outside myself and the vision. Kara, a teacher that was very supportive and encouraging of my path, recommended I read Layne Redmond's book: When the Drummers Were Women. This book was transformational for me on my drumming journey, as were other books on shamanic drumming. Layne Redmond's book  awakened such a deep gratitude in me for the ancient Goddesses, wise women and their drumming history through Old Europe and around the world. Through her amazing work I began to uncover and rediscover my own ancient connection to frame drumming through my Irish Celtic roots.  Soon after reading it, I ordered my first frame drum. Feeling my fingers glide across the canvas and evoke sound a different stoke each time was incredibly thrilling to me and I knew I would someday seek out a professional teacher to help me deepen into my practice! Meanwhile I started feeling in sync with shamanic rhythmic drumming, while gradually learning more and more from my research.  In this altered state you are easily open to the spiritual realm in which you can profoundly connect with ancient wisdom, uncover your own truth, heal and begin to enlighten your life! Something  thrilling to learn was that not only had Shamanic drumming been a tool of women and birth, drumming has been a proven tool used by women in ceremony for healing and conscious expanding practices around the world for centuries and yet science has just started confirming it! Studies show that the mechanical process of the brain as we listen to repetitive shamanic beats that induce a trance state have many profound healing benefits on the mind, body, and spirit. Layne Redmond states it perfectly: "Rhythm is a means of organizing sound into specific energy formulas to harmonize the mind and body." This is particularly useful in birth when we are using rhythm and drumming to alter your brain waves, inducing a more peaceful and meditative state. She goes on to say "Chanting, rhythmic breathing, and drumming form an ancient technology for directly synchronizing the mind/body complex, creating conditions for psychological and physical healing." Drumming in birth is also hugely beneficial for your partner involved. "One of the most powerful aspects of drumming and the reason people have done it since the beginning of being human is that it changes people's consciousness. Through rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds, the body, the brain, and the nervous system are energized and transformed. When a group of people play or listen to a rhythm for an extended period of time, their brain waves become entrained to the rhythm and they have a shared brain wave state. The longer the drumming goes on, the more powerful the entrainment becomes. It's the oldest holy communion." In birth we see that the partner has the ability to entrain to the hormonal and conscious state of the mother and together share deep meaningful and spiritual connection during the birth of their baby.   

I never lost sight of that profound vision in Peru where I saw laboring women swaying to the beat of a drum, held in sacred space. In fact that memory fueled my new passion daily. I continued to cultivate my own drum practice and relationship to the frame and medicine drum. While reading some information about African drumming in birth I came across another inspired woman who told me "Everything you need to know will come from the heart if you listen, even the very rhythm itself".  Over time I really began to trust her advice and see that this is my journey to discover and that indeed I will find my own intuitive answers as I listen to my heart.

It's been fascinating to learn and discover the significance and true potential of awakening women to their ancient roots of drumming. Slowly but surely the creation of the workshop ' Shamanic Drumming for Pregnancy and Birth' began to emerge. I could see the ways in which the drum was affecting the mothers I worked with and the potential for them and I to go deeper! When I would drum for women, they seemed to shift internally, almost like I could see that awaking goddess emerging within them. The drum seemed to capture the love of many women and I would tell them all, " The drum is as rooted within you as it is in me!" It's no surprise that many of them would end up getting a drum themselves!

Frame Drum

"At the end, as at the beginning, stands the archetypal power of the Divine Feminine-the Goddess. She is our future as she was our past. With her drum in hand, playing her sacramental rhythms, women can once again take their place in the world as technicians of the sacred. In the pulse of my drum, in the beat of my heart, I erect an alter to her forever." ~Layne Redmond 

Back to Peru

In April of 2015 I had another amazing opportunity to spend two weeks in Peru sitting in sacred ceremony again. This was another transformative experience. Perhaps, now because I was ready, I was downloaded with even more information about the sacred nature of birth and holding space for the unfolding of a new paradigm. Instead of intellectual information or the visionary state, it was as if I was physically experiencing the messages through my body and could really feel and integrate the concepts being taught. I was literally birthing deeper understanding into my physical world and I was divinely cared for and "doulaed" through the experience. During part of this intense ceremony, a beautiful goddess sister took to her drum within the maloka to steady and guide my flow through the most painful and intense part of my journey. Here, I was able to deeply feel, first hand, the power of sisterhood and drumming. The experience was so strong it took days of integration and support from dear friends and healers in the Sacred Valley. When I returned home again, I felt renewed and rejuvenated, fully supported, and even more deeply committed to drumming for the journey of pregnancy and birth. I believe that if these drumming practices are started early in pregnancy, (though very beneficial at any point) they will awaken aspects of your divine, intuitive self that will help you truly step into your own power, believe in yourself, own your voice and consciously create a peaceful pregnancy, peaceful birth, and empowered parenting journey.

The workshop

Now approaching 2016, almost three years sinse those first ceremonies in Peru, I have slowly developed a workshop I call the  'Awakening Your Inner Birthing Goddess Shamanic Drum Journey'. Most women that have attended my workshop have mentioned in some way that the drum has moved them deeply. I feel it's not only healing and awakening women to their power in birth, but also to their ancient roots of rhythm and divine spirituality beyond birth and into many aspects of their lives!

In the workshop I teach about the natural ability to reach altered states of conscious awareness through the process of birth.The rhythmic/shamanic beat of the drum is a tool to support you in your healing and awakening journey of pregnancy, clearing birth trauma, connecting with the baby in the womb, going deeper into the birth trance, accessing the spiritual realms where intuitive wisdom can be discovered and reawakened. It deepens your meditative state, and supports a peaceful labor and birth in a variety of ways. We learn more about prenatal and perinatal psychology, which helps gain a new perspective of the babies roll in pregnancy, and it will become clear why you want to create the most peaceful, empowered birth possible. In the workshop we focus on the importance of awakening to the sisterhood that has been long lost in many ways today.  Together we end up having a very deep connection and offer support  in our sacred circle through the rest of our pregnancies and postpartum journey. We use ancient tools of birth such as singing, dancing, toning/chanting, drumming, learn about how to have a shamanic birth, create your own birth ceremony, and participate in ancient rituals that reconnect us to mother earth; Pachamama. In addition to drumming at your birth if you so choose, I encourage personal drum journey sessions with me or on your own throughout pregnancy. Journeying in pregnancy is very healing and empowering, just as it has been proven to be for anyone seeking healing and guidance. As a woman practices going into this deep state through drum journeys and brain wave entrainment, she is preparing her mind and body for doing the same powerful things during labor and birth.

This workshop is a beautiful way to connect with sisters in our community in a healing, sacred, and safe space. In the workshop we weave together our intentions and create a sacred circle of sisterhood. We explore many aspects of ancient women’s healing arts, shamanic birth, drum journeying, and more. 

My hope is that each women takes what you have gained and further inspire the women in your own lives as well. May the web of sisterhood expand touching the lives of women everywhere!

The Documentary

Lastly, I feel incredibly blessed to have been interviewed (within the last year) and selected to be featured amongst many other amazing birth workers, educators, and advocates, in a new documentary in the making called Birth Workers. This is so interesting and synchronistic to me as well, given the idea the man in Peru once told me he had of the birth documentary after our ceremony.  After our paths crossed he disappeared deep into the Amazon and I continued on my journey with my family. Years later this documentary has actually manifested. I hope you enjoy the first trailer below. You even get a little taste of the drumming in the short trailer! To follow the film, trailers, sneak peaks, and more, pop over and like their Facebook page!

*If you are a birth worker who would like to stay in the loop on trainings I'll be offering soon that you may incorporate into your own birth work, email me or sign up for the e-mail updates. I'm so incredibly grateful for this journey and the way it has slowly unfolded one step at a time.  I continue to surrender to the unknown and trust in the gentle guidance of Pachamama. 

All photography below was done by the lovely and talented True Feather Photos! 

"It is often said that the first sound we hear in the womb is our mother's heartbeat. Actually, the first sound to vibrate our newly developed hearing apparatus is the pulse of our mother's blood through her veins and arteries. We vibrate to that primordial rhythm even before we have ears to hear. Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother's ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother - we are truly children of one blood."  ~Layne Redmond