SHAMANIC
MEDICINE DRUM

In a dream in 2017, I was taken to the cave of my Ancestor’s by my Spirit ally.

It was dark but I felt drawn in, like there was something bigger than me, older and familiar.

I stood silently in the dark cave and felt someone approaching me. I couldn’t see their face in the darkness, but I sensed their trusting presence, and saw their hands appear in front of me holding what appeared to be a vibrant red drum.

It reminded me of a blood red moon; and while I admired its beauty started to feel a deep remembering in my womb that I was not alone anymore and have never been alone.. that I am connected to something older and bigger than me.

I was feeling the connection to my ancestor's, the mother's and grandmother's that came before me from the beginning of time, and the recognition to all ancient women, the original magik, the Goddess.

I suddenly no longer felt like the Maiden, I finally felt like a Woman, and could see that the red drum was a birth rite for every woman.

It represented our power.

The Ancestor handed me the drum and said,

"Play this drum to connect to your Ancestors,
Play this drum when you are afraid and we will be there.
Make this drum for us".

I had never heard of a red frame drum or seen one before and when I woke up the next day I leaped out of my bed and tried to find information online about the red drum.

I found after some researching that the first drums that belonged to women were red and coloured with red ochre or alder bark.

I spent the next year coming up with my own secret recipes and experimenting with colours to bring my red drum to life, and in 2018 I finally birthed my first red drum and presented it to the School of Shamanic Womancraft as my end of year presentation.

I can’t tell you in words how it felt once my first red drum was birthed.

It felt like I was answering an ancestral calling.

It felt magik.

The more that I read about the red drum the more I discovered the spiritual significance and historical these had for women.

Here is what I found.

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Spiritual & Historic Significance of the Red Drum

The red frame drum can be traced as far back as Palaeolithic times; it was made to represent the Goddess, the divine aspect that connects all women through their life-giving blood that they hold in their wombs.

The red frame drum has been used in ancient Middle East & Turkey as far back as 5600BC where it was used by women to represent their womb.

As well as the ancient Sami people of Norway and Skandanavia, made to move between the worlds and the Shamanic realms.

They were coloured with red ochre and alder bark and were made to honour our red thread lineage and the Goddess to symbolise our wombs and sacred blood and connection with the moon and our cycles.

The Red Drum is the place within all women that connects us to each other, to the heart beat of the Earth and to the heart beat of our own Mothers, tracing all the way back through our red thread, connecting all the Mothers and Grandmothers who came before us.

What are frame drums used for?

Frame drums have been used for all kinds of ceremonies, rites of passage, bringing on moon blood, and midwifing mothers during birth and is used shamanically to shift energies, call upon the healed ancestors for guidance and used to travel between worlds for healing and altered ecstatic shamanic states.

It holds the rhythm of the Earth and our bodies and reminds us where we are from and that we come from rhythm, it is the Universal language that connects us all and covers all emotions from joy to anger, and grief to ecstasy.