“You knew his name!” She said with a shocked expression
Excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 Russell Buddy Helm all rights reserved
I found a charming successful New Age store in Orlando; in College Park, a nice older neighborhood that retained some of the character of Old Florida. The Live Oaks dripped Spanish Moss over the cobblestone streets shading the well kept large older homes from the sun. “Dreams” was run by Drema and it was a New Age store before the term was coined. She was sweet and sincere, very savvy, and a visionary. She supported the space for tarot card readers and astrologers, energy workers, psychics and artists to share a sacred space and help people. I repeated my drumming meditation workshops here every few months and helped generate a very nice healing drumming community. One woman, Mel, asked for a private session to deal with some of her personal issues. This was one of the first requests for a private drumming session and I looked forward to it to further my/our research into the growing phenomenon of healing drumming. I drove out to her country property and we settled down in her living room with two drums, facing each other and set up a nice meditative groove and she began to talk. I listened, kept the beat nice and laid back. Eventually we decided to do the inner child protocol and we slowed the tempo down repeating, “You’re safe with me.” until the tears stopped flowing. This was an instinctive choice based on where this healing protocols was going to go next. I did not want her to feel alone in the universe; she now had her child with her. She said that she saw her in a field of flowers and they held hands and danced while we drummed. They were safely together. Intention and a good beat go a long way in convincing the belief system. We then went to the main focus of the session. Her husband had died suddenly five years earlier and she was not able to move on and have another relationship. I suggested we make a ceremonial farewell; “Good Bye, John.” I suggested. She looked at me in shock and covered her open mouth with her hand and she said tearfully, “You knew his name!” It had come out easily. It seemed like a good guess. But there is also a quality of empathy that exists in this type of drumming. I call it “a heads up display”. We can see it, feel the information about someone, if you are open to it and you get familiar with the feelings. This is a quality of the healing drumming that seems very useful. It is something I strive to teach; it uses the higher functions of the brain and psyche in a profoundly healing way, so this is not psychic parlor tricks. We get results because it is not about “us”. She spoke this release with some difficulty, and I prompted her to just continue hitting the downbeat, back and forth if possible with alternating hands and we gradually slowed down the tempo. The tears fell from her face and landed on the Ghana goatskin drum head. I thought that was good. When we had slowed down to an imperceptible crawl of a groove, her tears finally stopped. Later that afternoon as I was driving back to St. Petersburg, I realized that I had left my precious phone book at her place. This was the dark ages era before the ubiquitous cell phone and shows how long I have been doing this. I called her and she agreed to send it to me. “I have never been this high in my life. Not on drugs, or alcohol or anything.” She said in awe. Some months later, I visited the Rennaissance Fair in Tampa, strolled by the drumming booth that has grown. I remembered when Ren Fairs did not have drumming booths. I felt good about the progress of the meditative drumming community. I admired the locally made drums, and I even played one. It sounded good. Then I got back on the road. In Orlando a few months later, Mel brought up her new husband at a drumming meditation workshop. He was a very nice guy and he had the drum that I had played for a moment at the Tampa Renaissance fair. “I picked it out.” He said, “Then the guy said you were just here and that you had played this drum.”
Excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 Russell Buddy Helm all rights reserved
History of the Groove