Drum Circles with Jaime Meyer
Type of activity:
Drum circle with ceremony!
TL;DR my experience:
Not your average bro-centric drum circle. Drumming to elevate spirit and then ritual to connect us to the divine. Get into it!
Interested? Come to a Drum Circle!
Jaime will be hosting his next drum circle on Saturday, May 4th. If you want in on this magical evening, check out all the details below or Jaime’s website to register.
Welcoming the Sun, The New Life
Drum Circle and Ceremony
Saturday, May 4
7:00–9:30 p.m.
Here’s what happened!
It was a dark and very cold winter eve (VERY TRUE!) We were gathering to celebrate Imbolc and the return of the light. When you live in Minnesota during the winter, this ritual is VERY important.
First, we drummed together to help get us all synced as a group. Drumming helps elevate your consciousness and honestly, it’s pretty darn fun to pound on something. Some people had rattles, some people danced, it was pure joy while we all drummed together.
Our master of ceremonies, Jaime Meyer, then brought everyone together with a short story of lore around Imbolc and the goddess Brigid. Reminding us that the sun will come again and the days are getting lighter.
After the story-telling, we drummed for a little bit longer before our mid-point break. We had some snacks and chatted with each other.
Before we started the second half and ritual part of the evening, everyone who was planning on staying was invited to take part in a shamanic tobacco ceremony outside. This is done to open the ritual space and to open the communication channels with the divine.
Once that is done, we all went back inside to start the ritual. We all brought two candles that were placed onto the altar for the blessing.
We sang, we chanted, we drummed and talked about the Celtic goddess Brigid and how she helps bring the light and spring back into the world.
At the end of the ritual there was more drumming and a closing prayer. Then we were invited to keep one of our blessed candles and then give a second away to someone else.
The challenge was to give one to a stranger and let them know that it had been blessed by a Celtic Goddess at Imbolc. Passing magic onto unsuspecting strangers, ftw!
Get to know Jaime in 5 short(ish) questions
Check out my website. I have an “about” section with some general stuff, and a “lineage” section with more details.
One word about this: in shamanism, lineage is sort of important. It matters who your teachers are. Like everything in in white people’s spiritual lives, this is a loaded topic. But, for example, when someone says, “I study in Peru” many people might oooh and ahhh. But there’s a difference between having an Amazonian teacher and an Andean teacher.
What are your thoughts about magic? What is your understanding of magic?
The phrase “we create our own reality” is a big, ungainly phrase, but it’s clearly true. Look at or world. The question is what does it take to create a reality that is purely yours, and not affected by consensus reality? Magic is about bending a personal reality within consensus reality. (I just made that up right now, but I think it’s pretty good. )
How did you get started with drum circles?
I was a playwright for many years, very dedicated — lived in a three room apartment, made little money, very dedicated writing discipline. My plays were always a bit surreal, otherworldly and spiritual in nature. Shortly after I was engaged, my future wife fell seriously ill with something that had no solid diagnosis. The first five years of our marriage were spent mostly on getting her to walk without a cane. She slowly improved, and we had a child. I needed to be a full time breadwinner and I thought maybe I’d become a Unitarian minister, so I went to the seminary. Five minutes in, I realized I am not minister material. But I wanted the Master’s Degree and the study. When I graduated, I needed to generate income and I fell luckily into grant writing. (By “luck,” I mean, of course, imbued with white privilege.) I got a job at the Ordway, and that started a progressive day-job career in fundraising. In all of this, I had to figure out how to keep my shamanic/creative life alive. There was no question that the life of writing five hours a day was over. But I felt I could do one drum circle per month. I could think about it on the drive to work, and I could prepare on the way to the drum. So these became my once-per month ways to force myself to keep working on the shamanic skills I was learning.
How would someone know they should come to a drum circle?
Very simple: does it sound fun?
What can someone expect to happen during a drum circle?
There are basically two kinds of drum circles. 1) the drum jam, which is wide open — everyone plays whatever calls to them; and 2) Facilitated circles, where the leader lays out what everyone will play by teaching patterns to everyone. For me, the wide open drum jam can be fun, but it’s is usually taken over by the young man (and it’s typically a young man) with whom plays the loudest (typically a Djeme drum), and they can be kinda of chaotic- but they appeal to “free spirit” people. One down side, especially if it’s billed as it “spiritual” drum jam, there can be a lot of ungrounded energy which might be good, but I personally don’t think ungrounded energy is the most helpful right now. We live in an ungrounded culture, and we tend to confuse ecstasy with spiritual depth. I call my drum circles “lightly facilitated,” meaning I will often teach or demonstrate the most basic of rhythm that even a first time drummer can get, then I open the drum up for people to add in however they want to that rhythm. So, if you want to learn “how to drum,” meaning, you want to learn traditional African or Arabic patterns, find a drum circle that’s facilitated by a drummer who knows those traditions, or take a class. If you want to have an open, free experience where you whap a drum, unencumbered by having to play a certain pattern, try a drum jam. If you want a “shamanic” experience, search for “shamanic journey circle.” These circles generally are not rhythmic, and they rely typically on frame drums struck with stick in a unified monotonous beat for journeying. My circles have a little of all of that, because what I’m interested in mostly is ceremony. You’ll be frustrated at my circle if you want to learn how to play traditional African rhythms. If what you really want is a deep, meditative drum, you’ll be frustrated at how raucous my circles can get sometimes. Not to say that we don’t go deep sometimes.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about what a drum circle is?
Many people are concerned that they need to know how to drum before coming. Mine are very entry level. I’ve been to other drum circles that really are unfriendly to newcomers to the drum, so it’s a good question to ask. And it’s not that the people are unfriendly, not at all — they just want an experience where the people in the group have higher drumming skills, and that’s completely okay. It’s like some church choirs are really open to all, and they are willing to have some not great singers in them, and others are really performance-based and you have to audition.
Get in touch with Jaime!
Website: www.drummingthesoulawake.com
Drum Circles: www.drummingthesoulawake.com/drum-circles
Schedule a personal session: http://www.drummingthesoulawake.com/schedule-an-appointment
