The Radiant One Lightning Drum Has Arrived
It’s an honor to introduce The Radiant One Lightning Drum.
The name may sound grandiose if you’re not familiar with shaman ways, but for sure, the purpose of this drum is grand. And, as the one who helped it come into its own, I have had the joyful mission of following where it led, listening when it taught and now recounting its wonderful awakening.
Such is the case when I spend such a long time with a wounded piece of wood that has endured so much to become a spiritual healing drum.
I think it’s because these drums’ stories mirrors our own. The Radiant One honors the Medicine Wheel as it turns from birth through growth to flowering prominence in wisdom. Then… well, you know, the death thing. That’s exactly the saga of this drum, as well as the likely progression you and I will experience. But it doesn’t end there.
Allow me to explain.
The beautiful fully mature cherry tree from which The Radiant One was made was suddenly struck dead by a lightning bolt many years ago, whereupon its skeletal hulk remained standing alone at the edge of a field. Limbs decayed and fell away, roots loosened their grip in the ground, and only haughty crows chose it as a boasting perch on which to stand and shout out the law with their gravely voices. It is the Law of the Wheel that they broadcast, whether we wish to hear it or not.
I see the Law and the ever-grinding Wheel often in the work I do when trying to help people recover from injurious spiritual suffering. All shamans, doctors, ministers, first responders, parents and other caregivers know this too, even as any person with compassion and an appreciation for the gifts of life knows.
For me, the same applies when treating a piece of wood that has given its all. It is far beyond my little brain’s capacity to understand how an unknown being, what some indigenous friends of mine have referred to as a Tree Person, sensed a destiny of transformation like this, to live again as a medicine drum. Its broader message is one we should heed, though, for it is not unlike that of the crows who once perched atop its bones. Life does not end, only the form changes. The Law of the Wheel.
So the tree becomes drum becomes sacred teacher with a special message about Life, enduring Life.
Jesus once said, “Split a piece of wood, and I am there.” I’ve always interpreted that to mean that LIFE is there, the entirety of existence. Only its form changes. As Jesus continues, “Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” Tree, stone, LIFE. We are all of that.
That’s the teaching of this drum, The Radiant One. Life is there, inside and outside of us. It teaches the Wheel in form and function as it perches atop what used to be a small cedar tree with roots and all. For sure, the drum’s voice differs from the crows, sounding instead the notes of the Thunderers and Lightning Beings chasing the storm on down the valley and beyond the transformed tree that once awaited an awakening into a different form.
Aho & Namaste,
Bob
(See The Radiant One here on the Thunder Valley Drums website.)
If you visit the drum on the TVD website, you’ll find an audio recording of my thoughts about its mission to honor the Great Wheel. But if you would rather read it, here’s a transcript as a PDF file.
