Not so long ago I attended a pagan women's retreat with about a hundred and fifty awesome people from many different walks of life and many different core beliefs. It was the first large pagan gathering I'd ever attended, and I can talk for hours about the people I met there and the things I learned. I'm sure more of them will make it into things that I talk about here in the future, but for now I'd like to talk about just four of them. One was a woman who needed to hear what I said, one needed to know someone saw her, one had something to teach me and one will be my companion for years.
The story doesn't begin with them, of course, or I'd be done telling it already. It begins with a sleepless night - one of the kinds where you've done everything right and you're exhausted and you really should drop off and sleep soundly all night. I woke up after a couple of hours and nothing, not even my tried and true meditation session let me get back to sleep. So with a cabin full of deeply dozing friends, I decided to take the meditation further, to journey into the spirit realms and ask those who help me what I should do.
Hint for those who are just beginning to journey: never give your guides and teachers such a wide open question when what you really want is assistance with the down to earth business of falling asleep. They are apt to answer the bigger question and ignore your other needs. I was still awake at dawn, long after the journey was over.
The journey itself seemed to take a very long time. I went up, then wandered around in the dim, soft, grey cloud forms of the upper world for what seemed like hours before one of my guides came to me. I wasn't led far before being shown a vision. The clouds in front of me solidified into the head of a dragon the deep grey of pewter, every detail sharp and fierce. That image morphed into a wolf's head, then a bear's, then a raccoon's. Then the image faded back into shapeless clouds and I was left alone. I had the distinct impression that these four images were things I should look for and, more importantly, pay attention to. The journey was over. I went back to my bunk and tossed and turned until dawn.
At breakfast, in a big communal dining room, a couple of friends and I shared a table with folks we hadn't met before. We talked with them - just the easy chatting of slightly sleepy people having breakfast. But something I said grabbed the attention of one of the women and we spoke a little more about the subject. It wasn't until she turned to say something to her friend that I noticed her earring. It was one of those cuffs that grips the outer edge of the ear, and hers was a tiny dragon. The face peering at me from the top of her ear was exactly the face from my vision.
Later that day, I visited the vendor area and picked out a couple of mementos for myself. When I asked the woman at the table if she could take a credit card she said yes, if she could get a cell signal. When she turned on her phone to check, I saw the wolf face from my dream on her wallpaper. Neither of us was busy, so I stayed and chatted with her for a bit.
Much later, as I walked to the site of the main ritual with my brand new drum (the little drum I'd bought on Amazon and wasn't totally comfortable with), I met some other folks with drums. The one who seemed to be leading them asked while we labored up the hill if I wanted to join them as they drummed for the ceremony. I admitted I'd never done so - not only was it my first ritual of any size, but it was also my first drum. She and the other drummers with her welcomed me anyway. Guess what was on the front of her shirt that I didn't see until we reached the top of the hill and had a chance to face each other? The bear from my vision, of course.
The planners had scheduled a drum circle later that evening, and I got to learn more about drums and drumming from the woman in the bear shirt. She demonstrated the healing power of a drum, which was something I hadn't realized was possible. Playing with other drummers was what hooked me, though, with the vibrations from the other drum voices humming through my own drum's frame. It was later that I loaned my little drum to a young woman who wanted to join in and left them with other drummers.
The death of my cheap little drum with the sad spirit came at her hands, but I claim my part of its end. I knew my hand-made drumstick was harder than most, and I didn't warn her. Nor did I stick around to show her what little I'd learned. It was she who hit hard and near the edge, but it was also she who was truly sorry that the thin goatskin drumhead had torn all the way to the center of the drum. After she had apologized profusely, offered to pay for the drum, and nearly teared up over the incident, I gave her the damaged drum to take care of. There was a flash of insight involved in that decision, and I knew it was the right thing to do. It will be interesting if I ever find out why.
The day after the event I couldn't get drums off my mind. I knew from intuition, playing with other drummers at the circle, and my short time with the little drum that I wanted a frame drum, preferably a Native American design. I searched online for a store that might have more than one and then called to make sure I'd be allowed to touch and hear the drums before making a decision. I found one. I spent a moment before I left to ask the runes for guidance and drew sowelu, the rune of the sun and of wholeness. I didn't understand, but I still went.
The store had several drums to chose from. Most were round. One was very much like the bear woman's drum. I touched each drum, and tapped most of them with a soft beater to hear their voices. I liked several, but the one that spoke most clearly to me was an octagonal cowhide drum with a large scar on the drum face. Its voice had different tones at different areas, deep resonance and ringing undertones. And the scar on its face looked like a triangular animal ear, a flaw that I thought gave her character. An ear that looks exactly like the ear of the raccoon from my vision. I fell in love with her, bought her, and took her home.
I did look up real life raccoon pictures to verify that her scar looks most like the ear of a raccoon and not some other animal. A rough patch in the hide marks her eye. Faint lines in the hide sketch in a mask and define the top of the raccoon's face. And when she's held up to the light, the structure of her back throws the image of the sun's rays onto her face, just in case you're still wondering about the significance of the rune I drew. I've given her some feathers, some shiny beads, two silver hawk bells and a raccoon tail. We're still getting to know each other, but I know one thing for sure. This is my drum, and I am her shaman. Many things led to us meeting. Each step was necessary. And the vision from my journey is complete. The raccoon is the spirit in my drum - another guide, another teacher, another helper, another friend. I've seen her face when I've played her, looking out at me just like the raccoon in my vision.
And now you, too, know her story. And maybe you also caught another lesson I learned. The four images from my vision didn't manifest in the same way. When my spirit guides told me to pay attention to those four faces, I didn't know what to expect. Not knowing, I saw each encounter as a surprise and took delight in it, even as I paid attention to the bearer of the image. I didn't have to actively seek them out - I even wondered if I'd missed the raccoon somewhere. And all four images brought me to people, even if one of them is a drum person with a raccoon face. I might have missed the significance of each encounter without the vision, though.
My guides might be pretty strict about answering the exact question I ask, but their answers always are always good. Even when I don't understand them at the time. If I keep my mind open, I'll learn what the answers mean. Usually. Eventually.
I hope you do too.
