MY SPIRIT’S JOURNEY TO THE DRUM
A Sacred Journey of Healing, Empowerment, and Spiritual Awakening Through the Ancient Power of the Drum
MY SPIRIT'S JOURNEY TO THE DRUM
Why are Women Being Drawn to the Drum Today?
The time of the Matriarch has been building on this planet for quite some time. I believe it began to emerge in a powerful way at the turn of the century.
Long ago, women lost much of their power because we misused it. In many ways, that mirrors how men have misused power throughout history. We have allowed ourselves to be dishonored, abused, and undervalued. Yet one of the most important lessons I have learned is that healing begins with self-respect. We must honor and love ourselves first and never settle for less from others.
I believe many women know, deep within their hearts, that this is our time. We are stepping forward and accepting responsibility for helping to restore balance in our families, communities, and the world.
Many years ago, I was told an old legend about the drum. The story tells of Grandmother Bear bringing a beautiful drum to a woman who was spending time alone during her Moon Time. Grandmother Bear told her that the drum was meant to gather the people together. It would bring joy, laughter, music, and unity. The people would come together to drum, dance, and sing around it.
Women are the carriers of the Great Mystery. We create life, just as Earth Mother does. We are nurturers, caregivers, and the foundation of our families. I believe the drum strengthens these qualities within us and deepens our connection to Great Spirit and all of Creation.
Throughout history, many women have had to compensate for the weaknesses and struggles of others. We have raised children alone, carried families through hardship, and endured tremendous challenges. Yet through it all, we have continued to move forward.
Today, women all over the world are educating themselves, assuming positions of leadership, and creating organizations that bring healing and positive change. We have become powerful warriors, called to help restore peace, balance, and harmony to Earth Mother.
I believe the drum is one of the tools that helps us fulfill this calling. Its rhythm is grounding and balancing. It shifts energy and creates connection.
When women drum, we bring feminine energy into the world. We drum love into the Earth, into our communities, and into one another. Love is the greatest healing force available to us. It is the essence of Creator's message and the heart of what many know as Christ Consciousness.
We are all being drawn toward the tools we need to awaken, heal, and remember who we truly are. The drum is one of those tools. It helps us walk our sacred path and become guides for the transformation taking place on Earth today.
So, I encourage all my sisters: find your drum, make your drum, and answer its call. Let's begin the journey together.
Receiving the Gift of the Drum
I would have to say that the biggest challenge I had was when the Gift of the Drum came to me back in 1987. I had no teachers, no mentors, and I was totally on my own. I had no idea where to even begin. All I knew was that in my prayers, I had asked Tunkashila (Great Spirit) to send me something that I could make with my hands, which would help me, all people, and Earth Mother to balance, ground, heal, and connect with Great Spirit. Well, I'm sure you have heard the saying, "Be Careful What You Ask For!" Boy, is that true! The next thing I know, I have this great urge to make a drum.
I was living in Monterey, CA, at the time, and I was in the corporate world as an escrow officer. I was raising my daughter on my own and doing my best to make ends meet.
So, now that I have this urge to make a drum, I start thinking about where to even begin! So, I start looking for information on drums at the library, bookstores—nothing! I looked in gift shops for a drum that I could look at and figure it out from there—nothing! It was like the drum didn't exist!
That's when I figured that I was going to have to make one on my own. The first thing I was going to need was a hoop or base. So, I go to all the hardware stores, I go to the plumbing stores, pipe stores—I am going crazy! All this time, this little urge is growing into this huge craving!
By now, I am six months or more into this thing, and I am very frustrated. I have looked all over Monterey, San Jose, all over! Finally, I was ready to crack up. So frustrated, I go back to the hardware store, and I buy a redwood planter. I figure I'll make it work. I take this planter home to the house where my 6-year-old daughter and I live. We are both sitting there on the sofa looking at it. My daughter asks me, "What is it, Mom?" I say, "It's a drum hoop!" She looks at it and says, "Oh, it doesn't look like a drum!" "I KNOW!!"
So, half a year into this project, I have my hoop, only it's not a hoop, so now I need to find some hide. I really didn't even know what kind or where to start. I decide to go back to the Tandy Leather store and tell them I need some hide for a drum. The man says, "You need rawhide." He asks his son, "Do we still have that cow rawhide?" The son responds, "Yes, I think so. It may be in the back." So, he goes in the back and brings this piece of salted cow rawhide and says, "This is all we have, and it's been back there forever."
I get all excited and ask him, "What do I owe you?" He says, "Nothing. It's been back there so long." I am holding this thing, looking at it, and he says, "Soak it in water till it's pliable so you can collaborate with it. And cut your lacing from it too." I wanted to kiss the man!
I get it home, and I am looking at what I have and working to figure out what I am going to do. I soaked the hide for about a week because it wouldn't soften. I ended up cutting lacing as best as I could. I punched the holes in the hide with a hammer and a nail, and I used a brass ring from the fishing boat in Alaska that I brought back with me to lace the bottom of the planter. Thank God my friend David helped me to stretch the hide because it was not giving at all! I had an extra-long wooden spoon that I used to make into my beater by stuffing the face with cotton and covering it with leather. I decorated the drum with horsehair, seashells, and beads. I could not be happier; I had made my drum!
I thought I was done. I had been enjoying my drum, playing it, showing it off to my family and friends, and my daughter loved it. So, about a month later, I am back to doing my prayers and meditating, and I say to Creator, "Okay, Great Spirit, my drum is done, so what is next?" I am listening and praying, and I hear, clear as a bell, "I SAID DRUMS."
Well, needless to say, I had a fit! I yelled, "No! I don't know anything about drums! I can't make drums! Who am I to be making drums? And I'm probably not supposed to touch one!"
I still didn't fully grasp or understand the magnitude of what had come to me. As much as I thought I could just walk away, the call of the drum became like a craving in my belly, my blood, and there was no escape. I didn't know it, but my true journey had just begun.
Illness, Healing and Awakening
Like so many people, I was in denial of who I was and my purpose here. I could not believe that what they were saying I was, was true. The people of knowledge kept telling me that I was a teacher, a leader. That I had a bigger purpose. I kept saying, "NO," that they were wrong. I felt I didn't know anything. In fact, I was looking for a teacher to teach me.
Well, in December of 1989, I went to Great Earth Vitamins and bought these pills to boost my metabolism. Because every year in February, a friend took my daughter and me to Baja for a week with the Monterey Hobie Kat Fleet. These pills turned out to be tainted, and they poisoned me. By the end of our trip, I was deathly ill. I had just started a new job and had been there two and a half months. I never went back to work and ended up with no health insurance and, by the grace of God, between family and good friends, I was able to hang on to my house.
This poisoning got me off the merry-go-round that I couldn't get off. Because of fear—fear of not being able to support me and my girl, fear in trusting in me and Creator, God, Great Spirit. This got my attention. When the doctors and I finally figured out what happened and the severity of it, thousands of people had died and were extremely ill from this poisoning. People were on lung machines, needing organ transplants, lost their sight, and much more. By this time, seven months in, I was in a wheelchair, unable to do anything for myself. I had lost three-quarters of my hair, the sight in my right eye, and the left was going. I was going into kidney failure, I had memory loss and neurological damage, I lost the use of my hands, plus I was in such severe pain, I felt like I was burning alive. Nobody could touch me; I was a mess. I wouldn't go into the hospital, so I was home alone with my girl, age 9. My youngest sister, Stella, was my Angel and would come when she could to help. Once we knew what it was, I figured it was okay; now we can cure it. However, there was no cure. The only thing they could give me to slow the poison's effect was steroids (another poison)!
Like I said earlier, now they have my attention. I started to realize that all my life I had been denying and running away from who I was. I was not happy in my life because I was not paying attention to Spirit's call or to what I was taught growing up out in the beautiful, deserted desert. I was caught in the wheel of believing I had to be in corporate to make enough money to survive. Meanwhile, my daughter and I were suffering from broken hearts because of the loss of time together.
I decided to take control of my life. I got off all the medicine except for the steroids. I took them for a year and a half, and I investigated herbs and natural healing. It took me 10 years before I could say, "I am starting to feel like my old self!" Coming out of that is when the drum blossomed for me. I found where to get all my material, and in 1991, I started making drums. Despite the pain I was in, I cut, stretched, and eventually painted my drums. It was the drum that gave me back the use of my hands and was a major reason for my healing. It was like the drums were talking and teaching me about Spirit, Earth Mother, and the truth about our connection with that truth.
Challenges as a Female Drum Maker
Being a female drum maker has not been easy. When I first came out with the drum in 1992, it took strength and courage. I somehow knew that it was not going to sit well with some of the tribe's people. To many, a woman is not to touch, let alone play or make, a drum.
The first Pow Wow that I did with my drums was in Turlock, CA, and I was so nervous. My sisters and I set up my booth, and as the Pow Wow kicked off, the young drummers came around and were checking out the drums. They were all over them, saying what beautiful drums they were and how the sound was great, and they really liked them. Then they asked who made them, so I told them I did.
They were all shocked, asking, "You made these?" I said yes. Then, I watched them go up to the front where the Elders were and saw them talking and pointing toward my booth. So, soon here come three Elders toward my booth, and they go to the drums. They pick them up, check them out, see where I have signed them on the inside, too. They can see that they are my drums. They are all holding a drum, and they come over to me. The Elder asks me, "Who makes these drums?" I say, "I do," looking straight into his eyes. He gets a snarl on his face and asks me, "Who gave you permission?" I point up and say, "He did, and if you know of a higher power that can tell me I need to stop, I will." I never looked away from him. He stood there looking at me, then looked at my drum, looked at me, looked at my drum, and finally said, "Nice drums." He turned around, said something to the other men, they all nodded yes, put my drums back, and went back to their seats.
That was the first Native American Pow Wow that I did. Spirit sent me out on the Pow Wow Trail for close to 30 years, and for the first four years, I had to face the Elders at a lot of the shows. I always responded with what Spirit told me, and I always received the same answer. It was quite a few years later that I heard from one of the vendors that the people were calling me the "Master Drum Maker."
I believe that we all have a calling, a purpose here on Earth Mother. We each carry a gift that we bring with us to help through these times on Earth. It is time to slow down, go out in nature, sit under a tree, next to a stream, and reflect on our lives. We are running out of time, as the saying goes, "TIME IS NOW."
Discovering My Voice
What is most meaningful to me is what this journey with this beautiful instrument has brought to my life. It was the drum that brought out the music and my spirituality. It had always been there, although I truly did not know the magnitude of it. I had been singing all my life, and everyone was always saying, "Wow," which was great. I thought they were kind. Growing up in southern New Mexico, with my closest neighbor being 7 miles away, I had lots of nature to connect and play with. I realize now that it is nature that connects us with ourselves and, most importantly, with Earth Mother.
I have always loved music. When I was a child in school and we learned new songs, I used to cry because I was so happy to have a new song. I must share with you a story of who my first audience members were.
When I was around 9 or 10 years old, I would get up around 4–5:00 in the morning to escape the house before anyone got up. I would put on my little jeans, my T-shirt, and make my braids. I always wore a little scarf tied around my neck like Roy Rogers. I would walk out the door, and the cats and dogs would be there waiting, so I would greet them. I would walk out on this trail that I had created. I started singing, and as I walked, here came the horses, the Shetland ponies. I would kiss and greet them. Then here came the Quarter Horses. I would kiss and greet them. Then here came Pancho, my favorite, a big, beautiful Morgan. I would kiss and greet him. I would keep walking, singing this whole time. They would all fall into place, walking behind me.
We would go to the beehives, where I would pull a drawer open, break off a corner of the honeycomb, shake the bees off (singing the whole time), and walk on over to the irrigation ditch and sit on a big boulder. The cats, dogs, and all the horses would find their spots as I sat there serenading them and eating my honey. When I had enough honey, I would give each one a taste and, of course, sing all this time. This was my first audience and my first concert!
In 1991, as the drums were appearing, people I had never met were showing up at my front door asking if I was the drum lady. I would answer, "I guess," and they would say, "You have my drum here!" The word was getting out about my drums. People all over the CA Central Valley were getting their drums, and I started having Drumming Circles in my backyard.
Spirit told me I needed to start collaborating with the women, so I do not say no to Spirit anymore. I decided to have a Woman's Circle in my little house in Modesto, which ended up being my first Moon Lodge Circle. It started with twelve beautiful, strong women, and by 1992, we had grown to over three hundred women. We had Moon Lodge Hoops all over the valley. It was an extraordinarily strong, empowering way for women to gather, drum, and heal and empower themselves, thus healing their families. We would have huge Equinox and Solstice Gatherings at parks, people's homes, and any place we could find.
In 1993, I was moving to NC, and it was the women who pushed me to go into a modest home studio and leave them a recording of the songs that I had taught them so they could keep their circles going. This is what made me realize that I could really sing!
In 1994, I went to a huge Native American Juried Art Festival. I remember I took 100 cassettes and close to thirty drums, and I am on my way to NY!
It was the first year I attended this festival, and I did not really know anything about it, only that it was one of the best. We got there, and we set up, and I knew there were a lot of vendors, but I still did not really have any idea of how big the show was. So, the show takes off, and that afternoon, the promoter comes by the booth and tells me that there is a 15-minute slot that is open if I would like to sing. I remember getting just a little flutter in my stomach, although I say, "Sure, okay." So, he says, "Okay, then be up at the stage in about 10 min." I get myself ready, make a quick mental list of what I want to sing, grab a drum, and I take off to the stage. I still did not know how big the show was, but I knew there were a lot of people there.
I get to the back of the stage, climb the five steps up, and I see this HUGE stage, and the Master of Ceremonies is up front. He sees me back there, introduces me, I start walking across the stage, and I feel like it takes me a long time to get up there! It was so huge! As I am walking forward, I see an ocean of people, all moving like waves and all moving. I get up to the microphone, and the MC leaves, and here I am up there with this ocean of people, me, my drum in one hand and the beater in the other. I am standing there in shock, and all I hear in my head is SING, SING, SING! So, I let loose and belt out this chant, Ancient Altar Song, and as I sing, I see everyone stop in their tracks, turn toward the stage, and as I get into the second round, they start moving toward me! I keep on singing for 15 minutes. When I am done, I introduce myself, tell everyone where my booth is, and tell them to come to see me. I get the biggest applause and cheers. I turn and walk back. By the time I get to the stairs, there is this young man standing there, and he says, "Excellent job." As I start to collapse, he catches me. My knees were shaking so badly I could hardly walk! I did not know at the time that there were 10,000 people who had come through the gate that day and more than 900 vendors.
I sold every cassette (100) and every drum I took, and the promoter hired me for the next year and three years after that.
This is just part of what this gift has brought to my life. I have met the most wonderful people and attended some of the best Juried Art Festivals, concerts, conferences, and shows from NY to FL to CA, and have toured Norway, Italy, and Switzerland. I lectured at several schools in Italy and Switzerland, instructed the children about Native American ways of life, and did concerts for them. I did a drum-making workshop in Norway in 2011. I am now lecturing and sharing my life's journey with the drum across the US.
The drum began as a calling I could not ignore. It became my teacher, my healer, my voice, and my bridge to Spirit. Through every challenge, every lesson, and every song, it has guided me back to myself. Today, I remain grateful for this journey and for the sacred rhythm that continues to connect me with Great Spirit, Earth Mother, and all of creation.
Namaste,
Yolanda Martinez
Master Drum Maker, Author, Musician, Intl. Performer
