Why the Djembe?
I have been asked this question many times. Why don’t you just do a drum circle? What about Native American drums? How about talking drums?
The best answer I have for this is that the Djembe is the drum that kindled the fire within me to play. The first time I was in the presence of a Djembe was in 1995 in Atlanta, in the home of a friend who was leading a West African ritual learned from the Malidoma Some. I was riveted to the drum, and felt strongly that “This is important, and I need to pay attention.” I purchased a Djembe within the week, and began to take lessons two weeks later. I soon began to build Ashikos (another West African drum with identical hand technique) in my woodshop. That’s how I got started with the Djembe.
What is important about that is that at that point in my life, I was deep into recreating my own life after living through a spinal cord injury that ended my career as a Wilderness Therapist and started my use of a wheelchair. The first thing that happened upon meeting the Djembe was that it spoke to a deeply wounded part of me that was stuck and needed healing. It happened almost immediately, and shifted me to another career when I needed it the most. Even though I began this work with very little knowledge about the drum and its meaning. I always felt that the fact that it healed me in that way is what gave me the authority or standing to use it in service of healing others.
I believe there is a fundamental difference in basing my practice on an ethnically specific drum tradition with an ancient culture and practice behind it as opposed to anything else, such as a drum circle, a purely improvisational approach, or one with simplified rhythms and very little or no connection with the history and culture of the drums being used. There are other people who have done very good work with these approaches, but that is not what moved me personally. I think that we are most effective when we overlap our work, with a small w, which is how we put food on the table, with our Work, with a capital W, which is why we are here on this Earth. When I use a Dhembe I am tapping into the deepest part of my own Work. That, in and of itself, brings into play the best and most compelling part of my energy and practice. I am aligned both with my gifts and with my wounding. According to Michael Meade, as I heard him speak in Mendocino in 2011, the path to our greatest gifts is always through our deepest wounding.
There are many thousands of drums throughout the world, and honest study of any one of them with the appropriate teachers, would give a facilitator an effective tool with which to help others who need help. For me, it had to be the Djembe. As I teach others to use this ancient and powerful instrument, I do my best to pass on the deep respect for the drum, its culture, and the teachers who have passed their knowledge to me. I’m not always successful, but when I see my students have their own experiences with struggling, learning and healing as they begin their djembe journey, I know I have done my job. You can never guarantee someone else a spiritual transformation. All you can do is set the framework and be there fully and authentically as a teacher and a mentor.
Just this week I had this experience. While showering I heard my phone chirp its notification of a message coming in. When I checked there was a message from an unknown caller. “Are you Mr. Tom Harris? If you are, I was your student 26 years ago and you can call me or text me at this number.” I replied “Who is this?”, and he replied with his name, and I remembered him. I called him a little later in the day, and had a long talk. He opened with this:
“I just got diagnosed with cancer. It is treatable, and they caught it early. My Doctor told me I needed to focus on and remember the things that make me happy and keep me calm. I immediately remembered drumming with you all those years ago. I didn’t like being in that program, and there were parts of it I still wish I hadn’t had to do, but drumming was always a place where I felt safe, and where I knew that I mattered. I was part of something larger than myself.”
from Therapeutic Drumming Interventions: A Strength-Based approach by Tom Harris, MS
