Healingdrummer

Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer

2007-11-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer

Toby Christensen, The Healing Drummer, is a recognized expert and innovator in the field of healing music. "Change Your Rhythm and Change Your Life" is the foundation of his healing therapies, his teachings and his music. Toby uses sound energy from the drum to create a force that disrupts unhealthy patterns and then combines elemental rhythms to restore and realign the mind, body and spirit. Toby travels across the country reaching thousands of people through his healing sessions, drumming circles, workshops, and interactive concerts. His mission is to show people the healing power and transformative energy of drumming.

How does it work? Science has already shown that we are energetic beings vibrating to rhythms on both a cellular and sub-atomic level. Toby's combination of ancient drumming and modern science called, Sound Attunement Therapy, helps to reconfigure your bio-energetic structure promoting healing and restoring energy. Recent studies acknowledge that therapeutic drumming is effective in dealing with a wide range of mental, physical and emotional issues including: pain and stress relief, immune system function, AIDS, high blood pressure, adrenal failure, cancer, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. But you only need to talk to Toby's clients to be convinced of the healing power of drumming. Time and time again, people report feeling magically transformed with unbelievable energy after an experience with Toby, to live a more healthy and satisfying life.

Toby is a study in contrasts, part rock drummer part ancient healer and a bundle of kinetic joyous energy. He has taken a long and amazing journey to find his passion and mission in life. A childhood drumming prodigy he grew up playing in professional bands and he still brings that boyish energy to his current work. Always religious, he went to divinity school and became a pastor of one of the largest churches on the west coast. After becoming disillusioned with the big business of religion, Toby changed his life dramatically. He plunged into business and found success as a senior executive for a major corporation and then as an entrepreneur with a successful line of coffee stores, Greyhawk Coffee.

Throughout all of this, Toby continued to search a greater meaning in his life. At a retreat he was introduced to the African teacher and drummer, Malidoma Some', the connection was instantaneous and they drummed together long into the night. "It was as if everything woke up in me all at once. My new life began that day." Toby began intensive study in both Healing Drumming and Shamanism. He went to Africa to study with Malidoma and Ritual Master Sobonfu Some'. He also studied Native American Drumming and at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. After years of study under these experts and with their blessings, he went out on his own.

Toby has authored books and articles and recorded many CD's and his concerts are energetic interactive experiences of music, drumming and dancing. He travels from his home in Portland, Oregon across the country to conduct individual and group healing sessions, drumming circles, classes and workshops. Toby is the inventor of Sound Attunement Therapy. His latest therapeutic invention is the Crystal Healing Bed, an amazing construct of copper, crystals, and sacred geometry that intensifies the healing forces of the drum. Toby has just introduced the 5 Element Drumming DVD and CD where he teaches you how to use your drum as a tool of personal empowerment. He also shares the meaning and energy of the 5 Elements of the Dagara West African Medicine Wheel. Toby also works with organizations and groups in numerous communities. From speeches and corporate team-building to out-reach programs for youth and the elderly.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

Whole-Self Well-Being

2006-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

I got this via email and want to pass it on
Whole-Self Well-Being
How The Body Clears Energy
Whole-self well-being is, in part, the result of a harmonious flow of energy between our physical and mental selves. When this flow is thrown out of balance for any reason, the body and mind react to one another rather than act cooperatively. Ongoing stress, sadness, anxiety, excitement, and fear can overwhelm the cerebral self, causing traumatic energy to be channeled into the body. The body then responds by taking steps to organically dispel the energy that has burdened it and expressing it by means of physical symptoms such as illness, fatigue, or disease. In some cases, these symptoms can simply be allowed to run their natural course and recovery will come about naturally. In most instances, however, health and wellness can only be restored by a dual course of treatment that acknowledges both the physical manifestations of energy clearing and the underlying emotional causes.

Many of the ailments we experience over the course of our lives can be indicative of the body's attempts to process intellectual and emotional energy. Swollen glands, for example, can signal that you are going through a period of emotional cleansing. Even something as simple as a pimple can indicate that your body is ridding itself of toxins and old energy. In Chinese medicine, intense emotions are held in the body's organs as a matter of course. Grief lurks in the lungs, anger inhabits the liver, fretfulness lingers in the heart, worry is held in the stomach, and the kidneys harbor fright. Particular illnesses and symptoms represent the body's attempts to clear emotional energy. Coughs or bronchitis can signify that the physical self is clearing away grief while a loss of appetite may signal that worry is being actively addressed.

When you feel ill or imbalanced, treating your whole self rather than treating the physical self alone can empower you to determine the root cause of sickness. Since you understand that your physical symptoms may be an expression of emotional discomfort, you can establish a balanced treatment regimen to ensure that you quickly recover your good health.

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

Hawk Medicine - From Daily OM

2006-09-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hawk Medicine
The Power Of Perspective
Hawks have the power to soar high above the earth, giving them a perspective previously only available to the inhabitants of the heavens above. Because of this, people from various cultures throughout history have seen them as messengers of spirit, bringing wisdom from the heavens and the value of their higher vision down to earth. From their vantage point, riding on the wind and sunlight, they remind us today that there is a bigger picture to be seen. When we get bogged down with the details of what is right in front of us, hawks help us remember that we are part of a larger plan and that everything fits together beautifully and perfectly. Once in this expanded frame of mind, we can harness their reputation as visionaries, using their keen eyesight to focus on the exact spot that truly needs our attention. With inspiration and focus on our goal, hawks teach us how to interpret and then follow our personal vision.

Hawks were thought to be able to look directly into the sun and see what is not visible to the rest of us. Using our spiritual vision, we too can look deeply into the inner light that guides us, seeing clearly what is not visible unless sought: our personal truth glowing within us. With that knowledge, we, like the hawk, can confidently ride the winds of chance, moving as one with the flow of whirling energy. This ability is what inspired the Egyptians to make hawks the hieroglyphic symbol for the wind.

The hawk's ability to live on land but visit the sky is a good reminder for us all. They remind us that their strength and survival comes from communing regularly with the spirit and bringing the guidance received into earthly affairs. Soaring in the province of the heavenly bodies of the sun, the stars, and the wind that moves the clouds reminds us to consider a larger perspective, one that inspires us to move through the world we inhabit with strength, certainty, and grace.

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

Being Your Own Village

2006-09-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

Residing At The Helm
Being Your Own Village
Simple survival requires us to be in possession of many skills. The pursuit of dreams requires many more. Most individuals rely on the support of a village, whether peopled by relatives or community members, to effectively address the numerous ways we need assistance. This can mean anything from asking favors of acquaintances and leaning on loved ones for support to paying a skilled artisan to handle specialized tasks. However, each human being is born with the capacity to be their own village. We embody many roles throughout our lifetimes, all of which are representative of our capacity for self-sufficiency and self-determination. In different moments in our lives, we are our own counselor, janitor, caregiver, cook, healer, teacher, and student. Our willingness to joyfully take on these roles grants us the power to maintain control over the direction our life's journey takes.

In times past, human beings learned all of the skills needed for survival. Today, the majority of people specialize in a single discipline, which they hone throughout their lives. Thus, many of us feel uncomfortable standing at the helm of our own existence. We question our ability to make decisions concerning our own health, happiness, and welfare, and are left feeling dependent and powerless. But the authority to take ultimate responsibility for our lives is simply a matter of believing that we have the necessary faith and intelligence to cope with any circumstance the universe chooses to place in our path. Proving that we can each be our own villages through action enables us to accept that we are strong enough to exist autonomously. Cooking, cultivating a garden of fruits and vegetables, undertaking minor home repair, or adopting a healthier lifestyle can help you reassert your will.

Being your own village does not mean embracing isolation, for a balanced life is built upon the dual foundations of the inner and the outer villages. Rather, being your own village is a celebration of your wondrous inner strength and resourcefulness, as well as an acknowledgment of your innate ability to capably steer the course of your life.

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

Peace

2006-08-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

Pure Peace
Why do we find it hard to be at peace with ourselves, each other and the world? Imagine a lake that is flat and calm and pure - it is so clear you can see the bottom. Even when the wind blows it only ruffles the surface. All is still and peaceful in its depth. Then the first polluting chemicals of the new factory and farm come rolling down the hill and into the water. Immediately it starts to cloud over and bubble a little. Chemical reactions are taking place and the purity is lost. When purity is lost peace is lost. It is the same with human consciousness. We are innately peaceful beings. Peace is our deepest inner state of being, our true nature. To be at peace is to be in our natural state, but only when our consciousness is pure and clean and true. As soon as the pollutants of any negative images are allowed in, or we allow old memories and experiences to disturb us into negative thinking, our purity and therefore our inner peace are gone. It's not the external event or person that takes our peace away - it's because we give them permission to enter and give them life in our minds. Keep your mind and heart free of all pollution, and peace will always be with you.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

To Be Human

2006-08-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Putting People On Pedestals
When we fall in love with someone or make a new friend, we sometimes see that person in a glowing light. Their good qualities dominate the foreground of our perception and their negative qualities. They just don't seem to have any. This temporary state of grace is commonly known as putting someone on a pedestal. Often times we put spiritual leaders and our gurus on pedestals. We have all done this to someone at one time or another, and as long as we remember that no one is actually "perfect," the pedestal phase of a relationship can be enjoyed for what it is-a phase. It's when we actually believe our own projection that troubles arise.

Everyone has problems, flaws, and blind spots, just as we do. When we entertain the illusion that someone is perfect, we don't allow them room to be human, so when they make an error in judgment or act in contradiction to our idea of perfection, we become disillusioned. We may get angry or distance ourselves in response. In the end, they are not to blame for the fact that we idealized them. Granted, they may have enjoyed seeing themselves as perfect through our eyes, but we are the ones who chose to believe an illusion. If you go through this process enough times, you learn that no one is perfect. We are all a combination of divine and human qualities and we all struggle. When we treat the people we love with this awareness, we actually allow for a much greater intimacy than when we held them aloft on an airy throne. The moment you see through your idealized projection is the moment you begin to see your loved one as he or she truly is.

We cannot truly connect with a person when we idealize them. In life, there are no pedestals-we are all walking on the same ground together. When we realize this, we can own our own divinity and our humanity. This is the key to balance and wholeness within ourselves and our relationships.

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

A Soulful Cure

2006-08-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

A Soulful Cure
Working With A Shaman
Since time immemorial, certain men and women have felt called to heal the sick, to safeguard knowledge, to guide the lost, and to commune with the spirit world. These unique individuals, known as shamans, were mystics and seers, repositories of wisdom, and keepers of herbal lore. During those periods when ignorance loomed large in the world, shamans across the globe bided their time, peacefully practicing their practical yet refined arts in the jungle, mountains, deserts, and tundra that protected them from those who misunderstood shamanism. Today, however, shamanism has reemerged, as modern men and women feel the same call to service that their ancestors felt long ago. Also, as more individuals explore the notion that healing necessarily involves the soul as well as the physical self, people are consulting shamans in their search for wellness, wisdom, and guidance.

The word shaman literally means "he or she who knows." Shamanism is an art that has not changed in any quantifiable way for millennia and is not bound to any particular form of spirituality. It is grounded on the principle that the visible world is saturated with unseen forces that influence the lives of human beings. Shamans, in addition to acting as fonts of wisdom, are dedicated to diagnosing and curing human suffering-whether emotional, physical, or spiritual. To treat an illness, a shaman may communicate with the spirit world in order to connect more directly with the soul of their patient or with the force causing ill health. They often work closely with animal guides, plant and earth spirits, or your spirit guides, and may make use of use of herbal remedies to supplement other forms of treatment. Shamans, as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms, recognize that all objects are in manner alive and retain information that can be utilized to heal.

Shamanism is powerful in part because its practitioners tailor healing to the individual needs of those who seek them out. A shaman manipulates energy, giving you power where you have lost it and removing misplaced energy lurking within you. When you seek out a shaman, they will endeavor to know and understand you before treating you. In this way, they can provide you with therapies that act on your whole being, positively influencing your body as well as your soul.

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY AND THE POWER OF DRUM HEALING

2006-08-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY AND THE POWER OF DRUM HEALING

By Toby Christensen

“… in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that it can be comfortable. Certain healing practices …involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes “irritated” a the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Some’, 1999:262)

Tribal societies have long recognized that there is a connection between energy flow and physical and emotional health. The drum has been used to heal people in tribal cultures for thousands of years. For example, the Ju’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert in southwest Africa believe that drumming facilitates the rise of a spiritual power called N/um. As N/um rises in the body it allows individuals to heal themselves and others. “If sick people are present at the dance, the n/um kausi {healer} will pay special attention to them, spending up to an hour working on one person, rubbing back, chest, forehead, legs and arms with magical sweat. With the very ill, teams of up to six healers work in relays on several parts of the body at once” (Lee, 1993:115)

Other tribes believe that the drum may talk to individuals in their dreams and give them gifts or knowledge. One Menominee man, for example, had a dream that he was out hunting and two deer approached him. The dream prompted him to go out hunting the next day after making a “sacrifice to the drum in order to notify the powers of his and the deer’s decision and to secure the ‘luck’ {the power} to perform the deed successfully” (Spindler, 1971:67). Other tribal groups, such as the Ojibwa, used drums to communicate with the dead (Hallowell, 1992).

Drumming is also an important feature of Dagara spirituality and healing in West Africa. People drum when a baby is born, when someone is sick, when there is marital or family discord or when someone dies (Some’ 1999), Through the drum, people are drawn together; it removes or smoothes out conflicting energies that threaten family or village unity. The Dagara also believe that drumming helps restore or reaffirm a person’s energetic sense of self; in effect, the drum “tunes” their soul. As a result, they are better-protected and less susceptible to disease. By the same token if illness is already present in a person, then drumming can help drive it out Especially in the case of chronic conditions, regular treatments with the drum are necessary to “train” the body back into the right energetic state.

Many scientific studies also attest to the power of the drum to reduce stress, promote pain management and boost the immune system to prevent or minimize the spread of disease (Achterberg, 1985). Another interesting study suggests that drumming produces increased natural killer or NK cell activity in cancer patients (Bittman, Berk, Felten, Westingard, Simonton, Papas and Ninehouser, 2001). This fact is especially intriguing since other research suggests that emotional as well as physical illness may be caused by a reduction in NK cell activity. For example, one study suggests that long term grief and depressive symptoms are related to a reduction in NK cell activity (Irwin, Daniel, Smith, Bloom, and Weiner, 1987). Since drumming stimulates increased NK cell activity, it can help reduce depression as well as a host of other ailments. Harner and Tyron (1996) have documented that drumming significantly reduced feelings of anger, confusion, fatigue and depression. In addition, participants in the study experienced an enhanced sense of cognitive, emotional and physical well being after exposure to drumming.

These studies show how traditional tribal healing practices work and why drumming is so central to many indigenous healing traditions. Evidence also suggests that Western medicine can benefit by integrating tribal healing techniques—such as therapeutic drumming—with other standard forms of treatment. My own work with Sound Attunement Therapy affirms this view. One of my clients called Karen* came to me with high blood pressure and a badly malfunctioning heart. Her doctors told her that her heart valve was damaged and that her heart could “blow up” at any moment. I began giving Karen SAT treatments daily to help lower her blood pressure and to repair her heart. The treatments significantly reduced her blood pressure and lowered her stress. Karen’s doctors were gradually able to decrease her medication and allowed her to go back to work part-time. Subsequent tests also revealed that her heart function rates had improved from 57% to 66% and her heart valve showed signs of regenerating. A few months later her heart function had improved so much that Karen was able to go off the rest of her medication. She was even cleared to resume recreational scuba driving (something her doctors had said she would never be able to do again). Her doctors were surprised by her progress and felt that mistake must have been made with the first tests, since it was so unusual for someone with Karen’s heart condition to improve that much.

From the Dagara perspective, however, Karen’s increased heart function is not an error. When a spiritual or energetic imbalance is realigned, it usually leads to a corresponding improvement on a physical level. As Malidoma Some’ suggests:

Methods of healing must take into account the energetic or spiritual
condition that is in turmoil, thereby affecting the physical condition.
If you focus only on the physical translation of the underlying energetic
disorder, then you are ignoring the source of the physical illness. If you
address only the physical problem, then you end up with a cure, which
fixes the physical condition, providing a momentary sense of victory
over debilitation. But this act denies the needs of the energy, the
adjustment of Spirit needed to make the cure last. Sooner or later this
disordered energy will figure out a new way to affect the physical body,
often in a new and more virulent manner than it did originally. If you
instead address the energy of the mind and the Spirit, whose status is
affecting the physical body, then you are likely to truly heal (1999:32).

* Client names have been changed in order to preserve their privacy.
Another client called Meg* was diagnosed with a large ovarian tumor that the doctors believed was cancerous. Although the doctors wanted to perform surgery immediately, Meg decided to delay the operation for a month in order to prepare for it. Part of this preparation included regular SAT treatments to reduce her stress and to realign her physical energies. My work with her indicated that the tumor was a physical manifestation of several longstanding psychological problems that had plagued her throughout her life. She was now faced with the choice of either dying or changing. I counseled her to regard the operation as a radical ritual. In the Dagara tradition this sort of ritual is resorted to when a dramatic life change is needed. The physical body is pushed to the extreme in order to create a do or die situation that results in death or transformation. “The ritual will push out the energy that is keeping him or her trapped and will open a new space to fill with appropriate energy” (Some’, 1999:150-151).

Meg took my advice seriously and focused on isolating all the thoughts, feelings and patterns she wanted to get rid of inside the tumor. The operation was a success. The doctors were able to remove the tumor (which was the size of a basket ball), and a biopsy confirmed that it was benign. More importantly Meg felt free from the negative patterns that had plagued her. Her energy began to vibrate at a higher level and she was released from the hospital after only two days stay. We did a number of post-operative SAT sessions to cement the new energy patterns within her body and she healed very quickly as a result. Within a week Meg was walking five miles a day and was able to resume most of her daily activities. Her doctors were amazed by her progress. They told her that the normal recovery time for this sort of operation usually takes six to eight weeks.

These case studies show how valuable tribal perspectives and techniques can be for helping us understand and treat illness. I feel privileged to be part of this healing tradition, and I look forward to the day that more people will have an opportunity to experience the benefits of Sound Attunement Therapy.

References Cited

Achterberg, J.
1985 IMAGERY IN HEALING. Shambhala.

Bittman, B., L. Berk, D. Felten, J. Westengard, O.C. Simonton, J. Pappas and M. Ninehouser
2001 “Composite Effects on Group Drumming Music Therapy on Modulation of Neuroendocrine-Immune Parameters in Normal Subjects”. Alternative Therapies. 7(1) 38-47.

Irwin, M., M. Daniels, T. Smith, E. Bloom and H. Weiner
1987 “Impaired Natural Killer Cell Activity During Bereavement”. Brain, Behavior and Immunity. 1:98-104.

Hallowell, A.I.
1992 THE OJIBWA OF BERENS RIVER, MANITOBA. Harcourt-Brace.
Harner, S. and W. Tyron
1996 “Therapeutic Effects of Shamanism”. Shamanism. 9(1) 27-28.

Lee, R.
1993 THE DOBE JU’HOANSI. Harcourt-Brace.

Some’, M.
1999 THE HEALING WISDOM OF AFRICA. Putnam.

Spindler, G. and L. Spindler
1971 DREAMERS WITH POWER. Waveland Press.

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

www.healingdrummer.com
email: toby@healingdrummer.com

Success

2006-07-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

"I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed."
~ Michael Jordan

toby@healingdrummer.com
heal;ingdrummer.com

Thoughts

2006-07-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

"If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be." ~ John R. Miller

toby@healingdrummer
healingdrumer.com

HO'OPONOPONO by Joe Vitale

2006-07-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

I get many many valuable and worthy e-mails but this one is one of the most simple and applicable ones I have ever read. It all comes down to energy and our hearts! Pat pass it on.

HO'OPONOPONO
by Joe Vitale

"Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a
complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any
of them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look
within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he
improved himself, the patient improved.

"When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How
could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the
best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn't
make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.

"However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist
had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at
all true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total
responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.
Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of total
responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not what
anyone else does--but that's wrong.

"The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would
teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His
name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on
our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his
work as a therapist.

He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years.

That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.

Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot
or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs
against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a
pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

"Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an
office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he
would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"'After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being
allowed to walk freely,' he told me. 'Others who had to be heavily
medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no
chance of ever being released were being freed.' I was in awe.'Not
only that,' he went on, 'but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.

Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.'

"This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: 'What were
you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?'

"'I was simply healing the part of me that created them,' he said. I
didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for
your life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in
your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world
is your creation.

"Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or
do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says
or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete
responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste,
touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is
in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the
economy or anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to
heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections
from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to
change them, you have to change you.

"I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live.
Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr.
Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho 'oponopono
means loving yourself.

"If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you
want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing
you.

"I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"'I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again,'
he explained.

"That's it?

"That's it.

"Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve
yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.

"Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message.

"This time, I decided to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying,
'I'm sorry' and 'I love you,' I didn't say it to anyone in particular.
I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was
creating the outer circumstance.

"Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized
for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward
action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by
saying 'I love you,' I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

"I later attended a ho 'oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He's now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive.

He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve
myself, my book's vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when
they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.

"'What about the books that are already sold and out there?' I asked.

"'They aren't out there,' he explained, once again blowing my mind
with his mystic wisdom. 'They are still in you.' In short, there is no
out there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced
technique with the depth it deserves.

"Suffice It to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your
life, there's only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it
with love."

The words of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len:

" Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things.
The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place, or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy.
Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

Use Sound Attunement Therapy to help create your helpful attitude.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

More Food For Thought

2006-07-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens."~ John Homer Miller

Use Sound Attunement Therapy to help create your helpful attitude.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Word For The Day!

2006-07-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

I received this email from someone I do not know but found it very interesting. I went online and researched in more and want to share it with you.

Call out Gouranga be happy
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga
That which brings the highest happiness!

Gouranga, or Gauranga, is said to originate in the Hare Krishna religious movement, whose founder, Shri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, was also called Gaura, or Gauranga. In popular culture it is accepted generally as a word meaning simply 'be happy', although the literal Sanskrit translation is 'light/golden-limbed'.
Stickers bearing the word Gouranga or stating "Call out Gouranga and be happy!" have been appearing on bridges over motorways and railways in Scotland and the North of England. It has also appeared on public buildings over recent years, and stickers and fridge magnets with the phrase have also been handed out by Hare Krishna monks at music festivals throughout the UK.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Waves Of Healing

2006-07-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

Ocean Meditation
Like us, the sea is ever-changing. And, like us, the earth's vast oceans appear at a distance to be stable and homogenous. But beneath the mask of solidity that both we and the sea wear, there lies unpredictability, sensitivity, and power. There is much we can learn from the ocean, representative as it is of our inner landscapes. The rough sounds of the sea's waves are spiritually soothing, and its salt can purify our physical selves. Yet not everyone has the luxury of living by the shore or even visiting the coastlines where water and land meet. The ocean, however, exists in our conscious minds, put there by images we have seen and descriptions we have read. Wherever we are, we can access that mental image and use it as the starting point from which we can help to heal our emotions by meditating on the sea.

To begin, gather together any ocean artifacts you may have on hand. Seashells, a vial of sand, beach glass, stones rubbed smooth by the pounding surf, or a recording of ocean sounds can help you slip more deeply into this meditation, but they are not necessary. Sit quietly and visualize the ocean in your mind's eye. Allow all of your senses to participate in your mental journey. Feel the tiny grains of sand beneath your feet and the cool spray of mist; hear the sea's rhythmic roar as the waves meet the beach and retreat; smell the tang of salt in the air. Watch the sun's rays play over the ocean's surface, creating shifting spots of teal, cerulean, cobalt, and green. Don't be surprised if you see dolphins or whales frolicking in the waves-they are there to assist you. Spend a few minutes drinking in the ocean's beauty and appreciating its vast splendor.

Once you are fully engaged with the setting before you, visualize yourself sitting on the beach, facing the ocean, and watching the waves advance and retreat. As each new wave of seawater approaches, imagine it carrying healing energy toward you. The magnificent ocean in your thoughts is sending you light and love while the sun supports your healing efforts and Mother Earth grounds you in the moment so healing can occur. When you feel you are finished, grant the ocean your earnest gratitude for the aid it has given you. Thank the sun, the sand, and any other elements of your visualization that offered you guidance. Perform this meditation daily or monthly in order to rid yourself of negativity and reestablish emotional equilibrium. Just as the ocean's tides sweep the shores free of detritus, restoring balance, so can the waves in our mind's eye cleanse our souls of what no longer serves us.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Food For Thought

2006-07-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

" Free will and determinism are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism. The way you play your hand is free will. " ~ Norman Cousins

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

2006-07-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

This Movie is a MUST SEE!!!!!!!

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life - convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.

Paramount Classics and Participant Productions present a film directed by Davis Guggenheim,
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Featuring Al Gore, the film is produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns. Jeff Skoll and Davis Guggenheim are the executive producers and the co-producer is Leslie Chilcott.

Fully Present In Time

2006-07-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

Living For The Moment
Each moment of our lives is imbued with richness and magic. The passage from one second to the next is a miracle in its own right and worthy of being savored. Yet our minds tend to wander away from the present, preferring the unchangeable nature of the past or the nebulous character of the future. There is nothing inherently wrong with revisiting our personal histories or dreaming about what we hope will occur with the passage of time. To live a truly balanced life is to simultaneously embody a past, present, and future self. It is only when our ability to exist purely in the moment is lost and the joys immediately in front of us are overshadowed by the joys of the past and future that we must reestablish our connection to the present. Living in the moment empowers you to discover and appreciate what is beautiful about this unique moment in time.

Our lives are so complex and full that we tend to focus on the big picture rather than on the minute details that make up the picture. Individual moments are lost among the day's clutter, and we are overwhelmed by the burdens, tasks, and responsibilities we must face. To cope, we spend much of our time recalling the bliss the past held or anticipating the blessings the future will bring. However, while life is often demanding and hectic, it is nonetheless made up of immeasurable moments that each carry the potential to delight. A consciousness fixed in the present exists in a state of optimal sensitivity. It responds to life as it comes, reveling in the pleasures of the moment and then gladly letting that moment go.

Grounding yourself in the present is simply a matter of practice. Breathing and moving consciously increases your awareness of how you occupy space from moment to moment. Focusing on life's little joys and relishing everything you do will help you learn to focus wholeheartedly on the task at hand. Living in the moment means immersing yourself fully in every experience, whether positive or negative. As you learn to embrace the present in an all-encompassing way, you will come to realize that life's magnificence is a product of its moments.

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Am I Making Up My Journeys?

2006-07-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

an excerpt from the book & CD set
SHAMANIC JOURNEYING:
A Beginner's Guide

by Sandra Ingerman
INTRODUCTION

The excerpt, below, deals with a common barrier to successful travel in non-ordinary reality: the secret belief that your journey might just be a product of your imagination.

Sandra Ingerman is an ideal author for this gentle introduction to the world's oldest spiritual practice. As former director of education at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, she has taught shamanic journeying to thousands of novices. A licensed marriage and family therapist and mental health counselor, Ingerman is a board-certified expert on traumatic stress. She is the author of the classic text, Soul Retrieval: Healing the Fragmented Self (HarperSanFrancisco), among other books.

In Shamanic Journeying readers learn to use a fundamental technique practiced by shamans worldwide to connect with spiritual helpers, to access personal guidance and healing, to help others and the planet, and to reconnect with nature and its rhythms. Learn to:

Interpret dreams and omens
Communicate with weather spirits
Meet ancestors and deceased loved ones
Resolve conflict in relationships
More information about the book, Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide, and author Sandra Ingerman, follows the excerpt. Enjoy!

Am I Making Up My Journeys?

by Sandra Ingerman
The most common challenge that people new to the practice of shamanic journeying face is the fear that they are making up their journeys -- that it is all happening in their imaginations and is therefore irrelevant.

Most of you reading this have been raised in a society where you were taught that invisible realms do not exist. You were taught that only what you can see, feel, hear, taste, and smell is real, and the rest exists solely in your imagination. After all these years of basing your perception of reality on what is tangible, to hear someone tell you that you can travel to non-ordinary reality and ask invisible spirit beings for advice and guidance is confusing at best. This question comes up for almost everybody when they first begin the practice of shamanic journeying.

As children, many of us took great comfort in our ability to communicate with loving and caring beings in invisible worlds. However, as we grew up and became socialized into believing solely in physical reality, our relationship with the invisible world dissolved.

However, many of us yearn to rediscover the invisible world and our interconnectedness with all seen and unseen beings. On a profound level, we all know there is more to life than material possessions, what society tells us is true, or what we experience with out five senses.

Several years ago I was teaching an introductory workshop in journeying where the question of the imagination was very pronounced. Over and over again people asked me in different ways, "Am I making up my journey?" During a break, a Brazilian woman came up to me to tell me how surprised she was that so many people were plagued by this question. She had grown up in a culture where there is a strong belief in spirits, and for her there was no question as to whether spirits were "real." However, my parents certainly did not talk about power animals and helping spirits at the dinner table when I was growing up -- nor did most of the parents of the workshop participants!

My experience has shown me that the best way to evaluate the validity of your shamanic journeys is on the basis of your results. If you keep up the practice of shamanic journeying, you will begin to see useful and beneficial results arising from the guidance you receive. Remember, shamanism has traditionally been a results-oriented system, and it is important for you to evaluate your results on an ongoing basis. The important question to ask yourself is, "Do I get information that makes a positive difference in my life?"

When you begin to see significant results, your mind will begin to quiet down, and eventually you will find that you are no longer distracted by the question of whether or not it is all happening in your imagination. However, if you try to battle your mind or beliefs while you are journeying, you will spend much of your journey time in internal dialogue and be too distracted to receive any clear information. What I do when my analytical mind interferes when I am journeying is to simply agree with what it has to say, and then continue on my journey. And what I recommend to you is that you give journeying an opportunity to reveal its benefits to you over time, which will satisfy your discerning mind.

People in our culture often forget to "lighten up" when doing spiritual practice. We tend to take everything too seriously, putting too much pressure on ourselves. Traditional shamans and healers are always laughing. Being overly serious in our journeys and lives disconnects us from our own creative potential. Learn to laugh at yourself and have fun with your practice. You will find as you journey over time that your helping spirits have quite a sense of humor and are always trying to get you to lighten up.

When I first started journeying, my power animal would find humorous settings to teach me about asking appropriate questions. I remember in one journey I went to the Lower World to meet him. When I showed up in the pine forest where he lives, he was dressed in a fancy waiter's uniform, wearing spotless white gloves. He showed me to a small table that was decorated with a crisp white tablecloth and a small vase of flowers. He pulled out a chair for me and handed me a menu. I opened the menu, and was surprised to see what was inside. There were two columns containing different questions. My power animal announced that the question I was intending to ask was the wrong one. I had not even told him what my question was, so obviously he was tuned into my intention before I even spoke it. He then explained that the questions on the menu were appropriate to ask, and that I could choose one question from column A and one from column B to ask him during my journey. I think this is a wonderful example of how the spirits can teach us through humor and playfulness, which helps keeps the practice more lighthearted.

About the Author

Sandra Ingerman, MA, is the author of Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self, Welcome Home: Following Your Soul's Journey Home, A Fall to Grace, Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins, and Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide. She is the author of The Soul Retrieval Journey, The Beginner's Guide to Shamanic Journeying and Miracles for the Earth lecture programs produced by Sounds True, Inc.

Sandra teaches workshops internationally on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She has trained and founded an international alliance of Medicine for the Earth teachers and shamanic teachers. Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times.

Sandra is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist and Professional Mental Health Counselor. She is also a board certified expert on traumatic stress as well as certified in acute traumatic stress management.

To read a monthly column written by Sandra called The Transmutation News, please visit the website http://www.shamanicvisions.com/ingerman.html

About the Book

SHAMANIC JOURNEYING:
A Beginner's Guide
by Sandra Ingerman
Published by Sounds True, Inc.
ISBN 1-59179-151-0, 80 pages, hardcover, audio CD, $19.95
Available through this site or directly from the publisher:
http://store.yahoo.com/soundstruestore/ingermans.html
Shamanic journeying is the inner art of traveling to the "invisible worlds" beyond ordinary reality to retrieve information for change in every area of our lives -- from spirituality and health to work and relationships. With Shamanic Journeying, readers join world-renowned teacher Sandra Ingerman to learn the core teachings of this ancient practice and apply these skills in their own journey.

In Shamanic Journeying, readers learn how to use a fundamental technique practiced by shamans worldwide to connect with spiritual helpers, to access personal guidance and healing, to help others and the planet, and to reconnect with nature and its rhythms. Learn to:

Interpret dreams and omens
Communicate with weather spirits
Meet ancestors and deceased loved ones
Resolve conflict in relationships
Restore harmony and balance in your life
Meet the spirit of your home, workplace, or city
Shamanic Journeying is a practical guidebook and gives you advice on the best time of day to journey, how to get comfortable, lighting, using the audio CD, and simple techniques of guided meditation to start you on a path to the Upper World, the Lower World, or the Middle World. You will learn how to identify power animals and other teachers and the best way to approach them for advice.

Shamanic Journeying is a gorgeous hardcover book, lovingly produced with colorful endpapers and elegant type. It includes an audio CD containing drum rhythms for three shamanic journeys. This book & CD make a wonderful gift for the spiritual traveler who likes to visit the exotic places all around us. Thank you for considering it.

Copyright (c)2006 by Sandra Ingerman. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to duplicate or distribute this file as long as the contents have not been changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank You.

Doing The Best You Can

2006-07-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

Meeting Our Own Expectations

It isn't always easy to meet the expectations we hold ourselves to. We may find ourselves in a situation such as just finishing a relaxing yoga class or meditation retreat, a serene session of deep breathing, or listening to some calming, soul-stirring music, yet we have difficulty retaining our sense of peace. A long line at the store, slow-moving traffic, or another stressful situation can unnerve you and leave you wondering why the tranquility and spiritual equilibrium you cultivate is so quick to dissipate in the face of certain stressors. You may feel guilty and angry at yourself or even feel like a hypocrite for not being able to maintain control after practicing being centered. However, being patient with yourself will help you more in your soul's journey than frustration at your perceived lack of progress. Doing the best you can in your quest for spiritual growth is vastly more important than striving for perfection.

Just because you are devoted to following a spiritual path, attaining inner peace, or living a specific ideology doesn't mean you should expect to achieve perfection. When you approach your personal evolution mindfully, you can experience intense emotions such as anger without feeling that you have somehow failed. Simply by being aware of what you are experiencing and recognizing that your feelings are temporary, you have begun taking the necessary steps to regaining your internal balance. Accepting that difficult situations will arise from time to time and treating your reaction to them as if they are passing events rather than a part of who you are can help you move past them. Practicing this form of acceptance and paying attention to your reactions in order to learn from them will make it easier for you to return to your center more quickly in the future.

Since your experiences won't be similar to others' and your behavior will be shaped by those experiences, you may never stop reacting strongly to the challenging situations you encounter. Even if you are able to do nothing more than acknowledge what you are feeling and that there is little you can do to affect your current circumstances, in time you'll alter your reaction to such circumstances. You can learn gradually to let negative thoughts come into your mind, recognize them, and then let them go. You may never reach a place of perfect peace, but you'll find serenity in having done your best.

For more information contact Toby Christensen - The Healing Drummer / toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a person's energy system which affects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Doing The Best You Can

2006-07-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

Network Of Support

2006-07-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

Network Of Support
Delegating
In modern society, self-reliance is highly prized. Throughout our lives we are taught that if we want something done right, we must see to it ourselves. Interdependence is often seen as demeaning. As a result, we are hesitant to ask for help or delegate responsibility regardless of how many duties we face or how overwhelmed we become. We fear that our need for assistance is indicative of inner weakness. Yet, in truth, knowing when to recruit help and effectively leveraging the resources around you is a sign of inner strength. Building a network of support, personally and professionally, can help you avoid shouldering a burden of obligations so large it prevents you from successfully addressing any of them. Your willingness to rely on others will free you to focus the whole of your attention on those responsibilities that truly require your personal attention or expertise.

Each member of the team you create-whether they are family and friends, hired professionals, assistants, a group of collaborators, or some mix thereof-can be a valuable ally in your quest to accomplish your goals while caring for yourself and your loved ones and living a fulfilling life. Housekeepers, gardeners, handymen, baby-sitters, and delivery services can help you stay on top of never-ending domestic duties and allow you to spend more quality time with your loved ones. Trading or bartering can be great ways of getting what you need. In your workplace, an assistant can take on maintenance tasks, leaving you more time to concentrate on duties specific to your position. You may have more resources at your disposal than you realized. Members of your family can contribute to the running of the household. Consider forming a community-wide cooperative in which members participate in a shared schedule of cooking, driving, repair, and other duties.

When you seek out and accept help, you give yourself the dual gifts of time and energy. Finding the courage to admit that you need assistance and to ask for it, however, can be difficult. Before you can comfortably do so, you may have to recognize that no one is capable of doing everything themselves and that delegation does not mean giving up control. As you create a support network, you'll discover that each task you delegate to another reduces the pressure you're under and frees you to devote more of your attention to that which is truly important to you.

For more information contact: toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Drumming and Community

2006-07-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

Drumming and Community

One of the wonderful things I have seen about bringing the healing drum around the country is the way the drum creates community. In order for us to be healing vessels in the world it is important to have a strong community. Just recently after a workshop on community drumming some of the participants decided they want to create a healing circle where once per month a group of practitioners and drummers get together and offer free healing treatments. My wife, Michelle and I have been facilitating such a group for the past seven years in the Portland, Vancouver area here in Washington State. This started out as the brainchild of Michelle who wanted to create a place for her reiki students to practice. It then evolved into a large circle involving 10 –20 practitioners and sometimes 70 people attending the circle! This is a powerful way to build community. We have developed a program to assist in the construction of these healing circles and have the desire to have them functioning throughout the country and eventually the world. Stay tuned for workshop information and please contact me if you are interested in creating a healing Circle community in your area!

Toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

Crystal Alchemy and Sacred Geometry

2006-07-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

As my work has developed I am becoming aware of many complimentary modalities to Sound Attunement Therapy. Two of which have inspired my new CD Crystal alchemy. One modality I have implemented in a big way is sacred geometry. About three years ago a man named Hans built a copper bed for me, which had two symbols on it. One is the Star of David which is a two dimensional Merkabah and the other is the Flower of Life. Which is a series of three infinity signs, which intersect in a common center. The other aspect of this bed that is interesting is that it is filled with Silica and quarts crystal. In addition I was shown a configuration of other mineral elements to use in a certain pattern under the bed to enhance its already incredible power.

The use of stones and crystals with the sound of the drum is remarkable to say the least, and then you add the configuration based on sacred geometry and the power of healing increases exponentially. With the use of these combined tools I have seen major shifts occur in a mater of minutes that would historically have taken several sessions.

Although I have worked with sacred geometry and minerals for several years, I had the good fortune to meet a man in Cincinnati Ohio Gene Jackson “The Crystal Guy” who showed me a way of combining these modalities that is truly profound.

The inspiration for the Crystal Alchemy CD came also from experiencing the energy of combining different instruments with the drum. I met Brenda Harvey in Connecticut and her amazing skills at Didgeridoo and Native American flue opened doorways of healing energy that were quite significant. I am very happy with the way this CD came out and I hope you enjoy it. As you listen to it you might grab your favorite stone and allow it to work on you to the sounds of Crystal Alchemy!

To purchase your copy of Crystal Alchemy go to www.healingdrummer.com and click on “New CD Release”

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

Being With Uncertainty

2006-07-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

Fear Of The Future
Though much human fear is based on uncertainty, foreknowledge does not always ease the mind. It is often when our futures look brightest that our resolve crumbles and we veer off course. We can recognize that success is on the horizon, but we cannot discern how it will impact our lives. Because success can affect us in complex and unpredictable ways, taking us out of the status quo and pushing us into new circumstances that test our limits, the mere idea of attaining the life of our dreams can shake us to the core. Fear of the future is often closely intermingled with the fear that growing into your own potential will both change you irrevocably and force you to face situations that you aren't ready for. It is normal to unconsciously project ahead into the future and see success as a great weight bearing down on you. It is important to remember, however, that all the life changes the future will bring will be implemented into your life slowly and gradually.

When we visualize the future, we tend to focus on outcomes rather than the steps we will take to reach those conclusions. Thus, we may forget that growth is progressive. Your soul longs to fulfill its purpose-a purpose you agreed to in the timelessness in which you existed before your birth. Because of this, neither you nor the universe will set any circumstance before you that you are not capable of handling. Fear of the future can paralyze you, preventing you from living in the moment and from working toward your goals in a mindful manner. The key to conquering this fear lies in awareness. When you can identify the irrational thoughts that frighten you, you can replace them with logical, self-affirming ideas. If you are afraid that you won't be satisfied when you accomplish a certain goal, remember that no one achievement represents an end in and of itself. And if you fear recognition or feel unworthy, consider that even now you are deserving of praise.

Should fear of the future strike you as you strive to create, to excel, to grow, and to evolve, assert your courage. Assume that your fear is based on a false assumption and quell it with facts. Try to disregard past patterns and focus on the present by stilling the inner voice that comments critically on all you do. Tell yourself that the inevitability of your success is based not on luck or a universal mistake but on your already established talents, drive, imagination, and inner strength. Each time you overcome your fear of the future, you chip away at its very foundations. Eventually, you will clear a gap through which you can gaze upon the future with unhindered optimism.

To raise your level of optimism connect to the empowerment of the drum! Find out more at www.healingdrummer.com

Value

2006-07-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

July 6, 2006
Your Innate Value
Worth
Though much of who and what we are changes as we journey through life, our inherent worth remains constant. While the term self-worth is often used interchangeably with self-esteem, the two qualities are inherently different. Self-esteem is the measure of how you feel about yourself at a given moment in time. Your worth, however, is not a product of your intelligence, your talent, your looks, your good works, or how much you have accomplished. Rather it is immeasurable and unchanging manifestation of your eternal and infinite oneness with the universe. It represents the cornerstone of the dual foundations of optimism and self-belief. Your worth cannot be taken from you or damaged by life's rigors, yet it can easily be forgotten or even actively ignored. By regularly acknowledging your self-worth, you can ensure that you never forget what an important, beloved, and special part of the universe you are.

You are born worthy-your worth is intertwined with your very being. Your concept of your own self-worth is thus reinforced by your actions. Each time you endeavor to appreciate yourself, treat yourself kindly, define your personal boundaries, be proactive in seeing that your needs are met, and broaden your horizons, you express your recognition of your innate value. During those periods when you have lost sight of your worth, you will likely feel mired in depression, insecurity, and a lack of confidence. You'll pursue a counterfeit worth based on judgment rather than the beauty that resides within. When you feel worthy, however, you will accept yourself without hesitation. It is your worth as an individual who is simultaneously interconnected with all living beings that allows you to be happy, confident, and motivated. Because your conception of your worth is not based on the fulfillment of expectations, you'll see your mistakes and failures as just another part of life's jo! urney.

Human beings are very much like drops of water in an endless ocean. Our worth comes from our role as distinct individuals as well as our role as an integral part of something larger than ourselves. Simply awakening to this concept can help you rediscover the copious and awe-inspiring worth within each and every one of us.

For more information go to www.healingdrummer.com

Good Day

2006-07-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

Go Giver
It’s been said that you cannot give away what you do not have. One of the most spiritual important insights or secrets in life is that you already have, and always have had, what you need to give away! If you impart the message that ‘I am not worthy’ the universe will send it straight back in many shapes, forms and circumstances. When we say ‘give me’ we are imparting this message. We are saying we think we need to get something to complete ourselves or prove our worth. Most of us are taught to live a life of gimmie gimmie gimmie – always striving, desiring, wanting, struggling. We do so only because we think that when we get what we want we will be fulfilled and esteemed by others. But it’s an illusion. We are all already complete and worthy but we cannot know it and experience it, until we give it away! Only giving allows us to know what we are and what we have within. Ask the question – how can I serve? The intention to serve will point you towards what you need to give. If the intention is real it also generates the will. The most successful people in life are not go getters, but go givers!

To learn more go to www.healingdrummer.com

Daily Input

2006-07-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

Back In Play
Reconnecting With Friends
Every person that passes through our lives makes a contribution to our life stories. There are those who play large roles and make deep impressions, but sometimes a brief special appearance before life takes them in another direction creates a meaningful connection. It is a rare gift when they suddenly reappear in our lives after a long absence.

Though the world may seem full of more people than we could ever know, we are often drawn to people with similar energy, which brings us together time and time again. On first meeting, the characters in our life stories may seem familiar. We may know each other from past lives or perhaps we merely recognize the energy of a kindred spirit. But when fate brings old friends back into our lives, there is always a reason. They may act as messengers, reminding us of a part of ourselves we have forgotten to nurture. They might appear to give us a chance to react in a new way to an old situation. They may even bring up unresolved issues so that we may complete them, giving us the chance to move forward on our life path. Whether old friends, previous romances, or once and future partners, their reappearance is more than mere chance. They may never know what they bring into our lives, but the renewed contact is a gift.

If this hasn't happened to you, maybe you are meant to initiate contact by seeking out old friends. If old friends come to mind or into your dreams, use their appearance as an excuse to get in touch. If an old song or movie reminds you of them, reach out to share the gift of renewed contact. Wherever you fall in the circle of connection and reconnection, be sure to look beyond the surprise of the moment to enjoy the deeper gift that this revelation brings.

Check out further information at www.healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and positive change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

Thoughts on traveling through life

2006-07-05T08:38:00.001-07:00

My friend Randy sent me this and I thought I would pass it on.
Blessings,
Toby

Adam Comes Home From Italy
Thoughts on traveling through life and finding God in the process
By Randy Johnson

I’ve spent most of my life reaching out to God like Michelangelo’s Adam, and the last couple of hours gazing down at Greenland, contemplating The Mystery that lies in the space between the fingertips of God and man. We’re returning home from our second trip to Italy, and as my beautiful wife Cindy sleeps peacefully beside me, and this amazing frozen wonderland slips silently beneath, I feel the beauty of The Mystery and the narrowing of the space.
We’ve just spent two scrumptious weeks in Positano, Italy. It’s a beautiful coastal town that clings to cliffs on the south side of a peninsula just south of the bay of Naples on the famous Amalfi coast. Two years ago we traveled to Italy spending a week in Rome (Oh my God!), a week in Tuscany and Florence (Oh the Chianti and cheese!), and a week on the Amalfi coast in Sorrento and finally Positano (Ahh, the Mediterranean….). After that whirlwind we promised each other that the next time we went to Italy we’d rent a little apartment in Positano and kick back and relax. And we did. It was just perfect. Cindy loves to research and plan these adventures, looking up websites and e-mailing like crazy. I like to take lots of pictures. But what we both love most about travel, besides getting out of town, is connecting with another part of our human family by being open and vulnerable enough to allow them to help us feel at home in their house.
Two weeks ago on the way to Positano I was reading Donald Millers book, Blue Like Jazz. I had read a review of it in the Oregonian newspaper and thought we had some things in common about our disenchantment with our involvement in evangelical Christianity. We didn’t. He’s still trying to make it work. Anyway, in one of his essays he commented on “Mans rebellion toward God”. That phrase used to really put me in my place. Not any more. I realized I hadn’t thought about it for years, and found myself kicking it around in my head like an Italian Futbol while immersing myself in the Beauty of Positano and its people.
Twenty years ago after walking away from organized religion I needed a new way to express the Spiritual energy I’d always known but now had no language for. I needed time to decompress after nearly drowning and was surprised to find that what remained after I healed was the simple faith, the innocent belief and complete trust in God, that I knew as a child. When I was little it was as if I could see through ordinary reality to something profound and powerful behind it, that somehow created and sustained it. And it was at this time when I was 3 or 4 years old that I remember my beautiful Mother shaping within my sisters and I a concept of God. But until I was 5 or 6 and began dressing up, sitting in pews, and learning about the ‘us against them’ of good and evil, I was simply in awe of a Mystery. I didn’t understand it and didn’t need to, although now it began to have the word ‘God’ attached to it. All it took was a field of yellow flowers, or singing harmony with Mom to the radio from the back seat of our Dodge to fill me with the Joy of that Mystery. I could feel then that I was a part of something, included in it not separated from it like I would soon enough be taught.
If I ever did rebel against God, it was in those next twenty-five years squeezed into the mold of convention, willing myself to walk this narrow path, forcing myself to obey like a proper soldier, and admit I needed a savior. And in exchange, the peer pressure of salvation would be gone. Soon the waters of baptism covered me, and I left The Mystery behind, accepting the assurance that The Bible had been sent to reveal The Mystery. And I emerged emptied of Spiritual innocence, to be replaced by the fear and guilt that would be the bane of my existence for years to come.
So far Cindy’s planning has been flawless. The Internet is an amazing place. We landed in Naples, walked out the Escita (exit) from customs to face dozens of cardboard signs with names scribbled on them and eyes peering over the top. We searched for ours, found it, introduced ourselves to our driver Giovanni (who we would soon learn is married and has a two year old son Luigi), hopped in his brand new 4-door Mercedes sedan and were off to Positano. Whew! We were beat! Reaching Positano from Naples by car takes about an hour and change, passing Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii on our left then skirting the gorgeous bay of Naples on our right. We soon left the Naples coast and wound our way up and over the peninsula dropping down to the rocky and steep Amalfi coast to Positano and the stunning Mediterranean Sea.
Cindy had arranged via e-mail to meet the property manager Dominico at 5:30 p.m. We arrived at 5:15 and at precisely 5:30 a car pulled up and a nicely dressed man walked up and Giovanni introduced us to Dominico who walked us less than a hundred yards down a typical Positano winding narrow alleyway to our apartment. There we met Teresa the 65 year-old owner of the property who showed us around the apartment and invited us to her home for breakfast the next day. She lived another hundred yards down the same alleyway in a Pensione called the Casa Teresa. We sat at a table on our balcony overlooking the Mediterranean and the town of Praiano in the distance, received some last-minute instruction, paid for the apartment, said “Grazie, Ciao!” and we were alone. Finally! It was Thursday 6:30 p.m. local time but Friday 9:30 a.m. Salem time. We had been up for well over twenty-four hours and were running on empty. Jet-lag’s a bitch, but knowing that the best way to get over it is to get right into local time, we changed into shorts and sandals and headed out into the 85 degree Positano evening.
I had rediscovered the faith of my childhood, and knew I had more work to do because I was now a Man asking the very grown-up questions I’d denied myself all those years in the church. So I dove headlong into Buddhism, then Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Sufism (“Do something foolish like Noah, because it makes absolutely no difference what other people think of you”, Rumi), I love that! I began specifically seeking out the mystical branches of each ‘ism’ because they were rising above the dogmas and pushing the limits of the esoteric arts to find and verify Truth. I wasn’t looking for another religion to join. I was done with that. But I did find that discovering the common threads that seemed to run from one to another would begin to fill me with that Mysterious joy I knew as a child!
Then one day while doing some reading, Cindy and I discovered the amazing nineteenth century Bengali saint Sri Ramakrishna. He and his wife Sarada Devi lived and taught at the Kali temple complex northwest of Calcutta India, on the banks of the Ganges River. He believed in the unity of all religions saying, “ Religions are pearls with the thread of Truth holding them all together”. I knew then that the Joy I was feeling was what it felt like for me to know Truth, that elusive birthplace of creation that lies in the space between Adam and God. I was open to it, filled with it, afloat in a Heavenly dialog of wordless communion. I was Loving and being loved, outside of time, in the present moment in a field of possibility and a beautiful state of Grace. It seems to me that we can treat this space in two ways; 1) as the space where God and man meet in communion, or 2) like every religion throughout time, using the space to try and convince us we are separated from God. I choose the former. There is no separation for me. The Space is without us and within us, giving us life and allowing us to experience Grace. There has been enough damning separation. It’s time to put that concept behind us and begin living in the Space.
On our third morning in Positano, I jumped out of bed and couldn’t walk for the pain! You can’t take one step here without stepping up or stepping down. My shins and calves hurt so bad I wanted to curse. Actually I think I did. But after a minute of excruciating stretching, I found I could walk without expletives. So I filled our little moka pot with water and espresso and placed it on the stove, (Did I tell you how nice it was to have our own kitchen?), and walked to our little neighborhood grocery store to see what fresh fruit was available. Meanwhile Cindy was cutting up bread and fixing two bowls of to-die-for goat milk yogurt and honey. Breakfast is simple and light in Italy and their picked-ripe cantaloupe and strawberries reminded us of when we were kids.
Our apartment is in the old part of Positano, away from the busy streets and tourist shops. Breakfast on the balcony was the best because along with roosters, birds, dogs and cats, we could hear Italian mothers getting their children ready and off to school. Then there was the peaceful, still, azure Mediterranean Sea with boats coming and going inviting the imagination to journey beyond the horizon to the shores of North Africa. Magnificent!
Walking to the Spiaggia Grande (big beach) took twenty minutes once we found some shortcuts in twisting alleyways and down hundreds of steps. The beach (pebbles not sand) is lined with shops and outdoor restaurants that look out to a little pier with rental boats and a bay full of bobbing fishing boats. To get home from the beach we walked past the beautiful tile-domed millennium-old Duomo (Cathedral). Originally the Abbey of Santa Maria e San Vito, which since the 17th century has been The Parish Church of Positano, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. From there we walked up a labyrinth of shop-lined walkways to the main piazza and Fermata (bus) stop. The Interno Positano busses run like clockwork every 30 minutes, and for 1 euro you can ride as long as you wish, or to the stop of your choice. Smart to walk down and ride the bus up don’t you think?
Living in the Space requires the acceptance of the ‘Thread of Truth’ idea, which not only applies to religion but to everyone and everything. First I need to be conscious to make the effort. That’s the tough part. Usually I’m occupied with the antics of those two major control freaks, the mind and ego. But if, for example, while talking to someone, I remember the Space, my awareness expands beyond the mind and ego. My heart begins to open and whatever physical, mental or emotional stress I may have been feeling begins to fade. Next comes recognition, I know this Soul somehow. Then the dual conversation begins. While conversing verbally we begin a Spiritual conversation, encouraging and loving each other. All judgment is gone. I’m at once in ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality. Then from Heaven descends this extraordinary state of Grace. It’s where I belong. Try it; it will change your life. Don Miller in Blue Like Jazz admits he has trouble-accepting Grace. Don’t my friend. Accept Grace, it’s humbling, good for the Soul, and brings healing to the body.
This exercise can be applied in every situation you find yourself. Try it walking alone in the woods, or out in your garden. Try it while driving in traffic with all those people in their cars around you. Try it in all the situations you find yourself. My biggest struggle with it right now is at work. I’m a carpenter foreman up against scheduling deadlines, constantly decoding some architect’s intent, translating it into reality while finishing the job on time and under budget. It’s hard to get out into that rarified Spiritual air with everything else going on. But, I’m working on it.
When we were in Rome two years ago we took a day to tour Vatican City and its museums. Saint Peters square kind of takes your breath away. This huge elliptical Bernini design has a 4000 year-old Egyptian obelisk in the center and is surrounded by a colonnade of hundreds of huge columns drawing the eye to its central jewel, Saint Peters Cathedral. We entered Basilica de San Pietro and were immediately engulfed by the power and weighty history of the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. I can’t begin to express the size and splendor of the place. It’s like Las Vegas; amazing what man can do when money’s no object. But my desire was on the Sistine Chapel. To get to it we had to tour the Vatican Museums, with the Chapel its last stop. Museo Vaticano is simply overwhelming. It’s easy to get de-sensitized to the beauty of the place. But finally we entered the humble Cappella Sistina. I worked my way to the center of the crowded chapel, looked straight up and was blown away by the beauty above me! Michelangelo has outdone himself here. “La Creazione di Adamo”, ‘The Creation of Adam’. Spectacular! I don’t know what was on Michelangelo’s mind when he painted this but what I saw was me; a creation of God, a work in progress. God is in Heaven held by angels, leaning toward Adam, right arm and index finger completely outstretched- reaching. Then there’s Adam, newly created in time and space, lying on rocks propped up by his right arm and reaching out half-assed with his left toward God, elbow on knee and wrist and fingers limp. If he’d just stretch out his finger he could touch the hand of God. Come on Adam, it’s your turn; God’s making the effort.
Here’s my last journal entry in Positano; 8:15 p.m., May 23, 2006- “I’m sitting on our little balcony which seems so familiar now, in that frame of mind that moves from being here to leaving here. I’m finding myself playing back the tape instead of planning tomorrows adventure. Melancholy wonder is setting in. This trip is over, even though we’re still here. Tomorrow’s a moving day, not another day. I’m now looking forward to getting home, and looking backward to a wonderful time”.
Like all vacations this one has ended too soon. I’ll miss Positano with its domed-ceiling, whitewashed villas, narrow alleys, adorable children, obnoxious high-school girls, killer food, great wine and coffee, and kind-helpful old folks. I’ll miss the stunning vistas and the dreamy Mediterranean and the little altars built into walls everywhere we went. I’ll miss our helpful grocer and his mother, and Teresa and her husband of 50 years who patiently helped us with Italian as we helped them with English while emptying a bottle of Vino Rosso locale. But I’ll always carry with me the Spiritual connection we shared with those people and that place. We’ve left a little of ourselves at their house and brought back a little of them to ours.
Now this Adam is coming home. Cindy is sleeping silently beside me and the sun has been on the horizon for hours. It’s 77 degrees below zero outside at 37,000 feet and God’s Grace has descended again. And as Greenland shows off her pure-white majesty, I’m reminded that God is making the effort….
…. Now it’s my turn.

Contact me: Ransterman@comcast.net

toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrumer.com

Thoughts on traveling through life

2006-07-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Learning to let go- by Randy Johnson

2006-05-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

Randy Johnson
Learning to let go
With Toby Christensen and his unlikely instrument of change

Stubbornness can be such an enslaving tyranny. “If you want us to help, you have to let go and let us do our thing. We can’t help you otherwise”, they said. I knew they were right, but turning this tyranny into opportunity wouldn’t be easy for me. I was born a Gemini on the cusp of Taurus and thought I didn’t stand a chance. Thankfully I was wrong.

I was lying on a low and wonderfully comfortable bed of copper, crystals and blankets when Toby asked me what I wanted to work on. I had few expectations because I had never done anything like this before. We talked about a couple of concerns I had that I felt were hindering forward spiritual and physical progress, and I was anxious and excited to see what might unfold. He told me to relax, breathe deep and invite any inner teachers or guides I might have and ask for their help. He then stepped up on the bed with his back to me and his feet straddling my hips and began an intoxicating rhythm in ¾ time on his African Djembe drum. I’m a musician trained to listen. But soon I could no longer simply enjoy and analyze the masterful playing as it effortlessly slipped from ¾ to 2/4 to 4/4 time and then to a rhythm that I could no longer identify. And no wonder, because time itself was evolving into a mix of being and non-being that was sending me to another shore where one of my spiritual guides I had met years before stood patiently at dusk by his little boat with a welcoming lantern as if waiting for me.

I knew I had a choice. I could simply enjoy being in this state, with the beautiful drumming forcing out all other physical reality. Or, I could let go and open up and do the tough vulnerable work of trusting GOD and my teachers and begin the discipline necessary for lasting change. I knew what I needed to do, but as usual fear was encouraging the first choice. Suddenly two more of my teachers showed up.

A few years ago a wonderful African man told me there was a Native American in full feather headdress over my left shoulder that told him he was always with me, patiently waiting to help if I asked for it. I was encouraged to talk to him and ask how he could help. Then another time during an amazing guided meditation, I met another Spirit teacher who kept his face hidden under a hood but when embraced, filled me with such peace and Love that I felt I had been given a great gift even though no words were exchanged.
I’ve never known exactly what to make of these experiences. Had I just made them up in my over-active imagination, or did they really exist? At the moment it didn’t matter. I knew if I worked with them, and positive changes were the result, that was what was important.” Whatever works”.

So now all three were present encouraging me to let go. They needed me to acknowledge them and to ask for their help. They told me there were things they could help me with that I couldn’t do for myself. So I thanked them for being there and gave my permission. And so with Toby’s’ drumming the only thing still holding me to Earth, I dropped away and began to feel a buzzing energy in my chest centered in my heart chakra. I kept repeating like a mantra the issues I had come here to work on as this strange energy welled up inside until it felt like my chest would burst. Then it began to move.

Intuitively, Toby began a triple-time rhythm softly at first, then slowly playing louder and louder keeping the staccato going as the energy moved down to my pelvis where it built in intensity even more until with a whoosh, in an instant shot down my legs and out my feet. I then realized I was breathing out of my mouth in gasps with a huge smile on my face, even though tears were beginning to roll. By this time Toby had gone back to an earlier more subdued rhythm and I noticed that my hands were falling asleep. I lifted my arms and moved my hands outside Toby’s feet and began to feel the blood rushing back in when a new energy emerged.

I was crying now and still gasping for breath. Was I being healed of something? The space in and around the cells of my body welcomed the presence of this harmonious vibration. Energy in the heart chakra was now making its way up into my throat to my shoulders and down into my arms. I was throbbing all over as Toby began slowing down the rhythm and playing softer and softer until finally hitting one last authoritative thump.

My arms felt like they were full of marbles and each one was pulsating in time with every other one. Never have I experienced anything like this. Toby then stepped off the bed, and began playing his Native American hoop drum as he walked around me listening for the proper balance of my charkas through his drum. Then he was done.

I couldn’t move. He gently encouraged me to begin breathing deeply and to move my fingers and toes and slowly come back to normal consciousness. Finally I sat up, crossed my legs, put my face in my hands and sobbed, releasing great joy! I felt so good! But my arms continued to throb for ten more minutes or so as we talked about what had happened. Toby said I had really turned a corner and allowed myself to open up and could now begin to focus on the things I came there to work on. He said to give it time to manifest.

Toby Christensen is a master drummer and highly trained Shaman who, as he claims, doesn’t do the healing but uses the drumming to facilitate it. We heal ourselves as we allow our brain waves to entrain with his drumming, changing from alpha and beta wave patterns into theta which promotes relaxation and encourages creativity. In other words, his ‘Sound Attunement Therapy’ helps to create an energy shift so that all of our bodies (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) can find harmony through the proper balancing of our energy centers or Chakras. Once we’re in balance, our bodies feel free to do what they do best, HEAL. What a beautiful and unlikely instrument of change.

I didn’t know what changes might come over time, but I did know that it was impossible for my body to process so much energy without tangible change. And for the rest of the evening every cell in my body hummed harmoniously with the Joy that I believe is inherent in us all.

In the coming days as I meditated on the things he suggested I do, I was surprised to discover that my stubborn nature which made it real difficult to let go and accept help was breaking down. This was not one of the issues I went to Toby to work on. It was however, lo and behold, step one toward achieving success with those issues.

Stubbornness can be such an enslaving tyranny. But there’s a reason I was born a Gemini. I needed to shed some old karma I didn’t think was a problem. And I needed to see in my stars the opportunity to evolve into a helper, free and balanced, not locked in stone but resting in the space.

Thank you Toby for your exuberant energy and Love.

Swami Calls for an Up-Wising

2006-02-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

From: in2light@earthlink.net
Subject: Beyondananda
Date: February 16, 2006 2:47:52 AM PST
To: mark@in2light.com
Reply-To: mark@in2light.com

Swami Calls for an Up-Wising
The Evolution Has Begun!

By Swami Beyondananda

For years now, we've been hearing "shift happens," and
wondering when, where and how. Now finally, it looks
as if the shift is about to hit the fan. This is good
news for all those shift fans who've been wondering if
the new age will arrive before old age does. Of
course, if you're looking for signs in the news, you
won't find them. At least, not yet. The news might as
well be called the "olds," because the world still
seems stuck in greedlock, ruled by fossilized fools
fueled by fossil fuels. But I have been receiving
encouraging intelligence reports that say indeed,
humans are becoming more intelligent. Yes, people
everywhere are wising up. And that's great, because we
could sure use an up-wising!

The evolution has begun. But before we see changes in
the old needy-greedy, we humans must change our
consciousness -- and the first step is becoming
conscious of how unconscious we've been. As the saying
goes, the truth shall upset you free, and last year
saw lots of disillusionment. But what better to free
us from the far more dangerous condition of
illusionment? If we want to stop the abuse of power,
the first step is to disabuse ourselves. So, here's
some good news: Despite a massive media impropaganda
machine that feeds the public "babblum" (strained
bullshit made digestible for a simple child's mind),
more and more Americans are reading between the lyins'
and peering behind the Irony Curtain.

In 2005, Americans had to face the sad realization
that the Bush Administration's "pro-life" stance
appears to be limited to the unborn and the
brain-dead. Despite being panned by critics
everywhere, the Iraqi Horror Picture Show continued
its run, as thousands and thousands of born fetuses -
ours and theirs -- lost their right to life. While we
may or may not have saved face by staying there, we
have most definitely lost ass. And we've been assured
we'll be stuck in that morass until -- well, until
there's no more ass to lose. Meanwhile, more and more
Americans reached another sad conclusion: We're not in
Iraq to keep the peace, we're there to keep the
pieces.

The signs of up-wising are everywhere. Even the most
unpleasant stories are beginning to break through the
soundless barrier and defy the President's "don't ask,
don't tell" policy: "You promise not to ask us what
we're doing, and we promise not to tell you." Although
we've been inundated with "fear-gnomes" and ominously
warned we have to protect ourselves in this
dogma-eat-dogma world, a majority of Americans are no
longer comfortable with the notion that the only way
to defeat the "evil-doers" in the world is to out
evil-do them. Although our President has assured us
that "we don't torture," it is now common knowledge
that we simply send detainees to countries that do
torture when we want them to "testify under oaf."

As for those progressives who've been whining that the
President "never listens" to them, well it turns out
he's been listening all along. And thanks to the
so-called Patriot Act (which, I understand, is about
to be renamed the Eternal Insecurity Act), it looks
like he'll be able to listen in even more -- all in
the name of making us safe. But now even some
Republicans are beginning to see that there's a
difference between protection and the "protection
racket." And with the recent revelations about Tom
DeLay, Jack Abramoff and other gold collar criminals,
some of the more devout conservatives have come to
realize that the "family values" they voted for bear
an uncanny resemblance to Soprano Family values.

If there was any warm feeling in 2005, chalk it up to
climate change. Katrina hit, and in the government's
response we saw a future when at last all Americans
will be equal -- where everyone regardless of race or
creed will be treated like Black folks.

Alarming Policies Have Awakened Millions!

Fortunately this is the State of the Universe Address,
and from a universal perspective, things are humming
along quite nicely. It turns out that the Earth is the
talk of the Universe these days. In fact, the
odds-makers at the Intergalactic Enquirer say the odds
are actually in our favor: "We're betting on the human
race to reach critical mass before they get to
critical massacre." And we could beat the odds, if we
finally gave up our addiction to getting even and got
odd instead. It stands to reason. If each of us used
our unique oddness to improve the odds for everyone,
there would be no need for getting even.

Yes, the up-wising has begun, and intergalactic
observers are saying that we have none other than
George W. Bush to thank. How is that, you may ask?
Well, I am reminded of a story my guru Harry Cohen
Baba used to tell. A well-known minister died and
arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time as a
cab-driver from New York. The cabbie was ushered in,
but the clergyman was left waiting outside. After
waiting and waiting and waiting, he finally called
over the attending angel. "Excuse me, but I'm a
renowned minister. How come you let that cab-driver
in, and I'm left waiting out here?"
"Well," the angel said, "when you preached, everyone
slept. But when he drove, everyone prayed."

For millennia, spiritual teachers have been calling on
us to go for the highest common denominator, but we've
always seemed to end up with the lowest common
dominator instead. And now, George W. Bush has done
what preachers, teachers and other far-sighted
visionaries have failed to do up until now: His
policies have been so alarming, that he has awakened a
slumbering body politic that slept through all
previous alarms. Where others have failed, he has
people all across the world praying, "God help us!"
And instead of waiting for an intervention from above
-- after all, we cannot expect to be fed intervenously
forever -- people are beginning to help themselves,
and even more importantly, help each other.

Sure, there are still plenty of Not-Sees out there who
insist on not seeing that we humans are all in the
same boat. The good news is, more and more Americans
are getting that sinking feeling that there's only one
Earthship, and ignoring a leak because it's "on the
other side of the boat," is a mistake of titanic
proportions.

We Are the Leaders We've Been Waiting For

America, the world's only super-power, doesn't need a
revolution. We've already had one, thank you. What is
needed now -- and what has already begun -- is the
American Evolution where enough of us wake up and see
that those two political parties have been partying on
our dime, and we the people haven't been invited. Time
to go beyond choosing the lesser of two weasels. If we
want to evolve the dream of our Founding Fathers --
instead of devolve into the nightmare of Big Brother
-- we must become the leaders we've been waiting for.
I've said it before. The only force more powerful than
a super-power is a Super-Duper Power -- the power of
the people plus the power of love. And anyone who
doesn't believe we are a Super-Duper Power, well they
have been super-duped!

It's true, many people still feel that the affairs of
the world should be left to the bolder and badder
among us. But look what that leaves us with: Are you
satisfied choosing between Saddam Hussein and George
Who's-Not-Sane? Now I know those "God, guns and guts"
Old Testament Christians might have forgotten, but
Jesus did say that the meek shall inherit the earth.
In all undue immodesty, maybe it's time for us meek
folks to boldly step forth and accept our inheritance.

For just as 2000 years ago Jesus stood up to a class
that placed the rule of gold above the Golden Rule,
today we face the modern version of the Pharisees --
the Phallusees, I think they are called. They
cynically cloak themselves in religious robes, but the
only power they trust is the power of the stick. Well,
there's another old saying: It doesn't matter how big
your stick is, if you stick your stick where it
doesn't belong, you're stuck.

Another sign of the up-wising and coming evolution is
that people are growing dissatisfied with the
positionality of "my side vs. your side," and are
seeing the whole issue of sides from a new angle:
Maybe we're all on the same side. For example, this
argument between creationism and evolution is just
another way for dueling dualities to steal our energy.
I believe in both. I believe the Creator created us to
evolve, otherwise Jesus would have said, "Now don't do
a thing till I return." I have it on good authority
that the Creator is pulling for us: "Come on, you
children of God. Time to grow up and become adults of
God instead."

Time to Overgrow the System From the Grassroots Up

The time for revolution and overthrowing has past. Now
we need an evolution where we "overgrow" the current
dysfunctional system from the grassroots up. You are
probably familiar with the story of the Native
American grandfather who tells his grandson that there
are two wolves fighting inside all of us: The wolf of
fear and anger, and the wolf of love and peace.
"Which wolf will win?" asks the young boy.
"Whichever one we feed," replies the grandfather.

And so when people ask me to predict what will happen,
I tell them the only thing I can predict with
certainty is the uncertainty of any prediction. The
future's just too unpredictable these days. This is a
Universe of infinite possibilities, so it all depends
on which futures we invest in.

There is something far more empowerful than
predictions, and that is Tell-A-Vision. If you're fed
up with the current programming, my advice is turn off
your TV and tell a vision instead. That way, we will
have healing and functional visions to step into --
and that beats what we've been stepping into. So I
will tell my vision for 2006: This is the year of the
American Evolution, where all those who prefer the
Golden Rule to the rule of gold get past left and
right, and come front and center.

I see Americans of all political stripes, plaids and
polka dots (not to mention solids), choosing to face
the music and dance together. Sure, we'll have to
learn some new steps, but it's time for a new dance -
A-Bun-Dance. That is where we get up off our assets,
move our buns, and dance together in rhythm and flow.
And what better way to turn the funk into function,
and leave the junk at the junction?

I see us in a new reality show -- Extreme Planetary
Makeover -- where everyone can play and everyone can
win. Just think. Something more compelling than
reality TV ... it's called reality!

I know, I know. Only a crazy person would dare to
propose anything that sane. But maybe it's time to
declare the current institutionalized insanity
illegally insane, and set about building a sane asylum
big enough for all six and a half billion of us. As my
guru Harry Cohen Baba has said, "Life is like a good
deli. Even if something isn't on the menu, if enough
people order it they have to make it." So what kind of
new world order are we ordering up? Do we feed the
wolf of fear and buy into the "it's every man for
himself" story? Or do we nourish the wolf of love and
evolve into the "we're all in it together" story?

If we're going to be a Super-Duper Power, we have to
be super-duper powerful in activating the power of
love, and cultivating the power of joy. So laugh more.
Why not? We all know there's something funny going on.
The wall of lies cannot withstand the vibration of
laughter. All seriousness aside, only a farce field
that combines truth and laughter can bring down the
Irony Curtain once and for all.

Release the old story -- been there, done that -- and
speak the new story into the world. Dare to imagine
what we could be doing if we weren't spending so much
of our livelihood on weapons of deadlihood. Think
about it ... think tanks where they think about
something other than tanks. Young people living for
their country instead of dying for it. Health and
education fully funded, and the Air Force having to
run a bake sale so they can buy a new bomber.

Can we change the course of history? Can we shift our
karma into surpassing gear? I cannot say for sure, but
if we choose to give up that old Dodge and trade it in
for an Evolvo, that's a good first step. So ... let
the Evolution begin. We don't have to wait until the
first Big Shot is fired. If we create a powerful
enough field, the Big Shots will end up firing
themselves.

May the FARCE -- as always -- be with us.

(c) Copyright 2006 by Steve Bhaerman. All rights
reserved. Find out more about the Swami at
http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/

Mark Krueger
03 59832858 Australia Phone 'til March '06
mark@in2light.com
http://www.in2light.com
Offering consultations world wide by phone and in person.

SHAMANISM: An Opportunity to Connect with Our Ancient “Knowing”

2006-02-24T09:54:00.000-08:00

SHAMANISM: An Opportunity to Connect with Our Ancient “Knowing”
Kathy Schulz, PhD

The word shaman carries an ominous charge in our culture, shrouded in mystery and mystique. Why would I, or anyone, explore a practice far removed from my cultural orientation? How does it serve a technologically advanced society to enter into altered states of consciousness and explore non-ordinary reality? As modern society uncovers and pieces together “new” and exciting research in fields as diverse as bioenergetics, healing through prayer and quantum physics, we begin to understand the pure and powerful ancient wisdoms and practices of the past. It is these, our collective indigenous ancestors, the shamans and villagers of long ago, from whom we still have much to learn.

Shamanism is a traditional ancient practice rooted in indigenous cultures all over the world. It is a practical methodology requiring focus and discipline. Shamanism honors our connection to the natural world. It is in this connection that humility resides and it is through this connection that we begin to claim our wholeness, our health, and our joy. Shamanic methodology provides a framework for safe exploration as we go beyond the limitations of our ordinary reality and receive helpful information through direct communication with our Spirit Helpers.

Indigenous cultures are our models for spiritual consciousness, yet they are disappearing at an alarming rate. We are the technologically advanced culture, with resources that allow us to choose what survives and what doesn’t. We are allowing the indigenous wisdom and teachings to die with these cultures and, in so doing, we are losing the heartbeat of global spirituality.

Why shamanism? Because shamanism calls each one of us to reclaim our spiritual consciousness, the same consciousness imbued in the indigenous cultures that our planet is losing. Shamanism is about letting go of the New Age fanfare that goes along with connecting to Spirit, reclaiming our legacy, and reestablishing the natural abilities of our ancestors that we have forgotten.

Ancient cultures turned to the shamans of their villages for wisdom, healing and teaching of spiritual practices. I am a student who is ready and a teacher has appeared. His name is Toby Christensen. He is a humble and gifted healer who is dedicated to bring this ancient wisdom to us. Please take a moment to read more about his work at www.healingdrummer.com.

I am look forward to immersing myself in learning about the ways of my ancestors, not to call myself a shaman, but to explore that which I have forgotten. I know that my Spirit will shrivel if I retreat to the comfortable and numbing safety of familiarity. I am pulled to move toward spiritual refinement. I am driven to advocate for the cultures that are models for spirituality and connecting to Nature. And I am committed to preserve the traditions that hold the keys to healing and transformation for all of us. The guru is within. The teacher is before us. I want to remember who I Am.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

SHAMANISM IN CINCINNATI By Barbara Schacht

2006-02-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

It is said “when the student is ready the teacher will appear.” Cincinnati has drawn to it a teacher of shamanism, drumming, and ancient practices. The question is, why? Why here? Why now? Why shamanism?

The word shaman carries an ominous charge in our culture, shrouded in mystery and mystique. Why would I, or anyone, explore a practice far removed from my cultural orientation? How does it serve a technologically advanced society to enter into altered states of consciousness and explore non-ordinary reality?

I am new to Shamanic work. My background is in yoga and various healing arts modalities, and has been supported during my 15 years living in Cincinnati. In all the modalities I’ve encountered, I am left with one constant: I charge myself to be willing to be in “not-knowing.” This means I must be willing to listen deeply and to be open to moving toward wisdom and understanding through direct experience. This also is about my ability to be content in the presence of the discomfort and fear that can accompany new paradigms. These self-challenges are the underpinnings of all my life choices. I know that staying the same, retreating to the familiarity and safety of habitual patterns, limits my possibilities for spiritual growth. So, I ask myself, which teaching will best support my path? What will ultimately support my soul growth in the highest way? What will give me the tools that will allow me to move toward refinement and to embrace my gifts, my genius, my power, and allow me to then facilitate that for others?

Shamanism and traditional practices have appeared in my life. But, I am not a shaman. I am a spirit in a body, juggling my physical, mental, and emotional self while constantly working toward refinement and spiritual growth. All practices are tools to this end when I claim my own power, my own abilities and potential, without abdicating it to the technique or to the teacher. It’s not so much about which practice I embrace, it’s about the consciousness in which I embrace in the practice. So I ask, can I plant a flower without calling myself a gardener? Can I practice sun salute without labeling myself a yogi? Can I utilize a shamanic technique without identifying myself as a shaman?

So, again the question, “why shamanism?”

Much of my personal path has been magical. I recognize magical events as support from Spirit, guiding me toward that which helps me grow. Yoga and energy medicine were shown to me; they chose me before I knew enough to chose them. So it is with shamanic work. I’m just now beginning to appreciate the beauty of these ancient, time-tested practices. As I play with using the simple and basic techniques I’ve been shown, my Western mind remains in reverent awe of the magic, while another part of me has to acknowledge the practicality, efficiency, and broad applicability. And, perhaps most importantly, the techniques I have been shown provide infallible safety while supporting me in my journey to self-empowerment. And self-empowerment is essential to well being.

Shamanism is a traditional ancient practice rooted in indigenous cultures all over the world. It is a practical methodology requiring focus and discipline. Shamanism honors our connection to the natural world. It is in this connection that humility resides and it is through this connection that we begin to claim our wholeness, our health, and our joy. Shamanic methodology provides a framework for safe exploration as we go beyond the limitations of our ordinary reality and receive helpful information through direct communication with our Spirit Helpers.

An embodied teacher of shamanism and traditional ways is appearing. I am one of the many students who is “ready.” I choose my teachers carefully, knowing that I used to allow teachers to become my guru. I gave up my power in their presence. Having been a teacher, I recognize the seduction of being the “guru.” The ego likes the attention. A true guru takes no credit for the gifts of understanding their students receive. False gurus claim the power students relinquish. And we, in this culture, are so spiritually starved in the absence of traditional ways, that we cling to teachers as the source of our spiritual progress.

This is a teacher who doesn’t ask to be a guru, but rather, holds a beautiful space that invites us to stand in our own power and teaches practical techniques that show us how. He teaches from a place of experience, groundedness, wisdom, and love, sharing knowledge that belongs to no one and everyone. He walks his talk and invites all students who hunger for spiritual knowledge to do the same, through direct experience. His teaching is rooted in both Native American and African shamanic tradition, having studied with a Lakota Chief for five years as well as with the Dagara people of Ghana. These are cultures and peoples who embrace shamanic practices as an inherent part of the way they live, yet don’t refer to themselves as shamans. It’s simply a way of life. They readily access non-ordinary reality to get helpful information for every aspect of life, including for healing purposes. They do everything in the context of respect for Spirit, evident in the way they honor themselves and each member of their communities. Their rituals and ceremonies are powerful outward expressions of their spiritual beauty. They live what we, as a technologically advanced society have forgotten; they live in beauty.

Spiritual hunger is a universal phenomena, evident in all cultures and all religions, and is propagating a plethora of New Age practices. We call ourselves “healers,” collecting titles, techniques, and teachers from various methodologies. But where is our consciousness?

Indigenous cultures are our models for spiritual consciousness, yet they are disappearing at an alarming rate. We are the technologically advanced culture, with resources that allow us to choose what survives and what doesn’t. We are allowing the indigenous wisdom and teachings to die with these cultures and, in so doing, we are losing the heartbeat of global spirituality.

Why shamanism? Because shamanism calls each one of us to reclaim our spiritual consciousness, the same consciousness imbued in the indigenous cultures that our planet is losing. Shamanism is about letting go of the New Age fanfare that goes along with connecting to Spirit, reclaiming our legacy, and reestablishing the natural abilities of our ancestors that we have forgotten. Is it frightening to explore practices outside our cultural orientation, stand in our own power, and grow beyond our embodied teachers? Yes, for many of us, it’s frightening. Is it necessary? No, we have free will. We can choose to remain just as we are, individually, as a culture, and as a global people. Can I stay the same? Absolutely not.

My Spirit will shrivel if I retreat to the comfortable and numbing safety of familiarity. I am driven to move toward spiritual refinement. I am driven to advocate for the cultures that are models for spirituality and connecting to Nature. And I am driven to preserve the traditions that hold the keys to healing and transformation for all of us.

I am a student who is ready and a teacher is appearing. I look forward to immersing myself in learning about the ways of my ancestors, not to call myself a shaman, but to explore that which I have forgotten. The guru is within. I want to remember who I Am.

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

WORKING WITH OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS

2005-12-27T23:07:00.000-08:00

Testimonial from Spokane, Washington

My horse hadn't been moving quite right for a while, and that along with on and off swelling in one his legs caused me to call the vet. The vet gave his lameness a 4 out of 5 on the severity scale. Alexandre had to be put in a stall for 6 weeks, only walking 30 minutes a day. After the 6 weeks were up, the work load gradually began increasing, but the swelling in his leg never completely dissappeared. After 2 months, he was lame again. Same diagnosis, but this time we did X-Rays and an Ultrasound. Nothing showed up. Back to the 30 minute walk a day.

For the next 6-8 months, Alexandre's leg would swell up often, but he stayed sound. I was riding regularly, getting ready for the summer horse shows. Then disaster struck! For the third time, my horse's leg was swollen and he was limping. No one could find anything structurally wrong. He had the best vets and the best horseshoers in the state trying to help him. Ice, heat, massage, chiropractic, special shoes... nothing worked.

Enter Toby. I asked Toby if he could look at my horse during my own drumming session. Just to see if he could find anything wrong. Toby saw an energy band running up over his shoulders that was out of place, so he fixed it. It was raining that day, but we went to the barn anyway because Toby loves horses so much he just couldn't keep himself away. The swelling in my horse's leg was completely gone. Not just a little gone, but completely gone and we found Alexandre running and jumping around his paddock. As I examined him, I could feel all of the bones and tendons for the first time in over a year.

Alexandre has been doing great ever since. I have Toby do a refresher session every now and then to keep Alexandre in tip-top shape. If Toby hadn't been there to help, I don't think I would have ever been able to ride or show my wonderful friend again.

Thank you!

Megan

Contact Toby
toby@healingdrummer.com
360.910.3262
www.healingdrummer.com

Contact Toby
toby@healingdrummer.com
360.910.3262
www.healingdrummer.com

DISTANCE / REMOTE SHAMANIC DRUM HEALING

2005-12-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

Remote Shamanic Drum Healing is a powerful, technique that was influenced by the development of Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute for our government over 20 years ago. When Toby Christensen does Remote Shamanic Drum Healing he views an object, a person or an event as if they are actually there. Toby can see and hear the event or person even if it's 10,000 miles away, or in the past! Remote Shamanic Drum Healing can be used for personal growth, healing, spiritual development and countless other intentions. When used for medical issues can give extremely accurate diagnoses and assessment that often rivals an MRI. The detailed accuracy and specificity of this technique is sometimes staggering!

Remote healing is an energy-intensive discipline, and step-by-step procedure, that takes about an hour to do. Because of the unparalleled accuracy and specificity of Remote Shamanic Drum Healing, it is not an exaggeration that it is one of Toby’s greatest tools and greatest contributions to the planet. Toby Christensen is truly a pioneer and explorer of new worlds and new frontiers. To request a session please fill out the form below or call Toby at 360.910.3262.
Contact Toby
toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

Contact Toby
toby@healingdrummer.com
www.healingdrummer.com

THANKS!

2005-11-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

I have recieved many good coments and very few of he udesirables. Thank you all for your support!
Toby

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" Albert Einstein

W. Tobias Christensen
phone: 360.910.3262
email: toby@healingdrummer.com
web: www.healingdrummer.com

SPAMMERS AND MY BLOG

2005-10-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

SPAMMERS AND MY BLOG

OK, I want to let you all know that there are a bunch of freeloading, unethical, cheats that are spamming my blog. I in NO WAY support “New Testament”, “Anxiety Disorder”, anything from “Orendon”. It really makes me upset when I take the time to provide a forum to support drumming and sound healing and these people without my permission load links to their websites to scam you with some MLM products. If I endorse a product or person I will whole heartedly let you know. If you see a comment with a link and it is not referenced in my article, know that this is one of the freeloading spammers and do not give them the courtesy of a click!

Blessings,
Toby

www.healingdrummer.com
toby@healingdrummer.com

DRUM FOR PEACE TODAY

2005-10-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Drum for peace today. As I watch the news early this morning I see things that break my heart. It is so important to bring healing rhythm to the world. Take a moment and drum, drum for love, drum for healing.
Blessings,
Toby

www.healingdrummer.com
e-mail: Toby@healingdrummer.com

COMMUNITY THE HEALING DRUM

2005-10-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am using mine new voice recognition software, so we’ll see how much editing I need to do.

I had lunch with a good friend today then the subject to the community came up. As we talked she’s fully store for concerns and experiences with community leaders and teachers. “ how is it, that if a teacher has and alcohol problem we in place them, we gather around and find ways to help. But when a teacher is inappropriate with a client, particularly if it is a male teacher and a female client, while they do we shun the teacher?”

This is a very good topic. I have get involved in many communities. Many have been very helpful then again then there have been many painful lessons. No lesson has been more painful then feeling betrayed by a teacher. This has happened on two locations and the lessons have been profound. It was not until I was involved as a primary teacher in a community that I understood pressure then the looking glass that my teachers or under. As my friend and I talked we discussed the possibility that community in the way that we see it Africa or in the rain forests of South America may not be possible here in the West. Indigenous tribes are held together by necessity, by then need to survive. In the West we have the luxury plenty. This can sometimes separate us from true community. In the indigenous context any action taken by a tribal member if it reveals the malady is the malady of the village. In the African tradition it is said that the ach of one of persons to ach of the whole village. Here in America we are taught that people are disposable. Teachers, the village members, and friends. This is a very sad teaching.

It is my desire to see true community form in our world in a way that helps and supports the healing of all people no matter what to their difficulty. In mind teachings and in my drumming I strive to unify and synchronize the rhythm of all people. I drum to heal the person’s body, I drum to heal the village, I’d drum to heal the planet. In order to bring healing we must embrace the pleasant and the unpleasant in all people. We must avoided judging. If we are going to bring healing to the world, we must look to find the Good in our fellow brothers and sisters. Community this very important let us drum to bring healing to our community. Bring your healing drum to the world to help. Play your drum with power. Pay your drum for peace, and play your drum for community.

For more information go to www.healingdrummer.com or e-mail toby@healingdrummer.com

I like my new voice recognition software very nice very few errors!!

THE DRUM

2005-10-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

The Drum has a place in the lives of many people throughout the world. It can manifest energy or represent gods. The Drum holds ancient energy, which beckons to the soul and calls for indigenous remembrance. The Menomini, Native American from Wisconsin, believe the Drum is a strong force in the world that should always be treated with great respect.

“The drum (te-we-hekan) is the most sacred object in the Drum Dance powwow for a variety of reasons. It is the most important material embodiment of power. It is believed that the Great Spirit, and all the good spirits he created, put some of their power into the original Drum given to the Sioux women who believed to have introduced the

Ritual to the Menomini” (Slotkin 1975:35).

The Dobe/hoansi are a hunter and gathering society in middle Africa. These people eat the bounty of the land and live in groups of twenty to thirty people. They practice a form of drumming and dancing to harness their energies. “Women dance and enter trances, and men play a supporting role, beating complex rhythms on the long drum that is the central symbol of the dance.” (Richard B Lee. 1993:119-120). In this culture, the drumbeats allow the energy or nu/m within the dancer to rise. An interesting fact is that the drummers of tradition are the women. Recently, a dance and particular drum beat called the Giraffe dance has begun. This dance involves women and some men to enter trance through dancing. Medicine men and women of the bands perform these ceremonies. Many of the participants in this ritual are of varying levels of experience. Participating aids in exposing beginners to their personal nu/m while surrounded by experienced people or for others to learn to control their personal nu/m (energy). Often overwhelmed by the intense trance state, individual may collapse. Others around will care for the individual by freshening them up and helping them to regain a level of recognition where they can either rejoin the ritual or participate in any way they desire. The ceremonial energy is used to summon the healing needed to handle illnesses that inflict the Dobe people. Through additional methods, such as hands on and vocal exclamation, the energy of the healers are shared with the sick of the tribe.

The rhythmic energy created by drumming often has a meditative response on individuals listening. As if swept into oneself, the comfortable sound of the drumbeat opens the minds eye to the divinity within. “Nature, in fact, is such a complex organism that only the intelligence of Spirit can manage it” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:66). The Dagara people of Burkina Faso, West Africa, are well known for their spiritual practice. They believe that if there is a problem with the physical, one must look to the spiritual for a solution. “That is, in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that is can be comfortable. Certain healing practices, such as this one, involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes ‘irritated’ at the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:262).

The ceremonies of the Dagara people often involve the people of the community, as well as the spiritual leaders, and may also utilize physical representations of elements. They feel that the Spirit is fused with the physical form and that addressing one is addressing both. When addressing the physical the five elements (fire, water, earth, mineral, and nature) correspond with particular areas of the body.

The elements also adhere to the behavior of an individual. Fire associates with the heart and behaviorally tends to have passion and vitality. Water associates with the blood and behaviorally tends to seek peace and harmony. Mineral associates with the skeletal structure, in particular the spine, and behaviorally tends to be the communicator of ancestral, indigenous and ordinary ideals. Nature associates with the lungs and breath and behaviorally encourages easy transformation or change. Earth associates with the stomach and behaviorally tends to be the hub of the wheel providing nurturing and the basic resources that sustain life. The Dagara have particular ceremonies that relate to the five elements.

Often drumming, dancing and singing accompany the ceremony. The presence of the community often provides security and support to the ceremony whether it is being held for an individual or for any other reason. The structure and activities included can vary depending on the elements called upon. To the Dagara people the elements are a vital part of our existence. When healing is needed one must seek the help of the elements and the spiritual leaders of their communities.

One must seek to create a balanced energy in sinc with nature and with Spirit and to create a healthy home for the personal spirit. Only then can we tune in to the divine energy around us and begin our harmonic journey. Toby Christensen’s Sound Attunement Therapy (SAT) builds the bridge between the spirit and the individual to aid in the healing of the self.

To learn more about sound healing and the power of the drum go to www.healingdrummer.com or contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com

What is Toby doing now???

2005-10-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

SEPTEMBER 9th - 11th FREDERICK MD - Earth Ritual with Sobonfu Some Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 12th -18th BOSTON MASS Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 19th -22nd FREDERICKSBURG VIRGINIA - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Kathy Sampeck at kathleen.sampeck@verizon.net or (540) 720-1024

SEPTEMBER 23rd - 30th LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 20th - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - An Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 22nd - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Level II Shamanic Training Workshop Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 27th - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Basic Level Shamanic Training Workshop Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

HEALINGDRUMMER OCTOBER 2005 SCHEDULE

OCTOBER 6th- 9th SPOKANE WASHINGTON - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Dr. Elizabeth Hesse at drhessedc@aol.com or 509.927-7155 or sueferney@comcast.net" or 509-466-1439

OCTOBER 10th PORTLAND OREGON - Sellwood Spirit Feathers - Spirit Power Drumming Workshop - Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262 for directions go to www.spiritfeathers.net

OCTOBER 19th - 22nd SEATTLE WASHINGTON Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Tina Swanson at TINA.SWANSON@wellsfargo.com or (206) 799-3415

OCTOBER 22ND SEATTLE WASHINGTON - EAST WEST BOOK STORE an Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262

OCTOBER 23rd SEATTLE WASHINGTON - EAST WEST BOOK STORE Sound Healing Workshop With Toby Christensen Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262

OCTOBER 25th - 29th CINCINNATI OHIO
Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions

Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

Sorry, all sessions fully booked

OCTOBER 27th CINCINNATI OHIO
An Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen

Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

This evening workshop is a great way to connect to the Power of "Sound Attunement Therapy" (SAT) The focus of the evening is the removal of obstacles that are preventing you from creating the life you want and enhancing the energy that will bring in the success you desire.

Time 7 PM - 9:30 PM

Cost $25

OCTOBER 29th CINCINNATI OHIO
"Sound Healing I" All Day Drum Healing workshop With Toby Christensen

Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

Sound Healing I

This one-day workshop is a hands on, experiential workshop where the participants will be taught basic drumming techniques to induce healing in the body, mind and spirit. They will also be taught how to use tuning forks, vocal toning and other sound generating devices to move energy. The first part of the day is focused on learning the techniques of each tool we will use, and the second part of the day is spent practicing supervised healings.

Time 10 AM - 4 PM

Cost $95

HEALINGDRUMMER NOVEMBER 2005 SCHEDULE

NOVEMBER 1st CINCINNATI OHIO
Contact Barbara Schachtat bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

Empowering The Community

Toby will be leaving Wednesday, so Tuesday November 1st we are having a night of "Empowering The Community" till Toby returns. This will be a fun evening with lots of drumming, dancing and healing. In thanks to all of you who have supported Toby's work here in the Cincinnati area, we would like to offer a 50% discount to anyone who attended a workshop or had a private session with Toby. Bring your drums rattles, shakers, dancing feet, and friends to this"Empowering The Community" event!

Time 7PM - 9PM

Cost $20 (*$10 for anyone who attended the Saturday workshop or had a private session. See Below)

Location: Church of the New Jerusalem
845 Congress Ave
Glendale, OH 45246

*Continuing Students Click Here

NOVEMBER 9th - 14th NORTHFIELD VERMONT Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Marilee Demaras at mademaras@tds.net" or 802-485-7383

NOVEMBER 12th and 13th NORTHFIELD VERMONT
"Drumming The Wheel of Power" Workshop With Toby Christensen

In this two day workshop, "Drumming The Wheel of Power" learn about West African Shamanism and the sacred medicine wheel. Discover the power of the drum and connecting to the elemental powers as taught by the elders of the Dagara People of Burkina Faso. Contact Marilee Demaras at mademaras@tds.net" or 802-485-7383

Time 10 AM - 4 PM

Cost $150

NOVEMBER 15th-21st WATERFORD / NEW LONDON CONNECTICUT
Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions With Toby Christensen

Cost $90

Contact Barbara Schachtat bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

After you sign up and pay for your private session online, please call the contact person listed to BOOK THE TIME of your appointment.

NOVEMBER 17th NEW LONDON CONNECTICUT
An Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen

Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

This evening workshop is a great way to connect to the Power of "Sound Attunement Therapy" (SAT) The focus of the evening is the removal of obstacles that are preventing you from creating the life you want and enhancing the energy that will bring in the success you desire.

Time 7 PM - 9:30 PM

Cost $25

NOVEMBER 19th NEW LONDON CONNECTICUT
"Sound Healing I" All Day Drum Healing workshop With Toby Christensen

Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

Sound Healing I

This one-day workshop is a hands on, experiential workshop where the participants will be taught basic drumming techniques to induce healing in the body, mind and spirit. They will also be taught how to use tuning forks, vocal toning and other sound generating devices to move energy. The first part of the day is focused on learning the techniques of each tool we will use, and the second part of the day is spent practicing supervised healings.

Time 10 AM - 4 PM

Cost $95

Some dates on this schedule are tentative and based on participant interest. Please contact the person listed to inquire about each event.

Toby Christensen and www.healingdrummer.com

2005-10-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

In addition to his work with groups and public speaking Toby Christensen is a very gifted healer in his private practice. He has a extensive background in healing arts, having studied from several cosmologies. Toby has advanced training in Reiki, Core Shamanism, African and Native American healing modalities. This varied background has influenced the following systems and technique used with powerful effectiveness in his private practice. Toby has an office in Portland Oregon but is able to perform the following treatments wherever he travels.

Sound Attunement Therapy

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony. Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer. Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety. Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms.

Shamanism

The word "shaman" originates in Siberia with the Tungus People. In the original Tungus language the word shaman refers to a person who makes journeys to non-ordinary reality in an altered state of consciousness. Although the term is from Siberia, the practice of shamanism has existed in all parts of the world throughout history. After years of extensive research, Mircea Eliade, in his book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, concluded that shamanism underlays all the other spiritual traditions on the planet, and that the most distinctive feature of shamanism-but by no means the only one-was the journey to other worlds in an altered state of consciousness. Shamans are often called "see-ers" (seers), or "people who know", because they are involved in a system of knowledge based on firsthand experience. Shamanism is not a belief system. It's based on personal experiments conducted to heal, to get information, or do other things. In fact, if shamans don't get results, they will no longer be used by people in their tribe. People ask me, "How do you know if somebody's a shaman?" I say, "It's simple. Do they journey to other worlds? And do they perform miracles?"

Toby Christensen is skilled in many aspects of both Native American and African Shamanism and has been taught personally from indigenous teachers. This hands on teaching and authentic experience are what differentiates Toby from other practitioners. Knowing what process to apply and how to apply it is the benefit of many years of training and experience. Please refer to the “TESTIMONIAL” page on this site to read about the miracles that have occurred.

Soul Retrieval

Soul Retrieval is the process of restoring personal power lost through traumatic episode. It is a Shamanic understanding that part of our essential life-energy can and does split off and resides in non-ordinary reality. In the practice of Soul Retrieval this life-energy is referred to as a” Soul Part”. A Soul Part moves from ones being into non-ordinary reality to help an individual survive a situation that would otherwise be unbearable. Problems occur when a Soul Part does not know how to return, or does not know it is yet safe to return, so it waits or is lost outside of time. To remedy this condition, Toby Christensen, in an altered state of consciousness known as the “Shamanic Journey”, enters non-ordinary reality and journeys to the lost soul parts. After finding the client’s soul parts, they are returned to restore the health and well-being of the person. Toby has helped many people regain power through the process of Soul Retrieval. Another aspect of Soul Retrieval that has been profoundly empowering is the return of “Spiritual Gifts” from past time. These items very in many ways but have been very beneficial in helping people find or enhance their life’s purpose. This procedure is a very empowering process and is recommended for everyone.

Work With The Dead And The Dying

From the shamanic perspective, physical death is not the end, but merely a transition from this world to the next. People who know they are dying can take advantage of their foreknowledge by learning to journey to the other side before they die. These journeys help remove a person’s fear of death and the unknown. Often they meet and talk with relatives or friends who have already crossed over and are waiting to welcome them home. In the case of a death that is sudden or unexpected, like an accident, or heart attack people may not even realize that they are dead. They can be stuck in this reality and may not be able to cross over, for that reason. These disembodied spirits are generally referred to as ghosts or disincarnate spirits. As a shaman, Toby remedies these situations, and works closely with surviving family members and friends who may be “holding on” to the spirit of the deceased due to their feelings of grief and loss. Much of the work Toby does involves helping family and friends release the person who has died by performing special rituals or ceremonies. These practices help relieve the pain and grief of the survivors by making them a vital part of the process of their loved ones transition.

For more information on the effects of Sound Attunement Therapy and Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration check out the “Testimonials” section on this site or contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
posted by Toby Christensen at 7:46 PM 0 comments
Sunday, September 18, 2005

WHO IS TOBY CHRISTENSEN?????
Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, an in-demand Motivational Speaker, Workshop Facilitator, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

For more information contact Toby Christensen @ www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com
posted by Toby Christensen at 7:11 PM 0 comments
Thursday, September 08, 2005

THE GRIEF SONG
A dear sister asked for the words and stry of the Greif Song so here it is.
Here are the words to the song.
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya

The song is about a man who was off hunting. As he kept an eye on his village he saw a storm approaching. The storm was huge! So he began to head back to help his people brace for it. When he arrived at his village the deluge had already begun and his village was destroyed. As he looked at the once people filled streets her could only see a raging river weeping everything that he loves away. In the muddy water he saw arms and hands reaching out to be plucked from the muddy water. He began to reach for those he could and pull them to safety. But alas for every one he saved 20 or 30 of his loved ones were swept away. Overcome by grief he began top sing the lament, “Coo La Ya”

Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya

Blessings,
Toby Christensen aka Tobias

www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen aka Tobias - toby@healingdrummer.com
posted by Toby Christensen at 8:58 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, September 06, 2005

TESTIMONIALS
When I first started seeing Toby, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had no physical ailments, but something drew me to him. I am a women who had experienced sexual abuse in my life, physical and emotional abuse, and had multiple trust issues. Toby made it clear I was in charge, he works with my boundaries, and his guides (and mine) helped me to know that I could trust him. By the end of that first session with Toby, I was certain I could trust him and I would be seeing a lot more of him.

I have committed myself to my evolution; to growing spiritually, healing past emotional wounds, healing unseen physical ailments, and basically whatever the Divine wants me to do. I have been able to bookmark my personal growth by my monthly sessions with Toby. I have grown by leaps and bounds, the wounds that were once painful are now healed. We are each our own healer, Toby creates the safest of places for me to do my healing. In that safe place, the comforting sounds of the drum work their magic.

I have recommended to my closest of friends and total strangers the wonderful healing abilities that Toby Christensen provides. I now recommend to you that if you are reading this, odds are your spirit guides would like you to consider booking a session with Toby.

Adele

Though Toby never touches your body save with the waves of sound emanating from his drum, the sensation is extremely physical. The drumbeat seems to paralyze, then liquefy, then vaporize your flesh. And then it melts your bones. Toby carries around a sheaf of research studies on the healing properties of sound, and drumming in particular, especially for people suffering from chronic illnesses, but the proof is in the experience, as you feel the song of the djembe literally calling your body’s cells to fall in step with the heartbeat of the universe.

(Hillary Johnson, LA Times).

On reflection, my first SAT session was more a beautiful, spiritual, profound universal love experience. It felt like angels were around me. And I was filled with beauty and felt such peace and gratitude. It affected me so deeply that when I was explaining it to a dear friend and another of her male friends, the tears welled up inside me; I choked with emotion, and began to cry. Gentle, Powerful Healing. It was amazing. My second SAT was MY, Oh MY, Oh MY.....!!!!

V.R. LA California

oby, I know this might sound extreme, but I feel you helped save my life. After two major surgeries in three weeks with many medical complications and several near death experiences I wasn’t sure if I was meant to stay earth bound or go to the spirit side. I was caught not knowing or caring about my faith.

…I resisted your offer of help, but you did not give up on me, you made a house call.

After the drum healing I felt grounded, centered, and more focused. There was an immediate shift in my energy. Since that time I have continued to use your gift of drum healing to keep me on track, and continue with my return to health. I truly honor your gifts and abilities. To say “thank you” is not enough but I shall say again THANK YOU.

Blessings and Love,
M. Reilly, RN

More Testimonials available at www.healingdrummer.com
posted by Toby Christensen at 9:51 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN
SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN

Sound has been used effectively by many of the world’s spiritual traditions to alter consciousness or heal the body. Mantras, prayers, and chants all generate a pattern of energy that calms the mind and rebalances the body. Studies show that repetitive sound transforms the alpha and beta wave patterns in the brain into theta. The theta brain wave pattern is conducive to relaxation and has been linked to a sense of heightened creativity. Sound has also been used as an effective tool for opening the body’s various energy meridians and charkas. As Margo Anand observes:

Just as the resonance of one high, operatic note can break a crystal glass, and the right words can open a mind or heart, the right sound can open your charkas. The word chakra means “vortex, center, or resonance”. If we direct a sound that resonates into the center of a chakra, it can open like a flower. Every mystery school from ancient times to the present uses sound for these purposes (1998:237)

Promoting health by keeping the energy meridians and charkas open and clear in an important feature of East Indian and Oriental medicine. Both approaches envision the body as a bio-energetic network of meridians interconnected throughout the body and through the major organs. The meridians provide structural and patterned information to the cells of the body during growth and development from conception to adulthood. Medical treatment involves identifying the source and location of any blocks in this system that are impeding healthy energy flow and then removing them. “The acupuncture meridians are a type of biocircuitry network that supplies life energy to the different organs of the body. The meridians have surface points, known as acupuncture points, that are like energetic pores” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Stimulation of these key points with needles—or sound—can help release blocks and promote healing. Sound Attunement Therapy uses both the hoop drum and the West African drum called a “djembe” to induce sound stimulation to these points to promote healing.

As these brief illustrations show, sound has a profound effect upon the physiology and emotions.

For more information on the effects of Sound Attunement Therapy and Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration check out the “Testimonials” section on www.healingdrummer.com or contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com
posted by Toby Christensen at 8:34 AM 1 comments
Tuesday, August 23, 2005

SHAMANIC DRUM HEALING
SHAMANIC DRUM HEALING

A question has come up that I think is comment worthy. What is the difference between a regular drum healing or Sound Attunement Therapy treatment and a Shamanic Drum Treatment? Well supporting “The Way of the Shaman” and the Foundation For Shamanic Studies I would say that a Shamanic Drum Healing and a Sound Attunement Therapy treatment are similar in that the Shamanic Journey is involved in both the Shamanic Drum Healing and a Sound Attunement Therapy treatment. There are many different types of Shamanic Drum Healing. Some use the hoop drum, some use the djembe drum, others use shaman rattles others use shaman rattles with drums. As long as the shamanic journey is involved in the treatment I would say that it is a Shamanic Drum Healing. That is assuming healing takes place.

There are many ways sound and rhythm can be used to promote healing and change of all kinds. Pleas check out the Articles section at www.healingdrummer.com and feel free to email me toby@healingdrummer.com.
posted by Toby Christensen at 3:01 PM 1 comments
Monday, August 22, 2005

CHANGING ENERGY
This is a great discription of sound attunement therapy:
The rhythmic energy created by drumming often has a meditative response on individuals listening. As if swept into oneself, the comfortable sound of the drumbeat opens the minds eye to the divinity within. “Nature, in fact, is such a complex organism that only the intelligence of Spirit can manage it” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:66). The Dagara people of Burkina Faso, West Africa, are well known for their spiritual practice. They believe that if there is a problem with the physical, one must look to the spiritual for a solution. “That is, in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that is can be comfortable. Certain healing practices, such as this one, involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes ‘irritated’ at the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:262).

For more information contact Toby Christensen @ www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com

TOBY’S SCHEDULE

2005-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

TOBY’S SCHEDULE

HEALINGDRUMMER AUGUST 2005 SCHEDULE

AUGUST 18th 22nd LEXINGTON KENTUCKY Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions and Workshops. Schedule TBA Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

AUGUST 24th PORTLAND OREGON - Sellwood Spirit Feathers Spirit Power Drumming Workshop - Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262 for directions go to
Directions to Spirit Feathers

HEALINGDRUMMER SEPT 2005 SCHEDULE

SEPTEMBER 9th - 11th FREDERICK MD - Earth Ritual with Sobonfu Some Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 12th -18th BOSTON MASS Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 19th -22nd FREDERICKSBURG VIRGINIA - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Kathy Sampeck at kathleen.sampeck@verizon.net or (540) 720-1024

SEPTEMBER 23rd - 30th LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 20th - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - An Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 22nd - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Level II Shamanic Training Workshop Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

SEPTEMBER 27th - LEESBURG VIRGINIA - Basic Level Shamanic Training Workshop Contact Susan Hough at susan@healingdrummer.com or 703.505.5152

HEALINGDRUMMER OCTOBER 2005 SCHEDULE

OCTOBER 6th- 9th SPOKANE WASHINGTON - Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Dr. Elizabeth Hesse at drhessedc@aol.com or 509.927-7155 or sueferney@comcast.net" or 509-466-1439

OCTOBER 10th PORTLAND OREGON - Sellwood Spirit Feathers - Spirit Power Drumming Workshop - Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262 for directions go to www.spiritfeathers.net

OCTOBER 19th - 22nd SEATTLE WASHINGTON Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Tina Swanson at TINA.SWANSON@wellsfargo.com or (206) 799-3415

OCTOBER 22ND SEATTLE WASHINGTON - EAST WEST BOOK STORE an Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262

OCTOBER 23rd SEATTLE WASHINGTON - EAST WEST BOOK STORE Sound Healing Workshop With Toby Christensen Contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262

OCTOBER 25th - 29th CINCINNATI OHIO Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742

OCTOBER 27th CINCINNATI OHIO - An Evening of Sound Healing With Toby Christensen Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742
This evening workshop is a great way to connect to the Power of "Sound Attunement Therapy" (SAT) The focus of the evening is the removal of obstacles that are preventing you from creating the life you want and enhancing the energy that will bring in the success you desire.
Time 7 PM - 9:30 PM
Cost $25

OCTOBER 29th CINCINNATI OHIO - "Sound Healing I" All Day Drum Healing workshop With Toby Christensen Contact Barbara Schacht at bschacht1@cinci.rr.com or (513) 233-7742
Sound Healing I

This one-day workshop is a hands on, experiential workshop where the participants will be taught basic drumming techniques to induce healing in the body, mind and spirit. They will also be taught how to use tuning forks, vocal toning and other sound generating devices to move energy. The first part of the day is focused on learning the techniques of each tool we will use, and the second part of the day is spent practicing supervised healings.
Time 10 AM - 4 PM
Cost $95

OCTOBER 30th - NOVEMBER 2nd COLUMBUS OHIO Sound Attunement Therapy Individual Sessions Contact Dena Campbell at dz_thakathi@hotmail.com or 937.935.3288 or Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com or 360.910.3262
Some dates on this schedule are tentative and based on participant interest. Please contact the person listed to inquire about each event.

We are working on bringing Toby to the following areas in 2005 Ð Dates will be announced soon Ð NYC, Boston MA, Lexington KY, Phoenix AZ, Sedona AZ, Seattle WA. San Francisco CA. And Los Cabos Mexico

I hope you all take advantage of these powerful and transforming events

Blessings to you all,

Toby

DRUMMING IN THE QUANTUM REALM

2005-09-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

“The Sound Of The Drum Is The Tuning Of The Soul” - Sobonfu Some

For most of us, sound is a constant part of our lives. Sounds may very in terms of length, frequency, and intensity. But it still affects us. Some sounds inspire or uplift us, such as listening to a great symphony, a powerful rhythm, or a soulful gospel hymn. Other sounds may create anxiety or discomfort; the sound of someone yelling in anger or the squeak of chalk on a blackboard are good illustrations. Sound also stimulates memory. Hearing a significant song from our past can bring back events and experiences with clarity that verbal remiencences cannot touch. Sound can also be used to change moods or foreshadow events. For example, the musical score of a play or a film usually sets the tone for the story. The music playing in the background often lets the audience know whether something frightening or exciting is about to happen. Similarly, many people find that playing certain kinds of music when they feel depressed or lazy can help motivate them or cheer them up. The rhythmic patterns in these songs determines the cadence and intensity, which creates the “energy dynamic” of a song or musical score.

So what is sound? Why does sound affect human beings so profoundly? In order to answer these questions, we must take a closer look at the characteristics of sound and its relationship to healing and the human body.

1. SOUND IS A VIBRATORY WAVE OR PATTERN OF ENERGY

Physics tells us that everything is made up of energy. “Each atom in an electromagnetic unit of vibratory energy… The largest amount of “space” within an atom is the ambient dynamic energy potential of the universe (which the sages call God or Spirit) with the electrons, protons, and neutrons accounting for a minimal portion of the atoms structure” (Trieschmann, 2001:29). This energy is what binds galaxies, stars, planets, plants, animals, and humans together. “This new perspective of human physiology is based on an understanding that the atomic structure of the body, at the quantum level is actually made up of particles of frozen light… Thus, rethinking the body in terms of interactive energy structures as opposed to moving cogs in a machine holds the beginnings of Einsteinian Medicine” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Energy is something that can be transformed but never destroyed. It may change its form but it’s essential essence remains the same. For example, all the atoms in our body were once part of stars. When we die, those atoms will remain and in some far future will be part of stars again. This energetic exchange has been going on since the universe was created.

Science also makes it clear that all life emerges out of this ongoing energetic exchange. “Humans (as well as all mater on this planet) are composed of atoms. Atoms collect to form molecules which agglomerate into cells which coalesce into organ systems and body parts” (Trieschmann, 2001:29). Physical matter is simply energy taking form. “The idea that all matter is really another form of energy is the essence of the Einsteinian worldview” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Although we are still not certain about the exact moment when life first appeared on this planet, we do know it had to do with chemical reactions, which led to the development of prokaryotic cells 3.7 billion years ago. By 1.2 million years ago structurally more complex cells called eukaryotic cells evolved and the next step was the appearance of multicellular organisms. From there, adaptation to different environments and econiches produced the myriad of different species. Despite their differences, however, all these species still share a deep, biological continuity with one another based on the fact that they are all made up of eukaryotic cells. In this sense all life is One because it is all rooted in this cellular unity. All life is energy.

2. SOUND HAS A RHYTHM OR A CYCLICAL BEAT

Much of the power of sound lies in its rhythm or cyclical beat. The sound of one rhythm may invoke feelings of euphoria; the sound of another may provoke fear. By altering rhythms or beats, sound can effectively create or alter emotions. The physical body also seems to be sensitive to cyclical rhythms. Many Biological systems within the body are also based on the premise that opposite, complementary, movement or change produces equilibrium. Take breathing for example. The lungs expand in order to take in oxygen and pass it into the bloodstream. The outgoing breath then releases the carbon dioxides that have built up in the blood. The body cannot exist for long without both these processes going on. There is also evidence that some neurons in the brain “fire repetitively at a constant frequency, that is, they beat… Such neurons are also sometimes called pacing neurons. Although external stimulation can change the firing rate of the cell, or inhibit it altogether, the mechanisms that drive repetitive firing are often intrinsic to the neuron itself and do not require stimuli or external synaptic activation.” (Levitan and Kaczmark, 1997:59-60) Other neurons—called bursting neurons—fire in sustained rhythmic pulses that occur without any external stimulation occurring. These are the neurons in the brain that are responsible for regulating automatic physiological processes like heartbeats. When this natural rhythm is disrupted, then the physiological and energetic imbalances occur which lead to disease. Heart arrhythmia is a good example. The understanding that every process in the body has a distinct bioelectrical rhythm or beat, leads to the perception that when everything is working well—i.e. the physiological energy of the body is in balance and able to flow freely—then health and well-being exist. Conversely, when the bioelectrical rhythm of the body is disrupted or the natural frequencies altered, then energetic blocks and imbalances start to occur and disease is often the result. Restoring health means changing a disease producing energy pattern and replacing it with a health enhancing one. As Trieschmann suggests: Every cell in our body has a Characteristic vibration. When these cells vibrate at a certain rate and certain pattern, the body functions well and a person feels good. When they vibrate at a different rate and pattern, the body functions less well and the person feels not so good. It is highly probable that assessment of the differential vibratory patterns associated with health and sickness will be a core feature of the research of the 21st century (2001:29-30)

3. SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN

Sound has been used effectively by many of the world’s spiritual traditions to alter consciousness or heal the body. Mantras, prayers, and chants all generate a pattern of energy that calms the mind and rebalances the body. Studies show that repetitive sound transforms the alpha and beta wave patterns in the brain into theta. The theta brain wave pattern is conducive to relaxation and has been linked to a sense of heightened creativity. Sound has also been used as an effective tool for opening the body’s various energy meridians and charkas. As Margo Anand observes:

Just as the resonance of one high, operatic note can break a crystal glass, and the right words can open a mind or heart, the right sound can open your charkas. The word chakra means “vortex, center, or resonance”. If we direct a sound that resonates into the center of a chakra, it can open like a flower. Every mystery school from ancient times to the present uses sound for these purposes (1998:237)

Promoting health by keeping the energy meridians and charkas open and clear in an important feature of East Indian and Oriental medicine. Both approaches envision the body as a bio-energetic network of meridians interconnected throughout the body and through the major organs. The meridians provide structural and patterned information to the cells of the body during growth and development from conception to adulthood. Medical treatment involves identifying the source and location of any blocks in this system that are impeding healthy energy flow and then removing them. “The acupuncture meridians are a type of biocircuitry network that supplies life energy to the different organs of the body. The meridians have surface points, known as acupuncture points, that are like energetic pores” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Stimulation of these key points with needles—or sound—can help release blocks and promote healing. Sound Attunement Therapy uses both the hoop drum and the West African drum called a “djembe” to induce sound stimulation to these points to promote healing.

As these brief illustrations show, sound has a profound effect upon the physiology and emotions.

For more information on the effects of Sound Attunement Therapy and Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration check out the “Testimonials” section on this site or contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com www.healingdrummer.com

WHO IS TOBY CHRISTENSEN?????

2005-09-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Toby Christensen is a facilitator of healing and change using the power of sound. He is a Master Drummer, an in-demand Motivational Speaker, Workshop Facilitator, Shamanic Practitioner, and an Ordained Minister. With experience as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, musician, and spiritual leader, Toby relates to a wide range of human experience. He connects with compassion and deep understanding to the struggles and challenges of everyday life with a proactive, solution oriented methodology. In his work with indigenous shamans, healers, medicine people and contemporary teachers, Toby has developed a treatment modality known as “Sound Attunement Therapy” which initiates the process he calls “Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration.” This process integrates the powerful methods of old world shamanism with the most cutting edge understanding of quantum physics. Empowered through the treatment of “Sound Attunement Therapy” (SAT) Toby uses sound and drum healing as a container for people to shed their old patterns of ill health, dissatisfaction and dysfunction and shift their energy to create a new healthy and satisfying life.

Born and Raised in Seattle Washington, Toby started his career as a professional musician at the young age of 16 playing the jazz, rock, and funk clubs of Seattle. After having a spiritual awakening, he moved to Northern California to undergo his ministerial training and was then recruited as an associate pastor at Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa, CA. (At the time one of the largest non-denominational churches in the western United States) Toby left the church disillusioned by the “business of religion” and began a career in the corporate world. He began to work his way up the corporate ladder with Nordstrom with great success. After advancing quickly, Toby was recruited as Executive Vice President of All American Sales, where he was responsible for the sales and marketing of athletic products nationwide.

After years of corporate success at the cost of his soul, Toby woke up to the call of his heart, that ignited his passion and reconnected him to the drum. He now travels the world facilitating positive changes in peoples lives through the power of sound. Although Toby will never refer to himself as a Drum Healer or a Sound Healer. The term is used in reference to his work because of the common understanding of the term Drum Healing or Sound Healing within the context of our culture. As Toby Christensen puts it “I use rhythm and sound to facilitate positive change in all aspects of peoples lives. I am not the healer, the being I am holding space for is. I just hold the space and make some noise so their healer will wake up!”

Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

For more information contact Toby Christensen @ www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com

THE GRIEF SONG

2005-09-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

A dear sister asked for the words and stry of the Greif Song so here it is.
Here are the words to the song.
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya

The song is about a man who was off hunting. As he kept an eye on his village he saw a storm approaching. The storm was huge! So he began to head back to help his people brace for it. When he arrived at his village the deluge had already begun and his village was destroyed. As he looked at the once people filled streets her could only see a raging river weeping everything that he loves away. In the muddy water he saw arms and hands reaching out to be plucked from the muddy water. He began to reach for those he could and pull them to safety. But alas for every one he saved 20 or 30 of his loved ones were swept away. Overcome by grief he began top sing the lament, “Coo La Ya”

Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya
Hey la la coo la ya

Blessings,
Toby Christensen aka Tobias

www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen aka Tobias - toby@healingdrummer.com

TESTIMONIALS

2005-09-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

When I first started seeing Toby, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had no physical ailments, but something drew me to him. I am a women who had experienced sexual abuse in my life, physical and emotional abuse, and had multiple trust issues. Toby made it clear I was in charge, he works with my boundaries, and his guides (and mine) helped me to know that I could trust him. By the end of that first session with Toby, I was certain I could trust him and I would be seeing a lot more of him.

I have committed myself to my evolution; to growing spiritually, healing past emotional wounds, healing unseen physical ailments, and basically whatever the Divine wants me to do. I have been able to bookmark my personal growth by my monthly sessions with Toby. I have grown by leaps and bounds, the wounds that were once painful are now healed. We are each our own healer, Toby creates the safest of places for me to do my healing. In that safe place, the comforting sounds of the drum work their magic.

I have recommended to my closest of friends and total strangers the wonderful healing abilities that Toby Christensen provides. I now recommend to you that if you are reading this, odds are your spirit guides would like you to consider booking a session with Toby.

Adele

Though Toby never touches your body save with the waves of sound emanating from his drum, the sensation is extremely physical. The drumbeat seems to paralyze, then liquefy, then vaporize your flesh. And then it melts your bones. Toby carries around a sheaf of research studies on the healing properties of sound, and drumming in particular, especially for people suffering from chronic illnesses, but the proof is in the experience, as you feel the song of the djembe literally calling your body’s cells to fall in step with the heartbeat of the universe.

(Hillary Johnson, LA Times).

On reflection, my first SAT session was more a beautiful, spiritual, profound universal love experience. It felt like angels were around me. And I was filled with beauty and felt such peace and gratitude. It affected me so deeply that when I was explaining it to a dear friend and another of her male friends, the tears welled up inside me; I choked with emotion, and began to cry. Gentle, Powerful Healing. It was amazing. My second SAT was MY, Oh MY, Oh MY.....!!!!

V.R. LA California

oby, I know this might sound extreme, but I feel you helped save my life. After two major surgeries in three weeks with many medical complications and several near death experiences I wasn’t sure if I was meant to stay earth bound or go to the spirit side. I was caught not knowing or caring about my faith.

…I resisted your offer of help, but you did not give up on me, you made a house call.

After the drum healing I felt grounded, centered, and more focused. There was an immediate shift in my energy. Since that time I have continued to use your gift of drum healing to keep me on track, and continue with my return to health. I truly honor your gifts and abilities. To say “thank you” is not enough but I shall say again THANK YOU.

Blessings and Love,
M. Reilly, RN

More Testimonials available at www.healingdrummer.com

SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN

2005-08-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN

Sound has been used effectively by many of the world’s spiritual traditions to alter consciousness or heal the body. Mantras, prayers, and chants all generate a pattern of energy that calms the mind and rebalances the body. Studies show that repetitive sound transforms the alpha and beta wave patterns in the brain into theta. The theta brain wave pattern is conducive to relaxation and has been linked to a sense of heightened creativity. Sound has also been used as an effective tool for opening the body’s various energy meridians and charkas. As Margo Anand observes:

Just as the resonance of one high, operatic note can break a crystal glass, and the right words can open a mind or heart, the right sound can open your charkas. The word chakra means “vortex, center, or resonance”. If we direct a sound that resonates into the center of a chakra, it can open like a flower. Every mystery school from ancient times to the present uses sound for these purposes (1998:237)

Promoting health by keeping the energy meridians and charkas open and clear in an important feature of East Indian and Oriental medicine. Both approaches envision the body as a bio-energetic network of meridians interconnected throughout the body and through the major organs. The meridians provide structural and patterned information to the cells of the body during growth and development from conception to adulthood. Medical treatment involves identifying the source and location of any blocks in this system that are impeding healthy energy flow and then removing them. “The acupuncture meridians are a type of biocircuitry network that supplies life energy to the different organs of the body. The meridians have surface points, known as acupuncture points, that are like energetic pores” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Stimulation of these key points with needles—or sound—can help release blocks and promote healing. Sound Attunement Therapy uses both the hoop drum and the West African drum called a “djembe” to induce sound stimulation to these points to promote healing.

As these brief illustrations show, sound has a profound effect upon the physiology and emotions.

For more information on the effects of Sound Attunement Therapy and Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration check out the “Testimonials” section on www.healingdrummer.com or contact Toby Christensen at toby@healingdrummer.com

SHAMANIC DRUM HEALING

2005-08-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

SHAMANIC DRUM HEALING

A question has come up that I think is comment worthy. What is the difference between a regular drum healing or Sound Attunement Therapy treatment and a Shamanic Drum Treatment? Well supporting “The Way of the Shaman” and the Foundation For Shamanic Studies I would say that a Shamanic Drum Healing and a Sound Attunement Therapy treatment are similar in that the Shamanic Journey is involved in both the Shamanic Drum Healing and a Sound Attunement Therapy treatment. There are many different types of Shamanic Drum Healing. Some use the hoop drum, some use the djembe drum, others use shaman rattles others use shaman rattles with drums. As long as the shamanic journey is involved in the treatment I would say that it is a Shamanic Drum Healing. That is assuming healing takes place.

There are many ways sound and rhythm can be used to promote healing and change of all kinds. Pleas check out the Articles section at www.healingdrummer.com and feel free to email me toby@healingdrummer.com.

CHANGING ENERGY

2005-08-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

This is a great discription of sound attunement therapy:
The rhythmic energy created by drumming often has a meditative response on individuals listening. As if swept into oneself, the comfortable sound of the drumbeat opens the minds eye to the divinity within. “Nature, in fact, is such a complex organism that only the intelligence of Spirit can manage it” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:66). The Dagara people of Burkina Faso, West Africa, are well known for their spiritual practice. They believe that if there is a problem with the physical, one must look to the spiritual for a solution. “That is, in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that is can be comfortable. Certain healing practices, such as this one, involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes ‘irritated’ at the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:262).

www.healingdrummer.com
Toby Christensen aka Tobias - toby@healingdrummer.com

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

2005-08-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

"If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a-coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the road side until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence."
~ John B. Gough

For more information on changing your life using sound, email Toby Christensen - toby@healingdrummer.com or go to www.healingdrummer.com

DRUMS ARE ON THE WAY

2005-08-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

Good news drummers and Bloggers. I talked to Chief Nana today and the container from Ghana is leaving LA and making its way to Seattle. I Should have drums available next Tuesday or Wednesday. For more information or to place your order email toby@healingdrummer.com or go the products page at www.healingdrummer.com

The more drummers we have drumming the less drummers we have fighting!!! Drum for world peace!!!

SHAMANISM AND SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

2005-08-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

OK Now for the answer to the question you have all been waiting for…..can you feel the tension building??????

I have received many inquiries as to what part Shamanism plays in Sound Attunement Therapy (SAT). So here it is. The first part of a SAT treatment involves the use of the hoop drum also called (the shaman's drum) to balance the aura field, stimulate charka. The rhythm used in this part of the treatment is 5-7 beats per second. This is known as the shaman’s journey beat. This is the wave I surf into the unseen world. This is where the djembe rhythms come from and the antidotes are given. If you look at the cover of my latest CD “The Shaman’s Journey” you will see what this world looks like to me. It is these journeys that are the core of shamanism.

Shamanism is the key ingredient to SAT. Without the help of those of the unseen world the power of SAT would be severely limited. I give thanks to those who are always ready to help.

For more information on shamanism and shamanic healing check out www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com

Toby Christensen is a Shamanic practitioner and teacher of shamanism. He strongly supports The Way Of The Shaman and the teachings of Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

ERADICATING SPIRITUAL IGNORANCE

2005-08-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

During my initiation I made a pledge to devote my teaching efforts to eradicate spiritual ignorance. It is to this cause I dedicate this entry. The subject is Shamanism and the misunderstanding of the word and its meaning. I had someone recently say “I would NEVER refer to a white person as a Shaman.” I asked why and they told me that it is a title ONLY for indigenous people. I asked about the indigenous people of the “Northlands” who happen to be very white. This got the conversation going about what a shaman actually is and its appropriate use. After spending many years in the grips of ignorant radical fundamentalism I spend a great deal of time researching and accurately defining my belief and spirituality. It is from this basis that I encourage all of my friends and colleagues to do the same. Two of the best sources on the subject of shamanism come form famed anthropologist Michael Harner, and a gentleman by the name of Tom Cowan. There are many other writers on the subject but unlike many who are out to prove or promote a particular viewpoint or influence a particular belief system, I find these two writers come from a factual and historical perspective. Truth is the word “shaman” is a culturally specific word that until it’s recent misuse (referring to any indigenous or alternative practice as shamanism) was used in a very limited context in a very remote part of the world. So the moment you have all been waiting for:
According to the Foundation for Shamanic Studies
The word "shaman" originates in Siberia with the Tungus People. In the original Tungus language the word shaman refers to a person who makes journeys to non-ordinary reality in an altered state of consciousness. Although the term is from Siberia, the practice of shamanism has existed in all parts of the world throughout history. After years of extensive research, Mircea Eliade, in his book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, concluded that shamanism underlays all the other spiritual traditions on the planet, and that the most distinctive feature of shamanism-but by no means the only one-was the journey to other worlds in an altered state of consciousness. Shamans are often called "see-ers" (seers), or "people who know", because they are involved in a system of knowledge based on firsthand experience. Shamanism is not a belief system. It's based on personal experiments conducted to heal, to get information, or do other things. In fact, if shamans don't get results, they will no longer be used by people in their tribe. People ask me, "How do you know if somebody's a shaman?" I say, "It's simple. Do they journey to other worlds? And do they perform miracles?"

For more information on shamanism and shamanic healing check out www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com

SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

2005-08-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

People have been asking me to explain what I do. So here is a "to the point layout of Sound Attunement Therapy

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

For more information on SAT email Toby Christensen - toby@healingdrummer.com or go to www.healingdrummer.com

FINDING YOUR BEST IN THE WORST OF TIMES

2005-08-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

FINDING YOUR BEST IN THE WORST OF TIMES

Isn't it a pity, now isn't it a shame?
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking any more
Forgetting to give back, isn't it a pity?

Some things take so long
But how do I explain
There are too many people
Can't see we're all the same
And because of all the tears
Their eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them, isn't it a pity?

Isn't it a pity, isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking any more
Forgetting to give back, isn't it a pity?

Forgetting to give back, isn't it a pity?

Forgetting to give back, now isn't it a pity?

What a pity, pity pity pity pity

I would be interested to know what George Harrison was thinking about when he wrote this song. Some time my ability to go unconscious and run my life on auto pilot amazes me. The thing is my auto pilot is a shitty driver and I have known this for a very long time. Yet periodically I hand over the controls with out reservation. In this process I hurt those closest to me and put myself in the “backwards moving mode” so I get to carry the weight of my poor choices and make up for the progress I had made before the error. Will I ever learn.

THANK THE ANCESTORS FOR THE DRUM!!!!

Through the rhythm of the drum I find my heart, through the rhythm of the drum I find my soul, through the rhythm of the drum I find the strength to overcome the obstacles in my life and keep moving forward.

It is a pity to go unconscious and run amuck. But with the rhythm of the healing drum, the way is found to reconnect the heart and the life and renew hope!

Keep drumming!!!!!

For more information about the healing drum go to www.healingdrummer.com or email me at toby@healingdrummer.com

Diversity in Action

2005-08-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Well Columbus Ohio is a very interesting place. It just goes to show that the sound of the drum is the tuning of the soul no matter where you go. I met some of the most amazing people this past week. As I fly home I want to share the importance of bringing your gift to the world. One of the groups I worked with were a wonderful community of Methodist ministers. All women, and all connected to the deep truth of the universal energy of LOVE and compassion. They were honoring a friend who had passed away three years ago and I was asked to administer the healing drum during part of their ceremony. I ask Spirit to bring us more ministers like these women.

Open your hearts to the rhythm of a new drum. If you carry hate , let it change to the rhythm of Love. If you carry judgment, allow the healing drum to shift it to acceptance. It you are carrying resentment let the spirit of understanding and healing take it’s place.

As the healing drum moves to more places in the world and reaches more hearts I see more clearly the mission of my calling. My calling is to bring the healing drum to all the beings on the planet that can benefit from it.

The world need more drummers. For more information check out www.healingdrummer.com and email me at toby@healingdrummer.com

Walk to the rhythm of your own drum and share it with as many people as possible!

Blessings to all,
Tobias Christensen

Healingdrummer.com in Columbus Ohio

2005-07-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today I am in Columbus Ohio. Every where I go I am meeting people who are into sound healing. I men Dr. X who is a cool cat form Kentucky, now residing in Columbus. He has a friend in Italy who does percussion therapy. He hooked us up. The world is a small place hooked together with sound waves. Linking the hearts of artists and healers. What a gift.

To hook up with healingdrummer.com go to www.healingdrummer.com or email me, Toby Christensen toby@healingdrummer.com

Rhythm and Flow

2005-07-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Blog

OK This is my first entry from a plane. I am at 37,000 feet and heading for Columbus Ohio. As I have been running for planes and waiting in airports and waiting in MORE AIRPORTS I am realizing that the Beatles had it right. “All you need is LOVE”. I have had the fortunate experience of meeting many new people on this trip. I decided that I was going to open my energy field to experience travel in a different way. I am paying attention to the rhythm of things and how flow. There are so many different people in the world, when you view each person as a part of the rhythm of life, things get more interesting! I got to the airport late and decided that the lines are so long I will never get to the gate on time. So I took a deep breath and became an observer of flow instead of connecting to the perceived obstacle of time. As I watched and breathed, I realized the amazing synchronicity of the world around me. I realized that there were many Sky Caps and most of the people in front of me had already been helped. It took me 7 minutes to get through a line I guessed would take at least 45.

I got to security and never slowed down. I was at the gate with 30 minutes to spare and while I was standing there met the daughter of a friend and we traveled the first leg of the trip together. As I met with the flow of the airport, I hooked into the rhythm of life around me and was able to accomplish more than expected. Look around you, be the observer and see how you can fit into the flow of life. You cannot move any faster than the doors will open. Watch the pace of the openings and get in sync with them.

For more information about Synchronizing your energy go to www.healingdrummer.com or email me at toby@healingdrummer.com

Ah...the good ole days.

2005-07-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's,
60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked
and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna
from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered
with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors
or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had
no helmets, not to mention, the risks we
took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts
or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was
always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a
bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one
bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, twinkies, white bread and real
butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but
we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS
OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day,
as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were
O.K. There was only one phone in the house and
you asked permission to use it.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of
scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we
forgot the brakes.After running into the bushes a few
times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes,
no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no videotape
movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal
computers, no Internet or
Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and
found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth
and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the
worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made
up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we
were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and
knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked
in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the
team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the
law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best
risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of
innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility,
and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have
had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government
regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so
they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with
scissors, doesn't it?!

www.healingdrummer.com toby@healingdrummer.com

HISTORY-THE LIFE OF THE DRUM

2005-07-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

The Drum has a place in the lives of many people throughout the world. It can manifest energy or represent gods. The Drum holds ancient energy, which beckons to the soul and calls for indigenous remembrance. The Menomini, Native American from Wisconsin, believe the Drum is a strong force in the world that should always be treated with great respect.

“The drum (te-we-hekan) is the most sacred object in the Drum Dance powwow for a variety of reasons. It is the most important material embodiment of power. It is believed that the Great Spirit, and all the good spirits he created, put some of their power into the original Drum given to the Sioux women who believed to have introduced the

Ritual to the Menomini” (Slotkin 1975:35).

The Dobe/hoansi are a hunter and gathering society in middle Africa. These people eat the bounty of the land and live in groups of twenty to thirty people. They practice a form of drumming and dancing to harness their energies. “Women dance and enter trances, and men play a supporting role, beating complex rhythms on the long drum that is the central symbol of the dance.” (Richard B Lee. 1993:119-120). In this culture, the drumbeats allow the energy or nu/m within the dancer to rise. An interesting fact is that the drummers of tradition are the women. Recently, a dance and particular drum beat called the Giraffe dance has begun. This dance involves women and some men to enter trance through dancing. Medicine men and women of the bands perform these ceremonies. Many of the participants in this ritual are of varying levels of experience. Participating aids in exposing beginners to their personal nu/m while surrounded by experienced people or for others to learn to control their personal nu/m (energy). Often overwhelmed by the intense trance state, individual may collapse. Others around will care for the individual by freshening them up and helping them to regain a level of recognition where they can either rejoin the ritual or participate in any way they desire. The ceremonial energy is used to summon the healing needed to handle illnesses that inflict the Dobe people. Through additional methods, such as hands on and vocal exclamation, the energy of the healers are shared with the sick of the tribe.

The rhythmic energy created by drumming often has a meditative response on individuals listening. As if swept into oneself, the comfortable sound of the drumbeat opens the minds eye to the divinity within. “Nature, in fact, is such a complex organism that only the intelligence of Spirit can manage it” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:66). The Dagara people of Burkina Faso, West Africa, are well known for their spiritual practice. They believe that if there is a problem with the physical, one must look to the spiritual for a solution. “That is, in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that is can be comfortable. Certain healing practices, such as this one, involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes ‘irritated’ at the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Malidoma Patrice Some’, 1999:262).

The ceremonies of the Dagara people often involve the people of the community, as well as the spiritual leaders, and may also utilize physical representations of elements. They feel that the Spirit is fused with the physical form and that addressing one is addressing both. When addressing the physical the five elements (fire, water, earth, mineral, and nature) correspond with particular areas of the body.

The elements also adhere to the behavior of an individual. Fire associates with the heart and behaviorally tends to have passion and vitality. Water associates with the blood and behaviorally tends to seek peace and harmony. Mineral associates with the skeletal structure, in particular the spine, and behaviorally tends to be the communicator of ancestral, indigenous and ordinary ideals. Nature associates with the lungs and breath and behaviorally encourages easy transformation or change. Earth associates with the stomach and behaviorally tends to be the hub of the wheel providing nurturing and the basic resources that sustain life. The Dagara have particular ceremonies that relate to the five elements.

Often drumming, dancing and singing accompany the ceremony. The presence of the community often provides security and support to the ceremony whether it is being held for an individual or for any other reason. The structure and activities included can vary depending on the elements called upon. To the Dagara people the elements are a vital part of our existence. When healing is needed one must seek the help of the elements and the spiritual leaders of their communities.

One must seek to create a balanced energy in sinc with nature and with Spirit and to create a healthy home for the personal spirit. Only then can we tune in to the divine energy around us and begin our harmonic journey. Toby Christensen’s Sound Attunement Therapy (SAT) builds the bridge between the spirit and the individual to aid in the healing of the self.
For more information about drum healing and sound healing check out www.healingdrummer.com or email toby@healingdrummer.com

SOUND CAN CREATE, INTEGRATE, REGULATE, OR TRANSFORM AN EXISTING ENERGY PATTERN.

2005-07-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

Sound has been used effectively by many of the world’s spiritual traditions to alter consciousness or heal the body. Mantras, prayers, and chants all generate a pattern of energy that calms the mind and rebalances the body. Studies show that repetitive sound transforms the alpha and beta wave patterns in the brain into theta. The theta brain wave pattern is conducive to relaxation and has been linked to a sense of heightened creativity. Sound has also been used as an effective tool for opening the body’s various energy meridians and charkas. As Margo Anand observes:

Just as the resonance of one high, operatic note can break a crystal glass, and the right words can open a mind or heart, the right sound can open your charkas. The word chakra means “vortex, center, or resonance”. If we direct a sound that resonates into the center of a chakra, it can open like a flower. Every mystery school from ancient times to the present uses sound for these purposes (1998:237)

The understanding that every process in the body has a distinct bioelectrical rhythm or beat, leads to the perception that when everything is working well—i.e. the physiological energy of the body is in balance and able to flow freely—then health and well-being exist. Conversely, when the bioelectrical rhythm of the body is disrupted or the natural frequencies altered, Then energetic blocks and imbalances start to occur, and disease is often the result. Restoring health means changing a disease producing energy pattern and replacing it with a health enhancing one. As Trieschmann Suggests:

Every cell in our body has a characteristic vibration. When these cells vibrate at a certain rate and in a certain pattern, the body functions well and the person feels good. When they vibrate at a different rate and pattern, the body functions less well and the person feels not so good. It is highly probable that assessment of the differential vibratory patterns associated with health and sickness will be a core feature of the research of the 21st century. (2001:29-30)

As these brief illustrations show, sound has a profound effect upon the physiology and emotions. Other articles on sound healing and drum healing are available to explore how traditional tribal groups use repetitive sound—such as drumming—to heal the mind and body.

For more information check out www.healingdrummer.com

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY

2005-07-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

This is a little something from the LA Times...Still, by far the most ground-trembling, body-altering treatment I’ve ever had is one where the practitioner never so much as laid a finger on my person, and it comes via Africa. Travelling drummer Toby Christiansen, who books sessions locally through Yoruba House, has developed an African-inspired technique he calls Sound Attunement Therapy. Toby is a handsome blond guy with surfer-dude looks, but he has studied African drumming and shamanic healing for twenty five years, and has come up with what I can only describe as a sound wave body massage that is as ecstatically pleasurable as it is therapeutic. Toby begins a typical healing session with a native American hoop drum, which he plays close over your supine form. It functions almost like a shamanic stethoscope: the reverberating tone of the drum indicates where your problem areas may be. Once he has ready your body’s particular form of rhythmic impairment, Toby stands over you, with the base of his African djembe drum centered over your heart and begins to play. What follows is the most shockingly sensual full-contact concert experience one could possibly imagine.

Though Toby never touches your body save with the waves of sound emanating from his drum, the sensation is extremely physical. The drum beat seems to paralyze, then liquify, then vaporize your flesh. And then it melts your bones. Toby carries around a sheaf of research studies on the healing properties of sound, and drumming in particular, especially for people suffering from chronic illnesses, but the proof is in the experience, as you feel the song of the djembe literally calling your body’s cells to fall in step with the heartbeat of the universe.

The song Toby plays for each client is unique. “Everyone has their own rhythm, and part of my job is to find it and bring it out,” Toby explains. During both the sessions I had with him over a two day period, I experienced almost hallucinatory dream-like imagery, and after each hour-long session, I walked away with a pleasant buzzing sensation coursing through my body, a feeling that lasted literally for days. And though I went to Toby mainly out of curiosity, I found after two sessions with him that the PMS I’d been struggling with for years completely disappeared.

How does psychology, quantum physics, and shamanism all tie together to change your life?

2005-06-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have not been a good reliable blogger! My commitment is to have a minimum of one entry per week. If I don’t you are welcome to harass me at toby@healingdrummer.com

So the blog of the day is this… How does psychology, quantum physics, and shamanism all tie together to change your life? I have recently come in contact with the work of Arnold Mindell Ph.D. This man has articulated in the most amazing way what Sound Attunement Therapy (SAT) is all about. My reading recommendation for the month is “The Quantum Mind and Healing” by Arnold Mindell. Ph.D. In this book Dr. Mindell lays out the best explanation I have ever seen of what is involved in the complete healing and shifting of energy to support life long change in ones life. The shifting of patterns via physiological process, Sound Energy, and Journeys to the unseen world, the world of the shaman! For more information about healing in the quantum level go to my website www.healingdrummer.com

DRUMMING IN THE PROSPERITY INFRASTRUCTURE

2005-06-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

DRUMMING IN THE PROSPERITY INFRASTRUCTURE

Like most things, behind any visual image that we see, whether a successful company or a person of wealth and fame, there is an infrastructure that provides stability and containment for the energy required to maintain the what is visible to the public eye.

I hear people all the time say they want more prosperity In their life. Generally this refers to Financial Prosperity. What statistics show us, according to lottery winners and people who inherit large amounts of money is that when financial prosperity is achieved without the proper infrastructure, the person who receives the financial prosperity is in the same or worse financial position than before receiving the financial prosperity within five years. So the question is:

What is the way to make room for and KEEP the financial prosperity once we receive it?

This I call the “Prosperity Infrastructure”. The Prosperity Infrastructure is a multifaceted system that creates a foundation, container, and receiver.

Facet I – Foundation – Soul Prosperity
Soul Prosperity is the first phase of creating the prosperity infrastructure.
Soul Prosperity is the connection to Spirit. It is the knowing that your time here as a human has a higher purpose than eating burgers and Cold Stone ice cream (although I find that to be a very high purpose personally). It is the fulfillment of the spiritual longing in each of us. Soul prosperity is about being in relationship to “Higher Power” or God.

Facet II - Personal Prosperity
Personal Prosperity is the connection to your life’s purpose. It is about connecting to the Gift you bring to the world, your genius. What is it that you love to do, and you do well? What skill or talent do you possess that comes naturally to you and brings you joy? This is your gift, this is your purpose and your personal prosperity.

Facet III – Health Prosperity
Health Prosperity is doing what you need to do to keep yourself healthy. Maintaining good health is a type of prosperity many of us in the healing arts often forget. But how can we bring our gift to the world if we are not healthy and energetic. Health prosperity is a very important prosperity to nurture in your life!

Facet IV – Community Prosperity
Community Prosperity is your connection to the community to bring your gift to. Community can be your church or spiritual group. It can be your school, your housing development, city, state, country or the world. The more you support your community the more your community will support you. Part of community prosperity is bringing your gift to them and the other part is you acknowledging the gifts of others.

Facet V – Financial Prosperity
Now we are back to where we started. By being connected to Spirit we have a higher, divinely assigned reason for living (Soul Prosperity). By being connected to our life we discover our purpose or gift we bring to the world (Personal Prosperity). As we keep ourselves healthy we have the ability to bring our gift to the world (Health Prosperity). Then we connect to our community providing people to bring our gift to (Community Prosperity). Then by bringing our gift to the community we are supported in creating financial prosperity!

It is easy to get caught in patterns that sabotage our success and our ability to create the infrastructure to support bringing prosperity into our lives. These patterns are created over a lifetime of input. Sometimes it seems impossible to change these patterns but there is hope!

Through the process of Sound Attunement Therapy the energetic patterns that have plagued you can be shifted into energy patterns that can be helpful and supportive. By changing the bio-energetic frequency through the power of the drum, negative patterns can be reversed and your ability to create prosperity can be activated.

Sound has been used effectively by many of the world’s spiritual traditions to alter consciousness or heal the body. Mantras, prayers, and chants all generate a pattern of energy that calms the mind and rebalances the body. Studies show that repetitive sound transforms the alpha and beta wave patterns in the brain into theta. The theta brain wave pattern is conducive to relaxation and has been linked to a sense of heightened creativity. Sound has also been used as an effective tool for opening the body’s various energy meridians and charkas. As Margo Anand observes:

Just as the resonance of one high, operatic note can break a crystal glass, and the right words can open a mind or heart, the right sound can open your charkas. The word chakra means “vortex, center, or resonance”. If we direct a sound that resonates into the center of a chakra, it can open like a flower. Every mystery school from ancient times to the present uses sound for these purposes (1998:237)

Promoting health by keeping the energy meridians and charkas open and clear in an important feature of East Indian and Oriental medicine. Both approaches envision the body as a bio-energetic network of meridians interconnected throughout the body and through the major organs. The meridians provide structural and patterned information to the cells of the body during growth and development from conception to adulthood. Medical treatment involves identifying the source and location of any blocks in this system that are impeding healthy energy flow and then removing them. “The acupuncture meridians are a type of biocircuitry network that supplies life energy to the different organs of the body. The meridians have surface points, known as acupuncture points, that are like energetic pores” (Gerber, 1996:xx). Stimulation of these key points with needles—or sound—can help release blocks and promote healing. Sound Attunement Therapy uses both the hoop drum and the West African drum called a “djembe” to induce sound stimulation to these points to promote healing.

As these brief illustrations show, sound has a profound effect upon the physiology, emotions and energy. For more information on Sound Attunement Therapy, Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration, and Drum/ Sound healing, go to www.healingdrummer.com or email Toby at toby@healingdrummer.com

Rhythm Of The Heart

2005-05-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

I have been experiencing some wild rhythms lately. While I’m working with people I go to the heart chackra and a rhythm in 7 count emerges. At first I wondered where it was coming from, then as I speak to people it seems 7 is a very powerful # for many. I would love to get more feedback about the #7 and how it relates to the energy structure of people. Sooooo please pass this request around and have as many people as possible feed info into the BLOG!!!

Thanks and many Blessings,
Toby

Grief or Prosperity?

2005-03-31T06:04:00.000-08:00

Why is it that people will sign up for a workshop to connect with their grief and are very resistant to signing up for a process designed to bring prosperity into their lives?

Last fall I facilitated a Grief Ritual with Sobonfu Some’. People signed up in droves to connect and release their grief. The next ritual after clearing grief is to take that space and fill it with prosperity of all kinds. Soul prosperity, relational prosperity, financial prosperity etc. So now it is spring and it is time to let the blessing in and it is like pulling teeth to get people to come.

Why is it we can look at our grief and not let the blessing in?

www.healingdrummer.com

The Leading Followers or The Following Leaders?

2005-03-23T08:13:00.000-08:00

It still surprises me that people have such a hard time taking their own power. I teach workshops all over the country and people are always saying “No guru for me, I want to connect to my own power and find my own direction." Then when I facilitate a workshop that directs people to connect with their own guidance they complain that I don’t give them enough feedback to validate their experience. Figure that??? If they need me to validate them, Isn't that giving me a little too much power?

Being in ones power can be a very tricky thing. We learn to connect to our own guidance and then we validate our own experience. This is what Shamanism is all about. When asked,” How do you know if someone is a shaman?" A teacher responded, "Do they journey to the unseen worlds and do they perform miracles? If the answer is yes, that’s how you know." In the place of empowerment you build your own relationship with helpers and teachers and move into an empowered place through this process. I heard Michael Harner tell one student looking for validation about their journey, “It was your journey, if it was there, then it was there. I was not there so how would I know?” In this time in history we can see the gap growing between the Shepard and the sheep. Lets throw this concept out, take up your own power and walk your path! Through the power of the drum we can be transported to a place of authentic empowerment if we will follow the time tested pathways taught on the shamanic path and TRUST our selves. Go into the place of the seven gateways to the heart and begin to connect to your power, build relationships with your power helpers and be a contributing energy on the planet. We need people of power holding space in these very troubling times. “The sound of the drum is the tuning of the soul” – Sobonfu Some’

www.healingdrummer.com

HISTORY OF MUSIC-BRAIN AND WELLNESS RESEARCH

2005-03-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

The connection between active music making and the functioning of the brain and the body has been the subject of intense scientific investigation – some of it supported directly by the American Music Conference, all of it exciting. Researchers have uncovered evidence that making music helps young people develop their brains, helps students perform better in a variety of academic areas and promotes wellness in older people. Now, the study from the Mind-Body Wellness Center adds the prospect of disease-fighting to the mix. Here is a summary of some of the most important music-brain research.

In 1985, Gordon Shaw, Dennis Silverman and John Pearson presented the trion model of the brain’s neuronal structure (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 82 [1985]: 2364-2368).

In 1989, experiments in which musicians performed mental rehearsals of music indicated that music and other creative skills, such as mathematics and chess, may involve extremely precise firing patterns by billions of brain neurons (Leslie Brothers and Gordon Shaw, Models of Brain Function, edited by R. Cotterill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

In 1990, computer experiments revealed that trion firing patterns could be mapped onto pitches and instrument timbres to produce music. This suggested that the trion model is a viable model for the coding of certain aspects of musical structure in human composition and perception, and that the trion model is relevant for examining creativity in higher cognitive functions, such as mathematics and chess, that are similar to music (Xiaodan Leng, Gordon Shaw and Eric Wright, Music Perception, Vol. 8, No.1 [Fall 1990]: 49-62).

In 1991, Xiaodan Leng and Gordon Shaw proposed that music may be considered a "pre- language," and that early music training may be useful in "exercising" the brain for certain higher cognitive functions (Concepts in Neuroscience, Vol. 2, No. 2 [1991]: 229-258).

In 1993, a pilot study found that preschool children given music training displayed significant improvement in spatial reasoning ability. (Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw) An experiment with college students found that, after listening to a Mozart sonata, they experienced a significant although temporary gain in spatial reasoning skills (Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky, Nature, Vol. 365 [1993]: 611).

In 1994, a Stage II follow-up to the pilot study again found that music training improved spatial reasoning in preschool children. This gain did not occur in those without music training (Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, Linda Levine and Katherine Ky, Paper presented at the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles [August 1994]).

In 1995, a follow up to the first Mozart study confirmed that listening to Mozart improved spatial reasoning, and that this effect can increase with repeated testing over days. However, the effect may not occur when music lacks sufficient complexity. (Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky, Neuroscience Letters, Vol. 185 [1995]: 44-47.)

In 1997, a study found that keyboard training caused long-term enhancement of preschool children's spatial-temporal reasoning (Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, Linda Levine et al, Neurological Research, Volume 19 [1997], 2-8).

In 1999, a field experiment supported the earlier finding by demonstrating that classroom keyboard instruction improved kindergarten children's spatial-temporal performance (Frances Rauscher, Mary Anne Zupan, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 1999).

Also in 1999, a research group led by Dr. Frederick Tims, Chair of Music Therapy at Michigan State University, found that group keyboard lessons given to older Americans reduced stress, loneliness and anxiety while increasing levels of human growth hormone (hGH). Human growth hormone is implicated in such aging phenomena as osteoporosis, energy levels, wrinkling, sexual function, muscle mass, and aches and pains (Frederick Tims, Alicia Ann Clair, Donna Cohen, Carl Eisdorfer, Midori Koga, Adarsh Kumar, Mahendra Kumar, Cathy McKinney, Áke Seiger, presented at symposium Music Medicine: Enhancing Health Through Music, April 23, 1999, Miami, FL).

A second 1999 study led by Dr. Tims quantified a link between structured music therapy and subjects’ levels of melatonin, a neurohormone linked with sleep regulation and believed to influence the immune system (Adarsh Kumar, David Lowenstein, J. B. Fernandez, Gail Ironson, Carl Eisdorfer, Dean G. Cruess, Michael J. Mintzer, Rogelio Cattan, Alternative Therapies, vol. 5 no. 6, Nov. 1999).

Later in 1999, a study examined enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training. Children given piano keyboard training along with a specially designed Math Video Game training scored significantly higher on proportional math and fractions than children given a control training along with the same video game (Amy Graziano, Matthew Peterson and Gordon Shaw, Neurological Research, Volume 21 [1999], pp. 139-152).

In early 2000, a study found that a curriculum combining piano lessons, educational math software and fun math problems helped second graders achieve scores on advanced math concepts and Stanford 9 math scores comparable to those of fourth graders (Matthew Peterson, Mark Bodner, Stephen Cook, Tina Earl, Jill Hansen, Michael Martinez, Linda Rodgers, Sydni Vuong, Gordon Shaw, 2000, submitted for publication).

In Fall 2000, a team led by Dr. Barry Bittman of the Mind-Body Wellness Center finds that a particular type of group drumming activity appears to boost the function of Natural Killer cells that seek out and destroy cancer cells and virally-infected cells in normal subjects. (Barry Bittman, Lee S. Berk, David L. Felten, O. Carl Simonton, James Pappas, Melissa Ninehouser, Alternative Therapies, January 2001, accepted for publication).

read more at www.healingdrummer.com

Sound Attunement Therapy

2005-03-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

Many people have been asking me "What is SAT?"

Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.

Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.

Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.

Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.

Go to www.healingdrummer.com for more information

Healer Or Facilitator ?

2005-03-02T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a friend of mine who works with people to clear their karma. As we talked about the work I do he explained to me that if someone is suffering it does not necessarily mean that there is something “wrong” with them. He said something to the effect that by engaging in “healing” someone, we are making the assumption that #1 there is something “wrong” that needs to be healed, and #2 we are assuming that we (the healer) can do it. He said that by engaging in “healing” someone, we are actually creating karma with that person. This really got me thinking! What he said has been working it’s way into my understanding for the last few months. He asked, “Are you a healer?” I replied, “Of course NOT, I’m just the drummer!” He looked puzzled and smiled. As we continued to talk the conversation was directed to clearly defining our mission when we are called to work in a capacity to help others.

The truth is, healing occurs with Sound Attunement Therapy and the shamanic work I do. I have seen amazing miracles with people and animals. I have had people come to me who have HIV/aids, cancer, people who suffer from substance abuse, depression, and many other maladies. I have seen them miraculously change before my very eyes. The results are clear, The sound of the drum is the tuning of the soul. As a physician from OHSU put it, “This stuff works. It’s a stretch for me, but I can feel the shift. It works” The thing I remember however, is that I am not the one doing the healing. I am holding space with sound to allow the person I am working on to find the healer within themselves. I make the distinction to call myself a facilitator of change and transformation. I am one who holds space for empowerment. This is the place of helpfulness.

As we move into a time in our world where we are seeing humanity at war on all fronts, political and corporate corruption at an unprecedented level, and the tragic loss of over a hundred thousand people in South Asia from the Tsunami. It is more critical than ever that we who have been called to bring healing space into the world do it with power and integrity. We need to bring our gifts to the world and hold the space for those who suffer so they can get through what ever they need to get through and be in peace. I challenge each of you who is called to bring healing to the world to dedicate just one hour per week to hold the earth and it’s inhabitance in the energy of love and empowerment. We can change the world!!!
For information about Toby christensen or Toby's facilitation often refered to as Sound Healing or Drum Healing check out www.healingdrummer.com

The Shamanic Journey

2005-02-28T16:40:00.000-08:00

As I travel throughout the country I run into many people who are in search of answers to important life questions. In helping them find what they are looking for from a reliable source it is imperative to know a few critical things:
1. Where can we access accurate information?
2. Does this method we use to access this information have a track record of success?
3. Where is this information coming from?
4. Does the practitioner (if one is used/ or if it is you, ask this to yourself) have grounded training to acquire this information and teach how to apply it with wisdom?

Some people I talk to receive guidance in a very frightening way. They simply open them selves to the information waves of the cosmic realm and begin regurgitating anything that comes to them. When asked Where did this information come from? Who gave you the information? How do you know you can trust this information? What was your intention when asking for this information? What specific question did you ask that this information is directed to? And Where did you go to get it? The answer is almost always the same, “I don’t know, the information just comes in. I have had no training at all, one day I just started receiving information.” Well I don’t know about you, but this sounds a little shaky to me. I want to know where my information comes from and who is bringing it to me and how to use it helpfully.

As is above, so is below, as is within so is without, as is in the seen, so is in the unseen. In our ordinary world we have radio waves and microwaves and short waves and many other kinds of unseen communication energy bombarding us. If we are an unregulated receiver we can get allot of mixed and contradicting signals. It is the same when we open ourselves to the realm of non-ordinary reality. So as we seek a method of helpful healing power it is useful to know how to connect to the source that takes us where we need to go to get what we are looking for. If we are just an ''open channel'', anything can come through. Just think if we as a receiver were ''just open'' and received a message from Air America and from the FOX network at the same time! What a mess that would be! What if we did not know where a message came from and we hooked into the George Bush frequency instead of the Dali Lama because we, “…just let the information come in.” If this occurred, we could have a bunch of Buddhist monks fighting middle eastern countries for their oil reserves. Figure that one out! We must know where information comes from and how to differentiate one source from another. One reason this is such an important issue is that many people are waking up to the world of Spirit, and in their sensitivity and vulnerability they are often lead along a very deceptive path by those who wish to lead and control. The wonder and beauty of Spirit is our ability to access our own information and the openness to know where and how to get it. The other wonderful gift we have are people like Sobonfu Some’, Michael Harner, The Foundation For Shamanic Studies, Ancient Wellspring and others who have dedicated their lives to bringing the time tested methods of indigenous people to those of us in the west so that we can benefit from it. The most profound and effective method of accessing the wisdom and help of the Spiritual world is a method that transcends culture and time. It has been used in cultures all over the world and its history can be traced back over 25,000 years. The process is the Shamanic Journey.

I have been studying for over my 13 years with both indigenous teachers and anthropologists learning the ways of divination, healing and shamanism. I have been to Africa and have experienced divinations, healings and ceremonies by elders from many tribes. I have assisted a Lakota medicine man for several years in the Inipi ceremony, the Yuwipi ceremony, and the Hanblecheyapi. I have studied with several teachers from the Foundation For Shamanic Studies including the founder, Anthropologist Michael Harner Ph.D author of the book “The Way of the Shaman”. In every case each practitioner regardless of the modality connects with specific intent to the spirit or helper they are connecting to and have a specific intention for that connection. Not once in all my experiences have I ever felt unsafe or that the practitioner was out of control or unable to become aware of the ordinary world. The work of Spirit through the shamanic journey is a time tested wisdom technology that transcends faith, belief and the assimilation of information. It is KNOWING, and it works. As Michael himself puts it when asked about this work,

“The shamanic journey is a method of soul or spirit travel, moving from the Middle World (the world we live in that has both ordinary and non-ordinary reality; both spiritual and non-spiritual aspects) to the Upper World or Lower World, both of which are entirely spiritual. The journey of the shaman is a method of traveling to these worlds for the purpose of healing, divination, and other serious missions.''

I always tell my students to develop a relationship with the spirit world in the same way you would develop a relationship in this world. Ask questions and spend time with those who you know can help you. Find out how they work and defer your tasks of the spirit world to those of the spirit world. The shamanic world consists of four basic realms. Middle World Ordinary reality which is the physical, three dimensional world we live in. Middle World Non-ordinary reality which is the spiritual dimension of the Middle World, the Upper World which is entirely spiritual and the Lower World which is also entirely spiritual. To enter these realms most cultures use the drum. The Shamanic journey rhythm is 5-7 beats per second which transports one into the altered state necessary to move into the spiritual realm. The practice of the shamanic journey is a powerful one. It is a place not only of information but of wisdom. When asked about this in a recent interview in Seattle Washington Michael Harner responded:

“We need a lot of wisdom. We have a lot of information, but that is not the same as wisdom, and there is incredible wisdom available from the spirits outside of time, ancestral spirits, animal spirits, and other helping spirits. Also, in this Information Age, which is an outgrowth of technology and science, we’ve come to a crisis of confidence in the concept of faith. People want information that they can trust, and are somewhat dubious that they can trust information developed in another culture, thousands of years ago, to guide them in their lives today about spiritual matters. This provides a direct method for the shamanic practitioner, whose information is not based on faith, because the shaman is a person of knowledge. He or she interacts directly with the spiritual realms and does not engage in faith. The proof is the accuracy of the information received.”

By embracing this wonderful and powerful technique our world can become a place of healing and empowerment. We can move into a place of helpfulness to others and get what we need in a safe and solution oriented wisdom way. For more information about the shamanic Journey or to order "The Shaman's Journey" CD to assist with your journeying skills go www.healingdrummer.com or email your request or comment to toby@healingdrummer.com

Time On The Run

2005-02-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

As a practitioner of Sound Healing I am aware of the sound and energy around me. As the energy of the earth is building I notice the speed of time seems to be increasing. I have however come to the understanding that being in the place of the rhythm of the drum seems to stop time and create the space for rest and healing.

Try taking a hoop drum or djembe and begin to play a slow and steady rhythm. Softly at first and allow the sound healing to surround your being. Hold this for 5- 10 minutes. Breath deeply as the sound healing of the drum shifts your energy and tunes your soul. For ways sound healing can help go to www.healingdrummer.com

Welcome to the Healing Drummer Blog

2005-02-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

I am at the airport in Portland Oregon and heading out for a weekend of drumming in Spokane Washington. I have been working in this area for several years and see the people that come to me are changing in a powerful way. I see those from traditional healing modalities coming in to connect to the power of Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration. For more information go to www.healingdrummer.com.