Playful explorations: Somatic practice 2
Drum healing workshop with The Calmery
Photo credit | Duke Photography
Greetings, curious souls! Thank you for tuning into our second episode of playful explorations in somatic practice. If you've not yet heard episode 1 where I talk about the positive psychology walk hosted by Muted healing, I'd encourage you to give it a listen or read after this episode. It's a lovely little exploration of how something simple like photography and walking in combination can really churn a lovely lifting of the soul. So head on over there when you get a chance. But for now, back to this episode, and where playful curiosity led me this time.
Some of you may know that I am a singer and trained actress. I've been a part of a function band for over 20 years and I've written original songs for artists, musicals as well as my own material. Music has been an integral and important part of my life forever, and like many fellow singers and musicians, I recognise that is a central part of my wellbeing toolkit. If I haven't sung, or listened to music in a while, something is very wrong. So for this reason, and because I'm a big kid, always in search of new experiential learning adventures, I was curious about testing something out - something called drum healing. I mean, what even is that? I thought, how does it work? All I knew is that a practitioner called Sushma from The Calmery would be leading a drum healing workshop at a venue in Hackney called She's Lost Control. Now I'm a sucker for words and resonances so The Calmery + She's Lost Control + drum healing = “I'm all the way into it. I'm doing it!” So, I signed up. I paid my money and went along one cold London Evening.
Image credit | The Calmery
It's cold and it's raining. Daylight has long gone, and I am stood outside the venue hugging the winter out of my expectant bones. Soft lighting peeks out the studio windows. The door’s locked, and the game of wait and wonder continues. Time trickles on like the raindrops on my umbrella and I am gradually joined by some other women. We small talk in an awkward huddle. I offer dry refuge to a stranger who seemingly forgot that being British means being prepared for rain, especially in December. She joins me. We smile. Small jokes follow small talk, and I observe the differences between us as a group of women. So very different and yet something, this drum healing appealed enough to all of us, for all of us to leave the warmth and dry of our homes to brace ourselves against the wet winter. The door opens. A low key warmth of energy invites us in. Her voice is kind. I am Sushma, she says. We enter. The space not too big, not too small is inviting with soft lighting. Something has been sprayed in the air deliberately to move us somehow I Yeah, it does. My senses are all sitting up to take in the new environment. I think I like it.
Across the room yoga mats have been neatly arranged in an intimate setup, each with a soft very rug, a beanbag cushions and a blanket cosy. I think just what I need. The lights are coming on inside me and I rest my shoes in the cubby hole unit we've been directed to. I choose a mat in the corner by the oversized round lanterns. I like them. I take my coloured fine liners in a notebook with me because I'm a nerd and a writer and a somatic coach so you never know what insight may come. I want to record it. I sit. Sushma gives us a briefing of her background and how the session will work. One drum, one practitioner, a range of rhythms, tempos, and all of us in a meditative state. Mini lesson complete and initial questions asked and answered we are invited to lay down and make ourselves comfy. I've been waiting for this. We're about to begin.
I'm laying with my eyes closed, hands gently placed on my tummy. The room is silent. We are encouraged to be with our breath. I follow the inhale and exhale inhale and exhale I- something like cockle shells has entered the room. Sushma was on the move. I follow her sound with my ears, first at a distance and then close, and then there on my on my left side, and now above me. I feel my energy shift. It travels. She travels. Where is she taking me? Where are we going?
Now a drum. I am in surprise. Before now I had been in an analytical headspace. I was studying the experience. I think I hadn't liked that sound - the cockle shells. Now the drum and my body or something in me turns inwards. I'm curious about how I can be out there and in here at the same time. Over time, Sushma transitions the drum play between a range of rhythms, speeds, volumes and intensities. Strange, but sometimes a drum feels directive. I travel. I have vivid visualisations. I move between my vision spaces so quickly. It's like time travel. My body asks me for attention. It wants it here in my in my womb space and hips. There's a sense of opening, I'm opening up. It's consuming and grounding at the same time. Lots of freckled lights dance behind my eyes, coloured glitter particles on a black, red, blue sky? One recurring image I see is a tree overwhelmed with avocados popping out. What's that? They keep popping out from the bark on the tree trunk. I'm sensing a rushing mind and a still body. The drum stops.
Photo | Billy Huynh on Unsplash
The silence she told us would come is now here. The space around us feels pregnant. I can sense myself and everyone else. My body is zinging. It's like, it's like my blood has pins and needles. But they don't hurt. The body is resonating on a high frequency. I'm not ready to stop. I'm calm and I'm wanting to stay, maybe to feel more or to see more. I don't know. Sushma gently invites our awareness back into the space. After a little time I roll over and sit up. Emotions are high here. Some tears from several women, lots of deep breaths, something happened. Something connected. I feel more open. I'm impressed and in awe. I'm impressed and in awe at the Inner-city Shaman and her drum.
Photo credit | Jan Kahánek on Unsplash
So if you haven't already deduced from my account, I got a lot out of this little piece of Wonder play. I’d definitely head back to a drum healing workshop. If I'm honest, I'd love to turn up the intensity and be surrounded by a whole ensemble of drums. I'm curious about how my body would feel having more drums and perhaps being in it for even longer. Like what would happen? It’s exciting to imagine. Either way, what I now know about drum healing, from my experience is that
it's a powerfully connected practice. I definitely left more self-aware and tuned into my body.
It opened up a creative well in me because when I got home, I journaled for ages -really deep journaling.
And then finally, I also slept really deeply and woke up feeling refreshed the next day. There's something about the process or the practice that is both relaxing and perhaps releases tension from the body.
So that's what I got. Tell me Have you attended a drum healing workshop? And if you have, how was it for you? Let me know.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep on exploring this beautiful world of somatic practices and I'll continue sharing my adventures with you, so stay tuned for more. I will be exploring Tarot. There'll be some stuff around somatic life drawing, colour mirrors and much more! Finally, I'd like to thank you for leaning into your curiosity about this particular somatic practice. I'd encourage you to go ahead and find Shushma at The Calmery on Instagram or online if that suits you and if you want to try it out. I think she does her sessions monthly. Keep playing out there.
Enjoy it and let's get into our bodies!
Coach Play
Loving hearing your experience here… I have tried a shamanic journey with an opening of cacao which was very powerful , it’s called dreamscape and it’s run by a shamans apprentice from El Salvador … I go to these 4 times a years , like you I gain so much insight and journal for ages!
I will let you know when the next one is , north london based xx
Fantastic, loving this exploration, keep it coming!