Drum Therapy
I took my family to visit the Sustainability Centre yesterday. There was a “green issues” event, I wanted to visit my mother’s grave site and the father of my partner, Hil, wanted to see it to prepare for his own death. While looking at some of the events like solar panels, water filters for recycling, sustainable woodland fencing, woodcraft, etc I happened on a drum therapy* demonstration.
I wandered in about halfway through a treatment and initially thought it was just some fun with drums for kids and adults to enjoy. The drums were beautifully decorated and the tent was laid out with cushions and extra drums which some kids were playing along with. My own children joined in quite quickly with the rhythm while two older women drummed energetically above and around another younger woman who was lying prone in the centre of the tent.
“Odd”, I thought, “perhaps it is just a novel method of relaxation, the woman seems quite relaxed.” After a minute or two of observing and listening to conversation is became apparent that the older women were performing (literally) a “healing” for the younger one. I waited until they had finished and eavesdropped for a while. The “patient” was visibly shaken and felt weak after the “healing”, she expressed surprise on how the drum beats seemed to go right through her. She asked about the power of the drums and how it was used. The drummers apparently were being “guided” on how and where to drum. Upon further enquiry I discovered that this guidance was from the spirit of nature.
I appreciate that environmental issues and natural living will attract people who have a holistic approach to life including alternative ways of living. I do think that it gives the idea of “living green” a bad name when superstition and mysticism is placed alongside environmentally conscious practices. Advocating drum therapy as a means of relaxation, sharing for a group or art is one thing but claiming spiritual guidance is another.
*This site wasn’t the one demonstrating and don’t claim supernatural guidance. I’m linking to it as an example.
I’m a big fan of thought experiments, they help me to move away from an emotional response to an idea and view it logically. When I apply the logic that I gain from the experiment to a real situation I find that I have a better understanding of the issues. Where the experiment cannot be applied to the real world I find I have a better understanding of the concepts.
I suggest that colonists leave Earth and set up on another planet in a distant galaxy, too far to make communication reasonable, say 100 light years. Having limited space they take no books but store the sum of human knowledge on some sort of electronic media that can be read by the space craft’s computers. All colonists are stored in cryogenic sleep until their arrival and provided with data pertinent to their survival by some kind of direct learning machine. Now, let’s suggest that something goes wrong with the learning machine and the only knowledge that they end up woth is that which they need to survive. How to farm animals, raise crops, communicate with one another and operate the machines that they have brought with them. They have a wealth of information that is available to them, all the science, history, philosophy, medicine, religion, etc that is available on our own world but without the cultural bias.
Most people who go on cruises go to the Caribean or some other exotic destination. Last year, my family took a cruise to Alaska and it was absolutely amazing! But if I ever get the opportunity, I want to take a cruise to Antarctica. Believe it or not, 
I spend the afternoon today playing 
