The Drumming Festival That Almost Didn't
Drums Around The World ushers in the White Buffalo
Beat It
Bang the Drum
Music From many Skins
Longhair: The Birth of a new Aeon
Relevant Sacred Passages
Hopi Declaration of Peace
The Drumming Festival That Almost Didn't
by Arthur Hull, in Reach into the Pulse, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1995
( Previously published ins DRUM MAGAZINE )
The Vision that came to Michael DiMartino was simple and powerful: all the drummers in the world playing and praying for peace together at the same time a World Unity Festival and Conference. The one week festival was to be free and to be held on Native American land near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was
envisioned as a global gathering of artists, musicians, indigenous and religious leaders, and organizations from the world. The conference part of the programwas to be held at the Northern Arizona University Walkup Sky Dome in Flagstaff the week of August 22, 1994. Saturday August 27 was called MultiCultural
Performing Arts Day featuring workshops to be given by international artists and speakers, while Sunday August 28th was to be the World Unity Spiritual
Celebration featuring Native American ceremonies for peace and the largest drum circle in the world facilitated by drum community elders such as Baba Tunde
Olatunji and Hamza El Din. Other drum circles throughout the world would be playing and praying for peace at the same time. Michael asked me to coordinate
the facilitators of the drum circle and to be master of ceremonies
For anyone in the hand drumming community network, this was too good to be true, and as it turned out, it was. With proper deposits, insurance, and
paperwork, Michael and Quetzelcoati Productions easily secured the N.A.U. Sky Dome for the two day conference, but his attempt to use tribal lands for the
weeklong festival opened a Pandora's Box of legal and political issues that will continue long after the World Unity dust has settled.
After receiving full support for the Unity Festival by Navaho Nation President Peterson Zha, Michael secured the ancestral land of Navaho elder Paulino
Weltzinger near Big Mountain.
The day the festival started, August 22, the Hopi Tribal Government, headed by Ferrell Sekakaku claimed that the festival was being held on jointuse land and
proceeded to close the road with a court injunction kicking everyone off the land. With Forest Service permission, the approximately 4,000 people who had
arrived for the festival created a gathering in Kaibab National Forest, northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona.
With thousand, of people flocking to the mountains around Flagstaff the focus of the local press was "Hippies invade Flagstaff." The bad press made the NAU
officials nervous and on August 19, seven days before the Conference was to take place, the university pulled the plug on the Sky Dome. At this time most of
the Quetzelcoati production staff gave up, literally heading for the hills to join the gathering. It looked like Michael's vision was lost.
Because of the work of community facilitators throughout the national hand drumming network, we had received commitments from over 200 drum circles in
50 states and 36 other countries. Their commitment was that they would be playing in their home towns when we played on Sunday August 28 in Arizona. To
have all of these circles playing together without the originally planned event actually happening in Arizona would be a shame. Michael DiMartino was
determined to make that part of his vision happen. With the help of his wife Felice, their patents, and a skeletal crew of volunteers, Michael managed to focus
the scheduled Drums Around the World event at the gathering site in the Kaibab National Forest on Sunday, August 28th.
The festival site was a remote area high in the mountains 50 miles south of Grand Canyon. I arrived Saturday morning to find well established campsites
hidden in the pines surrounding the Great Meadow, which was the focal point for activities. In its center was a peace pole with symbols on it and ribbons tied to
it, with crystals and objects around it representing all the different cultures that had gathered here. This is where the main counsel meeting and ceremonies were
held. The sounds of drums were constant and came from every direction .
There were drum circle jams where anybody could sit down and play with any instrument they had. Other circles were culturally specific - Afro-Cuban, West
African, Ghanaian, Jamaican and others, including a Native American Pow Wow circle. There were impromptu classes and workshops and, of course, there
were dancers.
Although most of the concert acts that were scheduled for Sunday were not coming, most of the drum circle facilitators had arrived. Baba Tunde Olatunji and
Hamsa El Din decided that the vision was worth supporting so they came. Remo Drum Co. and Latin Percussion, two music industry pioneers and supporters
of the growing hand drumming movement, each sent endorsers to support Drums Around the World.
Baba, acknowledged as the drum elder of us all, told us that we need to project unity amongst ourselves in our communities before we can project it out into the
world. After he talked, the Drums Around the World circle began with a two thousand person jam. Baba brought all the children on stage and had them sing a
unity song and then proceeded to hold what I'll call "rhythm church."
The closing rhythm was the heartbeat 2000 drummers sending it out to the universe as a prayer for peace and unity. It was a powerful emotional experience for
everyone involved, including the many drum circles playing simultaneously around the world. We accomplished an awareness for peace using the drums as
physical vibration for that awareness to travel on. Despite the chaos surrounding the Unity Festival, the basic and most important element of Michael
DiMartino's vision was fulfilled, a drum prayer that was played around the world.
I now put out the Call to the national drumming community to create Drums around the World as an annual event, on the last Sunday of August, to remind us
that drums, with their universal language, can be a tool for planetary healing and unity. You won't need to put on a big production, make a big commitment, or
spend a lot of money. All you have to is meet your friends and drumming community in your local park on August 27, 1995, and pray for peace and world
unity with your drum. Start the drum circle at a time relative to 12 moon, Hopi land Arizona time, and I'll be there with you. We will all be there, just like last
year.
Think Globally, Act Locally, Commit Personally.
Drums Around the World Ushers in the Birth of the
White Buffalo
and the Restoration of the Sacred Hoop of All Nations
Arvol Looking Horse, is the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe for the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota Nation. Mr. Looking Horse has
written: "Our prophecies are clear. According to the many respected indigenous spiritual leaders and elders who gathered to 'present signs' from their ancient
traditions at the United Nations in 1993, and again at Six Nations, Canada in 1995, it is time to mend the Sacred Hoop of life on our Earth Mother. The birth of
the White Buffalo Calf (August 20, 1994) let us know that we are at a crossroads: we either return to balance or face global disaster. It is our duty to journey to
the sacred places of the world and pray for world peace. If we do not do this our children will suffer."
"Before White Buffalo Calf Woman brought the Sacred Pipe to our ancestors, a seer was traveling in the Sacred Black Hills (Pa Ha Sapa), the "heart of
everything that is." The seer came upon a large tipi. When he went in the tipi, he saw the Sacred Pipe in the North, and the Sacred Bundle of Bows and Arrows
in the South. According to our Star Knowledge, there are six stars which designate six sacred sites within the Black Hills. These places are sacred places to
pray. We are told that there is a sacred site every hundred miles around Mother Earth."
"There are sacred places all over the earth. We ask all people of all faiths to return to these Sacred Places and pray with us according to the traditions of their
hearts. We ask all peoples to organize their ceremonies at their sacred sites so they will be praying at the same time as we are from ours."
"Longhair: The Birth of a new Aeon," by Elliot Tarry
from The Devils's Advocate section of THIS WICKED WORLD
These articles come from you, the readers! Thanks for making the world just a little more wicked. This month's picks come from two great resources in our
area.
Quiz:
What does the comet mean?
Choose one:
A. The NEW AGE is coming. B. Jesus is coming. C. The Apocalypse is upon us. D. All of the above.
Comet-from the Greek word Kome, meaning "longhaired".
The Ancients saw the comet as a long haired visitor from the Gods A Deusexmachina of cosmic proportion. Hyakutake is indeed an ancient visitor....over
18,000 years old! The last time he or she scanned our planet, Atlantis may have been flourishing, the history of all modern or archaic civilization had not yet
begun, all art and religion, the agricultural revolution and the Deluge still were in the future.
Comets have traditionally been blamed for the death of a tyrant or the downfall of a military power-the historical list is substantial. This comet is no different as
a champion of the oppressed. But for additional meaning for this comet I would look at what's right before our eyes. The night sky is the repository of all our
myth, crystallized in the constellations. If one looks at the path of our ancient visitor, we can discern a purpose.
"Longhair" appeared to Earthlings and the unaided eye on the first day of Spring. A fitting birth into Earth consciousness. And just as noone knows at what
moment the spirit enters the body, one cannot know when "Longhair's" personality manifested. There was given a cosmic window of opportunity on that day
The Vernal Equinox. At this moment of balance, "Longhair" appears (in the night sky) to be coming from the constellation Virgo-The VIRGIN.
So what, you say, of this birth from the belly of the Virgin on the first of Spring???? Ancient Gnostic and Pagan cosmology required a virgin birth for any
Being to be considered a god. The Virgin in the Gnostic belief was the Goddess Sophia. Sophia was the First Creation by the unknowable Uncaused Cause.
The Goddess Sophia in turn birthed the Aeons-or creator/ ruler gods of the universe. Each Aeon lasted about two and a half thousand years before Sophia
birthed another Aeon who would then change the Earth, planets, and Cosmos accordingly. The birth of this comet from the belly of the Virgin would suggest
the birth of a new Aeon. One could say it heralds this Virgin birth.
But wait, there's more. Longhair raced past Bootes, the Plowman, (agriculture) like a raging bull with Arctaurus as a beacon passing over the back of the great
Bear and over the tail of the Dragon Draco on his/her way to the land of the Ancestors at the north celestial pole. After meeting with the Ancestors, Long hair
turns west where the Seven Sisters-The Pleiades-are dancing with Venus/Aphrodite/ Inanna-The Queen of the Night. Inanna, Longhair and the chorus of
sisters are met by Mercury and the crescent moon in a spectacular conjunction before the entire cast of this celestial drama sets over the western horizon. Who
could have dreamed of a more perfect celestial pageant???
The meaning is clear. Longhair is a herald of a New Age-the birth of a New Aeon whose qualities or nature are in accord with the Archaic Order, a respect for
the Ancients and an overwhelmingly FEMININE spirit.
As with most comets, this one carries the power of revolution; the power to overcome, to overthrow and wreak havoc with the status quo.
Even without such portentous [missing text here] might, this visitor from another age has transformative powers; to even speak of the comet in these terms is
heresy. The priests of Science long ago relegated the human imagination to linearity and Cartesian products of physical determinism. Just walking outdoors,
away form the computer screens and coffee counters to gape, wideeyed at this miraculous display of synchronicity drags our dulled souls into space, into time,
into myth and into power.
Just reach out, grab that longhaired wild child and ride off over the western horizon into the vast ocean of the Feminine; into the limitless sea of our human
spirit to celebrate the liberation of all Earth peoples in the coming new age.
Elliot Tarry offers Massage Therapy and can be reached at 413/5270698.
Relevant Sacred Passages
Heph'zibah Beu'lah is the marriage of Heaven and Earth.
HEPH'ZIBAH BEU'LAH
" Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate, but thou shall be called Heph'zibah and thy land Beu'lah; for the
Lord delighteth in Thee, and thy land shall be married. "
Isalah, 62; 4
WORLD UNITY FESTIVAL
"Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled.
Isaiah, 43; 9
"For the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and
praise to spring forth before all the nations."
Isaiah, 61;11
"For I know their works and their thoughts; it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues: and they shall come, and see my glory."
Isaiah , 66;18
***************************
Herein lies the vision (initiated at the Earth Summit, Brazil, 1992,) that inspired the concept of the Heph'zi bah Beu'lah World Unity Festival, which
will culminate in the marriage between the spirit of God and the spirit of the earth and its people.
"And it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exhalted above the hills; and all
nations shall flow unto it."
Isaiah, 2:2
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with
joy and singing..
Isaiah, 35; 1
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The Four Corners area was chosen for the location of the World Unity Festival because it lies within the four sacred mountains that envelope the Hopl and
Dlneh (Navajo) Nations. The land, in the Painted Desert, rises from 7,000 to 13,000 feet above sea level.
The prophecies and myths of many Peoples share parallel visions of these times and of the spiritual teachings that will finally unite all people. Proof of this
unified concept of the future can be found in visions of Native American elders; predictions of Nostradamus, a 16th Century French seer; the book of
Revelatlon, which contains the future visions of Jesus as told through His disciple, John; Egyptology; Aztec and Hayan teachings; and symbolic inscriptions
carried on ancient stone tablets in the possession of the Hopi. Surely this consistency from such a wide variety of messengers is proof enough of the influence
of One True Universal Intelllgence guiding humankind.
"Oh, my children, embrace the gift of this new creation, for only comes once in a lifetime, and rarely at that. So it is said, Oh Mitakuye Oyasin. Let the voices
rise, the drums beat and the rattles shake across the land. Let us act from Humbleness. Let us act from Strength. Let us give to the moment the best that we
have, through silence as through music, through stillness as through dance."
White Buffalo Calf Woman
"Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and around about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world...I was seeing in a sacred manner the
shape of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of
the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of the world.
And I saw that it was holy."
Black Elk, 1931 Oglala, from Black Elk Speaks
The whole world is coming, A nation is coming, a nation is coming.
The Eagle has brought the message to the tribe. The Father says so, the Father says so. Over the whole earth they are coming.
The Buffalo are coming, the Buffalo are coming, The Crow has brought the message to the tribe, The Father says so, the Father says so. Ghost Dance Song
The earth will be purified and brought once again into balance.
Hopi Prophecy
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming
down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
Revelation, 21;12
"There will come a time a great light will come from the East. It would come into the hearts of some of the people and they will become like a burning prairie
fire, spreading not only love between all races, but also between the different religions. This light you must find, and I believe that when you seek for your
vision on the mountain top you will be told how to find it. For it will be something so big and wonderful, that in it all the people of the world can find shelter.
And, in that day, all the little circles will come under the one big circle of understanding and unity."
Old Indian Poem
"Finally, Tezcatlipoca, the god of death and destruction, will rise to the fullness of his power and might. At this moment of climax, he will suddenly remove his
jade mask and reveal his true nature beneath Quetzalcoatl (Quetzal means bird; spirit, and coatl means snake; earth), the bringer of peace. The hell realm will
come to an end and a new heaven period will dawn for the world."
Aztec Prophecy
"And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more."
Isaiah 2;4
**********************************
Reading these different cultural and religious interpretations about this coming together, the profound significance is easily understood. This event will trigger
the respect for cultural diversity and the importance for global cooperation, spiritual unity and ecological awareness.
Once again, we ask for your support in this most sacred endeavor by working together for the fulfillment of our planet's evolutionary destiny.
Sincerely,
Michael DiMartino
Hopi Declaration of Peace
It is in the Power of the True Hopi People to unify the minds and spirits of all true peace seeking peoples of the earth...
"Hopi" means "Peaceful People" . . . and the truest and greatest power is the strength of Peace . . . because Peace is the win Of The Great Spirit . . .
But do not think that just because the True Hopi People have been told by the Great Spirit never to take up arms . . . that the True Hopi People will not fight . . .
even die for what we know to be the right way of Life.
The True Hopi People Know how to fight without killing or hurting . . . The True Hopi People Know how to fight with Truth and Positive Force In The Light
Of The Great Spirit . . .
The True Hopi People Know how to Educate by clear thoughts . . . good pictures . . . and by carefully chosen words...
The True Hopi People Know how to show to all the world's Children the True Way of Life by Life by setting an example . . . by working and communicating
in a way that reaches the minds and hearts of all people who are truly seeking the methods of a simple and spiritual Life which is the only Life that will survive .
. .
THE TRUE HOPI PEOPLE PRESERVE THE SACRED KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE WA YOF THE EARTH BECAUSE THE TRUE HOPI PEOPLE
KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS A LIVING . . . GROWING PERSON ...AND ALL THINGS ON IT ARE HER CHILDREN..
The True Hopi People Know how to show the Right Way of Life to an the world's people who have ears to listen . . . who have eyes to see . . . and who have
hearts to understand these things . . .
The True Hopi People Know how to generate enough Power to link up the forces of the Minds and Spirits of all the True Children of the Earth . . . and to
Unify them with the Positive Force of the Great Spirit so that they may put an end to affliction and persecution in all afflicted places in this world . . .
THE TRUE HOPI PEOPLE DECLARE THAT HOPI POWER BE A FORCE WHICH WILL BRING ABOUT WORLD CHANGE.
Global Alliance for Intelligent Arts
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