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Originally published in Lotus Magazine
One Tribe
by
Deana Morgan
My first memories of tribalism are eight years young. My mom and I used to attend meetings every Wednesday. We sang, chanted and moved our bodies to music. When we got really into it, we'd hold our hands up high, palms outstretched towards the sky. The tribe meditated and focused healing energy on other members of the tribe who needed it. Although we had a leader, we all participated and shared our talents: some were good with energy work; some were psychic. I spoke in tongues. And although I wouldn't have classified my behavior as tribal, then, I do now. My tribe was Pentecostalism.
Twenty years later. It's a full moon and I'm in the desert, at Moontribe. I'm looking forward to a night of absolutely the best music in the world, of hedonistic bliss, of dancing and smiling up at the gossamer moon, of acknowledging the powerful morning sun. As dawn's rays soak us in laughter, the DJ spins a funky, funky James Brown, and a beautiful girl, completely nude, dances perfect pirouettes on the sand. And out there, in the middle of nowhere, I felt more peace and clarity and joy than I ever have in any church.
Tribalism is union and ritual, a concentrated, collective effort which results in both creation and release. A leader guides our initiation into the tribe and its rituals. Ritual, in the form of dance, drums or chant, or phat, wicked beats, springboards our consciousness from ordinary reality to non-ordinary reality-- the collective unconscious. In its purest sense, however, tribalism is a union of like minds that heals and rejuvenates its members and their world.
Tribalism Then and Now
The word, “shaman” comes from the language of the Tungus people in Sibera, and is “used to identify a specific type of spiritual practitioner,” says Sandra Harner, PhD. Shamans journey through the Three Worlds—the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds—to find answers to problems, be it their own, or of the entire tribe. Journeying takes place while in a “trance,” accompanied by drumming. Some people call this “astral projection” or the departure of the soul from the body. While in a trance, the shaman may chant, dance wildly, sing, or simply lay down quietly.
Sandra Harner is a researcher who has lived and studied with tribal peoples for years, and became very interested in drumming as a ritual. She researched the tempo of world drumming and correlated that tempo with changes in electrical activity in the human brain. Her results were amazing— Journeying with shamanic drumming had positive health benefits! Sandra first realized that the electrical activity of our theta brain waves changed to match the frequency of the drumbeat, which occurred at three to four beats per second. She then measured the concentration of immunoglobulin A, which is an indicator of our immune system's strength. Sandra's research shows that “stress anxiety, mood disturbance, anger, confusion, depression, fatigue and tension were…lower after journeying with drumming than they were at baseline. [And] a sense of well-being increased in all three areas—physical, emotional, and cognitive.” Doesn't this sound strikingly familiar to what we all know and feel after a night of good, positive dancing?
Our modern-day dance shaman guides us with musical energy via percussion or drums. We've all seen drummers and we've seen them everywhere- clubs, massives, outdoor gatherings, Venice Beach , Central Park , etc. I talked to a couple named Carole and Ayo Adeyemi, who run the Yoruba House in West L.A.
The Yoruba House serves as a gathering place for anyone interesting in drum circles or earning about the Yoruba religion, whose rituals include dance, drum, and sacrifice. The Yoruba religion teaches that every music contains the rhythm of the Orishas—or god heads—in it. “If you're dancing and the music is really good, all of the sudden, you begin moving, without even realizing what you're doing, and that's because you are moving to the rhythm of the Orisha within that music,” says Carole. Ayo acknowledges the power of the Orishas in how free and clear he feels after dancing. “For one second, your heartbeat stops working hard for itself. You enter a trance by dance, by drumming. With an open mind. You come in contact with yourself and you are allowed to leave the stresses of the world behind. You think clearly and you return with a clear head.”
Clearness of mind allows us to see what is missing from our lives and removes the confusion that enslaves us.
In most of our daily life, we are not connected to anyone. The only thing we're connected to “is getting everything done. At the Yoruba House,” says Carole, “for the last ten years, roughly every two weeks—the Saturdays closest to full moon and new moon—we mark the time by drumming and dancing together. We're here celebrating that we made it. That we made it to here.” Like the Yoruba rituals, full moon dance gatherings also celebrate the cyclical nature of earth and life.
We are the generation of technology fused with nature, and we have realized the power of this fusion in recreating past full moon rituals…on our terms. Most often, our terms include drum circles, DJ's, and ten-foot high sound speaker systems. The importance of communion and release under a full moon keeps us actively seeking participation in full moon rituals, which are as ancient as Thought itself. The full moon's power resides in her cyclical nature, like that of woman, or earth. During the lunar cycle of 13 moons, we have thirteen opportunities to free ourselves of the past. As the full moon metamorphoses into a new moon, we become an “empty vessel” for the new moon. With every passage of full moon to new moon, we cleanse our ego. “If you do this—a practice that was very advanced on your planet a long time ago,…you will feel less driven by solar forces and planetary agendas,” says Goddess Alchemy, taken from The Pleidean Agenda .
Solar forces are the stresses of day to day life—life under the sun.. And planetary agendas are those mis-alignments that occur in our life when we are not in tune with our inner Self. Each planet is said to possess a certain character or quality to it, and so, when this planet comes closer to earth in its orbit, if our karma is not clean, or if we are unaware of our actions and proceed through life based on re-actions , then we are affected by planetary agendas. Crazy things happen under a full moon; crazy because we are releasing that stagnant accumulation of stress from our daily life. One of the first organized full moon gatherings in California was organized by the WICKED Crew. Jeno tells a story:
“The first full moon happened the day after I arrived in San Francisco . We called a bunch of people and took some turntables and a small sound system down to Baker Beach , which, coincidentally, is where the Burning Man festival also originally started.
I played all night, Markie played in the morning, and I remember Garth played a few of my records to finish things up. There were about fifty people there, but it was a really spiritual experience. When we had arrived, it was night; it was dark and foggy. But, by morning when it became light, we could not only see the beautiful full moon and the rising sun, but the Golden Gate bridge, which I'd never seen before, looming behind us, and some whales were swimming by, offshore. I was blown away. I felt like I was in paradise.”
Garth remembers WICKED's largest party as the three year anniversary, in 1994, at Boony Doon Beach . “Three thousand people showed up, and it turned into a festival—tents all over the beach. Hundreds of fires, drum circles, and one sound system.” Both Garth and Jeno, when asked if they felt that being a DJ was akin to being a shaman, said no. Both felt that there were similarities, but neither one felt comfortable with the term, “shaman.” Maybe it's because DJ's help us in our journey, but don't Journey, specifically, for us, like a shaman traditionally does. Treavor, of Moontribe, says that he DJ's to create positive, healing energy. “In a tribal dance culture, we are united for so many different reasons. My reason is the creation of love-energy through music. It helps heal the troubles of our world, rejuvenates the soul, and unites people in a way that doesn't happen in most other walks of life.” Unity via percussion and movement, however, isnt just limited to the dancefloor or a drum circle.
A local Venice yoga teacher provides a yoga “trance” dance class, in which she incorporates world rhythms, percussion, asanas, and free-form movement. Shiva Rea is both a yoga teacher and dance therapist who believes in energy re-alignment through movement. Shiva began studying yoga at the age of 14, to better understand her name, which her surfer-artist-father gave her. She discovered Shiva is both Lord of the Dance, and the first teacher of yoga.
The connection between yoga and dance is primal and archetypal. The root meaning of yoga, like the core element of tribalism, is “to unify.” By incorporating rhythm, explains Shiva, the class moves “in a collective mind through music and through the syncopation of our breath together. By doing this for an hour and a half, it can be a very powerful experience, for those who allow themselves to surrender.” The free form movement in the rave scene is actually very similar to what the asanas do in yoga— both liberate stagnant energy from our body. “I think yoga is a bit more specific,” says Shiva, “it's a specific kind of form that spins energy in a different direction” However, although yoga incorporates specific postures, whereas rave dance doesn't, the intermingling of the two, like the universal dance towards equilibrium, is the yin/yang of structure and chaos. And both structure and chaos serve purposes in our lives.
Yoga, as a modern tribal movement, is reaching astouding proportions in the United States . Time 's recent front cover featured Christy Turlington, peacefully contorted in a yoga posture. The article exposes the Hollywood side of yoga—the fab places to get blessed out and be seen—and the healthful benefits of yoga. “Fifteen million Americans include yoga in their fitness regimen,” and”75% of fitness clubs offer yoga classes.” The yoga tribe is growing, and growing rapidly, but is it a fad or a genuine search for the Self? It doesn't matter, really, because the beauty of yoga is that it subtly and gently opens both your mind and your body. I used to think that yoga people were strange. Then, I tried yoga, and I understood. Something, quite intangible, but so very deeply ingrained in the happiness structure of our nuclei awakens with yoga. And once it's awake, it doesn't want to sleep, ever again. “It helps you do things you never thought you were capable of doing,” says the essay. But I would add an addendum—Yoga opens our mind and broadens our choices to possibilities we didn't even know existed, before, much less thought of, and then dismissed as “incapable” of achieving.
The Future of Tribalism
Tribes may grow and wane, but how much a part of our daily life are they, really? Richard Farmer, Producer by day, DJ by night, said, “Tribalism is coming together based on a common belief—it could be music, religion, philosophy, law, politics, anything.” Dustianne North, grad student and member of Gathering of the Tribes, said that tribalism is a “deep bond among people. It is forged over time and through meaningful experiences.” Dustianne brought up an interesting point that most prefer to overlook—growth encompasses both hardship and healing. “Both are necessary. Without hardship, there is no mettle to bond, no temper, no strength. Without healing, the bond can become tortured and oppressive. People [begin] to feel isolated within their tribe.”
Isolation within a tribe is detrimental to growth. If any of you belong to a tribe that you do not feel a part of, question first, what might be missing from your life? And then, question your choice of tribe. We have a tendency to group ourselves with others of like-minded beliefs. In modern day life, however, most of us have a hard time incorporating tribalism with the demands of society. I talked to Jimmy Greenway, CEO of Mindfield, a production company, and Burning Man devotee. He likened his involvement in both “modern” career life and tribal culture as a separation of Oneself from Oneself, but inhabiting the same tribe. “The two sides of me are like two rings locked together that can never come undone. And I think now, for the first time in my life, I've actually found the center where the two rings meet.” Tribalism is syncopation of rhythm between people. When you're with people that you love, people that you share with, “you guys create a rhythm that makes it comfortable between you. It makes your heart beat. I can feel the beat right away. And when I do, I know I'm there. I'm with my tribe. In their heartbeat,” says Jimmy. This is because we share a heartbeat with the Universe and that heartbeat comes from within our Self, to one another.
The sharing of our heartbeat, the involvement in ritual, and the release of stagnant energy are all important aspects of tribalism. We need the ecstasy that comes from letting go and feeling free. If we ignore the whispers of our soul, our life templates become weak and obscure; we become filled with mal-aligned energy; and the result of stagnant energy is deep, dark confusion, often manifesting itself in violence towards self or society. Shayn, DJ and member of the Moontribe Collective, tells us a Hopi Indian prophecy:
“The Hopi Indians [said] that at this time in history, the ‘Children of the Rainbow' would unite and dance, heal the world, and save the planet. Since the beginning of time, men and women have danced to the beat of a drum. Now, the new millennium is upon us and with less than thirteen years left in the Mayan Calendar, we are again, dancing to the beat of the drum. This Dance Culture represents the Children of the Rainbow.”
It all comes back to how we see each other. “You'll find yourself traveling in different circles (tribes.) Be it recreational, professional, whatever,” says Nage Canchola, filmmaker and Burning Man participant. ”When pertinent, throw comments into conversations to shake people up, plant the seeds that will eventually wake them up into the reality of our situation in this world.. Aren't we all brothers and sisters of the same tribe, anyway?”
One Tribe. Many Faces.
check out:
www.deliquentfilms.com
www.shivarea.com
www.shamanism.org
www.burningman.com
www.moontribe.org
www.gatheringofthetribes.org
Yoruba@primenet.com
Recommended Readings :
Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality by Felecitas D. Goodman
The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner
The Emerald Tablet by Dennis William Hauck.
The Pleiadean Agenda by Barbara Hand Clow
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung
Psychoimmunological Effects of Shamanc Drumming by Sandra D. Harner
