Grandmother Drum:
The Heartbeat Of One Family, One Earth
“Concertgoers are shaken to the core by GrandMother Drum’s soulful thunder -her universal power in undeniable. -Heather Resz- Anchorage Chronicle
To view the full story of the building and global travels of Grandmother Drum, check out our 77minute award wininng documentary, “Grandmother Drum, Awakening the Global Heart”
White Eagle Medicine Woman received the vision of the Grandmother Drum from indigenous grandmothers in dreams for over a decade.
In 1999, the Grandmothers asked her to gather the prayers of the local indigenous Athabascan tribes in Alaska and share with then the Grandmothers vision and receive their prayers and blessings.
Grandmother Drum was to be a symbol of the Universal Heartbeat uniting all tribes and cultures in peace and traveling along Mother Earth’s “Ring of Fire” activating earth healing on sacred sites and key points along the Planetary Grid for planetary awakening.
Many Elders began praying for the vision and mission of the project. The Whirling Rainbow Foundation was blest to receive prayers and financial support from the local Athabascan communities of Chickaloon, Kenaitze, Qutekcak and Cook Inlet Region.
In 1999, the Great Alaska Bowl Company donated 200 birch bowls to make Baby Drums, small replicas of the Grandmother Drum created to fund raise for the building of the Grandmother Drum and spread its healing message. In May 2000, the multicultural community in Alaska gathered in ceremony on Athabascan lands in Chickaloon to pray for the Grandmother Drum to be born and become part of the fulfillment of the Whirling Rainbow Prophecy as the ” healing wind that would come out of the North and spread like a whirling rainbow.” One of the project’s key Elders, renowned Tlingit Elder, Walter Austin lead the prayer work for the drum, encouraging and teaching us to live the prophecy in each step of the project.
The design of Grandmother Drum brought together the Eagle and Condor Prophecy, through uniting the North American Buffalo skin and Cedar with the South American Kulxtrum Drum base of the Mapuche Tribe of South America.
White Eagle Medicine Woman, along with craftsman Walking Talk (Mark Schoenhard) were joined by many volunteer hands of the Alaskan multicultural communit and built Grandmother Drum in a small tipi in Chickaloon, Alaska. All supplies, materials, labor and construction was donated by the global community and the excitement grew day by day.
Made of 1500 strips in six layers of Alaskan red cedar, yellow cedar and birch and mounted with one giant buffalo bull hide, Grandmother Drum took over year in ceremony to construct, working through all four seasons in the tipi. The design brought together the masculine of the buffalo skin with the feminine wooden bowl shape of the womb, bringing balance in all things. Each of the six layers represented one of the six continents, and during the building of each layer, thousands gathered in worldwide global prayer vigils sending their healing intentions to that continent. In visions, dreams and intuitive messages, White Eagle was guided through each step, including the unique inlay of a triple spiral matrix of clear and rose quartz crystal into the wooden kettle base. This one of a kind design and geometry was later discovered to add a powerful healing frequency that not only stirs the soul, but produces a profound healing affect on the body. Due to the transformational healings that began to occur shortly after her birth, Grandmother Drum was later tested by sound experts in their studios to find Grandmother Drum indeed produced the unique solfeggio 528 hertz frequency. This frequency is known to be the tone of “miraculous” healing. The drum also contained the frequency of 88.1 hertz, the frequency where light bends.
On June 5, 2001, after thirteen months of prayer, ceremony and labor in the tipi, the tipi poles were spread and Grandmother Drum was birthed into the summer sun, ready to drum up her eternal love frequency worldwide. On the same day of her birth, a local mother moose who was a regular visitor outside the tipi, gave birth to her calf. The healing journey had begun.
Grandmother Drum’s opening ceremonies collaborated with James Twyman’s “Million Steps for Peace Project” in a four day round the clock drumming event in Palmer, Alaska. Within eight weeks, GrandMother Drum was invited to be the very heartbeat of Alaska’s largest human rights march, the “We the People” Alaska Native Subsistence March gathering over five thousand people to support Athabascan Grandmother, Katie John and her passion to restore indigenous hunting and fishing rights.
Within six months, the worldwide request for Grandmother Drum’s community healing work spread like a wildfire of love. The project then launched two “Ring of Fire” World Peace Tours in Australia, traveling over twenty thousand miles throughout the country in 2002 and 2003 sharing culture, promoting cross-cultural awareness, healing and reconciliation and supporting earth sustainable projects. The project worked intimately with the Aboriginal communities in countless reconciliation gatherings with Australia’s “Stolen Generation” premiered in the movie, “Rabbit Proof Fence.” The project also worked directly with Aboriginal Elder Eileen Brown and the Kungka Juta grandmothers in their plight to keep a nuclear waste dump from their tribal lands.
Over the last twenty years, Grandmother Drum has traveled a million miles, touching a nearly a million people in twenty countries, setting the Guinness Book of Records for drummers for peace and drumming up support for dozens of Sustainable Global Projects all across the world. She has produced CDS, books, film and shared the stage with countless internationally acclaimed musicians, teachers and healers.
“It is always with a grateful heart when I hear the sound of the drum. It brings back to memory what the Elders have said. This also is the heartbeat of the universe. Remember, your ancestors and mine are in the universe, the Spirit world. Here on earth our hearts are beating.”– Tlingit Elder, Walter Austin
“Thank you so much for bringing Grandmother Drum to Denmark ..she took place in my heart. Now, with me, is Wildcat Community Mother Drum and … I dare to say … Sister drum Grandmothers Voice who is just about to be ready to step into action. – Elizabeth, Denmark
“Our journey on the Grandmother Drum Europe Tour was beyond words, transformative, and life changing, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have taken part! Bless you, Michaela and White Eagle and all who were together with us! Love you!” –Shiri, Israel
