Well, it was a wonderful time last week engaging in some fun with my hobby having to do with old comic books. This week, though, I invite you to turn your attention to another in an occasional series of "how to" articles, this one dealing with the sacred medicine bag.

It’s called a medicine bag or pouch, and you can make a simple one in as little as a few minutes. But the preparation for choosing its contents and actualizing its healing, protective and/or divinatory power can take a lifetime. You can read more about that in my forthcoming book, Make It Sacred. (More details coming soon!)

But you don’t need to know everything before you start, because now is the time for learning and doing. You are, after all, a healer in your own right, and the sooner you allow yourself to discover your true nature and to then be of service to yourself and others, the better. Your time has come! And making a medicine bag necklace is a wonderful way to explore some of the aspects of spiritual expression, healing and service.

The example shown below will demonstrate how to make a small medicine bag necklace, and will result in a bag about one or two inches in diameter and height, depending on what you put inside of it. The size can be adjusted to suit your needs. << MORE >>

(Please Note: Today's series ends with a l-o-n-g post, so please expect it to take a couple of seconds longer to load. Thanks!)

And what would such a week be without doing that which all good comic book superheros must deal with at some point in their careers— POLITICS!? What a subject! A real sticky-wicket!

But it's eerily similar to the main subject of this week's Spiritual Superhero series, and that's spirituality. Both subjects, politics and spirituality, were the two things my Dad always told me not to debate with people, because it deals with people's beliefs, or lack thereof, and that doesn't necessarily make for good conversation. "You'll make few friends discussing these matters," he warned. And he was right, of course.

But it doesn't apply if you're a talk show host, a journalist or a comic illustrator— zany people they are! Whoa, wait a minute, those are things I do! Oh...never mind!

Hey, it's all for fun! And what the heck, if you're upset with me for what's been posted this week, you won't be reading today's entry anyway! (And if you don't hate me yet, just hang on, 'cause today's is three, THREE big comic book pages long, so there's plenty of time left to build up steam!)

One person who understands the point I'm trying to make has just broadcast a couple of Twitter messages about the series in the past few days. She wrote (or rather, "Tweeted") the following... "Thanx. << MORE >>

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It's Day Three and I'm gettin' my groove on!

I guess by now you know I'm hoping to resurrect some superheros of old and give them a chance to discover their own innate spiritual awareness while they battle the forces of E-vil. They've always stood for justice (more or less), but had to rely on superpowers, muscle, guns and dyn-o-mite to bring it about!

So now they face a new challenge, how to bring about change to a world that is now so much more bizarre and even more violent than when they flew the skies or slapped leather, and to do so in the name of peace, healing, and compassion! Good grief!

Instead of fighting to a drumbeat of violence, they now must follow the gentle rhythm of the shamanic drum and take a journey to the realization that we are all One, and that their true superpower is love.

It can happen, ya' know. You have the superpower.

Now, on with DAY THREE of Spiritual Superhero Week!
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If you just landed here on the Shaman Drums blog for the first time, here's an up-to-date summary of what you just got yourself into.

This is the second in a week-long series of posts that combines many things I love. Not everything I love, but at least a bunch. To wit, in no particular order: (1.) I love to make shamanic drums and other sacred tools for spiritual seekers, like shamanic rattles, lightning sticks, shaman's jewelry, things for your altar, shamanic spirit shields, and the like, mostly from the powerfully charged wood of lightning-struck trees (you can see 'em all on the Thunder Valley Drums Website here); (2.) I love old comic books; (3.) I love teaching, talking / reading, and otherwise engaging in shamanism; and (4.)I love learning from other spiritual seekers like you. So the series combines all of these things into a sort of fantasy I'm having about what it would be like if superheroes were to suddenly become seekers, too, and what their comic book appearances may look like, as sponsored by Thunder Valley Drums. Cool, eh? KEWL!

Oh, that last ingredient in number 4, you, is up to you. I'd love to hear from you! You can comment here, of course, or send along an email: livefree@naturalshamandrums.com

So now, on with the show! << MORE >>

I have dispirit thoughts to share today. But stick with me for a minute, and you'll see where I'm going with this.

I have been thinking of Martin Luther King throughout this day devoted to his memory and works. At the same time, I was working on a series of ideas that I would like to present, one for each of the days of this week. So it's only fitting that the first should be presented on ML King Day.

My next line of thinking involved what it is that I do as a shamanic practitioner and drum maker, and other things I love. For example, comic books. That's why I produced and posted the Malinda Maeko comic some time back over on the Thunder Valley Drums Website. (The link will open in a new window and may take some time to load, as it is graphics heavy.) People seemed to appreciate it (particularly the way shamanic drumming was presented), and many commented that they would like to see more such spiritual comic books and comic strips in general. Well, I'm no artist, so I'll leave that up to those with such talents and spiritual orientations.

But I do tinker with digital clippings from old comic book illustrations from time to time, and over the weekend decided to do a series of one-panel takes on a theme of what it would be like if Thunder Valley Drums sponsored a series of superhero ads about spirituality and social consciousness, from my point of view of course. << MORE >>

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(Left) The weather forecast calls for a snow storm tomorrow.
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I live in a typically crowded town, but am blessed to have a soccer field and open parcel of land behind our place. At the far edge of those open areas stands a towering, strikingly beautiful oak tree, its branches now bare in winter. About a week ago, as often happens, I looked out to see the familiar presence of a sacred hawk perched near the tree’s lofty top, her tawny belly feathers glowing golden yellow in the morning sun (which my camera’s maximum zoom function failed to pick up).

Hawk is a messenger in many tribal traditions, a fast and focused ally who takes our prayers to Great Spirit.

So on that morning last week, it just happened I had a prayer to send, about the seeming unrelated subjects of guns used in violence and death, and of how we may better prepare our young people for non-violence and life. I knew the New Year was about to be born, so it was a prayer for those who will step onto an Earth journey for the first time in 2012. Millions of new lives…with new promise.

Out here in Kentucky, and in West Virginia where I used to live, the very idea of not owning a gun was anathema to many people. It is, and has always been, a way of life.

It is rather odd, then, that I should have been raised in a farm household with no guns. It wasn’t something I even thought about. << MORE >>

Why is it that friends have a way of cheering you up when you most need it, even if they are unaware that you need it?

Take, for example, the photos you see here today. They come from Roger, who is “fortunate to live only about a half-hour away from the Black Hills National Forest” in South Dakota, he writes. Roger is a wonderful friend, and yet, like so many I have met through Thunder Valley Drums and the work I do, he is a friend I’ve never met in person. When you really analyze friendship, though, particularly if you are familiar with shamanic journeying or any practice that takes you to the larger reality of existence, you make many friends you never meet in person on this plane. And if you haven’t had a direct experience like this, I’m sure you’ve read or heard about them from such sources as the Christian Bible and most other holy books that report encounters with non-humans, like angels, “one like a person” and so forth.

So, despite having never met Roger, I consider him a great friend and brother. (And he is, by the way, quite human.) We probably swap emails three or four times a year, and that’s it. But we have a strong connection, nonetheless.

And so it was a few days ago that, quite out of the blue, I received an email from Roger with these beautiful photos attached. << MORE >>

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Winter, at least early winter, is so deceptive when we drive past a forest. It looks ... well... so bleak. Empty. Lifeless.

But if you get out of the car and step onto a forested path, you're in for a shock. The place is bubbling, cawing, creaking, snapping, EXPLODING with action and life!

I visited one of my favorite local forest haunts today, where a labyrinth of hiking / biking trails encircle the hilly terrain around a freshwater lake. Action everywhere!

For the first time in a long while, there were few people around, probably because it was so cold and getting late into the day. Perfect! << MORE >>

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Spirit shields were and are treasured warriors’ allies in Native American, Celtic and other cultures, and shared common purposes when it came to spiritual connection. In many Native American traditions, a warrior was provided with a totem to paint or otherwise depict on his shield, which was generally made from leather, after a vision quest. This would represent his quest for the remainder of his life and death, and he carried it into battle for its symbolic and deeply personal protective qualities. The Celtic warrior’s shield was generally an actual battle shield, made of leather-clad wood and metal, and often bore a spiritual totem animal or symbol on its front. In most cases, the shields were buried with warriors when they died.

For sure, these shields served as powerful spiritual partners, warding off the blows of seen and unseen adversaries alike, deflecting other threatening influences and helping the warrior maintain a strong connection with Spirit through right-mindedness, bravery, integrity and service. Perhaps the Native American concept best captured the essence of spirit shields by equating them with spiritual “medicine,” as in the medicine wheel.

Today, spirit shields maintain a prominence for a growing number of people on a spiritual quest. Like the vision quests of old, modern life can seem to be an unending test of one’s ability to survive amid an increasingly troubled world around them. And under such circumstances, it can be become more and more difficult for a seeker to maintain a connection with Spirit. << MORE >>

Here's the latest video highlights of the Bear Drum's recent initiation ceremony, followed by its birthday party! We could only get seven people into the small Thunder Valley Drums shop and still have room for this big drum...and its birthday cake!


Hope you have a good bass response on your speaker system, as the Bear Drum has a big voice! (More info about the drum on the Thunder Valley Drums' Website, will open in new window.)

Aho & Namaste, Bob << MORE >>

Several people have asked about the lines I read for the opening of the last podcast, "The End of the World."
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     If you are on the Shaman Drums 2.0 Blog site, you can listen to the podcast by clicking the start button at the upper left.

Show Notes: “The End of the World” Podcast

There’s no getting around the end of the world! It’s just that no one knows when it will happen. But that doesn’t mean that religious prophecy, individual revelation or group consensus can’t predict Judgement Day, even though all who have so far predicted it have been wrong. And many of them keep trying!

There’s also no getting around the perception that signs and wonders, floods and disasters, meteors and comets, and general weirdness are occurring on what seems to be an accelerating basis.

So, are all of these events pointing to the End of Days?

Hop on down the rabbit hole with Bob as he explores the eschatology so prevalent today and why it is connected with “corporate colonization” and the loss of individual power and the resulting erosion of freedom.

There is a way to remain steady, though, and the method may surprise you. And it begins with firing up all seven cylinders of that body-mind-soul machine you walk around in.

There are a ton of links to the William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) poem, “Second Coming” that is quoted in the opening song by the incomparable and prolific songwriter Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com. But here’s one version of the poem: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html

Harold Camping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

Jehovah’s Witnesses and general eschatology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time

Mayan Calendar: There’s thousands of sites to read with a Google search

The Apocalypse books mentioned, Ezra, Peter, Paul and Thomas can be found online in many places, as well as in lots of books.

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I was just informed that a woman in our circle is currently in hospital with internal bleeding and that physicians are unable to locate the source of the problem and are therefore unable to stop it so far. << MORE >>