Offering a Turtle Drum and Dance Circle

Understanding: Offering a Turtle Drum and Dance circle is about opening yourself and allowing Spirit - in whatever form you focus on in your practice – to come through you to create a Sacred Space where other can come to drum and dance in Safety, Communion and Peace.

Once you establish this space, your job is to back out and let it happen. This can be easy or it can be hard, as it requires a bit of TRUST in the community to hold their own and express themselves.  Facilitators never tell people how to drum or dance in Turtle Drum.

Who hosts Turtle Drum and Dance circles:
People are asked to be hosts for Turtle Drum based on their involvement with the event and their understanding of its principals. This decision is made by the current host(s) of the event and their participation is on a trial basis for 6 months.

If you are too far away from Seattle to come but want to start one of your own, contact Bill Barton.

The goal is to train enough people in this Way to make it a sustainable practice in the Seattle drumming community.  The goal is also to not grow very fast, as the Turtle says going slow is more sure.

How to Prepare: 

1. Ask your Spirits if it is your time to step forward and do this Service
1. Offering a Turtle Drum space is not about ‘being’ or ‘doing’, it is about serving. It is not about self, but about others.
2. Wait for a clear answer.
3. If the answer is No, ask what you need to do to be prepared to do it in the future.
4. If the answer is Yes, ask for an exercise or meditation or dance or something that you can do before people show up to create a opening for a safe, unbiased-towards-any-religion space. Your opening or altar may reflect your own path but should not in any way force others to go down it.
5. Create an altar of some sort for people to place important objects to them.
1. It is very good to reflect your own medicine, the goodness of yourself as offering to others
2. There should be a center candle
3. The base can be a simple cloth, a plate, cedar boughs, anything you want

• Be sure that you will be able to leave the room as clean as it was before you arrived

4. Here are some ideas of optional things to bring

• Extra candles for other people to light
• Exra instruments
• Scarves to dance with
• Anything else you got.

6. Get the list of guidelines that all circle-givers read before a Turtle Drum event.
1. It is crucial for these to be read at the beginning of every circle because it give everyone the approach which will result in a sharing, non-dominating drum and dance circle.
2. It's totally fine to ask someone else to read them.
7. Come up with a simple meditation to get people’s minds off the street and back in their own bodies, to clear themselves and come to as quiet a readiness as possible. If it is special and deep to you, you will be more passionate when delivering it to others, but remember to keep it non-denominational.
1. For example: I usually use a tree as part of the meditation, not only because it is pretty generic but because Trees are a huge part of my personal spiritual sustenance.
8. Have a space-creating opening that everyone can take part in
1. This should NOT be a performance!
9. Have an intention prepared for the first song, hit the chime and you are done!  Thank you for giving of yourself to the community!!
1. Actually, after hitting the chime is a good time to walk away and collect the money. Not only are you preventing someone from slipping in the front door and helping themselves but it puts the responsibility of starting the song in everyone else’s hands.
10. When it is over, don’t forget to THANK everyone for their gifts of music and song and dance. Especially thank your door person, if you have one.
11. IMPORTANT:  If you are able to, please try to organize some sort of outing directly afterwards so people have a chance to make friends at a local pub or tea house.
1. What makes communities strong is doing things together and building good relationships.

LOGISTICS

Where to send the reminder email:

turtledrum@northwestceremonies.com
and
seattle-drum-jams@yahoogroups.com

Things to bring along:

• Welcome sign and money box sign
• Email sign up sheet (give jen the email addresses and she will add them to the list)
• Cup, bowl or basket for money (extra money beyond rent goes into a kitty to cover expenses on the nights we don’t make rent – which is often)
• A few bills to throw in for people to give themselves change
• Extra flyers and "How to Dance with Turtles" sheets
• Your altar/candle.
• Any notes you need for yourself.
• IF YOU CAN'T COVER THE RENT: please cover it yourself and keep track of what you are owed next time we get extra. If I have extra cash from another night, I will reimburse you immediately.

ABOUT THE TROUBLE OF LOUD DRUMMING
Here is some text you can use if you are looking for a way to spell it out at the beginning of the circle. I know...it's long but sometimes people just need to hear it. Maybe if we start ON TIME and don't wait for the regulars, by the time they show up we will be all ready to go.

 If you are playing a drum built to play loudly, like a djembe, you need to be extra sensitive of your volume. We have a lot of didj and Native American flute players come and we absolutely value them as an important fiber of our experience. You have the power to help people keep the beat but also the responsibility to drop back in when things are in a groove.

If someone forgets their connection with the circle and goes off in a way that is against the beat of the song or drowns people out from being able to hear each other, then the whole rhythm can run off the tracks. It is natural for the rest of the group to ride it out and wait for them to come back but if they don't, the host may come up and give a "quieter signal", asking them to listen and sync with the group.

If you get this signal, it does not mean that people are mad or that you are a bad drummer. It's just a call to remember the circle and get back in sync. It's not meant to be a harsh thing. It's meant to be a "Hey we like your spirit. Please come back to us." thing.

If we don't do that, over time, people tend to leave the drum circle and we don't want that at all.

If you are not sure if you are too loud, listen to see if you can hear the drummers on the other side of the circle.

So if you get lost, a good thing to do is to stop drumming, listen for who's holding the beat down and find a new place to come in.