This new drum from the Journey Oracle has its head in the clouds! I am never too sure how a drum will dry and what kind of surface pattern of lights and dark will result.
I have been thinking about cloud forms as a kind of oracle card or divination technique. I notice an image in the clouds, and try to remember the thought that just occupied my mind at the same moment. The image and the thought together will bring a message, a confirmation, a revelation. I believe this kind of conversation is not an accident but the other-than-human realms using all of nature to communicate with us.
Usually I expect to paint a drum, but sometimes the drum face itself is more varied and interesting than anything I can imagine. Leonardo da Vinci spoke of a method of "quickening the spirit of invention" by advising, "You should look at certain walls stained with damp, or a stones of uneven colour....In such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose stroke you may find every named word which you can imagine."
This drum is a mystical oracle that combines both vision and sound. And takes you to the stars.
It was not until after this frame drum dried that I realized the connection between its cloud surface and the pentacle design on the reverse.
Playing this cloud drum will take you into sacred sound while holding onto a star. How is that for a journey to the alternate realities!
You can hear this shamanic journey drum being played with a felted drumstick by clicking on this youtube link: https://youtu.be/dPH0X4R1Gq4.
