According to Toby, everything in your life is an expression of the energy you carry. If you shift that energy, you will shift the situation. Have Toby Christensen, The Healing Drummer, create for you your own custom healing CD! As a new offering from healingdrummer.com, Toby has created “Shift It!”: a unique healing session intended to transform energy that is not in alignment with your intention and reconfigure it so you are able to eradicate negative situations and conditions in your life, allowing you to live the life that supports your health, well-being, happiness, and genius!

Everything in the created universe is energy. If we can shift the vibration of this energy, we change our lives!

Overview: “SHIFT IT!” sessions are one-on-one and can be done in person, via telephone, iChat, or Skype. They involve the application of sound and shamanic practice to transform the patterns in your life that are keeping you from living your life to the fullest.

In these sessions, we create an intention for you and look closely at what you want to create in your life and what is preventing you from doing so. Toby then creates a custom CD just for YOU! This CD contains rhythms, melodies, and frequencies that shift your energy. By listening to this CD you get an individual healing session as often as you want!

This process enhances new, beneficial patterns, and  also prevents the old patterns and imprints from coming back!

Objectives: To transform energy that is not in alignment with your intention and reconfigure it so you are able to eradicate negative situations and conditions in your life and  and support new patterns that bring you into alignment so you can live the life that supports your health, well-being, happiness, and genius!

Shift it! Change the rhythm, change your life!

Results: A better life, more energy, positive outlook on life, a sense of well-being, and improvement in your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. You will also find that reoccurring disruptions in your life no longer exist and opportunities to create a more purpose filled life come your way.

Cost: $350

Start now! Book your session today!

This earth ritual facilitates the release of not-yet-manifested energy and the birth of a new vision. Earth energy in this cosmology is about nurturing, abundance, welcoming, and home.

As you do this ritual, allow yourself to freely ask for the nurturing that you need in your life. Ask the great mother to provide the abundance needed, regardless of what that is: for some, the abundance is primarily financial, while for others abundance is love, community, friends, good health, or a sense of well-being.

Allow yourself to expand the definition of each of these intrinsic energies! Welcome yourself into your own life! Welcome your perceived successes and your perceived failures as wisdom-building, energizing, and fueling aspects of your life! Welcome yourself home to a place of welcoming, a place of nurturing, and a place of abundance!

Invite the Energy of the Earth

Begin the ritual by finding a place in your home where you feel safe, secure, and held. If this place does not exist where you live, it is a key that modifications need to be made in order to create this space. This would be ritual preparation. As you create this space, realize that the ritual has already begun.

Light a candle, preferably one golden or yellow in color. Call on the energy of earth—the energy of the great mother, the great nurturing one and provider of all things—to be present. Then, write in your journal or on a tablet the aspects of each of the intrinsic energies you would like to manifest. Really focus on the creation of what you desire as opposed to the things that are contrary to these intrinsic energies.

Each day this month sit with your list and meditate. Visualize each aspect materializing in your life. It is not your job to know how, it is only your job to focus on its completed state. As you tune your vibration to the manifestation of these things, you create the electromagnetic field that will begin to attract these things.

Focus & Trust

If you would like to energize your meditation in a more profound way, you can drum the energy of your creation into the list, sing the energy of your creation into your life, play your guitar, your flute, your violin . . . whatever it is that you enjoy, whatever activity fills your soul! Dance around the list vigorously, calling in the energy! This is a potent way to amp up the energy of creation! Most of all, have fun doing it.

Remember: what we focus on, we feed! By writing down the things you desire to create, you actually take them from the dream world, or the world of thought, and bring them into physical form in this dimension. This is the first step of manifestation.

Trust the ancestors that they hear you and are responding to your plea. Trust the earth, the great mother, knowing that she hears your voice and is creating the synchronicities “effortlessly and delightfully” to occur in your life.

The more joyful energy that you put into this, the more attractive it is for these things to be around you. May good fortune and the fulfillment of your dreams manifest for you!

This rejuvenating ritual is based on mineral. Mineral represents communication: how can our purpose be communicated within ourselves to to the rest of the world? Each of us has and lives a story. Some of us feel this story is out of sync with who we really are. This mineral ritual can benefit us in so many by allowing our old stories to be finished and our new ones to begin.

Connecting with Nature

You will need an ordinary stone or crystal for this ritual. Search for a stone in your yard, on a walking path, in the park, or wherever. It doesn’t have to be a fancy stone, but should be comfortable to carry with you. I’ve done healing work with many people who have used a crystal in place of the stone, and it worked beautifully.

For three consecutive days, keep this rock or crystal with you. It can be carried in your pocket, purse, or even in a pouch around your neck. The point is it should remain with you throughout the three day period. For fifteen minutes each day, hold the stone or crystal in the palm of your hand and close your fingers around it. During this period, focus on connecting with the stone, asking it to grant you a new story that can help improve your life. Be open to receive whatever new story comes your way using this mineral ritual.

When you are finished downloading your new story, take a moment to thank the rock for helping you in your discovery. If you found the rock in nature, please be sure to return it.

Start a New Chapter of Self-Improvement

Far too often we get stuck in a rut. We automatically support the stories in our lives that are not necessarily the ones that we want to continue. The problem is it’s easier or more habitual to do this, because we don’t have a new story to replace the old one! We end up stuck in the same, repetitive story.

So use this ritual to start a new chapter. Ask for a new story! Take the time to really focus on how this new story can change the current unhelpful conditions in your life and support you as your continue down your path of purpose.

I would love to hear what each of you gets through this exercise! Please let me know your stories of renewal at toby@healingdrummer.com.

My friend Kathy Sampeck and I have been talking a lot about flutes lately. Native American-style flutes, bamboo flutes . . . for some reason, their beautiful sound and rich melodic tone have been tapping me on the shoulder as though I needed deeper connection with this energy.

During my last trip to the Washington, DC area, Kathy attended an event at which people were selling flutes. She bought one, brought it home, and begin playing. In just a few days she was very proficient, expressing beautiful melodies through this instrument.

When I arrived in Hawaii and reconnected with my friend John Dumas—who happens to make amazing flutes—I talk to him about the possibility of acquiring one of these majestic instruments. After a couple of performances with John, I realized that both a high register flute and a lower register flute in a harmonic key would be amazing for the new CD that I’m going to surprise you with soon!

Custom John Dumas Flutes

New instruments for my new CD

As John and I talked, we decided on the key that I preferred for the flutes and begin construction. Interestingly enough, after talking to Kathy, I found out that the flute John is building for me will harmonize perfectly with the flute that she acquired! I think there may be a new musician playing with my on the upcoming CD.

It’s amazing how things synchronize so perfectly in the world. Last night when John was over for an event we had here at the house, he presented me with these two flutes. They are so beautiful and sound amazing. And the most important thing is they are very easy to play.

So, I have some work to do! All day today—other than taking a break to post this blog—I have been practicing the flutes! I have not figured out how to play the flute and drums simultaneously, but I’m working on it. Now all is I need is a didgeridoo, and I can officially complete my one-man band! I think I have my hands full with these two new additions to my sound healing arsenal.

New Sound Healing Instruments for Upcoming Tour

I’m heading out for an East Coast tour as soon as I get home at the end of September. I will be in Washington, DC; Charlottesville, Virginia; Alexandria, Virginia; Berkeley Springs, West Virginia; and Bluemont, Virginia. Following those events, I’ll be in Miami, Cincinnati, and Seattle. I’m really looking forward to getting back on the road. All the latest details about my upcoming schedule can be found at www.healingdrummer.com/schedule.

For those of you who are going to participate in some of my events or have booked private healing sessions, get ready! The island has charged up the drum! With the addition of the flutes, there are places we will be going where we have not gone before! A huge thanks to my brother John for creating these beautiful instruments, and great thanks to my friend Kathy for inspiring me to follow through with my desire to have my own  flute!

Handcrafted Indigenous Flutes by John Dumas

Custom John Dumas Flutes

If any of you are interested in ordering a flute from John, please contact me, or go to Johndumas.com to contact him directly. If you have been toying with the idea, now is your time to respond to the inspiration! These two flutes are made from Hanalei bamboo, found here on the island of Kauai. They are completely handcrafted and finished with a heating process that infuses the bamboo with beeswax for a very durable, yet indigenous, finish. As far as the tone, one word: fantastic! On my upcoming CD you will hear these very flutes and you can judge for yourself. In the meantime, visit John’s website.

I look forward to providing a new experience for those of you who are coming for private sessions. The addition of this vibration is peaceful, soothing, and powerful.

The element of nature is one that inspires personal transformation and guidance towards an authentic life. Nature rituals of renewal promote reflecting inwards and asking yourself questions of truth. The ritual I write about today involves personal energy, focus, and discovery.

Shift Your Perceptions

With this ritual I recommend that you spend some time in nature, peacefully and quietly. As you bring your awareness to the energy around you, look at the trees, shrubbery, and grass with a soft eye. Take note of how your perception changes as you allow your eyes to gaze softly at the energy around the objects of your attention.

Begin to focus in on that energy. I want you to focus and feel with all your senses the energy of that object, whether it’s a tree or even a body of water. The idea is to allow your perception to change as you feel into what you are putting your attention on.

Turn the focus of attention onto yourself. Feel into your body and ask your powerful awareness to help you focus in on your true nature. Consider all the things you do, all the things you say, and all the feelings you have about things in your life. Take the time to ask yourself this very important question: “Is this really who I am? Is this in alignment with my true nature?”

Release Negative Energy

Open yourself up to receive the answers. As the answers come, allow yourself to shed the things that are not in alignment with your true nature and begin to feed the things that are. How do you shed the things in your life that are not in alignment with your true nature? Here’s a simple process: Find an object in nature, such as a rock. Imagine in your mind the thing that you want to release in order for you to come into your authentic life. Blow it into the object as you focus on releasing the negative energy. Bury the object from nature in the ground, leaving behind the aspect of yourself that may not be authentic or not in alignment with who you are now.

Embrace Your Authenticity

After you perform this renewal ritual, I want you to keep awareness on how your actions and mannerisms, the way you speak, and your responses in situations that support those aspects of yourself that are in alignment with your true nature. You will begin to notice yourself coming more into your personal power and authenticity!

I hope you enjoy this ritual of personal transformation. Please share your experiences with me!

The final track on my sound healing album, Tribal Medicine, is “Celebration Dance.” The album features different healing energies with each track, and this one is one of which I’ve been getting a lot of positive reviews. The intention behind Tribal Medicine was to offer listeners an opportunity to heal their hearts and souls through the rhythmic power of the drum, and this is definitely achieved with “Celebration Dance!”

Celebration Dance

“Celebration Dance” is an up-tempo, fun, shake-it-loose type of song. We all need to lose ourselves in music like this—not just every once in a while but often! “Celebration Dance” is a song I encourage you to play while giving thanks. Its rhythms complement nicely the gratitude we express when the ancestors and spirits respond to our requests and bring to us the things for which we’ve asked.

As you know, I am always encouraging people to be thankful! As we focus on being grateful for what we have, we invite more good things to come our way. “Celebration Dance” is a song of proclamation that our lives are full of good things.

Over the past few weeks I’ve talked about each track on Tribal Medicine. This CD features healing rhythms that are intended to restore listeners’ hearts and souls as the sensations of the healing drum infuses the body. Each of the five tracks engage different energies that create different healing experiences.

This is due to the album’s strong roots with tribal connections. Listening to Tribal Medicine is like partaking in an ancient indigenous ceremony where the wisdom of African, Native American, and Eastern shamanic healing traditions take over the listeners’ body and restore health and vitality through the beating of the drums!

Tribal Medicine features me, Healing Drummer Toby Christensen, on djembe drum and percussion, and the talented Rebecca Holt on vocal toning. Skilled artist Carolina Woodrich shared her stunning original artwork for the album!

To purchase a copy of this healing rhythms CD, please visit my shop. I invite you to engage your body, mind, and soul with the powerful rhythms of Tribal Medicine. Enjoy!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been sharing with you inside looks at each track from my new CD Tribal Medicine. Tribal Medicine is one of my favorite albums to date. It offers listeners restorative healing rhythms to infuse their hearts and souls. Each track on the album features intoxicating drumming, various sounds, and specific intent that embodies different healing energies. By creating a varying, yet powerful, healing album like this, I’m proud to offer listeners a rejuvenating sound energy session.

I’ve talked about the energetic and spiritual rhythms of “Call of the Ancestors,” the indigenous conversation of “Tribal Spirits,” and the transforming healing energy of “Sacred Chant.” The next track I’d like to discuss is the he fourth from Tribal Medicine called “The One.” 

I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about this song. This is a soundtrack for being in the presence of the one who heals us all and who can guide us to overcome any obstacle. “The One” is about being in the presence of the Creator and accepting our life circumstances for what they are, no matter what they are.

“The One” is also a form of spiritual guidance that encourages us to ask for the eradication of things from our lives that are not helpful. It’s a great song by which to meditate and ask for peace in the place where we are carrying turmoil, for health and wellbeing in the place where we carry illness, and for abundance in the place where we carry emptiness.

Tribal Medicine offers listeners powerful inspiration through its tribal connections—as so many responses from people have indicated. This album as a whole resembles closely an ancient indigenous healing ceremony. All listeners have to do to experience the wisdom and powerful healing of African and Native American ancestors and shamans is bring positive intent, an open heart and mind, and close their eyes for the great escape of Tribal Medicine!

Tribal Medicine features me, Healing Drummer Toby Christensen, on djembe drum and percussion, and the talented Rebecca Holt on vocal toning. Skilled artist Carolina Woodrich shared her stunning original artwork for the album!

To purchase a copy of this healing rhythms CD, please visit my shop. I invite you to engage your body, mind, and soul with the powerful rhythms of Tribal Medicine. Enjoy!

Nechema Robinson, director of KinderWorld Tracks, recently spoke with Toby about his life and healing gifts. The following is the final excerpt from this three-part interview.

Toby’s Influences & Heros

Nechama: I’d be interested to hear who your childhood heroes were, [and] who do you look up to now?

Toby Christensen

Toby: My first and most profound influence, musically, were The Beatles. I remember seeing them on The Ed Sullivan show. I saw Ringo up on that stage and knew that’s what I wanted to be. I then later fell in love with the likes of Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, and many of the jazz greats.

Although I had a very tumultuous childhood, my father has always been a very big hero to me: [he’s] very calm and wise.

The other person that has influenced my life tremendously all through my childhood and into my adult years is my uncle Mike Flo. He was a very successful businessman, and at 90 years old continues to be a very positive influence in my life.

I would say Wayne Dyer is another huge influence. He was the first presenter of what we might call “alternative” perspective in my life. I had a tape set of his back in the early ‘90s, and I’m pretty sure that I wore those tapes out listening to them over and over and over again!

Nechama: I can understand how so many people would want you as an influence in their lives. Your life is a testament to the possibility of a kind of broad-spectrum success that seems to require no compromise. Would you agree?

Toby: I would certainly like to think so! My work centers around people coming into and claiming their power! No guru in my world: I help people become their own guru

Nechama: Yes! I have noticed that in your message over and over again. Clearly, I am not the only one who finds that appealing and empowering.

How Drumming Can Help Parents & Children

Nechama: Many of my readers believe that playing with rhythm has benefits for their children. Does your work relate to anything you enjoyed doing as a child? Are there children in your life? If so, how is your relationship to them affected by your work?

Toby: I would agree with your readers very much! I started drumming when I was about five years old. It is a gift that I was born with. My entire childhood was filled with music, and drumming is the one area of my life where I was supported very strongly by my family. I do not currently have children in my life, however I work with children from time to time, both young children and adolescents.

When I was raising my stepson, it was interesting as my work shifted from the more “ordinary world” things—such as the coffee business and a restaurant—to the more “otherworldly” business that involved the drumming. He was a little uncomfortable with what to tell his friends [about what] his stepdad did.

One time, I was hired by fashion designer Donna Karan to do an event at her flagship store in Manhattan. My stepson, Adam, came with me to that event, and as he saw some of his favorite movie stars dancing and enjoying my drumming, it gave him a whole new perspective. It was a way to bridge ordinary and non-ordinary reality.

Finding Rhythm

Nechama: I love that story! What do you think are the most significant benefits of giving children the opportunity to play with rhythm? And, if you could give one tip to parents looking to maximize that opportunity for their children, what would it be?

Toby: I think the biggest benefit [for children] is the benefit of self-expression. In our culture, we are constantly programming the restraint of freedom and a conduct that is predicated on how other people will perceive us. So, self-expression is something that the drum facilitates beautifully.

When I had my restaurant, I had African décor, and there were drums sitting around on the floor. Every once in a while, someone would bring a child in and they would head immediately for the drum and start banging on. The parent usually would run frantically to make sure that the child did not hurt the drum or disturb anyone. Usually, that was the time when I would start an impromptu jam session with the child! The patrons loved it!

Let your child be free! That is the most profound tip I could give. So much of our restrictive behavioral conduct has hugely damaging effects when a child comes into adolescence. Most of the time, substance abuse and “inappropriate behavior” are just a way for our children to fight against a repressive cultural system that denies them their genius. In the village where I’ve studied, my teacher Malidoma Somé says each and every person is born a genius. It is the job of the village or community to acknowledge and support the genius that resides in each and every person. Let your child be a genius and let that genius shine!

Nechama: And that just might be my favorite story of all!

Thank you, Toby, for an absolutely riveting interview! I hope we can do this again some time. I will certainly be following your work. Please don’t hesitate to contact me for any reason. Would you like to say anything else before we say good-bye?

Toby: It was an honor to be interviewed by such a skillful and conscious being. Thank you! I look forward to further contact. Be well.

Thank you to Nechama Robinson, MA, director of KinderWorld Tracks.

What I love best about fire rituals is how they allow us to connect more deeply with our ancestors, our life’s inspirations, and our dreams. The element of fire represents a powerful transformative energy that drives change in our lives where we desire it most.

I’ve previously shared another fire ritual designed to help you bring your dreams into reality. This restorative fire ritual also “feeds” your dreams and desires, helping to bring them to materialization. It is a simple, but profoundly powerful practice.

Feeding Chakras with Fire Energy

Position yourself in front of a lit candle and focus intently on the flame. As you watch, express your ambitions, desires, and dreams. Let the fire feed the images in your mind as you hold your self, whole and complete, connected deeply to these dreams.

Reach forward with your hands cupped, fingers pointing towards each other. Reach over the fire flame and pull it to your body as though you are scooping the fire energy and bringing it to yourself. The process of bringing the fire energy into your system is about feeding your dreams and aspirations. This ritual involves three “scooping” processes that distribute this essential energy.

The first three “scoops” of fire energy you take will be fed to the second chakra, located just below the navel. Feeding this chakra helps support the action that needs to be taken in the ordinary world to support the dreams that you have in your heart and mind. The second three “scoops” of fire energy are for the heart. This feeding process symbolizes the good intentions in creating stream in your life. The last three “scoops” of energy go to your third eye, or sixth chakra. The feeding of the third eye is about feeding the thoughts that help create your dream and materialize it in your life.

Schedule Regular Visualization

I would recommend that you do this ritual regularly. At least once a week! The more you feed your dream, the more easily it will be created in your life. As you visualize the dream materializing, view it as though it already exists on the energy of your success and supported with the actions that you take.

I hope this ritual is helpful for you and helps you to reconnect more powerfully with your dreams. I dare you to create in your life the dream that you desire to live!

As always, let me know how this restorative ritual works for you!

Those who have already listened to my new album Tribal Medicine can attest to its powerful inspiration through its tribal connections. So many reviews have been coming back to me, and one common remark is that listeners often feel as though they are taking part in an ancient indigenous healing ceremony! Tribal Medicine is a great escape for those who wish to close their eyes and experience the wisdom of African and Native American ancestors, as well as experience Eastern shamanic traditions through the powerful healing rhythms of the album’s songs!

For instance, “Sacred Chant,” the third track on the album, is about the vision of a medicine person residing in solitude on the top of a mountain, calling to the healing spirits. It’s a truly beautiful song that was written with those in mind who are suffering and are in need of some sort of healing—be it from a serious or debilitating illness, the crushing and despondent force of depression, or any other mental or spiritual malady.

“Sacred Chant” is a healing song in which the medicine person calls to the spirits through sacred chant. These calls are requests for healing and comfort for those in pain, and to restore health and vitality to those in need of a transformation.

Tribal Medicine as a complete album offers healing rhythms that restore the hearts and souls of those who listen. I am quite proud of how this album turned out—the drumming is incredible and infuses the body with its intoxicating rhythms. While “Sacred Chant” is just one of five powerful tracks on the album, each song embodies a different healing energy. Through various rhythms, sounds, and intent, individual tracks offer listeners different sound energy sessions. As a whole,Tribal Medicine is a restorative treat!

Tribal Medicine features me, Healing Drummer Toby Christensen, on djembe drum and percussion, and the talented Rebecca Holt on vocal toning. Skilled artist Carolina Woodrich shared her stunning original artwork for the album!

To purchase a copy of this healing rhythms CD, please visit my shop. I invite you to engage your body, mind, and soul with the powerful rhythms of Tribal Medicine. Enjoy!

We perform rituals involving nature and its gifts to help rebalance our lives, shift energies, and experience an overall positive transformation.

I’ve talked before about different restorative rituals, such as a transformative ritual using fire, a ritual of reflection using nature, a communication-based mineral ritual, an earth-based ritual to create a feeling of home, and an renewal ritual with water.

This water ritual is one in which we ask for the power of water to remove the obstacles from our lives that are standing in the way of us fulfilling our most profound destiny.

Identifying Obstacles in Your Life

Take a walk in nature and find some items that represent the obstacles, or perceived obstacles, in your life. Make sure they are things from nature that will not litter or pollute the local stream or river. An example of one item you can gather is a broken stick, perhaps representing broken dreams, or broken desires, or even broken relationships.

As you pick up each of the items that represent an obstacle, allow the thought of that obstacle to flow into the item, transferring it from you to it. This way, you do not have to carry the obstacle any longer; you can give it to the item from nature.

Collect as many of these things as you care to until you feel that you have identified and relieved yourself from as many “not helpful things” that you can think of.

Replace Obstacles with Empowerment

Take the items to a stream or river—something that flows, as moving water is the remover of obstacles! As you sit by the waterside, talk to the water and ask it to flow through your life, removing all obstacles that stand in the way of you coming into your most profound self.

When you’re done expressing your request, take the items you’ve collected nature and give them to the water. As you watch them flow with the current, imagine the power of water flowing through your life removing each of these things from you. Then spend some time refocusing your mind on this idea: “Since these obstacles are removed, what do I want to fill the space with that they occupied?”

As we release obstacles, we make room for empowered, proactive energies to take residence in our lives. These are the energies that propel us towards our most profound power and highest level of being.

I encourage you to tell me your experiences with this ritual! Feel free to contact me about your wonderful stories of flow and movement!

Tribal Medicine is an album I am particularly proud of. This CD features healing rhythms that are intended to restore listeners’ hearts and souls as the sensations of the healing drum infuses the body.

One of the best features of the album is that each track on Tribal Medicine supports a particular energy and offers different rhythms and sounds that, collectively, make the album a powerful healing experience. The second track on the CD, entitled “Tribal Spirits,” focuses on the spirits responding to the call of the ancestors. It is the drum that activates the indigenous self that lives in each one of us and calls to us the spirit allies from the other world.

Toby Christensen

“Tribal Spirits” offers listeners a beautiful array of sounds that work together to engage their hearts and souls. The song starts with the Native American powwow drum. This is followed by a South American rattle, and then joined by the African djembe. This is the tribal way of the natives: spirits. The flute is a sacred instrument of the Native Americans and honors that tradition.

Further on in “Tribal Spirits,” these instruments are joined by the didgeridoo, which honors the aborigines of Australia. The chanting that is heard in the background is a combination of the East African and Native American chanting. It is through this sacred chanting that the spirits are called and, in some cases, literally talk through the person singing or talk through the drum or the didgeridoo. In this sense, what starts as a call actually ends up being a strong connection and a two-way conversation with the spirit world.

Tribal Medicine offers inspiration through tribal connections. I’ve been told over and over again that while experiencing the album, a sensation of being present at an ancient indigenous ceremony often comes over listeners. It’s a powerful experience to feel the wisdom of African, Native American, and Eastern shamanic healing traditions through healing rhythms!

Tribal Medicine features me, Healing Drummer Toby Christensen, on djembe drum and percussion, and the talented Rebecca Holt on vocal toning. Skilled artist Carolina Woodrich shared her stunning original artwork for the album!

To purchase a copy of this healing rhythms CD, please visit my shop. I invite you to engage your body, mind, and soul with the powerful rhythms of Tribal Medicine. Enjoy!

Nechema Robinson, MA, the director of KinderWorld Tracks recently spoke with Toby about his life and healing gifts. The following is the second excerpt from this three-part interview.

First Impressions of The Healing Drummer

Nechama: I would like to get a sense of the impression most people have of you when they first meet you . . . from people you encounter on the street to clients to event organizers.

Toby: Because of my very real-world presence, I drive a bright red sports car, I like to wear nice clothes, and my watch is a Rolex. There is a funny association with such ordinary-reality things which often contradicts people’s perceptions of what a “healer” is.

In Park City, Utah, where my home is, there is an organization that brings students of shamanism in for workshops. When I am not teaching there, I am often doing private healing sessions. When I pull up to the conference center to pick up [my clients] for their session, I often hear, “This is not a shaman car!” I often respond, “I know, but it’s the best I can do for now until I can afford the real shaman car, which everyone knows is a Ferrari!”

I believe that the gift that we bring to the world, all of us, is the most natural thing that we do. It is not being something other than who we are at our core. I love having a great human experience, and I enjoy the pleasures of this human experience. Because I come from this place of authentic connection to the spirit world, energy world, and the physical world, it gives me a way to relate to people that are often shocked by my ordinary reality appearance.

Or—in the case of Procter & Gamble and Merrill Lynch [examples of my wide range of clients]—they were thrilled that I walked in wearing a pair of Prada issues and an Armani shirt. The CEO later told me he wasn’t sure what he would do if a dreadlocked hippie dude would’ve come walking in the door!

Bridging People from All Walks of Life

Nechama: That is a great story! So, are any of your friends “dreadlocked hippie dudes?”

Toby: Sure! I hang out in Hawaii four months out of the year, and there’s a ton of them over there.

[In fact], I’m doing these really cool workshops in July, August, and September on the island of Kauai.

Nechama: And how do they see you? Do you change your presentation when you are around them?

Toby: No, I’m pretty much always who I am. The thing that [my clients and friends] like is that I am this very connected-to-the-ordinary person, but I have done a radical ritual and ceremony in sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the United States with the Lakota medicine man. I am a full mesa carrier in the Andean tradition of shamanism, and have become an initiated diviner in an ancient African modality.

The “realness” of how I live my life is in alignment with my hippie friends, and the fact that I fly first class and brought back a nice Louis Vuitton sweater from Paris keeps me connected to my ordinary world friends. It’s a pretty funny paradox, but I have always been [that way] and my work seems to always be a bridge bringing people together!

There was a situation in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I was invited to facilitate a drum circle at an Episcopal church. I told the pastor, “If you want me to come, I want you to be prepared. You say you want community, and with me you will get that. You will get the whole community! You will have dreadlocked hippies, gays and lesbians, you will have the woo-hoo fairy people.” And we had them all! We had 75 people show up for the drum circle and they were from all walks of life.

At some point I’d love to tell you the story about how I got the Rolex . . . it’s a very good example of this bridge building.

Nechama: Please feel free to share that story, now, if you’d like.

Toby: I was at a retreat center in Oregon where I was facilitating a grief ritual with an African woman. I was in the food line when a [woman] looked at my hand and asked me if that was a Rolex that I was wearing. I said, “Yes.” [She] asked, “Is it real?” I said, “Of course!” She then went on a rampage about how could I, as a conscious human being and healer, spend $5,000 on a watch. I started laughing.

I then went on to tell [her] that when I was in San Diego, California, assisting Chief Phil Crazy Bull of the Lakota nation on a vision quest I met a woman who desperately needed a computer. When I asked her how much she wanted to spend on a computer, she said that she had purchased a Rolex submariner for her husband, [but] they divorced and she had never given him the watch. She was going to go to the pawnshop, and whatever they gave her for the watch she would use to buy the computer. I talked to a friend of mine who builds computers. He said after receiving her specs, that for $500 he could build a much better computer than what she expected to buy.

I had the Rolex, she had the computer, and my friend got to sell a computer. It was Win! Win! Win! [for everyone]!

Nechama: Your story is so powerful! What kind of feedback do you typically get from clients?

Toby: The response is typically a big, “WOW!” Because of the energetic shift that occurs, most people have very little to say after the session has concluded. The usual response after the “Wow!” is, “I have no words to describe how I feel right now.”

This is usually followed by profound life change and a re-alignment with one’s life purpose as it relates to the issue we worked on in the session. I can’t tell you the immense joy that I feel watching people change so dramatically and so quickly.

Stayed tuned for part three of this interview: The Healing Drummer Discusses Influence, Children & Healing Rhythms.

Thank you to Nechama Robinson, MA, director of KinderWorld Tracks.

Inquiries about Toby’s services can be made to info@healingdrummer.com. Keep in touch with Toby’s events at www.healingdrummer.com/schedule or sign up to receive Toby’s newsletter!

I’ve recently released a new album called Tribal Medicine. This CD features healing rhythms that are intended to restore listeners’ hearts and souls as the sensations of the healing drum infuses the body.

Tribal Medicine offers inspiration through tribal connections. I’ve been told over and over again that while experiencing the album, a sensation of being present at an ancient indigenous ceremony often comes over listeners. It’s a powerful experience to feel the wisdom of African, Native American, and Eastern shamanic healing traditions through healing rhythms!

African Djembe Drums

Each track on Tribal Medicine supports a particular energy and offers different rhythms and sounds that, collectively, make the album a powerful healing experience. Let me tell you about my intentions with the opening track of the album, “Call of the Ancestors.” In the Dagara cosmology that my work is based on, the ancestors are those who have come before us, whose blood runs through our veins. Because we are part of them, they have a vested interest in our well-being. So they are the ones that we call to when we need help.

The chanting in “Call of the Ancestors” brings to mind a person in great need calling upon the ancestors in a language that is beyond words. It is a language of emotion and raw spiritual energy, calling for the ancestors’ help and guidance in life. The voices overlaid on the track are from different cultures: African, South American, and Native American voices all calling to their ancestors for healing of their minds, bodies, and spirits, as well as the world!

Listen to a sample of “Call of the Ancestors.”

Call of the Ancestors

Tribal Medicine features me, Healing Drummer Toby Christensen, on djembe drum and percussion, and the talented Rebecca Holt on vocal toning. Skilled artist Carolina Woodrich shared her stunning original artwork for the album!

To purchase a copy of this healing rhythms CD, please visit my shop. I invite you to engage your body, mind, and soul with the powerful rhythms of Tribal Medicine. Enjoy!

I am pleased to present Homecoming, a celebration of dance and joy.

Inspiration for my LP Homecoming came following a reunion with my dear friend and brother Malidoma Somé. We spent many years separated from one another, walking our separate paths. Our reconnection after all that time sparked great joy in my life, rekindling an energy that remained dormant for years.

Malidoma and I recently traveled to Africa together where we had spent time 15 years ago. It was an amazing trip, full of magic and inspiration. That journey re-established in me a feeling of my indigenous self.

Homecoming is a celebration of the joy Malidoma and I experienced through reconnection. Done in the style of ecstatic dance, the intoxicating rhythms and powerful beats are infused with multiple layers of tribal drums. The intense pace and vibrant energy of Homecoming is reminiscent of my experience drumming under the stars in the beautiful village in Burkina Faso.

I invite you to turn it up loud! Dance, drum, and enjoy!

I’d like to extend a very special thank-you to Tanis Wells for creating the beautiful original artwork for Homecoming. Beautiful job!

Listen here for a sample of Homecoming!

Homecoming

This rhythmic and energetic LP is now available for sale. To purchase Homecoming, please visit my shop.

Supporting AVIELA, Inc.

I’m also excited to announce that 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the Homecoming LP are being donated to AVIELA, Inc. a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization founded by Malidoma.

Here’s some information about AVIELA, Inc:

Meaning “It is all good and well intentioned,” in Dagara, AVIELA, Inc. is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization created to offer us the opportunity to express our gratitude to the West African elders, diviners, healers, and shamans who have been generous with their time, knowledge, and dedication to the ancestors, and to those supporting Malidoma’s work, dedicating their time and energy, often without any compensation or acknowledgement. The work they do for us in the modern world often requires that they take time from doing the work to keep their families fed.

AVIELA provides a container for saying “thank you” in a monetary way. AVIELA allows us to become a greater part of the global village by making a direct contribution to those who contribute so much to the work of spirit. Our dollars become the “loaves and fishes” that feed those who keep alive the connection with the ancestors. All contributions, small and large, make a difference in Africa.

By purchasing this download you are making a contribution that will change the lives of the people of West Africa! Thank you!

Nechema Robinson, MA, the director of KinderWorld Tracks recently spoke with Toby about his life and healing gifts. The following is the first in a three-part excerpt from this interview.

Says Nechama, “If ever an interview has taken me places I did not expect, it was this one with Toby Christensen, Healing Drummer. From corporate events to private healing sessions, Toby’s work is recognized by people in all walks of life.”

Toby Christensen, The Healing Drummer

Nechama Robinson: [Toby, please introduce yourself].

Toby Christensen: My name is Toby Christensen, and people call me the “healing drummer.” Through my work in Burkina Faso, West Africa, I have developed a process of sound healing called sound attunement therapy. It uses sound energy from the drum as a mechanism to disrupt and reconfigure a person’s energy field so that the things that are not helpful in their lives can fall away, and the things they desire to create they can do so more easily. I travel around the United States and Canada doing private healing sessions, workshops, shamanic training, and interactive concerts. More information can be found at www.healingdrummer.com

Nechama: Sounds amazing! How long have you been doing this, and how did you get into it?

Toby: I have been doing this type of drum healing since about 2002. I had been on a trip to West Africa, and when I returned I started having zombie dreams! It was an interesting vision of zombies coming up out of the ground coming towards me, seeming as though I was going to be attacked by them. When they reached me, they laid down on their back. I stood over them and played djembe rhythms, and they were restored to full and complete health. They would jump up to shake my hand and run off!

After several nights of having this dream I called my African teacher. After hearing the reoccurring dream, [he] simply said this: The ancestors are showing you exactly what your life purpose is. Do exactly what you see in the dream! It was then that I began to pull my friends aside and ask if I could drum on them to see what they felt. As this occurred, life-changing things happened in their lives, and people began to call me for sessions.

At the time, I owned a chain of espresso bars and a restaurant—which over the next three or four years I sold. And I have been on the road doing the healing work and teaching since then.

Toby’s Clients

Nechama: What a remarkable story! Who are your clients?

Toby: I would say that my average client is middle income, middle class, college educated and open-minded.

Nechama: How do most of your clients hear about you?

Toby: The majority of [my] clients hear from me through word-of-mouth. Starting off with very grassroots marketing, the word began to spread from person to person. Then I was asked to speak at a medical conference at University of Portland a few years ago, which led to greater visibility. Then it is as though I somehow fell into the cosmic phone lines and people began to call! I began to travel, which led to more calls, and I am now on the road 300 days a year, bringing the healing drum too many places in the world.

In addition to this, I have had tremendous help from people in my community who have helped create my website, blogs, and marketing material, so that when people call I am prepared to offer them the programs that I teach and sessions that I facilitate. It is because of this community and their support that the work has expanded as quickly as it has.

Stayed tuned for part two of this interview: Discovering the Realness of The Healing Drummer.

Thank you to Nechama Robinson, MA, director of KinderWorld Tracks.

Inquiries about Toby’s services can be made to info@healingdrummer.com. Keep in touch with Toby’s events at www.healingdrummer.com/schedule or sign up to receive Toby’s newsletter!

Earth represents the energy of nurturing, abundance, welcoming, and home. As we create a place of welcoming and home, we find our power. As we allow abundance to come into our lives, we attract all of the things we desire: community, support, financial prosperity, good health, and well-being!

A ritual I want to share with you is one that helps us find that sense of “home,” the place where we can openly welcome positive change to come into our lives.

Remember, no matter what the circumstances are in your life, there are some very real, very powerful, very transformative things you can do to change your life!

Channel Positive Energy into an Earth Shrine

The first step is to create an Earth shrine. Find a place in your home where the energy feels good; a place where you like to hang out, a place that feels welcoming. Make a mound of dirt approximately 2 feet in diameter and about 10 inches high. As you work with the dirt, invite the spirit of the Earth to be present and occupy the shine and come to your assistance.

Next, place a flat stone on top of the shrine. Make a circle of ash on the stone, then take some water and pour it on the middle of the stone. As the water washes away the ash, ask for the obstacles to be removed that are preventing you from connecting to the energy of earth: nurturing, abundance, welcoming, and home.

If you cannot build a shrine outside, collect a bowl of dirt and place it on a yellow cloth. Ask the spirit of Earth to occupy the shrine as if it were outside. Without the stone or water, ask for the obstacles that prevent you from connecting to the energy of the Earth to be removed.

Then watch as your life begins to change. Every day for the rest of the month, go to your Earth shrine and express gratitude for three or more things in your life!

Mineral is about communication; it’s about the stories that we live, that we think about, and that we speak about. Mineral is about connecting to your life’s purpose and communicating that purpose in the world.

This mineral ritual is powerful. Not only have I used it several times, but I’ve witnessed its efficacy in others. This ritual is profoundly simple and can change your life in a very short period of time. The purpose or intention of the ritual is to change the stories of your life that are not helpful, and to activate the stories that you would like to be living in present time.

A line in “Who Says,” the great song by John Mayer, goes like this:

Who says I can’t be free from all of the things that I used to be?

Rewrite my history.

Who says I can’t be free?

I love this line because it speaks a deep truth about how we can change the way we live our lives today and the things that we draw to ourselves. To be free of the things that we used to be requires the release of old stories. Once these old stories are released, it makes room for the creation of a new history! This can be profoundly healing and freeing.

Ritual to Rewrite Your History

So here’s the ritual. First, you need to find a rock. Any old rock will do—you do not have to go to the metaphysical bookstore and buy an expensive crystal. The Dagara people of Burkina Faso say that the stones are the beings that hold the stories of all humanity. We want to pick a stone that is going to hold the stories that we are ready to get rid of. Sit with the stone for a day or two, and go within yourself while thinking about the stories you hold onto and about the past that no longer serves you.

When the time is right, sit down with your stone and speak into it all of the stories that you are ready to release. Here’s the catch: when you release a story and give it to a stone, you can never speak the story again. So make sure that you’re really ready to get rid of that story. As you speak the stories into the stone, allow the energy of that story—whether trauma, drama, or any unhelpful feeling—to drain from you.

Once you have sufficiently released the story, go bury the rock in the earth and thank it for holding the stories you do not have to hold onto any longer. Now you can get some paper and began to rewrite your history. This can be very fun because you get to create whatever story you would like to about your past. As we undo the negative programming of the past and replace it with new information, the way that we live today changes.

Nature carries the energy of magic transformation. It is about authenticity and living your “true nature.” This ritual is one of reflection, of going deep into your soul to discover more clearly who you really are. What is your authentic dream? Is what you’re doing right now in your life the thing that really suits you? Is the vocation that you currently invest thousands of hours a year in, in alignment with your true self? The answer I’m getting most of the time as I ask these questions is something like, “Hell no!”

Well, if that’s your answer this is the moment to change your life!

Energy of Magic and Transformation

This ritual involves connecting to nature and asking the spirits of nature to help us align with our true self. The ritual goes like this:

Take an object—or several objects—that represent the parts of yourself, your life, or your work that are not in alignment with your true nature. Take these objects to a place in nature and burry them at the base of a tree. As you do, call upon the spirits of nature, as they have the energy of magic and transformation to transform what these objects represent into the energy that is truly in alignment with you.

When you go back to your home, build a small altar to nature. This is comprised of a green cloth, some greenery—whether this is flowers you purchase at the store, or flowers to pick from your garden, or greenery from the trees around you, is that things that represent nature to you—and a few green candles. The shrine is “opened” by lighting the candles, and “closed” by blowing them out.

Ritual to Honor Your True Nature

Once your nature shrine is built, place some items on it that represent what you believe to be your true nature. Ask the spirits of nature to feed these aspects of your life and create the synchronicities to occur “effortlessly and delightfully” for you to come in to your true nature in all aspects of your life.

Each day of the month place a small glass of water on the shrine. This is important, as water feeds nature. Each morning, spend time at your shrine asking for your true nature to be supported. Pour the water from the previous day into a plant or at the base of a tree. Refill the glass, offer it to the shrine, and renew your commitment to honoring your true nature!

When I started this path I am on, I owned some coffee bars and a restaurant. I never dreamed I could do this work full-time. Through training, persistence, and following some suggestions from those who had done it before, I was able to let go of the job that was sucking the life out of me and step into doing what I love!

There is always something you can do to change your life, to bring about the life you’ve always wanted. I’ve found following rituals central to the West African culture to be quite powerful in bringing about change. These rituals can help you realize how to bring your dreams to fruition and how to live by your intentions.

Transformative Change with a Fire Ritual

The second ritual for renewal I will talk about relates to the element of fire. The ritual is as follows:

Write down 10 things that you would like to see happen over the next year year. You can put them in consecutive order-like what you’d like to see for this month, then next month, and so on. But that’s not completely necessary, for many of the things that you want to achieve may not have this particular kind of sequence.

As you write them down, feel into them. Feel what it’s like when these things come to fruition. Feel the joy of accomplishment. Feel the joy and satisfaction of creation.

Sit with this list for three days. At the end of three days, build a small fire. For those of you who live in cold climates—like my maiden Park City where it was -3° this morning—you can build your fire in your fireplace. For those of you who have the ability to create an outdoor fire, build one somewhere where you can be alone.

Once your fire is going, sit with your list while feeling that each one of your dreams and desires are being actualized. Call in the help of the ancestors, spirit guides, angels, and all of the otherworldly beings working on your behalf. Ask these beings to create the synchronicities to effortlessly and delightfully have these things manifest in your life. As you do this, gently place the list in the fire. Ask the element of fire to light the path for your actions that will help to create these things in your life. Watch the paper burn until it is completely consumed by the fire.

Manifesting Your Dreams

Sit for a few moments and enter a period of reflection while you watch the fire burn. Be sure to ask yourself, “What is the first thing I need to do or to take action on in order make these things come into being?”

Now you can begin your journey having the element of fire to light your path while bringing new vision and a deeper connection to the spirit world—which is rallying on your behalf to fulfill the things you wrote on your list.

Be aware that over time some of the things on your list will become less important than they might be the day you do the ritual. Also, new vision may come. Part of connecting to the element of fire is a renewal of vision. Be aware! Let your vision grow and expand.