Kari Knapstad
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Angela,
Today, on Dia de los Muertos, I’m thinking of you and this patient and am curious how the path is unfolding for you.
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🙏 Lorie and Benjamin. No rush.
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Hi Joanne,
I’m so excited for you! I saw your post and intentionally waited for others to respond before I chimed in. Thanks, Benjamin, for tagging me. I’m going to check out how CT Holmes is using drums in his practice. Integrating my States of Consciousness work with my practice is in my hopes and desires. I haven’t found the gusto yet to bring it in to my clinic. My clinic probably wouldn’t appreciate a drum beat! But I have used drums over the years (since 1994) and other instruments. I built my first drum and it had a way of showing my state of health at the time. My partner, Kenneth, and I have been offering sound healing sessions for several years. Post pandemic, we are figuring how to rekindle the work. If anyone has a space to hold a sound healing in the SF Bay Area, please share!
Drums are amazing allies. One of my early shamanic experiences was a drum journey where the white owl first came to me. It said, “I am your Wisdom, follow me.” It showed me how my path and the terrain under my feet would change over the years, how I need to keep my eyes on my Wisdom and it will direct me. Hasn’t failed me yet. The owl even showed me that it would stop to rest on a post and I rested on the ground below. However, it started to fly while I was distracted and it has been a work to catch up with it! (TCM school, anyone?) I believe that now is the time where I am catching up to my spirit animal and this mentorship is guiding me in that process. There is more to that story, but that is the essence.
As Benjamin suggested with my new fan, I would suggest spending time letting the drum bond with you. Let the eagle perch on your arm. Spend time daily, if possible, drumming alone with it until you form a relationship with the drum. Include it in your spiritual practice. Find your stillness and let it talk to you. The steady beat of the drum can induce altered states of consciousness, as you probably know, and takes us to the liminal zone, the space between the worlds, where profound healing can emerge. It is the heartbeat of the mother, the primal sound that we all heard first. I love how the rhythm can show us where we are in and where we are out of phase. Can you hold a steady beat? For how long? Do you need a metronome at the beginning to embody a steady rhythm? To begin, one slow beat can take you far, as can the double beat of the heart. How is a rapid beat different? Where does that take you? Did you lose the rhythm as your thoughts flitted through? I am used to starting circles with drumbeats to unify everyone in the field. You will quickly see who needs more help, and the drum is a great way to offer that help in unifying a group, once you have build a relationship.
That Eagle is beautiful. It is a really big energy. Several people in my life hold the energy of that bird. Energies that big are incredibly powerful. A slight movement creates a huge wave in the field. Keep your thoughts clear when you use it or it can get away from you (part of why you use it alone to begin). An unconscious sweep of the fan can be very nauseating and unsettling at best, or bring incredible peace and healing. Be aware of using it when you are bleeding as it is a bird of prey and they go after blood, at least that is what is was told about the feathers. I would study that with a drum. This may be different with the actual feathers and may or may not apply to the drum. I was told in Native American circles (mostly Lakota and Diné) that the energy of our bleeding cycles create a dissolution, entropy, dissolving, and that is why women are not allowed in ceremony on their menses, because of the power of our blood. Our blood is more powerful than the ceremony container, so we stay away out of respect of the healing intention. But I digress… Study this beautiful, big, powerful energy. I would expect it could help your eagle-eye vision, to nurture your ability to see with a new level of precision in your healing work.
Blessings on your journey❤️🦅✨
ps – what is the diameter of the drum?
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I’m available at 2:15 for the rest of the day.
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About to jump oil a Zoom call. If you can’t meet at 2:00 or later, I’ll jump on late.
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Hi Lorianne & Lorne,
I have been signing in to review parts of the Earth Element course before I take the quiz and test for the distance CEU in California. All of the sections are blurred out and there is no arrow to click on to begin the video. There is no place I have clicked, and I have clicked seemingly everywhere, that makes any change. I checked in on earlier courses and they are all the same. This is new in the past few weeks. Thanks for your assistance.
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Thank you, Lorianne!
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Perfect! I’ll email you an invite a few minutes before noon on 11/11 (1:00 MST).
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Hi Joanne,
Let’s meet to talk beaters with Kenneth on Friday, 11/11 at noon Pacific/1:00 Mountain time.
We can set up a drum circle for the following week on 11/18 at noon if that works for whoever wants to join. I can also meet later if it doesn’t work.
I have a free account with Zoom, so that will work fine for the 11th. We may want to use a paid account for a drum circle so we have more time to explore. I’ll need your Email or # to send an invitation.
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You bet!
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Nicole,
I believe we have figured out how to make the sound work with instruments across Zoom, which makes a drum circle possible. As I’m reading your posts here, it occurs to me that there are several of us in this mentorship who live here in the Bay Area. Maybe we can even have a live sound healing or drum circle for the locals? Again, just need a large-enough cat-free space.
As for times: Wednesdays after 2:00 and Fridays generally after 12:00 work for us. Joanne, I don’t know your schedule, so chime in when you can.
Oh, goodness, Joanne! See what your drum has already begun?! It must be a powerful spirit! 😉 I do love how drums have such a community and unification energy about them.
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Will do, Benjamin! As of December 1, it should be on every streaming platform except for Pandora, as is his first solo album, Directions. If you want an actual hardcopy disk, I can mail a a pre-release copy to you when they arrive, anticipated November 10. 👏 👏 👏 👏
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Joanne,
Let’s set up a Zoom call! Maybe we can even set up a Zoom drum circle after you’ve begun a relationship with your drum, as Nicole suggested. We are free this weekend and next weekend in the afternoons. Kenneth isn’t at a job right now, so he is available throughout the week. I’m also generally open on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday afternoons. Though, his new CD is being pressed and they are due to arrive on November 9th🤞 and then we will be in a push to send them around the world to various stations for the December 1st international release and subsequent promotion, so we may want to aim for before November 9th.
Regarding Characters of Wisdom by Debra Kaatz… Lorie mentioned it awhile back and it is new to me. It is available in a digital format for about $10. DEFINITELY worth it! I liked it enough to buy a hard copy from Acutonics. I found they had the best price.
I checked in on the Forums page for your Introduction to remind me of where, exactly, you are living. My heart goes out to you in the loss and grief you have been experiencing over the past 7-8 years. What a warrior spirit it takes to raise a precious child in such a time. It is fitting that the drum has entered your life with the profound, deep resonance of a heart beat to carry you through the Metal element so rich in grief and loss, surrender and letting go, but also the richness of mystical experiences. Bum bum, bum bum, bum bum…. I’m glad this ally found you.
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Thank you for the direction, Benjamin. Kenneth’s producer, co-writer and one of our sound healing group musicians, Gian, lives in Berkeley, so we may have a pool of people to draw from there. However, he is leaving for another 6 months in his home-country of Brazil to spend time with his family, so holding a sound healing event up there is a ways off. I’ll contact Denise upon his return.
(I’m glad Gian finished producing Kenneth’s new CD this week before he left! Release date is December 1!)
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Bum…bumbum Bum… bumbum, Bum… I know that rhythm. It brings peace to my soul just remembering it! A wonder-filled place to start. An 18-inch drum gives a deep, rich resonance. Nice. BTW, Kenneth has lots of advice about beaters as well. Different beaters will also affect the sound. If you want to set up a zoom call with with us, that would be super fun. Just let us know.
Bear energy! I would love to hear more about your walk with the Bear energy. I was invited to a bear ceremony after my “Old One” honored a man who carries Bear energy while we were in ceremony. He comes from a bear tribe and wears a bear pelt in ceremony for healing. It is super powerful! Super, super powerful! That bear taught me much about respect and how to be in the field of a big energy that can wipe you out in one swat of a paw if threatened or disrespected. I was told the same thing about an eagle feather, come to think of it… stillness. Having stillness and respect in a big energy field is consistent guidance. I need to study more on the difference between stillness and immobility. That is part of why the definition of St 36 – Zu San Li from Characters of Wisdom spoke so clearly to me – To Walk in the Great Strength of Stillness.
I love my Animal Medicine Cards. They were my first deck and I learned a lot from them to begin my journey.
Thank you for your consideration on a sound healing space. Kenneth & I live in San Jose, so anywhere in the South Bay or lower peninsula would be best for a sound healing space. Though we can travel to anywhere in the Bay Area or Santa Cruz area if people have a group already in place to lay down and receive, a place without cats. I haven’t been able to clear that allergy, which goes straight to asthma, though I seem to have cleared my ability to use the inhalers. Not good. We used to hold the sound healing events at a yoga studio in Moss Beach (between Half Moon Bay and SF) and that worked well until they reconfigured the space.