Today we’d like to introduce you to OneDrumm. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Our circles began simply in 2019 as a group of indigenous women coming together in our homes to share a meal, laugh, talk about life, and sing medicine songs around the drum. There was a need to be accepted just as you are and held in the spirit of nonjudgment in a safe environment where you could speak your truth. These gatherings became our weekly ceremony, and the more we gathered, the better we felt. Each week our circles grew. People began bringing their families and friends and our numbers were doubling every month. The spiritual power of the drum and the love pouring out of our community became a banner for unity, acceptance, nonjudgement, non-shaming, and non-gossipping. We were healing ancestral trauma in new ways.
Within six months, we decided to become a non-profit organization and take our vision beyond our local area. We created a powerful mentoring program which includes drumming, art, music, sacred movement, a 5-part emotional wellness course, and spiritual retreats anchored in indigenous traditions. We now work with many diverse groups bringing love, healing, and unity through the beat and the pulse of the OneDrumm.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Before we met (Ginger Grant and Sewa Valencia), we had both been working for over 15 years to create our own visions of an impactful spiritual community. Sewa served indigenous women in talking circles helping to heal the ongoing traditions of trauma, addiction, and cycles of abuse caused by colonization and Ginger used art and ceremony to help those wanting to release fear caused by emotional trauma. We both found most people wanted to be fixed rather than healed and were unwilling to do the inner work needed to create lasting change. The work was hard and unrewarding at times, but each day we served we felt if even once life could be touched, it was worth the sacrifice.
As the years passed, the road for each was rewarding and challenging, we both felt like a one-woman show as we tried to balance family, our own side businesses, and our own personal growth. Things often got overwhelming and exhausting and neither could get lift-off beyond our local areas because we didn’t have the right support system. When we met, we had both been praying for guidance on how to move forward.
In 2019, the stars aligned when our children introduced us to each other. It was like the wonder twins coming together. We knew from the first hug that we were made from the same cloth. We spoke the same spiritual language, we processed life in similar ways and our souls could read and hear each other without words. It is this union that created the shift. It was was like an atomic force of energy to witness each holding the missing piece for the other. Our strengths made up for the other’s weaknesses and allowed us to focus on the things we each did best. This is when the ceremonial drum showed up and opened doors to an entirely unexpected power.
I would say overall, it has been an inspired road, one where we never know how things will show up, we just know that they will. Now our only goal is to stay spiritually ready to receive the gifts when they arrive and humble enough not to get lost in the dilutions of our egos.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Sewa has been in retail for over 20 years owning several dress shops in Claremont and New Mexico and was known for her unique and beautiful items as well as her ongoing bubbly personality that drew people into her store just to be in her energy, to pray with her, to laugh with her, and to just be in the power of her love. People came from all over to witness the incredible fairytale-like environment present in her store design. Sewa also mentors indigenous businesswomen on how to run a successful business, and designs spiritual jewelry, furniture, clothing, and creates multi-media art collages.
Ginger has a background in interior design for large office complexes across Southern California. She is known for incorporating the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air into her designs to create one of a kind office experience that calms the body and inspires creativity. She is also a spiritual artist and creator of “The God People” healing art experience.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Ginger: Going to our cabin in the woods in Idyllwild with my Father while he told stories of his past and we laughed until we cried.
Sewa: Listening to my grandmother sing and learning about her spiritual medicine.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@onedrumm.com
- Website: www.onedrumm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onedrummcircle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onedrummcommunity
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW4CHYHdRKIizOXgmFv-3wQ
