The Drum of the Quiet Return
There are some drums that do not call you forward—but call you back. Back through the misted doorway, along the soft trail of breath and ash, to the place where your name still hums in the tongue of rivers and old stones.
This is one such drum.
It carries the hush that follows revelation. The stillness beneath flame. A sound not meant to rouse the world, but to remind it. Its voice is low, earthy, like the long belly-song of something that has remembered. Not loud, but spacious—like the breath of bear after waking, or snow before it falls. It holds the quiet pacing of winter dreams and the warmth of returning to the body after long exile. The drum’s name came not by choosing, but by listening: The Drum of the Quiet Return.
It might have been carved from a story left too long in the hearth. It feels like something a winter bear would carry on its back as it walks out of the dreamtime—steady, unannounced, with the whole forest listening. This is not the beginning of a journey, but the homecoming. The sound that happens when you realise you’ve been on your way back all along.
A ritual colleague, hand-dreamed into being in the deep cave months, this Drum is not a sample or a prototype. The one you see here is the very one who came through. If something in you leans forward as you read, it may already be calling your name.
Brown Bear walks when we are ready to come home to ourselves—not the polished version we’ve shown the world, but the one who waited in the cave while we kept going. Oak is the great shelterer, the ancestral pillar in the grove, who knows the slow, strong work of remaining. Together, they hold the myth-line of return: the path of stepping back into the place we once abandoned, and finding it still warm. Still waiting.
This is a Drum for those ready to meet themselves again. On the other side of devotion. On the other side of giving too much.
The Way It Came
It began as most true things do—not with a blueprint, but a whisper.
Around the Summer Solstice of 2024, something stirred. No form, no material, no face. Just a pulse. A murmur that a Drum was on its way. Then, as the light thinned toward Winter Solstice, Bear arrived. Not in dream, but in flesh. A parcel came from the Arctic. Unannounced. Bear foot bones and fur. From someone I had not spoken with in nearly a decade! The timing too exact to be chance. The message was simple: begin. Then the first bear dream arrived.
Between Solstice and Imbolc, the work took root. Not work, exactly. Listening. Every step revealed in its own time, never early. The rawhide soaked in melted snow gathered at night. Oak bark, ground by hand, offered its body into pigment. Birch was steamed into curve and promise. Snowflakes were caught in four small vessels, each set at a compass point. The drum moved between world and hearth, until, under the dark mouth of the Imbolc new moon, it stepped into itself.
There was no plan. Only the Drum’s own knowing.
The Materials
This Drum wears the Oak. Not in pattern, but in soul. The pigment was drawn from old-growth Oak—bark and fallen acorn—gathered from the ancient woods that lean over Bantry Bay. Soaked and stirred, whispered over, it settled into the hide over five nights and five days. The snow added its own artistry, making constellations the hand could never craft. There is wildness in this Drum’s skin. And beauty that will not repeat.
The handle’s centre holds Chrysocolla—a stone of water and word, mother and truth. She carries within her the lineage of Malachite and Gem Silica, Cuprite and Chalcedony. A gathering of the earth’s oldest voices. Set into the reindeer antler—which arches like a branch reaching skyward—she rests just where your hand will meet hers. At the base sits a clear quartz, to ground and anchor the current. Between them, the snake has left its skin—a sign that something has already changed.
The hoop is Birch, bent by steam, sanded by hand. Stained with botanical ink made not in haste, but over moons. The joining point of the wood—where beginning meets end—sits due North. The gate of Bear. Of winter. Of quiet power. The hoop has been blessed with my 13 Moon Wild Rose oil and sealed in ritual wax. It holds the threshold. The point of entry.
The Journey
Before any binding began, I took the gathered materials—Bear bones, fur, crystals, the rawhide, hoop, antler, snakeskin, myself, and Mister Ziggy—to an ancient Cave Bear den high in the Alps. One of the oldest in Europe. We did not go to ask anything. We went to sit. To let the silence do the speaking. That was enough.
The rawhide—always Reindeer, in this work—had been waiting over a year. Wrapped in thirteen kinds of Mugwort from the garden. Blessed at Summer Solstice. Steeped in snowmelt beneath a sky of stars. Offered the foods Bear loves best: Fly Agaric. Star Sapphire. Petals of Snowdrop and Christmas Rose. The essences of Oak and Rose Quartz.
All of this is part of its voice. You will hear it when you play. Not with the ears, but in the bones.
This Drum measures approximately 18 inches across. It comes with a hand-made sounder and a care guide. There are altar companions that wish to travel with it—but they will not be revealed until the Drum finds its person. If you are the one it is calling, you will already know.
For those who long to make their own, I offer Heartbeat Retreats—in-person gatherings for birthing your own drum companion in deep ritual space.
This is the only one of its kind. It will not be made again.
Thank you for reading.
May you walk in the old rhythm.
May you remember how to listen.
The Drum of the Quiet Return (Winter Solstice Ritual Drum)
Its colour is created with the magic of ancient Oak tree pigment (from the old growth forest on the north shore of Bantry Bay, Ireland), Oak is the tree of the Summer Solstice however it shines bright during the Winter Solstice time of year as it brings inner strength, courage, resilience and stamina to us when we are in need. These pigments were slowly infused into the rawhide over the space of five days, both outside in daylight and inside in moonlight this winter. The organic patterning on the rawhide created itself through a wholly (hands off) natural process - this is nature doing what nature does best, incredibly beautiful, slow medicine! This speaks to allowing the tree, earth, and reindeer speak for themselves and have their own voice without human interference per se and I prefer this natural and respectful approach...
This alchemical process is influenced by the natural patterning on the rawhide, how virgin snow melted and the amount of time it took to melt, how the melting snowflakes distributed the tree and earth pigments, and how the pigments infused and mellowed as one with the rawhide.
