SAMHAIN DRUM BIRTHING CEREMONY Saturday 31st October 2026 10am – 6pm Near Ludlow | Welsh Herefordshire Border
£395 per person Includes all materials 14-inch hoop drum with locally sourced fallow deer hide
There is something deeply ancient in the making of a drum.
Not simply because drums have accompanied human ritual and ceremony for thousands of years, but because the process itself asks something of us that modern life rarely does. It asks us to slow down. To listen. To work with our hands. To enter relationship with death, season, land and creation.
This Samhain, I invite you to gather with me on the Welsh Herefordshire border for a full day of ceremonial drum birthing.
Together we will create 14-inch hoop drums using local beautiful fallow deer hide, working slowly and attentively through the entire process by hand. Throughout the day we will move within a space that honours not only the craft itself, but the deeper story held within these materials.
My relationship with deer sits at the heart of this work. For many years I have walked closely with these animals through the forests and borderlands where I live. Through tracking, hide work, sacred hunting, time on the land, and long seasons of listening, deer have become profound teachers in my life. They have taught me about sensitivity, instinct, stillness, grief, beauty, and the intelligence of the living world.
The hides used within these ceremonies are prepared with deep care and reverence. Nothing here is approached as commodity or production. Every drum begins long before the day itself , through relationship with the land, the animal, the preparation of the hide, and the quiet understanding that emerges when we begin to remember ourselves as part of nature rather than separate from it.
This is not simply a workshop in making a drum.
It is a day of entering relationship.
Relationship with the animal whose hide you are working with, with your own hands and body, with rhythm, memory, and season. And the beautiful relationship with the older ways of making that many of us long for, even if we cannot always name why.
We will open the space ceremonially and move through the drum making process together within a small intimate group. There will be moments of quiet, moments of sharing, and space to listen deeply as your drum gradually takes form in your hands.
Samhain is an especially potent time for this work. Traditionally understood as a threshold festival, Samhain marks the turning into the darker half of the year , a liminal season associated with ancestry, death and rebirth, remembrance, endings, and deep listening. The land begins to withdraw inward, the leaves fall, the nights lengthen and the old stories speak a little louder.
To birth a drum at this time of year feels deeply meaningful to me. Drums have long been companions through rites of passage, grief, ceremony, prayer, celebration, and journeying. They carry rhythm into the dark months and help us remember something older within ourselves.
No previous experience is needed, you will be guided fully through the process.
All materials are included within the cost, including your 14-inch wooden hoop, fallow deer hide, lacing, and full ceremonial holding throughout the day.
Spaces are intentionally limited in order to keep the circle intimate and supported.
