She of Birch and Mane Shamanic Drum

She of the Birch and Mane

Every time I birth a drum, I am caught, again and again by the beauty that rises in the face of the hide. The colours, textures, scars, and silken shifts in tone are more than aesthetic. They become are a map of a living memory of a story carried in flesh that once breathed under the same skies, ran beneath the same moon, and trembled to the pulse of earth-song. Each drum face tells of a life. Of listening. Of death. Of sacred transformation.

This one, she one caught me off guard.

She sat by my hearth, quiet between beeswax candles and dried herbs gathered from the hedgerows and woodland around my home. And in that stillness, something opened in my chest. as i felt the fullness of her presence, something far older and deeper than I expected.

I rarely work with horse hide on small hoops. Horse has a voice that longs for space, vast space and often needs larger frames to fully sound her medicine. But this hide spoke with such clarity, such undeniable quiet strength, that I listened. And so she came to life on a 14-inch birch hoop, compact, yes, but no less powerful. Her mane-line arcs across the centre of the drum face, like a spine, like a horizon, anchoring the two halves of this wild soul.

To birth a drum of horse hide is to enter into relationship with a lineage of spirit travel, sovereignty, and great heart. Across countless cultures, the horse has been honoured not just as a creature of power, but as a guide between worlds. In Mongolian and Siberian shamanic traditions, the drum itself is often referred to as a “spirit horse”, a vessel for the shaman to ride through the unseen realms.

The horse stands at the threshold between tame and wild. Between earth and sky. She is instinct, grace, endurance, and soul-speed. She carries the stories of warriors and poets, witches and wanderers. In Celtic myth, we find Rhiannon, goddess of horses and sovereignty, riding a white mare, moving faster than the eye can track, singing her enchantments. In Norse tradition, there is Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged steed, who could traverse the worlds of gods and spirits.

To carry a horse hide drum is to carry the echo of hooves on sacred ground. To honour a being who ran free, who felt the wind in her mane, and now lends her body to this new form, a pulse-maker, a portal, a companion in ceremony.

And she is held, cradled, in a hoop of birch.

Birch is the first tree in the ogham, the Celtic tree alphabet. She is the initiator. The bringer of light after long winter. A tree of renewal, fertility, and purification. In Slavic and Northern European folklore, birch was used in rites of protection and blessing. Her branches swept away unwanted energies. Her sap brought healing. Her bark carried prayers in firelight.

To birth a drum in birch is to align it with beginnings, fresh paths, cleansed spaces, the promise of spring after descent. Birch holds the edge between worlds with gentleness and clarity. She doesn’t pushsh, e invites.

So this drum, horse and birch together, marries two great energies: the wild freedom of the galloping soul and the bright purity of sacred beginnings.

And within her handle, I have placed a stone, gathered from the shores of the lake in Ogden Valley. A place where the mists still hang heavy in the early hours, and stories speak of the Lady of the Lake who dwells beneath the surface.

Whether she is a local whisper of the Avalonian priestess or a guardian of her own making, there is something in that water that stirs the old stories. Some say she appears at dusk, rising just beneath the reeds, offering visions or retrieving what has been lost. Others say she watches in silence, protecting the thresholds between land and lake, seen and unseen.

This stone is her gift. Or perhaps an anchor. A tether to a place of beauty and mystery, held now in the palm of the drum. A reminder that the water holds memory too—and that to journey with this drum is to dip into the mythic as well as the sonic.

She was birthed under the waning moon in Leo, a time of soft letting go and heart-fire recalibration. Leo, the sign of the lion-hearted, of sovereignty, radiance, and instinctual courage, brings the medicine of self-trust and bold reclamation. This is not a time for outward flash, but for deep inner knowing. The waning moon asks what must be released for true presence to emerge.

This is a drum of presence.

Of sovereignty.

Of myth reclaimed.

Of the wild returning through sound.

May she travel with the one who calls her. May her hooves strike rhythm into ceremony. May her mane-line anchor your own spine in truth. And may the lake, the birch, the hearth, and the horse all move through her voice.

All my drums are birthed deep in ceremony with heart led listening and are cleansed with Herbs from these lands before sent to their new guardian.

Exchange for this beauty is £355, plus P& P. Kerbside collection from my cottage near Ludlow is welcome. This drum is also available for international shipping to the US and Canada - reach our for costs relating to this.