Christine Stevens
March 12 for First-Time Players
Learn sacred drumming rhythms from around the world to shift from stress to presence, ignite creativity, enhance your brain function, and experience emotional release.
Create heartfelt music that meditatively grounds and empowers you, enables you to carry a beat with ease, and aligns you with the global heartbeat of unity and healing.
Your heartbeat carries a sonic pulse that serves as a unifying force to all of life. Are you listening?
Can you hear the call to step into the rhythm of your own awakening?
As we feel the rapidly approaching hoofbeats of uncertain shifts in our world, the call to evolve and reconnect — to ourselves, each other, and something greater — has never been more urgent.
Now is the time to move beyond words and tap into the deep rhythms of our awareness — where music, sound, and silence become powerful tools for transformation and resilience.
Across cultures and centuries, spiritual drumming has served as a sacred bridge between physical and spiritual realms — rhythmic frequencies that connect us to the healing pulse of Earth, the heartbeat of humanity, and the wisdom of the divine.
Join Christine Stevens, renowned music therapist and author of The Healing Drum Kit, on an experiential musical and profoundly healing journey to explore the sacred language of the drum, connecting you to a global community of healing and celebration.
Adopted by Uncle Manny Eagle Elk Council Pipe Sandoval in a Making-of-a-Relative ceremony, Christine learned drumming from Indigenous masters and primary teachers of West African, Nigerian, Sufi, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Egyptian, and Native American traditions.
She received permission from her teachers to share what she learned, honors the wisdom keepers who passed down these rhythms, and ensures that each practice is taught with cultural sensitivity and integrity.
In her brand-new 7-week live video course, you’ll learn drum rhythms from global traditions and Christine’s channeled beats to balance your energy, deepen your spiritual connection, and harmonize with the great rhythm of life itself.
Drumming is also one of the easiest ways to make deeply resonant music — on your own and with your community. Through interactive sessions and a virtual drum circle, you’ll experience the power of rhythm to make music together as you connect to each other and spirit.
You can work with any type of hand drum — buffalo drum, frame drum, or djembe. AND, even if you don’t have a drum, you can make one using common household items, like water jugs, or create percussion on your own body.
Whether you’re picking up a drum for the first time, or looking to deepen your practice, you’re welcomed with open arms! This course is designed for everyone — beginners, seasoned drummers, dancers, healers, or anyone drawn to the rhythm of life.
And, for those who’ve never even held a drum before, Christine is generously offering an extra session (Module 0) one week before the official start date of the course, where she’ll guide you through the foundational skills necessary to prepare for this journey.
Through Christine’s step-by-step guidance, you’ll discover how to create easy-to-learn healing rhythms that awaken joy, release challenging emotions, cultivate collective energy, and support your spiritual evolution.
You’ll discover that the repetitive sacred language of the drum can ground and coax you into a state where you’re no longer thinking, but experiencing, a moment-by-moment co-creation with spirit — like mala beads for the mind.
And, to help you cope with the specific and foreboding challenges we face today, Christine will devote one full session to shadow drumming — a powerful and immediate way to express and release with force and volume what many of us have been trained to not say with words.
One of the most exciting aspects of this course is learning how to create your own unique healing beats. As you embody different rhythm patterns, you’ll begin to feel the music moving through you, strengthening your ability to express and channel healing energy through sound.
You’ll walk away with a rich toolkit of multi-cultural rhythms, practices, and wisdom that will empower you long after the course ends.
Over the seven weeks of this powerful (and joyful!) program, you’ll:
- Learn sacred drumming practices that honor master teachers from global traditions
- Become a vital music maker, drumming your way to healing
- Create your own healing rhythms to integrate into your daily life
- Develop a repertoire of rhythm patterns for meditation, creativity, and connection to the global community of drum healers
- Use rhythm to shift your consciousness to soothe transitions and difficult times
- Experience the catharsis of shadow drumming — a visceral and powerful force of expression that gives you permission to release anger and frustration
- Participate in guided drum meditations, breath-infused playing, and movement integration to release fear, align your chakras, awaken creativity, and align you with your own inner rhythm ancestry
- Connect with the pulse of Mother Earth and become a conduit for infusing our world with positive energy
- Explore three ways to play the heartbeat from Lakota and Navajo Native American traditions
- Experience a rhythm inspired by the Gene Key 55, the “Key of Freedom,” to transcend fear, scarcity, and limitation — and pave the way for an evolutionary leap into joy, abundance, and higher states of awareness.
- Share the joy of collective ceremonial drumming in a virtual drum circle
- And much more...
From the primal heartbeat to rhythms of West Africa to drumbeats from Native American traditions, there’s a vibrant, world-wide symphony of percussion — a rhythm sangha — dedicating the energy of drumming to personal and planetary healing.
As Christine teaches, drumming is a “blisscipline” that uplifts, heals, and connects.
Scientific studies show drumming can also reduce stress, boost the immune system, and even alter brainwave states. It’s an ancient technology for modern transformation — enabling you to navigate personal and collective awakening.
Honoring Christine’s Teachers
Your participation in this new drumming program will also help Oceti Wakan, a nonprofit organization based on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Christine will be donating a percentage of the proceeds from this course to support this organization.
Oceti Wakan means “Sacred Fireplace” in Lakota, representing the community or the people. Their mission is the preservation of Lakota language and culture, and the healing of its people.
Some of their accomplishments include:
- Life Skills curriculum (second through eighth grades) so that Lakota children can make healthier choices and have a strong Lakota identity
- Prevention curriculum for alcohol/drug abuse/suicide based on Lakota culture
- Lakota language and cultural materials to get children speaking Lakota to each other
- Building a larger Wellness Center to better serve more children, youth, and parents’ programs
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Weeks
In this 7-week transformational course, Christine will guide you through the fundamental skills, insights, and practices you need to learn sacred rhythms from around the world that help you create music, deepen your connection to spirit and community, and join a global heartbeat of unity and healing.
Join the Livestream — or Stream Later to Watch at Your Convenience
You’ll connect with Christine and experience her teachings through livestreaming video via any connected device. This connection is easy to use and will enhance the impact of Christine’s transmissions. Can’t make it live? After each class, you can stream the video and audio recordings to enjoy anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Weekly Sessions Wednesdays at 11:00am Pacific
This course will feature LIVE teachings, interactive sessions, experiential practices, and Q&A with Christine. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need to use drumming to focus your mind, shift you from stress to presence, and spark playfulness and creativity — while providing you with a daily meditative practice for accessing spirit.
Module 0: Beginner's Drum Session to Learn Fundamental Skills (March 12)
Whether you’re new to drumming or refreshing your foundational skills, Christine is generously offering this optional, pre-course session so you can learn (or review) basic strokes on the hand drums — including the buffalo drum, frame drum, and djembe-style body drum.
All levels of experience are welcome — even those playing body percussion, bucket drums, or jugs! (Three- or five-gallon water jugs sound great upside down!)
During this pre-course module, you’ll:
- Learn about drum care and techniques for holding and playing
- Explore 3 types of hand drums — frame drum, buffalo drum, and body drum (djembe, doumbek, and congas)
- Discover how rhythm patterns are learned, remembered, and notated
Module 1: Drumming the Heartbeat for Grounding & Sacred Connection (March 19)
One quality of an awakened heart, mind, and spirit is awareness that our human connection expands into a vision of all our relations.
With Christine’s guidance, honor the teachers and sacred traditions of global drumming as you embark on this journey.
Begin with a drum blessing using the chant, “Blessings on the Drum,” infusing your drum with your intentions and gratitude.
Play heartbeat rhythms from the Lakota Sioux Native American tradition, adding your creativity and exploration to the beat and sending it out to the world. Let the rhythm ground you and set the foundation for learning, growing, and creating a sense of oneness and community.
During this module, you’ll:
- Participate in a drum blessing by setting your intentions with your drum
- Learn a drum blessing chant
- Explore 3 ways to play the heartbeat from Lakota and Navajo Native American traditions
- Add your own creative energy to the beat with a practice of embellishment
Module 2: Parting the Seas - Moving Forward Through Life's Challenging Transitions With Flow & Celebration (March 26)
As we journey through the awakening process, we inevitably navigate challenging terrain. Prepare to move forward with your community of drummers!
Rhythm is defined as “the element of music pertaining to forward motion.”
In one of the oldest passages about drumming in the Judeo-Christian book of Exodus, the Prophetess Miriam plays her drum, celebrating freedom at the crossing of the Red Sea.
Explore how drum rhythms can help you move through difficult times. Christine will also share about the practice of drumming for celebration and spiritual connection.
During this module, you’ll:
- Learn to play “Miriam’s Beat,” inspired by the Prophetess Miriam crossing the Red Sea, with permission from Eliana Gilad, Voices of Eden
- Connect with the medicine of rhythm to move your body through different grooves
- Experience the celebration of answered prayer and spiritual growth
Module 3: Healing Rhythms - Becoming a Conduit for Radiant Energy (April 2)
In the journey of awakening, it’s also important to cultivate greater self-love and compassion and allow it to radiate out to the world and all of humanity.
In Buddhist language, this is the Bhodichitta energy of loving-kindness, or Metta. Combine the practice of Metta with drumming to amplify the intention of healing the collective.
Christine will guide you to bring up the energy of the earth through the drum and join in a Nigerian chant and rhythm to affirm your body’s wellness. She’ll also teach you the formula for creating healing rhythms.
During this module, you’ll:
- Connect with the sacred, steady, and gentle pulse of Mother Earth
- Learn a healing rhythm and chant from Nigeria drummer Babatunde Olatunji, “Ara Mi Le” — which means “My whole self is well”
- Experience a rhythm diagnostic to discover where you need healing
- Expand the boundaries of your world and connect to a greater frequency
Module 4: Shadow Drumming for Emotional Release (April 9)
To go into your shadow is a pathway of liberation that can be intense, dark, and scary. Shamans travel on the drum into the underworld as an initiation into true spiritual power.
The drum is your companion though difficult emotions that you might tend to repress, which often leads to depression — the antidote is expression.
While releasing anger, pain, and frustration isn’t always a productive way to have your voice heard, the drum can take it — without taboo or judgment.
In this year of the snake — the year of transformation — it’s time to break free of the weight of global challenges, the plight of animals facing extinction, communities facing persecution and tragedy, and the chaos of natural disasters.
Rather than bypassing your painful feelings, you can, instead, express emotions beyond words through the language of the drum.
During this module, you’ll:
- Learn the key tools of shadow drumming in the drum language
- Bring your voice into ritual with sounds of release
- Explore the practice of pacing in ceremonial rounds to modulate emotions
- Discover the cathartic power of the drum, whose strong skin holds space for our deepest expression
Module 5: Balancing Your Energy - Trance Rhythms for the Inner Path (April 16)
Along the path of spiritual growth, it’s important to take time to look inward for integration and reflection.
Drumming can be a tool for balance and meditation. Using the polarities of sound and silence, and rhythm and movement, honor the tantric pull between opposites as you expand and integrate, as Christine says, “in-to-great.”
This is the beauty of rhythm patterns that mark moments of transition — growth and change. Learn how to speed up, slow down, increase the volume, decrease the volume, and fade into silence, feeling the shimmering emptiness that follows your full creative expression.
Christine will share a chakra beat — a rhythm that emerged through her — that honors each center, balances the subtle energies, and matches your own body’s energy.
During this module, you’ll:
- Learn to play a chakra beat to honor the subtle energy centers
- Explore the rhythm of Ayub, an Arabic trance rhythm, to go within
- Feel the inner shift of remembrance with a Sufi beat, “Hey Allah,” which honors spiritual connection with the Divine through repetition
- Balance rhythm and silence in a drum meditation
Module 6: Rhythms for Awakening - Supporting Your Personal Evolution (April 23)
There are rhythms that help us become more present, joyful, and grateful — qualities that are evidence of our awakening.
Christine says that 2025 is predicted to be the year in which we enter our third phase of awakening, so this is a great year to bring more drumming into your life!
She’s created a rhythm to help you in that awakening process, inspired by Gene Key 55 — which represents our ability to transcend fear, scarcity, and limitation, paving the way for an evolutionary leap into joy, abundance, and higher states of awareness.
You’ll learn two additional rhythms for awakening, presence, and joy. Christine was taught and given permission to share a Jamaican drumbeat, “Nyabingh,” by Fantuzzi, her teacher in the Global Rhythm Sangha. And, you’ll practice a Native American prayer beat.
You’ll discover:
- A rhythm for awakening based upon Gene Key 55
- The “Nyabinghi” beat from Jamaica
- A Native American prayer beat
- Drumming to support prayer, scripture, and poetry
- A visualization process to initiate you into service, raising the bodhichitta in loving-kindness to all our relations
Module 7: Become a Force of Creativity - Personal Expression & Collective Harmony (April 30)
Explore the polarity of individuality and collective energy, creating your own personal rhythm of awakening and using an affirmation beat of “I AM.”
Merge it with the rhythms of your co-participants in a powerful drum circle. A drum circle is defined as “a collective container for individual expression.”
As you chant to the Orishas (divine spirits of West Africa and the diaspora) of Ashay, the primordial force of creativity and self-confidence — Axe — will arise and move you forward in the samba beat of rhythmic processional.
It’s your time to join the groove of life. Celebrate, resonate, and let your body feel the joy of being alive today — in this moment.
During this module, you’ll:
- Explore your own personal rhythm in a collective online drum circle experience
- Learn to jam on the rhythm of Ashay (Axe), honoring the force of the Orishas of creativity
- Play the rhythm of samba, a parade rhythm from Brazil, to step forward on the path of personal drumming
The Sacred Language of the Drum Bonus Offering
In addition to Christine’s transformative 7-week online course, you’ll receive this special bonus offering to complement the course and take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
Drumming Up Spirit!
Audio Tracks From Christine Stevens
This acclaimed CD gives you nine chants and sacred rhythms to use in spiritual events, drum circles, sound healing, and daily life. These are designed for you to sing along with or play yourself. This multicultural offering, inspired by agape and Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith’s process of affirmative prayer, is woven through drumming and chant. Start your day with any one of these drum songs and carry it in your energetic song book of life!
Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Honoring - Video Teaching
Video Interview With Sue Greg Wilson and Christine Stevens
How do we handle the issue of learning cultural rhythms while making sure to avoid cultural appropriation? In this important conversation with Christine and drum master and educator Sule Greg Wilson, author of The Drummer’s Path, they share powerful information about how to ethically carry cultural rhythms in your life and work. Sule offers insights into the basic steps of honoring the source of each rhythm and the person who taught it to you. This teaching will help you become a cultural ambassador of correctly honoring rhythms from other traditions.
DRUM! Reviving Rhythms!
Audio Recording From Christine Stevens
This upbeat, play-along CD includes five long-play tracks to awaken your rhythm, jump start a drum circle, or just uplift your spirit. It features an inspirational introductory teaching from Christine. This CD includes “Juicy Jam,” “Succulent Samba,” “Lively Latin,” and “Beatin the Blues.” Each track runs for 12 minutes, and you’re invited to use any drum or your voice — or dance. This bonus is bound to enliven your soul with rhythm!
Hand Drumming Basics Tutorial
3 Video Teachings From Christine Stevens
These lessons will help you, whether you’re brand-new to drumming or a seasoned drummer wanting to explore other types of world drums. In these interactive videos, Christine covers the basics of how to hold, play, and learn a pattern on three drums. She features the buffalo drum with a mallet, which has Native American and shamanic origins… a frame drum played with your hands from Middle Eastern traditions… and djembe or goblet shaped body drums of West African origin.
What Graduates of Christine’s Courses Are Saying...
This course was what I really needed at this time in my life and I benefited tremendously from all aspects of the training! I felt like my inner soul was constantly nourished by the drumming and music and it felt great! I highly recommend it to everyone!
Las Vegas, Nevada
This amazing course enabled me to normalize my blood pressure, bring me into a more aware state of being, and has been a very real and healing experience. The added blessing is being able to connect with other spirit drummers, and enabling me to start teaching drumming to others.
Gardena, California
This course showed me that I don't need a music degree to be able to play the drum! Through this course, I've learned to use my drum to ground and center, express my emotions, and connect to nature. It also got me excited to see how I can use this in my celebrant practice!
Chicago, Illinois
I joined the course with the intention of broadening my skills within sound-healing work but I experienced so much more and discovered a personal journey with my drum I could not have imagined. This is just the start of an exciting adventure with healing rhythms, shadow drumming, and nature meditations which I gratefully embrace and look forward to sharing with others. Many thanks to Christine and the team for guiding me to a deeper connection with my drum, and for the self-healing and clearing that occurred during the course and which will continue.
United Kingdom
The two courses I have taken with Christine have helped me to bring drumming deeply into my spiritual practice. I am using it for vibration healing. I discovered that I must have an ancestral lineage of drummers because I sure do love it! Thank you, Christine, for your wisdom, your expertise, your inclusion and your passion for the messages of the drum.
Olathe, Kansas
Join the Global Community
Sacred Language of the Drum offers some of the most transformational online teachings available, within a thriving global community of learning and practice.
Join fellow students and practitioners to support and inspire each other as you integrate the teachings and practices Christine Stevens will share in this powerful program.
You’ll join an international community on the leading edge of manifesting a world grounded in the principles of cooperation, harmony, and reverence for all of life.
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-Minute Class Sessions With Christine Stevens
Experience a unique opportunity to be mentored by and learn from speaker, author, and music therapist Christine Stevens — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session includes a livestreaming video option and will guide you to drum your way into music making, presence, playfulness, and creativity — as you learn sacred rhythms from around the world to heal and deepen your connection to spirit, while providing the skills and community you need to join a global heartbeat of unity and healing. Course sessions are on Wednesdays at 11:00am Pacific.
Seven Video Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the video will be available for you to stream in a high-quality format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can watch anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Audio Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the audio will be available for you to stream. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can listen anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Transcripts of Class Sessions
You’ll also receive the entire class transcription after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Seven 30-Minute Interactive Group Practice Sessions
With live class attendance, there will be a 30-minute optional interactive practice session directly following each class. You’ll be placed in an intimate group with several other participants on the Zoom call to interact, share, and do additional practices to help you further integrate the weekly lessons. Practice sessions are not recorded for playback; if you’re unable to attend the live sessions, the Facebook online community group allows you to connect with each other and find alternative times to interact.
Interactive Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each week’s lesson.
Online Community
Our exclusive Facebook online community is the perfect place to continue your discovery process after each class. Here, you can continue the discussion about your course materials and interact with your fellow students to take your exploration to an even deeper level.
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Online Course, Sacred Language of the Drum
We feel honored that Christine Stevens has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive LIVE online course. This is a unique opportunity to interact directly with a speaker, author, and music therapist whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
If you’re serious about learning to drum to make music, create a meditation, and unite with spirit and community, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind program.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your own evolution, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Sacred Language of the Drum — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form on or before April 2, 2025 and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
More Praise for Christine Stevens
Christine Stevens’ work is truly brilliant. I love how she teaches drumming rhythms. The power of her work is reflected in the brightness of her spirit.
Author of 13 books, including The Book of Ceremony
Christine's work is anointed with the kiss of heaven’s inspiration, celebration, and joy. She is an instrument of global peace on the planet.
Author of Spiritual Liberation and founder of Agape International Spiritual Center
Christine Stevens is a magical sage of sound healing. She is a bridger of worlds with a deep sense of what matters most. She brings healing home for the soul.
Founder of the Morter Institute for BioEnergetics and author of The Energy Codes
Grammy award-winning drummer for the Grateful Dead and author of Drumming at the Edge of Magic
With deep wisdom and connection, Christine Stevens is a master of the heart and healing rhythm.
Qigong master, speaker, healer, and founder of The Chi Center
About Christine Stevens
EDIT
Author and music therapist Christine Stevens was adopted into a Native American family by Uncle Manny Eagle Elk Council Pipe Sandoval in a Making-of-a-Relative ceremony — after spending more than a decade singing Lakota prayer songs, undertaking Hanbleceya (“Crying for a Vision,” one of the seven Lakota Sacred Rites), and becoming a pipe carrier for Women’s Way Long Dance, founded by Connor Sauer.
With the permission of her elders and respect for the Red Road ways of music medicine, she has played the Native American-style flute for more than 25 years, as well as percussion for sound healing, honoring Nature in sacred sites, from a Sedona vortex to the Grand Tetons.
She honors the wisdom keepers who passed down these rhythms, and ensures that each practice is taught with cultural sensitivity and integrity.
Christine is the author of The Nature Sutras, Music Medicine, and The Healing Drum Kit, and the founder of UpBeat Drum Circles, which brings drumming and sound healing to organizations and events dedicated to uplifting humanity. As an advocate of music and wellness, her media appearances include NBC, PBS, Discovery Health, and Living Better TV.
Christine, who has worked with Fortune 500 companies, survivors of disasters, and refugee women, serves as a Musical Ambassador of Peace. She led the first drum circle training for peace in northern Iraq and toured Japan with a music medicine approach to the Native American-style flute.
The host of Global Rhythm Sangha Online, she teaches a variety of online training programs, including Awaken Your Rhythm, which has served hundreds of people from over 35 countries. Most recently, her pilot study, the Global Tele-Music Therapy program, published in Music and Medicine, helped reduce pain, discomfort, and stress with enduring effects during COVID-19.
Christine’s commitment to love, beauty, and harmony, and the reciprocity of offering music to Nature continues to guide her sound-healing practice and courses with The Shift Network.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s a virtual course?
Can I still benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
Can you tell me about the private online community group?
Are there scholarships available for this training?
Please note: Scholarship applications must be submitted before the refund deadline, as we are unable to accept applications after that point.
What’s your refund policy?
If you’re within the refund period, the deadline to receive a full refund is April 2, 2025. To request a refund, please complete this refund request form and submit your request. Qualifying refunds will be processed within five business days, and you’ll receive an email confirming the refund.
We’d also love the opportunity to address and resolve your concerns directly. If there’s anything we can assist with, please get in touch with us at support@theshiftnetwork.com — we’re here to help!
Please note: Refund requests are not accepted after the deadline or for courses purchased with scholarship awards.
