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.