I'm writing this on New Years Day, 1999. Be it resolved, I'm going to finish these two articles resultant from visits with Karl Sacksteder at the Oregon Country Fair and Michael Stirling at his studio. Just two articles about two of the nicest men I've ever met. How difficult can that be? For whatever reason, I've found it enormously difficult to even get started from my notes.
In the past decade or so, I can't remember missing the Oregon Country Fair. There is a vibe there which I need a shot of at least once a year. I take my annual vaccination on the first day of the Fair each year. Each year, a different reaction to the shot. But this year, I had a mission - actually a couple. One is also yearly, I have to see Alan Shockley and look at his latest Northern Sonoran Dreampipes. Mostly, I have to see Alan. Like the Fair itself, Alan has a vibe which is needed on a regular basis. To be healthy, to be positive and to give a rat's hat about yourself or anyone else...there is no one better to see than the agave medicine man himself. The other mission, meet and talk with Karl Sacksteder. I've been an interested observer and often critic of the practice of playing the didjeridu over the body as an adjunct to healing and wellness for some time. I 've tried to not only talk with these people ("Didj" Healers) whenever possible, but to experience first hand what they do.
The practice of playing the didjeridu over the body may or may not have been performed by some or all Aboriginal groups in traditional country. The evidence for a "traditional" context for this practice is mostly anecdotal and often , in my opinion, presumptive. I read an account written by Stephen Kent of an Aboriginal player being so offended by "healing circles" at a festival in Europe that he simply left early and flew back to Australia. In the forward of book : "Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to the Internet", Mandawuy Yunupingu writes about his people sometimes playing the didjeridu over the body of a person to heal injuries. Clearly, trying make a connection to what members of various non-traditional players of the didjeridu practice to the traditional owners of the instrument is not only futile, but perhaps cultural insensitive. Why should traditional peoples share their traditions with outsiders who for the most part will attempt to commodify and exploit that tradition without the capacity to adopt any of the world view or spiritual context from which they've stolen it? Yes, I approach this topic with a fair amount of skepticism.
But here I was at the Oregon Country Fair, having passed through gates and read the signs that said, "Think Good Thoughts". I was ready to be healed. Overdue in fact. Karl and I talked only briefly before I took a seat in a massage chair of the type used by "On site" body workers as Karl explained exactly what he was going to do. I relaxed into the chair as instructed and Karl began to play the bell of the didj over my back as he was playing. Immediately, I noticed I had a stiff neck and a sharp pain was burning at the base of my skull. I thought, "this will either get better or worse, so I'm just going to try to relax as much as possible and ride it out." The pain quickly subsided and my neck muscles began to relax. I noticed his playing. It was quite good! I began to drift into a semi conscious state. After a period of several minutes I became aware that Karl had moved back a bit and was playing a soft but energetic rhythm which he had instructed me would be the signal that the treatment was ending. The term he used was "mind dance" and it did seem to activate my conscious mind. I was "coming back" from the blissful state of relaxed awareness to full waking consciousness.
Energized from the experience, I was quite anxious to get to know Karl a little better. The first thing I learned about Karl is a warm and unpretentious man. He told me that he has no idea of what is really happening when he plays the didjeridu over someone. But he is very curious about it! He probably asked more questions of me than I did of him. This does not suit a double Scorpio like me so I pressed him with as many questions about his side of the experience as I could think of! I learned that he works on intuition and sometimes receives "information" mentally while he's doing a treatment. "Did you get any messages while you were doing me?", I asked. "No". Whew! The scorpion can relax a bit. Karl has come to the conclusion that his methods affect the second Chakra and the third eye chakra most directly. His experience seems to lead him to a conclusion that the vibrations of the didjeridu reach into these areas and open them up energetically. How and why? He doesn't pretend to know, but he's come to trust that much. That many people have some blockage in these two parts of the body and the blockage can be "opened" up by vibrational massage.
The "Mind Dance" performance of a rapid rhythm at the end of the massage was quite pleasant and I commented on how I felt that it helped me come back to reality in a gentle but compelling way. I asked him if that particular rhythm was always a part of the treatments. "No, I just do whatever I feel at the time. Each time might be a little different, but I have several little rhythms like that which I can use."
As we talked, I began to realize that we had gone through a lot of similar experiences. Both Karl and I went through a period of time when we couldn't play the didj without intense feelings coming up. For both of us, that got so extreme that even the sight of a didj was enough to bring up the negativity. And we both got through it. What was that? For me it was a reflection of some deep feelings which were surfacing in my life. I knew enough from my experience not to press Karl for reasons. Whatever his reasons were, I felt that the experience was something we shared and that I had found a brother. Someone who had enormous capacity to "feel" things and that in it self may a healer make.
Karl's influences on the didjeridu, were also shared by me. Stephen Kent, of course. Alana Cini the fantastic didj player from Seattle who's inspired everyone who's heard her play. A mutual friend in Jamie Cuningham who taught Karl what he considers the most valuable rhythmic lesson. "Use your heart beat to keep the meter". Interesting concept, very consistent with Karl. I was beginning to see that I was talking with someone who had a very good heart.
It was in Seattle where Karl had the opportunity to work with another mutual friend, Tan Cahill. Tan and Karl were the nucleus of the performance and workshop group Tribal Voice who I had seen perform at the Country Fair two years before and also at the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. The other Seattle area band which featured Karl on the didjeridu was Primal Fusion. I had met Karl briefly at Folklife while he was waiting to go on stage with Primal Fusion and my band "Fire Shadows" was sandwiched on the bill between them and the Didjeri Dudes. I asked Karl about his career as a performer and as a healer and I sensed that he's trying to find the right balance. In a conversation Karl had with David Hudson, David told him that his people did do healings using the didjeridu. But he also told him that healers where never performers and that one had to choose one or the other. There are several things about this kind of information to consider. First and probably most to the point, what is true amongst the Tjapukai need not be true of us outside traditional culture. Another factor is the healing aspect of performance. We've all been to performances which moved, inspired or "healed", if you will, us.
As I walked out of the gates to the parking lot carrying two lovely new Dreampipes I got from Alan, a fair volunteer looked at my didjs and tried to say , "I see you had a successful fair." What she did in fact say, to the amusement of her friends, was "I see you had a sex filled fair". "It was good, but not THAT good", I replied. Completly undaunted, she waved good-bye and said, "Well there is always tonight". That's the Country Fair vibe. Warm, friendly and non-judgmental. Relaxed and without hang ups. Optimistic! And that pretty much describes the man I met that day.