I started the Drum design on winter solstice 21.12.2023 when I lit the first fire at our ’megalithic circle’ and decided to make a drum and create it as a design in my Diploma portfolio. This was while many others were rushing around shopping malls preparing to celebrate a strange concoction of christianity and americanised consumerism and a twisted understanding of “gift economy”. I always had difficulty to connect to what our annual celebrations have become.

Introduction

In this design I would use Looby’s Design Web, Obsidian to document and I would do it in Finnish. 

The design was incremental where the original Goal was building the Drum. The second goal emerged from understanding that the Drum needs to be initiated. The third goal emerged from understanding that I need the system where the Drum is used as an element – which I now call the “Drumming practise”.

This design is the first design in my portfolio covering the Spiritual in Holmgren’s flower of domains. It is an emergent and incremental design where I set the goal intuitively and the vision and goals developed throughout the design process. My need to start the design was my feeling of alienation from the commercialised and americanised Christmas and our annual celebrations in general with which my values don’t align. I was sitting at a fire at our ‘megalithic’ stone circle at winter solstice 2023 and decided to make a Drum as a design. It was supposed to be a small design but it brought to surface my need to open new doors into a spiritual understanding of the world and also to explore what indigenous wisdom actually means and how it could be used. David Holmgren writes (p3 in Permaculture – Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability) about “The deliberate design of a new spirituality that reflects ecological realities” but hesitates to go further into it. This design is my attempt to go in that direction.

The design is founded on my overall Vision

My Vision is a world where humankind has decreased its ecological footprint to a sustainable level that enables both human kind and the rest of nature to thrive without depriving future generations of their opportunity to do the same. This was achieved in a socially just and fair way while developing societies based on the principles of equity. To achieve this humankind learned to use wisdom to understand its limits of what it should do and what it should not do.

Therefore the need for the design is finding paths to wisdom so that my Vision can be realised. The original goal for this design was to make a Drum and my Vision was:
I have a drum with which I might get on a journey for a better connectedness to my nature. A world where we have a healthy connection to our inner and outer world. A better world where we can support each other in finding our inner self.

The vision is based on the idea that wisdom can not develop without “finding our inner self”. I translate “Connectedness to my nature” from the Finnish “yhteys luontooni”. It could also be “connectedness to my natural self”.

In the meantime also the goal of the design expanded from just making a drum to making the drum useful for a purpose, i.e. the design had to include initiating. The initiated drum is the 2nd increment.
Thinking of the purpose led me to expanding the Vision to include Community. This is in line with old shamanistic thinking where the shaman’s domain is the survival of the community. A new vision emerged:

The Drum is a shamanistic object enabling connection to knowledge that otherwise is not easily accessed. Using the Drum should primarily benefit the community. Shamanism is not about personal spiritual growth but about a communal role which is necessary for the survival of the community. My Vision is to support my communities in connectedness. Such communities could be our family clan, our village community or the permaculture community.

I also note that I am not a shaman. It is not a role anyone can take upon him- or herself.

I developed the Vision further:

With the Drum I can connect to my inner self, my wisdom, my nature, to others, nature and place. I am connected to right and wrong, the past and the future, my ancestors and those whose ancestor I will be, the under world, middle world and upper world. With connectedness we find the right answers and do the right decisions.

The Drums Purpose: With drumming I and we can connect. I can fetch answers. Maybe I can help the community to the path they should be on. I can create space for mystical decision making.
The Purpose of Initiating the Drum: Is to transmit to the Drum the power to act as a shaman drum. The Drum is initiated for a specific purpose and the powers needed for that purpose are transferred to it.

The consolidated version:
With the Drum I connect to my inner self, my wisdom, my nature, to people and my environment and to the location.
I am connected to right and wrong, the past and the future, my ancestors and those whose ancestor I will become, the underworld, middle world and upper world.
I use the drum to fetch answers and we can journey together. I can help my communities to find the paths they should follow. I can create space for mystical decision making.

I feel it is important to show the evolution of the Vision throughout the design process while visiting the different anchor points and implementing increments of the design. The last three versions already show the direction to a system where the Drum is used for its purpose. I call that system the “Drumming practise”.

After the first assessment from Andreas Jonsson and a tutorial meeting with Tom Henfrey and reflecting on the Vision and ethics I considered reformulating it once more to include the system more clearly. Also the Goals live along with the evolving Vision. Finally I understood that the real Vision was already in My Vision in my Design oo Pathway:

My Vision is a world where humankind learned to use wisdom to understand its limits of what it should do and what it should not do.

Emergent and incremental design

The concept of ’emergent design’ was coined by David Cavallo. It is the practice of letting the design emerge from an interaction with the client. In this case it was the interaction between me and making the Drum and contemplating on the initiation and purpose of the drum.

Design Web (by Looby Macnamara) – which I use in this design – is a prefect tool for emergent design. It can start from any of the 12 anchor points. In emergent design the design process is not a linear procedure and the outcome can not be predicted when the process is started. It suffices to have direction. It is a creative process. In permaculture we should allow for both types of design processes (linear and emergent).

Emergent design can lead to a design (integration anchor point) which is then implemented (action anchor point). However the design can also evolve visiting the action anchor point several times, i.e. implementing something while the design process is ongoing.
This is called incremental design. “Incremental design means splitting the design problem into smaller problems and working on these problems one by one while making improvements in the solutions by getting feedback from the customer” (uxdworld.com).

”If you follow an incremental design approach you will decide on a minimum viable product (MVP) as the first increment and start working on that. You will meet your customers regularly and involve them in your design decisions. Get their feedback on the MVP and determine the strategic direction of further product development. ”
”Each module adds or improves functions to reach a larger goal.” It means that the strategic direction was not necessarily known when the design was started.
In this design the original Goal (1st MVP) was building the Drum which led to the realisation that the Drum needs to be initiated (2nd MVP was the Initiated Drum). From there I realised I need the system to which the Drum belongs (the system where the drum is used for a purpose / for realising the Vision) which I now call the “Drumming practise” (3rd MVP).
Developing the practise is guided by the permaculture ethics. Instead of using the Drum for just developing my personal inner self I design a system of Earth care, People care and Fair share. Of course also that requires personal development towards increased connectedness.

Ethics and wisdom

Permaculture ethics is embedded in my overall Vision in Design 00 – My Permaculture Diploma Path. The key for this design is in the last sentence:
To achieve this humankind learned to use wisdom to understand its limits of what it should do and what it should not do
Bill Mollison’s 3rd ethic was “Setting Limits to Population and Consumption” It is a more inconvenient ethic than “Fair Share” – maybe therefore not so popular – but absolutely critical. I imagine he was inspired by the 1972 ”The Limits to Growth report” which humankind has avoided understanding since its publication.
It could also be that some have understood but they have vanished due to the Multipolar trap (a situation in which multiple rational agents or entities, each acting in their own self-interest or competitive advantage, create a collectively destructive or suboptimal outcome for all involved (Daniel Schmachtenberger)).
If you limit yourself, someone else will take over and the overall system doesn’t change. The multipolar trap is just one of the System traps (Donella H. Meadows) that ensure that humankind will not be able to stop its destructive behaviour without rising above its normal or “natural” patterns.
That is where wisdom steps in. Without wisdom we will be doomed. The purpose of this design is to find one possible path towards finding collective wisdom. Wisdom is about understanding and connecting to whole systems and limits of systems.

So my logic here is that Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share or Future Care are not possible without us developing wisdom and therefore it is necessary to design pathways to wisdom. There are many ways to approach wisdom and the Drumming practise is only one of them.

It comes in the deal to also promote wisdom. We need more wisdom in order to get more Earth care. Earth care happens through People who implement it. The Drumming practise is a permaculture system because it enables us to work with the ethics in an embodied way.

With a strong focus on connectedness the Drum guided me to Earth Care already before its existence. After deciding to build the drum on the night of the winter solstice, the next day I started by choosing the tree I would need for the frame of the drum. I checked some old hazelnuts in our hazelnut grove but did not get permission to fell one. 10 years back I had promised to protect the hazelnut grove.

So I switched to a young aspen in our young forest close to our house. Even there it was clear that I couldn’t go in with a chainsaw – not in the silence of the winter solstice and not for that purpose. I felled the tree with an ax and hand saw.

Earth care is supported by an animist connectedness to earth and nature that we need to be sensitive of and nurture. We can also think of Earth care through the tripartite worldview and the Tree of Life; all aspects of the Earth need to be taken care of. The whole process of making the drum was initiation to a wider animist or shamanistic worldview.

Values

Sitting at our ‘megalithic’ stone circle at winter solstice while others were rushing around shopping malls preparing to celebrate a strange concoction of christianity and americanised consumerism and a twisted understanding of “gift economy” – (a commoditisation of celebration), I was thinking of how to connect with the annual cycle as it happens in nature and therefore also deep in us. I lit a fire within the stone circle and contemplated. That is where the decision to build the drum was born. An incremental step towards something that represents a different set of values and that could open up gates forward.

In our culture we mostly measure values with money, as financial values. And we tend to accumulate material capital – mainly the kind whose value can be measured with money. The dominance of the financial and the material causes a systemic ill-health of the human system. In this design I am interested in other values. A tool I can use to understand this better is the Eight Forms of Capital.
The Drum itself is material, it is a symbol and therefore cultural, it is a spiritual tool and it connects to the living that gave the material. It connects trees and deer and other objects to the system and even the hunters of the deer. Overall the Drum and the Drumming practise are linked to all forms of capital except the financial (asking for money for a drumming session seems intuitively wrong). Essentially the drumming practise increases all forms of capital. An analysis of 8 forms of capital is presented in the design.

After the assessment

Regenerative design

A possible criteria for a permaculture design is for it to regenerate resources. This can link to Regenerative design which is an approach in which human and natural systems are designed to co-exist and co-evolve over time. It’s not just about minimising harm but actively working to regenerate the natural environment and support human well-being.(See Zahara Chatty)
”Survival of the community” can be seen as ”minimising harm” but this design aims at regenerating at least 7 forms of Capital and decreasing one or two.

Survival of the community

I mention several times – and even in the vision – that the shaman’s domain is the survival of the community. This underlines the collective role of the shaman and of shamanistic practices. In smaller and bigger crises it was the shaman’s task to bring answers from the journey so that the community could live. In a worst case scenario it was about survival but usually about much smaller matters.
In the modern meta-crises we are discussing survival on a different level. We need wisdom to limit ourselves and it is not sufficient for just some people to be wise. We need people and humankind in general to become wise to the extent where the systemic traps can no more function.
Wisdom is closest linked to People care but with wisdom people can realise Earth care, Fair share and Limit consumption. That is needed for survival.

Mystical decision making

Mystical decision making is a key element in this design. Drumming is experiential. The wisdom that can be found on the journeys is embodied wisdom. It needs to be verbalised and that can happen collectively in mystical decision making process. Several people can join the drumming with an inquiry and after the drumming consent in a sociocratic manner to how the message is verbalised.
Decisions must be made together to avoid systemic traps.

The Drumming Practise

I made the Drum for a purpose. The initiated drum is a key element in an emerging system which I call the Drumming practise. The purpose of the system:

• The system is emerging and for now it is only possible to design the first incremental steps and envision where the practice will develop. Some of the steps include learning how to use the Drum and the system and developing new rituals, ceremonies and patterns, shifting my relationship with spirit and the tripartite world and building a felt connection to the system. I can only design the external side of the system which will support the development of the internal, of embodiment. Therefore the design is largely about ritual and of observing nature’s patterns that might otherwise be hidden to us.
• Rituals and patterns involve other people and can develop into community building. There is interaction with the tripartite world and with other people – the community. Both support emergence and guide us in the next steps later.
• Those could include becoming a spiritual mentor or facilitator – or not. It is for the community to decide who is a mentor or a shaman. It is not specifically my goal – but I am becoming an Elder myself and it is interesting to see if a role will emerge. The Drumming practise can support that.
• The Drum itself is also emerging. For the moment I have not painted the skin (but there are hidden symbols inside the frame). The painting on the skin manifests the Drum’s owner’s worldview and often the tripartite world is illustrated there with symbols of different beings who reside in the Upper, Middle or Under worlds or move between them. One task is to develop that illustration to represent my connection to the Drumming practise. I can start developing it in consecutive Saturday drumming sessions.
• The Drumming practise will merge into the Magical map and probably change it.

The tripartite worldview

Initially I thought the same elements that filled the Venn-diagrams of ethics and the Gandhian change would fill the tripartite worldview – but they didn’t. They are just a part of the Middle world with some pointers to the gates to the Under and the Upper world. The modern world is just a part of the Middle World and has lost sight of the gates to Under and Upper. The Tree of Life acts as the route between the Worlds. I had to switch to Finnish to be able to put words on the Drum.

Learnings

It is important to clarify the Goals of a design. I used the Vision-Mission-Aim-Goals-Activities framework (from Andreas Jonsson) and the Logical Framework Analysis. In this design the clarification came only after the first assessment. It was incremental.

My designs tend to be emergent, i.e. at the start I don’t exactly know where the design will end. This design was emergent to a degree where I had to clarify for myself the concepts of Emergent, Incremental and Regenerative design. For me Designing is a process, not a procedure (see Dan Palmer).

I come from a culture and family background where rituals played virtually no role. I observed them as an outsider. This design shows that inner development can not be designed using purely inner elements. Inner development and connectedness requires embodiment and rituals are tools for that. You can design rituals and patterns that support inner development but you cannot design inner development directly.

On the other hand religion and philosophy has always interested me and I have been fascinated by Kalevala since high-school. This design has supported me to transform that intellectual interest into a path of embodied knowledge.

There is no going back to a shamanistic system as it is manifested in a hunter-gatherer community. It needs to be transformed to something that meets the needs and challenges of today. Mystical decision making as a way to collectively reach out to wisdom. Patterns that support mystical decision making became the ultimate goal.

In hindsight I have used the learning cycle consisting of four steps: The concrete learning experience (feeling) Reflective observation (watching) Abstract conceptualization (thinking) Active experimentation (doing).

The whole diploma process with it’s focus on Ethics and Vision has become an initiation. The Design oo underlines that the learning pathway to a permaculture diploma can become a initiation towards a sustainable and ethical permaculture lifestyle and wisdom.

How to read the design

I am not presenting the whole design here. If you are interested to know more or read and watch the whole design, please send me an email: erkki (ät) iso-orvokkiniitty.fi

• The Introduction was written 20.- 23.1.2025
• Circling around the Design web including ”Consolidating the Anchor Points” 21.12.2023 – 6.12.2024
• The slides until ”Consolidating the Anchor Points” is a diary of thoughts and actions circling around the Design web anchor points. They show the emergence and incrementality in the design so they should not be read as final statements. ”Consolidating the Anchor Points” contains my thought until 6.12.2024..
• The Youtube video 6.12.2024.
• The Introduction and Post Assessment was what emerged after the 1st assessment and the tutorial meeting with Tom Henfrey. It is further emergence and more layers in the incremental design.