We Are All One Drum

André Vashist

PFC News

4 mins read

Sep 27, 2023

PFC’s Conference theme in 2024 is TOGETHER. Below we have included wise words from Richard Wagamese that remind us that when we open ourselves to a shared purpose and calling, we are able to work together as one family. That we need to act, as Richard Wagamese invites us, as “one drum.”

With this goal at the heart of our conference, we want to ensure we create space for our community to collaborate and contribute to the overall experience. We will offer that invitation in the following ways:

Call for proposals resulting in member-led sessions and discussions
Network engagement at events, committees and online to get feedback and input on programming and conference design
Advisory committee with diverse representation across identities, geographies, and roles within the sector
Invitation to participate in policy advocacy at Parliament Hill, in collaboration with Imagine Canada’s Day on the Hill
Open spaces for networking and facilitated connections

If you have ideas, approaches, speakers, and content you want to share with us, please email me at avashist@pfc.ca.

Adapted excerpt from One Drum by Richard Wagamese

“Our world draws out our differences. These rifts exist in neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, societies, nations, ideologies and in our homes. We have learned collectively that it is easier to push away than it is to bring closer. So, we allow our differences to keep us apart. The act of community has become disempowered, and our human family has returned to a state of individual bands of wanderers.

My people say this time was foretold. Our ancient prophecies said that there would come a time when words would fly like lightning bolts across the sky, referring to satellites and the internet. The same prophecies predicted that the human family would move farther apart and that this separation, this break in energy, would cause great stress upon the Earth.

This time would be marked by flood, drought, storms, famine, earthquakes, departure of animals, strange diseases, and turmoil among all peoples. One look at the news on any given day will reveal these predictions are coming true.

But my people say that there will also come a time when a new flame is lit. A new fire will burn, and the human family will gather about it for shelter, warmth, community and belonging. This new flame will be ignited by the embers of those old tribal fires we have in common.

There will be a return to teachings that draw us together, instead of pushing us apart. As these teachings are renewed, the human family will come together, and the energy of joining will heal the planet – if we allow it.

My people say that we are all one song. We are born of the same energy. As we walk upon the Earth, we move with the same eternal rhythm that beats within it. The heartbeat. The earth is a drum, a living being, and the beat of it is the first sound we hear in the darkness of the womb. It comforts, consoles, nurtures, and protects us as we form and as we learn to listen to that sound in the darkness.

Our journey is to seek reunion with that heartbeat. All of us seek a reconnection to that creative and nurturing energy. All of us carry that yearning, so the truth is we have always been one song. What drives the song is one drum ringing out from the universal heartbeat we all seek connection to.

So, the most profound truth in the universe is this: we are all one drum, and we need each other”

Learn more about the book and author here.