Book review: When one song and one drum generate a common healing
Credit to Author: Lionel Wild| Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2020 18:00:08 +0000
Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet
By Richard Wagamese (Douglas & McIntyre, 2019)
$18.95 | 192pp
In 2017, when award-winning Ojibway writer Richard Wagamese died at age 61 in Kamloops, he was working on One Drum, a book he called “stories and ceremonies for a planet.” Now B.C. publisher Douglas and McIntyre has released the text Wagamese had completed before his death.
Wagamese survived abuse, addiction and Canadian racism in all its ugly dimensions to create a powerful body of work (including eight novels, five books of non-fiction and a volume of poetry.) None of this would have been possible, he often said, without his return to the traditions of his people.
In One Drum, Wagamese describes simple activities based on Ojibway ceremonial traditions but available, he insists, to anyone who seeks the sense of connection and wholeness these ceremonies can evoke. He adds stories that illustrate some of the lessons to be learned in ceremony.
The stories, reminiscent of Aesop’s Fables as well as of the traditional stories of his people, feature animal protagonists learning some of the key elements of a decent life, the elements Wagamese hoped his readers would discover in his text by practising the simple meditational exercises he suggests. These elements are humility, courage and respect.
Some readers may be tempted on first opening this book to dismiss it as pop psychology or cheap New Age mysticism. They would be wrong to do so. The life lessons Wagamese shares with his readers were hard-won and reflect a life of painful, courageous struggle.
The many readers who have been moved and instructed by this author’s luminously beautiful, intelligent and clear-eyed fiction will find in One Drum evidence of the teachings and ceremonies that allowed him to survive and create.
Wagamese died too soon, but before he did he created a legacy for his readers. His earlier works will sustain his well-deserved reputation, and anyone who loves this author’s work will welcome this final volume, which provides a look behind the finished works to the spiritual and emotional disciplines that supported his writing.
Because the author did not live to complete One Drum, the book is necessarily open-ended and lacks the final polish he put on his earlier works. Nevertheless, it is well worth the reader’s time.
When ceremonies are shared, Wagamese wrote, “We truly become one song and one drum beating together in a common purpose — and we are healed.”
Highly recommended.
• Tom Sandborn lives and writes in Vancouver. He welcomes your feedback and story tips at tos65@telus.net
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