The Drum Stalk

The Drum Stalk

I am not afraid of ghosts. 

Well at least I am familiar with the experience.

The house I grew up in is 200 years old at the top of The Golden Valley in the Cotswolds.

When we had our garden renovated it turned out there were skeletons in the garden.

Our house was it transpired built on a Quaker graveyard and was full of bodies.

We re- buried the bodies after the police and coroner finished. 

The garden held no air of menace it was about three quarters of an acre. I would climb out of balcony as a small child at night and sneak out onto the common and climb to the highest point looking over the valley.

It was empowering being so young out in the wild at night.

My point is over the years I had many ghostly encounters but they are another tale.

What happened to me in the forests of Eastern England was way beyond a normal ghostly encounter.

I have studied martial arts over the years since the age of 5 and in 2005 joined a Dojo in Brighton South England studying Ninpo Tai Jutsu under an amazing instructor who himself studies from a Grand Master in Japan.

  

We held an annual summer camp in Ashdown forest in Sussex. We studied martial arts and slept for 4 or 5 nights. All booze etc was strictly banned.

Our instructor introduced us to the work of Tom Brown Jr, who was trained in outdoor tracking and survival by the Apache; ‘Grandfather.’

We practiced building shelters, fire lighting, tracking and bird language.

And we did a drum stalk.

Year one 

Summer, 9pm Ashdown forest. Private area, should be no other camps within 1 mile. 10 students; 8 male, 2 female and 2 instructors both male.

Around the camp fire my instructor explained the drill.

We will learn to walk silently and reach out with out with our senses in an old staking training technique.

We would be required to remove our clothes (sirens!) as far as we felt comfortable with, but we should try to be bare foot. 

We would be blind folded and taken out into the woods, spun around and lead on, spun again etc until we were lost blind in the forest.

I elected to remain in only my boxer shorts which I felt was brave enough. Most people wore similar apparently.  

After we were all out and lost which took about 45 minutes our instructor returned to the fire and began very slowly beating a drum, onebeat per minute.

We had to with our hands behind our back do a stalk walk (1 min per step).

It went fine. I fell over a bit, trod on some thistles and got wet, but it was a unique experience.

One strange thing happened towards the end. I was slipping about a bit and pretty much abandoned the one minute step resolving to have another go on the flat cut grass plain that led up to the camp.

That way I would stand a better chance and save face if the others could see from the fire (of course they couldn't). 

My thoughts in real time:

"Nearly there. This is the slope. Ow thistle.

This is weird I feel like I can see stuff. Neony stuff.

I can see my hand if I wave it in front of my face. Weird.

Keep going. I can see a tree next to me. I can sense it...my God I'm the Daredevil, I have powers! Yes!!!! 

I'm going to lean on the tree...eh? It is not there. I can put my hand through it.

That is odd. Keep going up the slope to the plain...here at least, time to stalk walk." 

I hear a nearish noise, a person. No doubt another brave stalker...

A whisper...Sara, she is grumbling.

Sara...Sara...it’s Mark. You ok? 

She muttered Sunimasen which we say for excuse me in Japanese. I felt it was meant as a reproach. 

Sara is an incredible teacher herself beyond Shogan (black belt). She teaches the children's class. She is tall, strong very intelligent and an extremely formidable martial artist not to mention a Mum. I should have kept quiet.

As I made my way across the plain I felt exhilarated but also relieved because the drum was louder and I was nearly back. 

I could hear the other guys around me shuffling and moving. I remember thinking how clever my instructor had been to take us all out and somehow we all came together on the plain. 

Shortly the fire warm touched my face and my teacher removed my blindfold but told me to keep my eye close and slowly adjust to the light.

As my vision cleared I saw my instructor smiling and one other Genbukan (Ninpo martial arts) member sat cross legged looking into the fire.

My teacher asked me how I found the experience. I told him I loved it. But where were all the others?

From here I could see the plain I had travelled but it was empty, no people. 

"Not back yet" he replied. They were all over the forest, nowhere near the plain.

"Eh? But Sara? I heard her voice, I spoke to her."

He told me it was impossible as Sara was on the other side of the clearing a good quarter mile away from me.

I really wasn't sure what to make of it all and soon as I left the forest and returned to the horrid concrete of the city I quickly continued with life. 

One year later...

Year two Summer camp numbers similar to before.

The following year I was really excited about the camp.

One again we trained hard and studied Tom Brown’s techniques. We also did a guided meditation during which I am fairly sure I left my body at some point because I saw the tops of the trees.

The Drum stalk. 

To save time, let me say that the set up was broadly the same as the previous year.

I stripped down once again to underwear and was taken out into the wood.

My thinking during the year was that I had experienced a heightened sensory experience brought on through losing vision but gaining physical sensation through the ground, long grass and air as it touched my unclothed skin. 

I still thinks this makes perfect sense, to a point but...

As soon as my instructor left me (he took me out second) I stood arms folded waiting for the sound of the drum and it was taking ages.

I should just explain that at the time I was working for a large UK tour company, in charge of about 15,000 people responsible for their training and development. The company is well known and newspaper stories follow it throughout the year.

In short I felt that I was quite the respectable important person.

So, back to 1st person.

"Oh. Come on, I'm shivering (the neony colour had returned and I was aware of a landscape around me). Perfect… theory intact, senses expanding, nice.

Wait...

Then it happened. The beginning of the strangest hour I have ever experienced…

Ahead of me out of the darkness I saw 2 figures approaching me.

"No. No. There's not supposed to be another camp round here. No. This is so embarrassing. I'm so pleased I kept my underwear on. This is going to be in the newspaper, I'm going to get fired...

Wait...

I'm blindfolded...The realization hit me like a fist, I'm blind folded, but still they come.

I froze my arms wrapped around myself. The two figures were slowly walking, almost rhythmically as they made their way to me.

No not to me, they are going to walk past. They were two men short stocky and wearing nothing but a skin covering their lower regions. I remember some kind of staff or spear in their hands. Their walk I would describe as a lollop, slightly bouncy.

They walked past me. Through my screaming brain I thought they are ghosts, reflections, shadows imprints of people past left on some plane of reality. They are not really here. 

Nearer and nearer they came until finally they were immediately to my left. Don't look Mark don't look Mark.

I couldn't help it, I looked.

To my horror as I turned to look at the nearest figure he turned and looked right into where my eyes should be. He sees me!!!!!

He had thick set features, wide nose and aboriginal type of appearance I would say, almost a stone age character.

Having peered directly in my face from a distance of at most 2 ft he continued on, not stopping. They were not here for me.

Then I saw them, there were people everywhere. All walking, moving somewhere, lots of people. They could see me.

Thud....

The drum. The drum, oh God the flipping drum, what shall I do? I started to move.

I was terrified. Everything in my being howled at me to take of the blindfold. But I did not. 

What can I do? I'm on a flipping Martial Arts camp. How can I turn up with my tail between my legs because I said I saw a ghost. I would never hear the end of it.

The drum, ignore them get to the drum. As I made my way, I felt that I was causing a ripple where I was because so many people were swooping past me to have a look at the stranger. There are not words to describe my fear. I was the centre of attention.

In my mind I was starting to put some of the pieces together, my instructor had told us some ideas around spirits and different realms that the Apache could enter.

Was this where I was?

If so the people that I'm seeing don't appear completely friendly, just people. There is certainly no light, harps or anything else, just people and the forest.

But what about the bad ones? Would they be here? Will they come for me?

My mother passed away from cancer in 2000.

In the dark I whispered for my mum. Are you there? I'm scared. But no. What if the bad ones come.

I don't want to draw my mother into conflict (I know, stupid, crazy thinking).

But suddenly in front of me was a girl looking into my blinded eyes.

She was no older the 14 or so wearing a faun coloured dress and long straight black hair. It was not my mother.

"Please help me. I need to get to the drum. I'm so scared." I whispered to the girl.

The girl gestured for me to follow and I did.

I followed the young girl as she twisted through the landscape,me shuffling along pleased to have been taken under wing, I made no eye contact with any of the people for fear of seeing horrors.

As I followed my strange guide through the trees, I started to feel calmer. 

It was incredible. As I followed the hordes of 'travellers' kept looking at me but movement seemed to make me less a sore thumb and they paid me less and less attention.

Suddenly I felt the plain of grass beneath my bare feet, the drum was louder. She turned to me and I knew she would leave. 

I whispered 'thank you.' She walked away.

And I slowly returned to the idea of stalk walking to save face for the final steps but my heart could not be less in it.

My teacher took off my blindfold.

"Mark, you ok? Look at me. Are you ok?" He was gently shaking my shoulders as my eyes adjusted.

"I'm fine I'm just going to my tent."

It was at this point that I broke the alcohol rule. Some people do have a few drinks on the last night. I bought a small bottle of highland whiskey. I had a drink and sat. I did not want to pass my final night in the forest sober.

Later as people turned in for the night I stayed up to talk to my martial arts instructor.

"What's up?" he asked me. I told him the story honestly and directly. I didn't know how he would react. 

Typically he was completely calm.

"Hmm. Not sure, but it sounds like you went to the spirit world, I’ve read about such things.

You should be careful about that, it is not to be played with."

I didn't play at anything, but he was right.

That was about 6- years ago now.

I did not return the following year and had to leave Genbukan.

Through a series of coincidences it was discovered that I had a hole in my heart. As it turned out it was big, and my heart had unusual in fact unique structures making the operation to close it difficult.

I nearly died several times but came though. It meant I had to give up training until the tissue grew over the copper clip in my heart.

Now finally I have left the city returning to the green and the hills and woods of my youth. My strength has returned. As I think back to that 2nd experience with in total lasted over an hour and I cannot explain it.

Following this experience I studied to try to understand the truth. I completed a Masters Degree in Psychology and we debated all sorts of phenomena. The degree gave me a language to explain and pass off the experience but frankly it doesn’t fit.

The bit that stands out in my mind as I recall following my young guide through the neon forest was that I did not hit a real tree. We wound through the forest and I did not even step on a thistle.

Having grown up living on the edge of the veil, my nights in Ashdown forest took me through. I walked among beings for over an hour. Truly I don’t really know what happened, but all I knew and still know is that life would never be the same again.