🥁 Celtic Drum Making, Spiritual Meaning, and What the Land Taught Me About Listening

I invited an Anishinaabe woman to Backcountry Mystic to teach us how to make drums—and for once, nobody rolled their eyes. Not even Maris.

Which is good, because I’m weirdly excited. Not Etsy-shopping excited. Not “look what I impulse-bought during a full moon” excited. I mean bone-deep, slightly-nervous, spiritual-awakening excited. Like something old and buried in me just perked up and whispered, Finally.

We’re all standing around the café’s long table—me, Isaac, a few brave customers, Nova (who’s already named her future drum “Thunderpants”), and even Nate, who’s mostly here for the snacks. The hide soaking in the tubs smells vaguely like wet barn and possibility.

I keep telling myself this isn’t a workshop. It’s not a performance. It’s a remembering.

What I didn’t expect was how making a drum would start cracking open the question I’ve been trying not to ask too loudly: What does it actually mean to be Celtic? And can I root into that without turning it into cosplay?

What Even Is a Celtic Drum?

Let’s get one thing out of the way: if you Google “Celtic drum,” the first thing you’ll see is the bodhrán (pronounced bow-rawn). A frame drum. Usually made with goatskin stretched over a round wooden frame, played with a little double-headed stick called a tipper. It looks simple—until you try to play one and discover it has the chaos potential of a toddler with a saucepan.

But the bodhrán, despite its reputation as a folk music staple, has a less clear-cut past. Some historians claim it’s a relatively modern addition to traditional Irish music, only gaining widespread popularity in the 20th century. Others suggest it has much deeper roots, tracing back to ancient frame drums used in war marches, rituals, or even trance states by early Celtic tribes. Either way, it holds a heartbeat. And something about that circle—about holding rhythm in your hands—feels older than time.

I didn’t know any of that when I signed up to make my own. I just knew that when I first heard one played live—not in a pub, but in a quiet, candlelit ritual—it didn’t sound like music. It sounded like memory.

That’s the thing with Celtic drum making spiritual meaning. It’s not about the instrument—it’s about what it unlocks.

A (Very Condensed and Possibly Incomplete) History of Celtic Drums

The Celts were tribal, oral, and deeply land-based. Think fewer robes, more weatherproof cloaks. And while most of what we know is filtered through Roman disdain, Christian scribes, or later Victorian fantasists with a flair for embellishment, there’s enough to suggest that music—and rhythm—was central to ritual life.

Drums may have been used in pre-battle ceremonies to mimic hoofbeats and raise the energy of warriors. They might’ve accompanied keening—ritual mourning songs—or trance-inducing chants from fili (poets/seers) or druids. There are legends of bardic drummers who could stir courage, grief, or madness, depending on the beat.

But colonization—first by Rome, then the Church, then the cultural kind—did a number on those practices. Spiritual drumming didn’t disappear; it just went underground. Or was repurposed. Or, in many cases, forgotten.

So when someone asks, “Is making your own drum really part of Celtic tradition?” the answer is: It can be. Especially if the meaning isn’t just historical—it’s relational.

That’s where Celtic drum making spiritual meaning really lives: not in reenactment, but in reconnection.

The Drum That Smelled Like a Barn and Changed Everything

I didn’t plan to get emotionally attached to a goat hide soaking in my laundry tub.

But there I was, kneeling on the floor at Backcountry Mystic, gently stretching a wet circle of rawhide over a wooden frame while Nova sang a made-up song about frogs and mooncakes, and something in me cracked open.

It wasn’t the smell (though—pro tip—do not soak your future spiritual tools next to clean laundry). It wasn’t even the process, which was messy and weirdly meditative.

It was the moment I realized I wasn’t just building a tool. I was building a relationship.

I remembered a conversation I’d had months earlier with an Anishinaabe elder during a reconciliation event. I’d asked—awkwardly, nervously—how I could connect with the land without stealing from the cultures that already belong to it.

She’d said: “You have to know who your people are. Not what’s in your blood, but what’s in your stories. Your celebrations. Your songs. Your struggles. You find your way forward by knowing where you came from.”

At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant.

Holding the frame of my drum, I suddenly did.

Drumming as Ritual, Not Performance

Let’s talk about what the drum actually does in a spiritual practice—especially a Celtic one.

It’s not just percussion. It’s presence.

In Celtic spirituality, rhythm is often used:

• In seasonal rituals (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh) to ground the energy and connect to the cycles of the land.
• As a tool for journeying—altered state meditation where the drumbeat helps guide the spirit.
• For setting intention, clearing space, and invoking protection or ancestral presence.
• As a bridge between the visible and invisible, the material and the mythic.

The vibration is key. It’s a physical way to say, “I’m here. I’m listening. I’m part of this.”

Which is funny, because I used to think “drum circle” meant middle-aged hippies in tie-dye. Now I know it can also mean a bunch of chaotic mystics—one of whom may or may not be holding a squirrel—learning how to listen to something deeper than words.

That’s the root of Celtic drum making spiritual meaning. You don’t just use the drum. You commune with it.

Listening to the Land (Even When It’s Not Your Ancestral One)

There’s something complicated about being a settler on land you weren’t born to—and trying to form a spiritual relationship with it.

It’s why I asked Isaac if it was okay to do this. To make a drum. To learn.

He looked at me the way he always does when I overthink something and said, “Drums aren’t just tools. They’re relatives. If you treat them that way, the land will respond.”

That’s how I ended up by the river behind Backcountry Mystic, holding my not-quite-dry drum and whispering to a rock with a vaguely face-shaped indentation.

I wasn’t expecting anything. But I felt it.

Not a voice. Not a vision.

Just… attention.

The kind of quiet you get when something old is watching you, deciding whether you’re worth knowing.

I offered a simple beat. No words. Just rhythm. Not to claim the land. Not to ask for favors. Just to say: I know I’m a guest. Thank you for letting me be here.

And somewhere inside me, the land I came from answered back.

The Drum at Backcountry Mystic (Yes, There Were Snacks)

We did a drum blessing ceremony the next full moon.

Nothing fancy. Just a few people in a circle, holding what they made, beating a rhythm together in the backyard behind the shop. Nova insisted on wearing fairy wings. Rowan made a chart tracking sound resonance. Nate brought crackers.

At some point I looked around and realized: we were doing it.

Not perfectly. Not with a thousand years of tradition behind us. But with something else: willingness. Presence. Intention.

The drum I made doesn’t always sound pretty. It warps in humidity. Nova keeps trying to store gummy bears in it.

But it holds something sacred. Something honest. Something old.

And it reminds me, every time I pick it up, that this journey I’m on isn’t about being Celtic enough.

It’s about listening long enough to remember who I am.

Final Thoughts (and a Slightly Pushy Invitation)

Making a drum didn’t give me answers. It gave me rhythm.

It gave me a relationship—with the hide, the wood, the stories, the land, and the parts of myself I forgot I was allowed to reclaim.

So if you’ve been hovering on the edge of something—ancestral curiosity, spiritual burnout, identity fatigue—I want to offer you this:

You don’t have to know all the answers to start listening.

You don’t need a heritage certificate, a velvet cloak, or a flawless pronunciation of “bodhrán.”

You just need a beat. A moment. A willingness to ask, What are my bones trying to remember?

💬 Your Turn

Have you ever made a spiritual tool by hand? Did it go beautifully, or did you glue yourself to the kitchen table like I did during the sigil sticker phase?

Tell me in the comments—I need the solidarity.

And if you want more tales of midlife magic, ancestral misfires, and children storing snacks in sacred objects, subscribe to the newsletter or follow us on socials. I promise I won’t beat the drum about it. (Much.)

💜 Everlie