SUNY Adirondack hosts Mother Drum event

College celebrates Indigenous People's Day with cultural celebration

QUEENSBURY, New York (Oct. 6, 2022) — SUNY Adirondack is proud to offer an Indigenous People’s Day Celebration from noon to 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10, in Northwest Bay Conference Center in the college's Adirondack Hall.

Long before mental health counseling became commonplace, people found solace among others.

“Before they went to therapy, they drummed, they danced, they sang, they were strengthened by their community,” said Lindsay Farrar, a SUNY Adirondack counselor who focuses on multiculturalism.

Farrar invites the community to Teachings and Songs on the Mother Drum, in which Patti Two Ravens, a spiritual leader, will lead the Mother Drum Singers in the celebration.

Two Ravens is Metis (Native/European) who follows an Earth- and heart-centered spiritual path. As drum keeper of Mother Moose Drum and voice of the Grove Drum, she has facilitated drum and healing circles for years.

The event is free and open to the public. Attendees can simply observe the ceremony, or participate by drumming on the large Mother Moose Drum or by bringing along their own drums, rattles or other such instruments.

“In relation to counseling and healing, connecting to the sacred is a natural fit,” Farrar said. 

The Indigenous People’s Day Celebration is part of SUNY Adirondack’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.  

“As a first-generation equity practitioner, I’m interested in supporting our students’ natural curiosity and willingness to learn,” Farrar said. “Jamming at a drum circle is one thing, but this will be a reverent connection to a traditional culture and an opportunity to recognize this is an authentic spiritual practice; this is real, it’s living and it’s now.”