The flute circle

Published 9:00 pm Monday, August 9, 2004

ARLINGTON – While Dario Meguire lay near death on life support in a Seattle hospital in June, the recorded Native American flute music his mother played for him penetrated his unconscious state.

“I played it constantly. You could just see in his body that he was hearing it. The music is awesome. It’s healing. He just made an amazing recovery,” his mother, Delores Meguire, said.

Dario, 11, of Mill Creek suffers from asthma and had a severe attack in June.

Delores Meguire called her friends in a Native American flute circle, and they brought him a variety of music to soothe his body and soul.

The Meguires – Dario, his sister Michelle, 18, Delores, and her foster son Dametries, 8 – are regulars at the Native American flute circle that meets each month at the Arlington Bookstore.

Delores Meguire had bought a flute at a powwow, and someone there invited her to the flute circle.

“It’s totally unpretentious. It’s just people, and very nice,” she said.

Dario was using the flute. Dametries wanted one.

“A man just opened up his flute bag and gave him a flute,” she said.

She is Dametries’ guardian because he was the victim of a “nonaccidental brain injury” when he was about 14 months old. As a result, he couldn’t walk or sit up.

Music has changed his life.

“He listens to everything,” she said. “His first real reaction to music was Garth Brooks. It would just get him fired up and wanting to bounce and move. You could see the delight in his face.”

He took to the flute the same way. Now both boys create their own music.

Paul Ninehouse, Peter Ali and Tammy Kennedy started the flute circle about a year ago. At first it was in Ninehouse’s Arlington home but then moved to the bookstore.

Ninehouse, who is “60-plus,” has been making flutes about 12 years as well as playing them.

“It’s a piece of art,” he said. “I dream about things that I put in it. It’s soulful. It comes from the heart. That’s where it starts.”

“Flute players are lovers. When you go to the spirit world, what’s left is the bone. When the breath touches (the flute), it touches the spirit side. It’s my voice and my prayers. You listen to me play, that’s when I’m praying.”

People come to the circle for the sound of the instrument, Ninehouse said.

“If the sound comes from your heart, it lets you move and continue to change and not get stuck in one place. That’s what the flute does for me. It lets me pray in a way that’s not offensive to other people.”

In making flutes, “I’m involved with the spirit of that instrument from the beginning,” he said.

“We’re all native to this Earth, and we have a responsibility to this place because it is our mother,” Ninehouse said.

Everett resident Bill Ferguson, 52, is a Bellevue police officer. After a hard day at the office, he turns to his flute to let go of the stress.

“You can sit down and play from the heart, any mood – joyful, sad. It’s very relaxing,” he said.

Ferguson started playing a regular flute in the fifth grade and later got into jazz, but put it aside during his college years. While he was in Hawaii, he heard a Native American flute and knew he wanted one.

“I’ve made one and enjoyed the process, but I’m a player, not a maker. I play mostly for myself. A lot of it is so personal.”

He’s also played for his wife, his daughter and her friends.

“I’ve consciously avoided learning to play the notes,” he said. “I was much more interested in making my own music. It’s very Zen.”

Caroline Hill, 53, is a Reiki healer in Arlington.

“I use the native music in my healing,” she said. “You incorporate it into your Reiki and meditation. There’s a deep connection to the native flutes.”

She attended her first flute circle in June with her granddaughter, Grace Hill, 11.

“I thought it was really cool,” Grace said. “We’re going to help each other.”

Tammy Kennedy, 42, and her partner, Peter Ali, 47, of Snohomish became interested in starting the flute circle because they take their flutes everywhere and continually bump into people who are curious about them, Kennedy said.

“We wanted to get them all together just to play the flutes because we had the same interests,” she said.

Kennedy is Cherokee, Welsh and Irish, and Ali is Moroccan and Mexican Yaqui.

“We didn’t see flutes at powwows. It’s starting to be more common now. We’ve gotten a lot of flutes in peoples’ hands. We wanted to teach people about it because so many people didn’t know what it was.”

Like many devotees of the beautiful instruments, they have more than one. In fact, they have about 15 between them – some they received as gifts and others they picked up along the way.

They got together with Ninehouse and others who make or play flutes to broaden people’s awareness of the traditional native instrument, its history and music. The circle draws about 30 people each month, both Indian and non-Indian, and people with and without prior musical experience.

“It’s grown tremendously and people come from outrageous places, not just nearby,” she said.

The regulars often come from Snohomish, King, Skagit and Mason counties.

Ali and Kennedy take their flutes not only to American Indian powwows but also to coffeehouses, libraries, schools, festivals and other events. Ali also has played at a memorial and a wedding.

“I hope to expand in playing in more schools,” he said.

He also likes seeing the resurgence of the coffeehouse, which he said is a better place for the flute to make a comeback as well.

“People are so mixed (racially) these days and it helps them reconnect with their heritage. The flute also is a good way to connect with other people and to promote peace.

He urges people to attend a powwow and see the kind of community spirit shared there.

“It’s all about the celebration of life and the history of the people where this instrument came from. It’s more than just an instrument. It’s magical, it’s spiritual. It’s kind of beyond words. When you play it just takes you away,” Ali said.

Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.