It recently occurred to me that the Sami drum, the goavddis, loosely translated as ”a tool with which to evoke images”, also closely resembles a mandala. Within its enclosing frame, the conceptual inner world was drawn in its pictorial context. All inner psychic layers that its wearer perceived and was deeply involved in were included. Alongside this, it also functioned as an oracle. With a pointer that could indicate the inner path as a guide for the user when the drum was used. It was never about the kind of black art it came to be portrayed as. Or the backward tool it is often condescendingly described as. But more like the geometric form of, and guiding visualization, of the perceived inner whole, which together with its central figures is something that points us towards different parts of our inner coherent psychic structure, and a way of trying to enter into, and take part of how their influence reciprocally exerts its influence on our lives.