Dear Drummers,

We don’t have a drum until January 11, but I thought I’d send you a new year’s wish. I hope my email finds you in good health and good spirits. As the sun begins its slow climb back into re-activating the land, this is a good time to contemplate our path, our directions, and our actions in the world.

I read recently that Rumi, the magnificent 13th century Sufi saint, once said that you should make a list of the three things you most want in your life. If any of the three conflict with one another, you’ll have a lot of trouble. This is a wonderful meditation for the New Year. For me it seems so much friendlier than “resolutions” which carry the fragrance of sin, and the heaviness of lawmaking.

So you may ask yourself what are the three things – or perhaps three “energies” – you most want to become active in your daily life as the year makes it way out of this round of darkness. Or you may want to pray for help or strength to bring these three things into your life without conflicting with one another.

For me, I’d like to pray more. I’d like to invite the energy of prayer into my life. I’d like to pray in a classic way, on the knees, in the dark, with words, no drum and no joiking; pray for help and strength for that which is most tender and vulnerable for me in particular.

Last night I prayed for the three things I want most in my life:

  • For my wife and kids to be healthy and curious;
  • For me to not become restless within the small container of my life but to have the courage to uncover the depth and beauty inside this container;
  • For me to wisely expand my skills and abilities as some kind of conduit for Spirit for our drumming community.

William Stafford (1914-1993), wrote a wonderful meditative poem called Ask Me. I pass it on to you, along with my best wishes for a wonder-filled new year.

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We
knowthe current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.


See you all soon,

Jaime

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Spiritual Power of the Receding Hairline

Image
For father’s day I will be shaving off the nub. As a trained theologian, it is time for me to put down the books and take spiritual action. For those who need to know, the nub is that humiliating last patch of hair just above the forehead, the last scrap of youth clinging to an otherwise balding head. I'm shaving it off. Here is why. Many men have experienced the crushing realization that their hairline is receding. It makes no difference if they are young or old, if it has happened glacially or with the suddenness of a wildfire laying bare the forest. The moment when the man faces the truth is what the 18th century German theologians aptly termed Aufschrei den Verlust von Haarleukoplakie Steifigkeit, loosely translated as “the mournful gasp over the loss of hairy stiffness.” The Germans dealt with the moment of realization by drinking dark beer and moving several pews closer to the rumbling organ in church, but in our time we are peppered with hair replacement products promising...
Read more
Image
Dear seekers after the Spirit, Now four people have sent me this video of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, telling me how amazing it is. Finally I watched it and they were all right, it’s astonishing. Now I get to become part of the viral spread of this video by recommending it to you. It’s 18 minutes long, and it is well worth it. I’ve made some comments below as a response to the video. Taylor is a brain scientist who describes her own experience of having a stroke, and how this event opened her perception about the workings of the brain. She points out that each side of the brain essentially creates its own reality and those two different realities are only barely connected by a thin (but exceedingly wondrous) membrane. The left brain’s world relies on the sense of “I” and therefore a sense of being separate from everything else. It observes everything as objects outside itself. The right brain relies on a sense of oneness with everything, a sense of expansiveness and inclusion. Each brain li...
Read more
Image
Dear Solstice Drummers, If you attended my Winter Solstice Drumming/Ceremony at Wisdom Ways, thank you! I promised you a few musings on the Reindeer Runes, and here they are below. By the way, if you purchased a script of the show, the runes in the script are in an inncorrect order. My aplologies about that. The runes in your program, and below, are in correct alignment. If you would like to purchase a script that contains the text from this year's show as well as last year's "Blessing," please send me an email at jaime@drummingthesoulawake.com . There's alot more in the script than actually made it into the show, thankfully - or you would have been there for four hours. When I began working on this solstice event, I considered using the classic Scandinavian/Celtic runes. Hundreds of books have been written interpreting these runes in wildly different ways. While the runes are a powerful meditation tool, they come from a time and culture far removed from our own....
Read more