Drumming The Soul Awake

Dear Drummers, I wanted to send you a follow up to last night’s drum. I felt a little discombobulated last night for several reasons, but I hope it didn’t show through too much. The language I was playing with came from a phrase from Meister Eckhart (click here or here): “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” The music that inspired me is Hawaiian chants from The Brothers Kanilau . Thanks for being willing to play along. It was admittedly all a bit awkward, but I hope you had fun. I’ve long been intrigued with the image of the Eye of Spirit ever since a friend and I were driving to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival twenty years ago to perform weird shows, and he said he could never flirt with a woman who was not his wife because then he would feel the eye of God burning a hole in the back of neck for the rest of his life. I thought wow, that’s a powerful guiding force for him. Since then I have asked what my idea of the “eye of God” looks like and a...

Dear Drummers, I’m so looking forward to our gathering this Saturday! It’s been awhile, and that has given me some much needed rest, but I’m eager to be inside that earthy beat again. To be spiritual is to actively dance your way into paradoxes and allow them to work on you. Here is the paradox I’m captured by right now. Since early humans began doing cave paintings, there have been about 1,500 generations, assuming a generation to be 25 years. (Read a cool article on cave paintings here ). Since history began being written down about 3,500 years ago, there have been 200 generations of humans. In one way this all seems like a long stretch of time, but of course by earth standards, or cosmic standards it is barely a blink of an eye. Time moves forward, technology changes the world again and again, whole cultures and their Gods are born, die and are forgotten, but the basic challenges of humanity seem to be unchanging. The need for love and the desire for power, the yearning to know Myst...