Welcome one and all to the 8th boom-boom-chakk-chakka-tikka-tik-boom year of Drumming the Soul Awake! Friday, Sept 11, 2009, 7PM -9:30 PM.

Welcome to the newcomers and the old comers, the once-in-awhile and the every-ones, the dancers, the thump-thumpers, the explorers, the timid, the loquacious, the whappity-whappers and the closed-eyed reverie-ers. Welcome to you who are on fire with Spirit, and to you afloat in grief and confusion, and to you air-borne thinkers of grand thoughts, and welcome to you lovers of the moist, dark, mothering earth who teaches us how to be human beings. Welcome one and all.

For those of you newer to this, usually about 25 people show up, we drum for about 90 minutes – with a little guidance from me, but mostly my job is to get out of the way of the emerging groove. If you are new to drumming, I’ll teach you what you need to know, don’t worry. I have mounds of drums and rattles and shaky, thumpy, scratchy, woo-wooy gizmos to satisfy just about every rhythmic desire. Don’t’ worry. Just show up. Let the spirit of the drum drum you and dance you.

If you have been thinking to yourself “Oh, I’d like to try to get to drumming sometime” or if you’ve thought “Oh, how I miss drumming” or "God, I really need SOMETHING to move me" or if you are thinking “who is this nut writing this email?” now is the time. Just show up, and fear not. Don’t let that worldly inertia win this time. Stand up to the voices that say "too tired, too bummed, too worried, too poor, too embarrassed…" on and on the voices go. I know these voices well, because they are in me all the time and the drum has been the greatest gift of my life to help me stand up against any voce that tells me to remain small and sad, empty and disappointed and disconnected.

I’m no expert, I’m not wise man, I’m no guru. I’m a guy that fell in love with the drum and was opened, opened. It doesn’t matter if you want ecstatic fun, human connection, answers to that old question, healing from that wound, some way of running the sadness through you so it stops choking you, some way of touching the Divine, the otherworld, the Mighty Ones, the Holy Spirit – it’s all there in the drum. Welcome.

See you soon,

Jaime

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