February 5 Drumming

I lost my job two weeks ago. Please do me a HUGE favor by clicking here to take my short survey. It will help me make decisions about how to serve the Drum and our community now that my life has opened up some. Thanks so much!


Dear drummers,

Welcome, welcome, one and all to the Groovelicious Rhythmocity, the boom-boom-whakka-whakka-boom-whakka-whak of Drumming the Soul Awake, this Friday, February 5th. If your are new to drumming, don’t worry, our drumming group is about the easiest thing in the world to slip into, be comfortable and have a bucket 'o fun. We have plenty of drums, rattles and object of noise-a-liciousness, or bring your own.

I lost my job two weeks ago, and I’ve been ruminating on the haiku:
Since my house burned down
I now have a better view
Of the rising moon.

This Friday’s drum will focus on the topic of transformation. All of us are transforming, our world is transforming (all the time). The saying goes: every creature is crouched in eagerness to become the next thing. I’m not sure we are all so eager, but the key is to change the balance toward eagerness and away from fear.

We are in the part of the Celtic wheel of the year typically associated with Brigit, the goddess of healing, metal-working and poetry. She is a terrific Presence to ask for guidance in respect to transformation, and we will work with her this Friday. If you have a short poem about transformation (or about Brigit) that you’d like to share, please feel free to bring it.

So, two weeks ago the slashing axe of staff reduction came through our office, cutting down nearly half the staff, me included. I surprised myself at how little this bothered me. I have been ready to change the structure of my work life for some time, I just didn’t have a compelling reason (read: courage) to make that change. I shy away from blanket new-agey statements about bad things being blessings in disguise or our higher mind manifesting the change that we need. But in this particular case, it’s as true as the sparkle on the morning snow.

I began packing the very few personal items from my desk into a small box - a picture of my kids swimming; a calendula scented deodorant stick, and two figurines - a dashboard Jesus (Jesus on a spring so he dances as you drive over potholes) and a dashboard “Knight of Nee” (from the Monty Python movie). For three years they were next to me, Jesus looking like he was whispering a secret into the astonished Knight’s ear. I liked to pretend that Jesus, during his twelve “lost years” had made it to Scotland where one day he whispered the secret “Gospel of Nee” to my ancestor, which was passed down to me. Click here to see a picture of them!)

While packing, I surprisingly did not think about losing my house, and having to move to Surinam to work in the dank gold mines with the greasy, bare-chested Dutch foreman swishing his whip and shouting “Verk, u durty schkum, verk harder, schtoopit animals, get da gŏld, or no vater fer u!” All I thought about was how I have been handed to opportunity to collapse in fear or to ask what it is I want, or what it is I am called to do.

I’ve been given the opportunity to trust the Spirit(s), and myself. My “call” is expressed through our drumming groups. I have no explanation for why that is, but I’ve stopped worrying about it. My only thoughts as I packed away Jesus and the deodorant were, “Now that my life schedule is wide open, how will I expand my service to the Drum and to our community?” You can help me by offering any and all suggestions and ideas. Please feel free to email me (drummingthesoulawake@gmail.com) or please, click here to take my short survey.

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