Drumming The Soul Awake

Image: Israfel's Trumpet I am just outside New Delhi right now, working in one of India’s “Silicon Valleys.” It doesn ’t take traveling to the other side of the world to make you meditate on the human condition, but it does help. I often see in snapshots and here is my picture of the day: A well-dressed Indian man standing on the curb, gracefully smoking his cigarette while jibber -jabber-yakking into his cell phone. He is set aglow by the slanting morning light careening off the cement dust and motor-scooter exhaust swirling around him. He stands, confident and strong, like a God surveying his creation. Two women in saris, banana yellow and radiant teal, waft by him, angelic faces the color of dusk-lit earth. Just beyond the glowing man, on the other side of the street, a long strip of temporary houses line the road; houses made of thick branches and plastic sheeting – a tent town of 100 parents and children, the workers building a brick wall along the road. The women squat by ma...

Every now and then I see the Holy Spirit rise up and I get amazed, thrilled and spooked all at the same time-the way you are supposed to feel when the Holy Spirit comes near you. It happened Thursday when Jon Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer from CNBC, calling to task Cramer and other television financial reporters for not working harder to uncover the financial crisis before it wrecked the economy. If you have not seen it, and all of this week’s Daily Shows leading up to the confrontation, you see it by clicking here. And you can see the nauseating extended interview with Cramer where he, for some reason, tells the truth about himself and CNBC by clicking here. In the Hebrew Scriptures (the “Old Testament”) the prophet Amos cries out disparagingly: “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan…you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, "Bring us some drinks!" …The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks…”(Amos 4) Amos is speaking t...

Click here for the origin of this image Dear Drummers, Welcome one and all to the next boom-boom-whacka-whacka-thump-tikka-takka-thump- drumming gathering. If you have been wishing you’d finally make it to a drum, turn those thoughts into life-loving action and join in this week for what will be great deal of lighthearted fun. Well, lighthearted for the first 93 minutes or so, and then…well, I’ll get to that. Some days I write a really smart, insightful letter to you that lays out a stunning, imaginative plan for the upcoming drum. And then I erase it because it’s all a bunch of insincere crap. Today is one of those days, and I have to go back to being honest, which always scares me. The past few days I’ve noticed that my dreams have been overwhelmingly anxious. I wake up having been chased around by wild-haired women who bite me all over with razor sharp teeth, or I wake up after driving fast along winding mountain roads, with those three guffawing yellow-toothed murderers trying to r...

Image: Karin Basel Dear Drummers, Lately I find myself lost in this recurring reverie: Me, reclining on a sun-drenched, padded, chaise lounge by the glittering blue swimming pool in my Los Angeles back yard, typing the next episode of Law and Order SVU or Dirty Sexy Money on my laptop, a frosty Mojito and shiny cell phone on the table next to me, a bevy of eager interns nearby, ready to meet my every demand. When I jolt back to my dim and frosty Minnesota reality, I understand that this daydream is about achieving some kind of great success by working with my imagination, which I have spent so many years refining. Once again I am reminded that there are two kinds of imagination. When we gather to drum, we enter into the sacred imagination. This is the imagination as described by philosophical giants like Henry Corbin, who drew a distinction between the imaginary and the imaginal. This imagination is the bridge, the ladder, the clearing in the woods, the amber-lit hollows of the heart ...

Kathryn Abernathy, "Mandarin Morning" See more of her amazing work . Dear Drummers, I want to extend a warm invitation to all of you to join in the groovelicious rhythmocity this Friday! But a special welcome to anyone who is new to the group and anyone who has wanted to attend but has been a bit shy about it. There are a LOT of new people right now and that makes for a wonderful energy. If I have not said it out loud, please know that I always admire anyone who seeks out our drumming community and takes the step to attend, because everything in our culture makes it far easier to withdraw from human company and from spiritual seeking than to move toward it. I think you will see very quickly that this is an open, welcoming conglomeration of human spirits. So, welcome! This is the time of year that we in the Celtic Shamanic tradition start talking about the goddess Brighid, who is associated with the emerging springtime and the surfacing of new life from frozen winter. Brighi...

Image: abnormalarts.com Dear Drummers, I’ve been trying to write an eloquent, deeply thoughtful letter to you about the power of grieving, and the need for formalized ceremonies to channel grief through us so we can rebalance ourselves, for to be human is to build up grief about decisions we have made that later we realize have caused harm. I was going to tie my thinking to Obama’s inauguration speech where he said we need to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. Americans hear in those words “good ‘ole American pluck” but I hear "and we need a ceremony to go with that." I was going to say something about how our usual religious rituals to channel grieving through us – confession, the Eucharist, and asking Father God to forgive us our sins –these do not really work for me. Neither do the most common ritual activities to dispel grief: television and shopping. I was going to write about how Americans have become accustomed to living in some kind of a bubble , in fact, they ...

Joan Miro, Bathing Woman Dear Drummers, I look forward to gathering this Friday, January 2 for warm laughs and cool rhythms. For those of you new to this email list, we meet at from 7-9:30 PM at First Universalist Church in uptown, Minneapolis: 34th street and Dupont Avenue South. Click here for a map. The easiest parking is on the south end of the building. We drum for about 90 minutes, then we take a break for tea and cookies and we come back together in “hour two” for a meditative or ceremonial element. The suggested donation for the evening is $15 but please don’t stay away because money is an issue. If the drum is calling you, answer. Pay with joy, and with abandon and with love of Spirit. It is lovely, oh lovely We turn our eyes to the North: The frozen earth, the defense against the dark, the silence between the dreams. Arise in me, and pour forth from me Thou silence of the North. By the time Friday rolls around, the whirlwind of the holidays will be over. Now we can turn our...