Amazing, Healing Land!

Take a look at this amazing, healing land in Perkasie where we hold drum circles the first Sunday of every month @ 3pm. Even on a cloudy, rainy day, this is an amazing place!

Perkasie land where we hold drum circles the first Sunday of each month @ 3pm

I decided to do a little write up with some videos of the property in Perkasie where I hold drum circles. One cannot appreciate the beaty and the vastness of this land. My friend Joe owns this land, and it is set apart for spiritual work. You can just feel the vibrations as you turn into the driveway. There is a pretty large fire pit outside, and a tipi that also has a fire pit. And during inclimate weather, we got cozy in a special space. Huge wood-burning stove, fabulous ambiance, and great furniture to hang out on and have a very special drum circle!

Just Realized...

You know, I never talked about the Drum Circle at Harmony Hill Gardens on 8/13/11. We got started late--weather related issues, but we ended up outside around the bonfire. I won't go into everything that we did, but some really neat stuff happened. We did what was called a "soundscape" in musical jargon. I brought out my singing bowls, handed out all of my shakers, added in some non-traditional ways of using the drums, such as hitting the shells, using fingers, bending notes by pressing on the drum heads,... I taught a few people how to play the bowls, and they picked it up in a heart beat! I think I spent months trying to get some of them to ring, especially the large, hand-hammered one from Tibet that I hapened upon while in Portland, Oregon. The soundscape is like an anything goes kind of thing. I asked people to imitate what they heard--the crickets, leaves rustling, crackling fire pops, sounds off in the distance, or to just play a little something that did not have a beat. It started softly...almost bashfully...and then, out came the "cricket" players, the "wind" players, the bowls and their different timbres,...sounded SO neat, ethereal, relaxing, meditative, contemplative... After some coaxing, the randomness of sound came together in a strange but cool way. The music became a bit bolder, and then one could hear this landscape of tonality that wrapped around the bonfire. In its randomness, it became cohesive. I have no other words to describe it except that it was beautiful, creative, intuitive and it all worked together to form this creation--a palatte of sounds that almost felt like I was in the middle of a new age album recording session. Wild. And then, and I do not know where it originated, but a simple beat emerged, pulling everyone together into a jam, but a jam made up of drums, singing bowls, non-traditional drumming techniques, some random sounds here and there. It was like african drumming meets John Cage* meets yoga studio! After it was over, I was so pumped up, and addressed the group as such: Did you hear _____? Wasn't it cool when ______ happened? What about that space where we all took a breath together! The drums, the air, the earth, the fire, the people...we hit that euphoric state that I can only call magic. Magic occurs when you no longer feel like you are "drumming", yet you are. Magic occurs when that happens to everyone at the same time. Magic occurs when the we become one with the beat and then the beat takes us beyond... I don't know where "beyond" is, but it happened at this point in the drum circle...and it was pure MAGIC. *Want to go for an interesting ride? Put "John Cage" into a search engine, and play some of his works...he calls them "compositions" but whatever... He is the master of random, of wacky, of wacked (lol), the non-traditional non-traditionalist. In other words, he is OUT there. I used to think he was on something--like LSD or shrooms. Who the hell thinks of shit like this? Obviously, he does not have what I would consider a "normal" mind, however, within this abnormality there is pure genius.................................I think............................ Ok, so I cannot resist throwing some links in here...buckle your seatbelt and hold the f*** on....this is some weird sh** folks, LOL! Enjoy. ? http://youtu.be/hUJagb7hL0E http://youtu.be/Pbgr74yNM7M http://youtu.be/Ep5fNEeoh74 http://youtu.be/Mn16fh6c31s http://youtu.be/SkHqAUugJKs
PS--each one is whackier than the one before it!!! (Sorry John Cage fans...I tried, I really tried in college to understand his genius, but most of it makes me feel like someone is scratching their nails on a chalkboard over and over again...) Please write me some comments if you have any opinions about John Cage--would love to hear them!

One more pic from the Private Party on 7/31/11

Sweet, right? Look at the little dude at the bottom right. He has a shaker called a "chiquita"--a chiquita for a little chiquita :-D And, almost directly in the middle is the 2 year old, who is looking like she is going to give that little frame drum a good whopping, lol!

More pics of the Private Party!

I just love this photo! Everyone was involved, smiling, playing,.. I was attending to minor problems and details which do come up occasionally, lol! But, if you look carefully, you will see that the drummers just carried on, creating their music without me... Once the drum circle gets their groove on, and they are locked and loaded, lol, my "job" becomes very easy!

Some cool pictures from the last two drum circles!

This picture is perfect...precious...amazing and full of wonder. This is from the Private Birthday Party that I did on 7/31/11.

A quote from the birthday girl: "Unbelievable how you brought the drumming together with 2 year olds to 78 year olds playing and making it sound as if you all practiced for weeks:) "

What a night to remember! I will get some video clips of our drumming posted soon! Check back every once in a while and see what other great stuff shows up :-D

Intention

There are still a couple week's worth of blogging that I need to do. I will be writing about the 8/13/11 Drum Circle, future events, drumming matters...

But, let's talk about right now :-D I was cruising the net, doing some reading on setting intentions. I do have attendees at my drum circles (myself included) set their individual intentions, and it seems like it is a huge help to people. I personally, want to be as effective as possible with intention, removing road blocks that might be hampering my growth. I will be talking more about the process/my process in upcoming blogs. I found this cool little site, and I have been reading and reading. Perhaps you might enjoy it also.

Visit Powerful Intentions: Law of Attraction Community


I am not a big "Secret" fan, as I think we all can learn the words to manifest our dreams. The real issue is learning how not to sabotage those manifestations with our subconscious minds. Sometimes I feel as if I have spent 4/5ths of my life unravelling the damage of the first ten years of my life. The greatest part of all of these quests is that I am no longer paralyzed by my child of origin/original wound messages. I do, sometimes get snagged, however, it is taking less and less time to free myself.

A result of "being awake" is that my path is opening before me. The greatest gift that I have been given is freedom. Freedom includes many layers for me. May you all stay true to your paths, and to whatever your gifts may be.

4:26 a.m.

It is 4:26 a.m. as I begin my first post. I really should be in bed, however, I had a multitude of things to do today...you know, the kind that need to be done before you can lay your head on the pillow.

As I write, I am listening to a cd full of jams that were played in a facilitated drum circle. I tap on everything when I listen to music, and especially drum circle jams. My body absolutely cannot remain still when I hear drum circles playing in the pocket. It is magical, that pocket. Of course, these jams were professionally done in a recording studio, and those magical moments of being perfectly in sync and in the pocket are plentiful. Plentiful, but incredible.

A couple of weekends ago, I was participating in a Native American style drum circle. When it was time to drum, we started with a steady, quick beat--around 180 bpm. This was the trance/healing beat, where everyone plays 4 quarter notes per measure with no accents or embellishments. Energy was HIGH and a couple of times, everyone was completely entrained, in sync, within the pocket.

It was pure magic. Seemed like time stood still, and our drums sang to each other and also to the earth...it sounded like the earth was playing back to us. The air around us suddenly was still, holding the beat like a newborn child. It sounded effortless, empowered, energized,...but only for a second or two. At that point, the beat was together, but not perfectly entrained. The drummers and dancers took what felt like a simultaneous breath--we must have all held our breath during those couple of seconds when each one of us was perfectly in sync with the entire drum circle.

I am looking forward to those incredible moments that will happen on Saturday. Hopefully the full moon will be illuminating Harmony Hill Gardens as we drum around the bonfire, with nothing between us and the sky. That alone, is a reason to come to the drum circle.

Goodnight.