As much fun as I had drumming that first rhythm, I had no idea that the best part of drumming was moments from happening.
After a few minutes of drumming this rhythm, Craig yelled “RUUUMMMMBLE,” and then started beating his drum very quickly and loudly.
I, of course, followed suit. Then Craig yelled, “ONE… TWO… THREE,” and hit his drum once very loudly and stopped drumming. All of us participants followed his lead.
I cannot begin to fully express the massive amount of pleasure I got from rumbling on my bowl. There is just something unimaginably cathartic about hitting a drum(or bowl) as loudly and as quickly as you can. As we rumbled, I could not stop giggling. After we hit our drums as loudly as possible for the last note, I let out a loud, “YEAH!” and started laughing.
Craig and everyone else joined in on my laughter. Craig said, “I think Allison enjoyed that rumble!”
I replied, “I LOVED that rumble!!”
With that, I beat my very first phrase on my metal bowl and I was officially hooked on drum circle. We played another rhythm and then Craig let us rest our hands.
As we rested, he taught us about three different types of drums that he owns. He shared the cultural origin of each drum, the importance of vibrations to our overall health, and the power of drumming to create vibrations that shift our own energy and the energy of the world. He discussed the accessibility of each drum by explaining which drums sit on your lap easily if you are a wheelchair user and which drums are easier to play if you have reduced use of your hands.
His teaching fed my soul as much as playing the drum did because the teaching spoke to so many parts of me: my love of history, culture, energy healing and equal access. As I participated in that very first drum circle, I was grateful to be making music, to be engaged in an activity that reflected so much of who I am, and to be taught spiritual principles by a teacher with a disability.
Although I had wanted to have a spiritual teacher with a disability, I didn’t realize just how powerful having a disabled teacher would be until the end of our first drum circle. Ten minutes before the conclusion of drum circle, Craig ended the rhythm we were playing and announced that we would close drum circle with a guided meditation. Since I absolutely love guided meditations, I excitedly put down my wooden spoon, closed my eyes and listened to his voice. He started by having us see ourselves on the beach. He then had us imagine we were walking on the beach and feeling the sand between our toes and said,
“If you can’t walk or cannot feel your toes, use your imagination. In meditation, we can do things with our minds that our bodies may not be able to do outside of meditation,” Craig continued, “I’m paralyzed and use a wheelchair so I haven’t walked on a beach or felt sand between my toes in years. But that doesn’t matter in meditation. Here, you can create and experience anything you can imagine and your body receives the same benefits as though you actually had the experience.”
In all of the guided meditations I’ve listened to over my many years of meditating, I never participated in a meditation that spoke so directly to me and my body. The meditation was so powerful that my eyes filled with tears because it was the first time that a guided meditation addressed my physical experience of disability and the ability of my meditating mind to create scenarios that transcend the physical effects of disability. It was simply awesome!
A few weeks later, Craig focused on the need to be resilient as we navigate the pandemic. Rather than speaking of resiliency in abstract, esoteric terms, he spoke about it within the framework of disability. Since everyone in drum circle has a disability, Craig reminded us that we all have had to be resilient to simply live our lives. He said, “if we were born with a disability, we had to be resilient each and every day to learn how to live in a world designed for those with abilities we may not have. And, if we became disabled later in life, we had to be resilient to learn an entirely new way of living our lives.”
As he spoke, all of us began nodding our heads in agreement. We all felt empowered and like we could teach the world a thing or two about how to find and seize the gifts that coronavirus was offering us. We carried those feelings of appreciation and pride in our disabilities into our meditation that week.
As our drum circle continued week after week, an awesome thing happened… we became a community. Whenever we rested our hands from drumming, we had conversations on various topics. Craig not only allows these conversations, he supports and revels in them as much as we do.
In one circle, Craig taught us that everything has a vibration and we can alter our vibration by altering our feelings. We can also alter our surroundings with vibrations from our thoughts, our voices, our emotions and our instruments. To give us an example of this, he reminded us of the Memorex commercial from the 1980s in which a singer shatters a glass by singing the note that matches the vibration of the glass. If you’re interested in learning how sound can shatter a glass, check out this video.
After Craig’s explanation, John, a member of the circle, asked if the coronavirus had a vibration.
Craig thoughtfully paused and said, “Yes, I think it does have a vibration.”
To which John said, “Let’s drum this virus into oblivion!”
During another circle, we spontaneously started talking about our journeys with disability. Everyone who was comfortable participating in the conversation shared amazing things. We found out that two members had the same surgery when they were infants. They talked about their lives since that operation. Then, one circle member shared that hours after she was born, doctors told her parents she should be institutionalized due to the severity of her disability; however, her parents ignored that advice and brought her home.
I contributed to the conversation by saying, “My parents were told the same thing about me a few days after I was born. Thank goodness they didn’t listen.” After discovering that our parents were presented with the same suggestion, we talked about everything we accomplished because our parents decided to raise us at home. Everyone in drum circle shared so much that night and we learned so much about each other and ourselves. It was an incredibly moving evening and I was reminded of the strength each of us has.
Please understand that we have as many laughs and hilarious conversations as we do serious conversations in drum circle. One week, one of our circle members revealed that she absolutely loves…
What could my fellow drum circle participant love? Well, if I’m blogging about it, it MUST have something to do with purple. Right? I can’t wait to tell you… next month. Love and blessings!
