O
The circle… Symbol of eternity…Reference to the substrate of existence itself; that which is of no beginning and no end; the infinite potentiality from which the myriad forms spring forth and return… The circle… All encompassing… The eternal void of infinite possibility… Symbol of wholeness, of oneness… Inevitability of polarity…Union of opposites… All opposing sides ultimately One, for they are of The Circle… It is a symbol of the cyclical, of the inevitable return to that which was willed. It is a showing that the comings ‘a going and the goings ‘a coming…for one is always here now, always of the circle… and the circle… it is of no end, of no beginning…it is eternal.
The archetypal resonances of the circle within the human subconscious offer us a realization of wholeness in this… thing… reality some call it; yet, we are clouded. Other frequencies of the archetypal plethora have been dominating the human psyche for generations… Concerning the common legacy of the white European, the way of the wheel has been swapped for the rule of the cross. The cradle of the womb, the caring, nurturing aspects of the feminine, the wholeness of motherly love… it has been disregarded, buried beneath the force, pride, and rudimentary will to compete and control which characterize the metaphysical phallus, an archetypal resonance which has been a source of much tragedy and disaster for the human species and all life... The circle, however, the wholeness, the completeness, cannot die. It is ever and always fully alive, complete, harmoniously coalesced as All That Is, the Truth that the cosmos is taking good care of itself… Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring … rebirth… renewal… quantum leaps of transformation… And so on…
Some do say, prophesize, hope, believe, that the eternal womb of creation is rebirthing itself as a conscious realization within this dimension of perception; some say that awareness of Being’s inherent, self nurturing Nature, awareness of Life’s essential wholeness and oneness, that the unintegrated aspects of the archetypal feminine, the way of the wheel, that all of this is blossoming from the myriadical depths of the human psyche and emerging into this tangible dream via an expanded awareness and recontextualization of information. . . .
perhaps
And so… the circle… it is a sound as well… From circle came the drum and from the drum came yet another revealing of the cosmos’ cadence, the beat of Being, the One Heart and its palpitation of creation…and it feels good… Cadence feels good… The cosmos is self harmonizing and synchronizing. Grasshoppers join in song, fireflies light up the night in sync, pendulums swing in concert…because it “feels good” to the cosmos… All “chaos”, all “disorder”, all seeming mayhem is actually adhering to pattern, to cycle, to The Rhythm…. And so, from circle to drum to circle of drums… a circle of circles… yet another fractal infinite of Nature’s weaving…A portal for the One Song…
The drum circle…the first music of human experience… music of transcendence… music for God… music of Prayer and Spirit and Essence…music of All Life’s Rhythm… Humanity’s music…it is echoes of Music’s Reality… of that which Is… ye see, Music Is…That which Is has no beginning, no end… like the circle… It simply Is… And it is from Music that the human’s music was born, and to this Music, all our sounds return… Music…It is an eternal… For the song of silence is always... sung by the trees, the vibration of space, woven whilst the birds symphonize with wind and galaxies tapestry to eternity, played as a shrieking, shattering climax of a wild weather’s rain drops thrashing a cascading torrent of mhtyhr with eternal calm completions of All is Now sonic resolutions, the ohmings of wholeness from mountain top eternal sunrise chime… the stream… the drop of dew… light… That is Music…It is where our music comes from…it is where our music goes…
And so… The drum circle… a circle of circles… fractal infini T, akin to the leaf, crystals, coastlines, and snowflakes…all patterns of eternity …self harmonizing wavelengths of unknown origin, unknown destination… the eternal echoes of Music’s Reality…
So why is it that we drum? Why the circle of circles of souls? Why this form of communion since before recorded history? It is as if the drum circle is a natural phenomenon, a product of the universe’s inherent synchrony, a facet of a layer of a reflection of Nature’s pattern passing through this dimension of perception, interweaving with our world for but a moment, only to transcend beyond it as the hand leaves the skin of the drum.
I’ve been attending drum circles ever since my later years of high school. They became a solace for me, a place where I could venture beyond the consensual agreements and conformist constraints of school and society. I grew up in Las Vegas, not exactly the most musical city. Yes, there are the musical entertainers flaunted by hotels and casinos, your Wayne Newtons, celebrity impersonator shows, senior citizen favorites… things like that… but really, Vegas’ song is one of blaring sirens, hypnotically chiming casinos, suburbia insanity, urban chaos…oh yes, and touristic debauchery as well…there are a few street musicians who dare to play alongside these loud, overbearing streets. They often get drowned out by the madness, yet they play on, shaking tambourines and strumming guitars, stoned, singing, crying out to the infinite unknown for some sense of peace and understanding, for a taste of Music’s transcendent truth…
…it comes in between the notes…
Playing music on the Las Vegas strip was exhilarating, dangerous, wondrous and insightful. We’d jam in the warm neon aura of the decrepit Vegas circus, singing to the jovial tourist, playing for the cynical, overworked casino employee, drumming on despite the mean spirited shouts of the drunk, disgruntled gambler… Thank Goodness we found a drum circle, a place where Music is honored and revered, where thanks are given for the Song of Life.
Although Vegas has some rather soul enslaving tendencies, right outside of town resides Red Rock Canyon State Park, an escape into Reality, an absolutely beautiful landscape of canyons, mountains, valleys… and it is here, near the base of a mountain under a lonesome desert tree that a drum circle is held every Sunday. It has been taking place for over 2 decades and continues on to this day. I can’t remember how I came to know of this drum circle, but by the end of my junior year in high school, it had become a common outing for my friends and I.
Whenever I would attend this circle, Terence McKenna’s notion of “the archaic revival” would come to mind, the idea that a reemergence of tribal, communal, earth aware consciousness is taking place within the psyche of the human species and that there is a collective, subconscious desire to transcend the delusion of separateness and live as one human family which has produced raves, art festivals, eco-conscious communes and, I’m sure McKenna would agree, modern drum circles.
This weekly ceremony beneath the lone desert tree by the mountain side would begin with prayers and chants. People usually brought sage and incense to burn. A shrine composed of rocks, statues, bells, flowers, among many other things, shone in the center of the circle. When the time was right, someone would ignite a stick of sage and we would pass it around, dousing ourselves and those near us in the smoke as an act of blessing and purification. It was usually around this time that marijuana would make its way around the circle, freely given and shared in good spirits. And so, after the blessings and prayers and burning of the herbs, the portal to Music’s Reality would open as hands met the skin of drums.
This circle revealed very much to me. It took me into moments of deep resonance and transcendence with all those taking part. There were times when the portal of Music had been so opened that…it was just incredible… collective Kundalini orgasms would take place, moments of utter communal ecstasy. The intensity and sheer presence of the whole group drumming in accord with Nature’s harmony would reach earth shattering proportions. As one fellow drummer put it, “it gets to that point where there are no ideas, no words, no concepts… just the music.” The Music… when awareness expands, illusion dissolves, and all that remains is that which Is, direct experience with essence, with the transcendent nature of Music’s Reality…
I’ve been blessed with the finding of such a drum circle. It is a circle guided by conscious intent and acknowledgement of Mother Earth and Life’s sacredness. While marijuana and, sometimes, natural, entheogenic substances would be used ceremonially, alcohol was never welcome. I guess the devotees of this circle prefer Earth Wisdom’s mind-altering manifest over that of humans... And the manner of substance use at this circle is very ritualistic and reverential. Thanks are given for the herb, for the mushroom, for the chance to attune to Earth Mother’s vibrations… At this circle, there is a genuine urge to touch the divine. Not all drum circles are like this. In fact, they can vary quite a bit… Yet, there are some core elements at the heart of any and all drum circles, elements likened to the “archaic revival”, elements of community, of the coming together of various frequencies of consciousness and the inevitable progression towards an awareness of all Life’s essence.
Since I began attending Chapman University in California, I’ve started going to the Venice Beach drum circle about two or three Sundays out of every month. This is a rather different circle than the one in Vegas. Venice Beach itself is such a diverse, multifaceted setting that a drum circle in such a location is bound to be otherworldly. Vendors sell handcrafted artworks along the walkway…psychics and readers of the tarot are abound…snake charmers, gymnasts, homeless musicians, all this and more become the norm along Venice Beach’s walkway. And if one is to wander down this walkway on a Sunday afternoon, one shall come across a forming drum circle, gestating beneath the shade a few palm trees. In the early to mid afternoon, there are usually about 30 to 60 people taking part. People of all sorts drum and dance in the center… My last time there, I saw an elderly man jumping about enthusiastically in concert with the rhythm, waving a flag above his head… a mother dancing with her young child… a homeless man looking on, smiling wide as a rainbow… there were hobo drummers and Hollister wearing dancers, high schoolers tapping their toes in rhythm with the elderly, the drunk and deranged dancing to the sounds of somber musicians… the Venice circle is a massive coalescence of consciousness, an integration of the seemingly separate, an advancement of Oneness awareness…
By four ‘o clock, the circle moves to the sand of the beach. People continuously join in. More drummers, more dancers, more people just enjoying themselves. My last Venice circle experience was shared with a good friend. We showed up rather early, claimed a spot near the center of the circle and, as the day progressed, witnessed a bulbous mass of souls engulf us. If one shows up after 5 pm, it is nearly impossible to penetrate to the center of the circle… there are just too many people. So, I was drumming as my friend danced in the center with gypsyesque women, young children, old hippie types, homeless men… multitudes of people, all of them truly beyond any delusory labels the mind could muster up. There was an elderly man I remember in particular. He was dancing about, playing a recorder. It looked as if he would soon be returning to a retirement home. Then, suddenly, he ceased all motion, frozen in a moment of awe. I glanced to where his eyes shone their glare of fire, and lo and behold , gracefully dancing in the sun light, an African Goddess, an ebony beauty moving so graciously, swaying ever so subtly, as a leaf falling in still autumn, as a rose graced by the midnight hour’s dew drop… this Nubian Priestess sent chills throughout my being… I drummed on, seeking to satisfy her sway... As for the elderly man…he will die happy.
By dusk, there were at least a couple hundred people there crowded around the morphogenetic circle of drumming and dancing souls. The onslaught of drummers made concordance with a single rhythm quite a difficult feat. Very often, the beat would be lost in the chaos of the mass. Dancers would stop their steps with a laugh and look of bewilderment. Drummers would look around at each other in moments of erratic rhythm… a common beat would once again be found… and the pulse of the circle would beat on…
Sage and marijuana were wafting in the air. People drank to excess. Pills were passed around small groups of people… So it seems, many attend the Venice circle simply to party and forget “reality” for a bit. The intent to touch divine essence is greatly dampened. This circle at Venice Beach reminds me of what the philosopher Ken Wilber called the pre-trans fallacy, the idea that there is a trans-rational, transcendent state of consciousness that can be experienced as well as a pre-rational, rudimentary state of consciousness which we all have experienced… the pre-trans fallacy states that the latter is often mistakenly assumed to be the former. So it seems, at this circle in Venice, rather than transcending mind forged manacles and the consensual reality of culture via intense present moment awareness and attunement with the beat and frequency of Nature and the fellow participants, the masses of this circle regress into the pre-rational, rudimentary state of consciousness with help from indiscriminate drug use, highly sexualized dancing, and information overload. Not that this circle does not have any conscious intent for Divine Realization behind it. There are those who pray, meditate, bless and chant for the circle, however, it seems that the debauchery of the party overwhelms the search and realization of Spirit, at least in my experience.
The circle that I frequented in Vegas was wholly different. People gathered not to forget the unreality, but to remember the Source, to reveal and experience The Harmony inherent to Creation itself. I remember one time when some rather cultured women chose to attend the circle by the mountain one Sunday past. During a break, they began to discuss monetary and banking issues in the circle. No one said anything, but it felt, at least to me, that bringing the transient, worldly affairs into the portal of timeless Music was a taboo. They were quickly quieted by the birthing of yet another rhythmic campaign to transcendence. The circle in Venice is quite different. The transient, worldly affairs are very evident, but that’s ok. Despite the Venice circle’s apparent draw backs, it still offers many beautiful things to those who take part.
Perhaps the ultimate purpose of the drum circle is to bring people together, to reveal the human family, especially in this day and age of multiculturalism and the dissolution of “the minority.” The peoples of the world are integrating. I remember saying “the whole world is here” the last time I as at the Venice circle. Just on to my left was a man from El Salvador drumming away on his djembe, and on my right was someone who originally came from the Far East… Three continents covered by three people. There were hundreds there. And, as for the communication between those making up the circle at Venice, it was very much like the discourse between nations… chaotic, abrupt, clashing and conflicting. Yet, it is all in good will. Despite the rhythmic troubles, all gather together, as one, to form the circle. It makes no difference of our heritage or class, our degrees or social status. We’re all here to create something together, to acknowledge our oneness as the human family and transcend beyond the shackles of ignorant mind and delusory separateness.
The last time I was at the Venice circle, I had an experience that greatly defined the essence of drum circles to me. As I was drumming, I saw quite a sight dancing near me. A very dirty, disheveled, toothless, most likely homeless black man… He was joyously dancing to the rhythm of the circle, smiling and appreciating the moment. At first glance, my conditioned mind instantly categorized him as a homeless crack head. Our eyes met as my mind mustered up this fallacious label. He knew my mind had judged; I could see it in his eyes. I felt a tinge of shame for so quickly coming to such a baseless, conditioned reaction, yet as soon as the judgment arose within mind, I let it go, knowing it to not be truth. He is a human being, my brother in the human family. For those few moments in which we stared at each other, I feel we both witnessed within the other our conditioned mind responses, the residues of ignorance, bigotry, and hate left behind by the tragic history of America and those who have passed on. My conditioned mind saw a crack head, a life wasted, a societal problem… What did his mind see? The oppressor? The evil white man? The disgusting vileness of racist bigotry? What else did we see? What else did we experience? I looked deeper… I saw social injustice… I saw tragedy… I saw slavery…I felt sorrow, compassion, remorse… Can the human spirit be redeemed for such wrong doings throughout history? Who knows? But that is, in a sense, what is happening at drum circles, we are trying to redeem the human spirit, to reawaken ourselves to the one family of Life and transcend the illusions that separate us from our brethren. After these brief yet intense moments of eye to eye contact, both me and the dancing hobo presented our hands to each other. We shook and then pounded fists, a small yet powerful step towards transcending the idiotology of racial separateness, an action that symbolized a chink in the chains of ignorance, a weakening of mind forged manacles. Our fists coming together represented a progression towards awareness of Life’s oneness. In that moment, that moment in which our hands met, we both took a step for all humanity in the direction of respect for Life, however small. Despite the turmoil of the past and present, despite the ignorant reactions of the conditioned mind, we both chose to acknowledge our brotherhood, to take a seemingly insignificant step towards realizing the human family, towards manifesting the archaic revival, towards redeeming the human spirit and transcending the illusions of separateness which have kept us in bondage and suffering since times immemorial. By simply acknowledging and respecting the Life Essence within one another, we took a step for all humanity.
The drum circle can show us that all life is one… that All is one with the Great Circle of Life...That there is no separateness. It is a ceremony that brings people together. It doesn’t matter where you come from or who you think you are. We all can keep a beat. We’re doing it right now…each and every heart is beating in concert…
At their best, drum circles serve as a birth canal for Reality, for Music, for the reemergence and conscious realization of the way of the wheel, the eternally birthing womb of creation and its life nurturing nature... Drum circles offer us a solace from the insanity and delusory separateness spouted by the common culture, a chance to transcend the conditioned mind and dance with direct experience of The Divine. The Rhythm is within us all, it is the sustaining essence of all Life. The drum circle can reveal this, and this revelation is the key to a more peaceful, communal humanity. By drumming to and for Reality, the oneness and self-nurturing nature of Life Essence can be directly known. No separateness… no races or classes or kinds or types… Just glorious, sacred, One, complete Life… That which we all are.
reflectioN
Reading the ethnographic essays from class, especially “Guests of the Sheikh”, gave me some insight into how I might best write an ethnographic essay, how I would integrate the personal into research and so on… My audience…Why, it is the Eye of the I…and also this class…and you Professor Pedersen…as well as drum circle devotees and attendees and everyone in between… The essay transitions from one drum circle to the next, showing some differences as well as the characteristics that are integral to any drum circle… I start with some metaphysical meandering…yay!... and end the essay on a rather positive note… I am working on allowing myself to be a channel for the flow…it is expertise in effortlessness I strive to master… “when the spirit is known, the work creates itself”… I guess with this essay, I’m just trying to show the reader how awesome and integral to humanity drum circles are…something like that… I guess I add some new facets to the drum circle topic by bringing a somewhat young perspective to the table, as well as likening it to the ideas of Terence McKenna and Ken Wilber… Drum circles are wonderful. I’ll probably attend them until I pass on to the next stage of my frequency’s evolution. Drum circles have made my life richer… As for the style of this essay…eh, it is as it is. I would hope the reader enjoys it, yet, perhaps some shall not. It could be called different, but it’s not even that… The strongest part of my essay? hmm… I’d actually say my essay is rather relaxed with random spurts of poignancy. The first two pages are fun, metaphysical meanderings… I would continue to work on the whole thing…still, it is not complete! or, Really, All is Complete, for all is of The Circle…that which is of no beginning and no end. AH!! I am happy with the essay.
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in all of Infinite
there is but One
and it is nOne
ever and always
in every and all ways
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