Five days ago, I went to a drum circle attended by about 50 people. It brought me back to my essay in progress.

Drumming takes place through the night until a last tired thumper wanders away in the fog of exhaustion. Their fully-charged reptilian brain shifts to the goal of finding their tent. Some can’t walk away, so they fall asleep on the ground near the fire as the sun rises, lighting up the dawn as shadows drop down from the tree tops.

Taking a path through the woods and away from the drum fire is not new, but our caves are. Tents of orange, green and blue cover the grounds. In the dark, glowing candles from within make them look like Japanese prayer lanterns lit in remembrance of ancestors.

These drummers demonstrate what the new physics teaches: We are all connected. In the drum circle, there is something mystical and unintelligible to senses, but the drummers understand and speak the language of time. They know this language. They’ve learned it by listening.

Listening, according to some experts, is the “most often used but least often practiced communication skill.” But something happens when listening to drums that is more than the sum total of communication. In his fine novel of India, Return to the Source,  Lanza Del Vasto once wrote:

“The finest and most complete instrument they have is the drum. It is the voice of all speech, the Aum of all hymns, the          foundation of all music. The drum is the bond between the musician’s voice and his body, between his body and the              music to which it gives the earthly consistency of the steps it raises.”… read more...