The Drum's Embrace: How Rhythm Remembers You Home

I want to read you the beginning of my book,

The Beat of Your Drum,

To help you understand what drumming does.

It's early morning in a woodland.

The air feels like it's been washed clean overnight.

It's got a special lightness that only exists at dawn before the day's heat settles in.

The sunlight dabbles through the trees,

Making beautiful patterns on the mossy ground.

Birds are singing their dawn choruses.

In the middle of a clearing,

A woman stands ready to drum.

She holds the drum's handle in one hand.

On its circular wooden frame,

A taut supple skin is stretched.

The beater sits in her other hand,

Ready.

As she poses,

The air seems to hold its breath in anticipation.

With a flick of her wrist,

The beater connects with the drum's skin.

A boom pierces the silence,

Sharp and clear.

The drum's skin ripples from the impact,

Sending invisible waves.

And suddenly,

The air is alive.

The deep boom rolls through the space,

Through her body.

She feels it in her chest,

In her belly and hips,

In the soles of her feet.

It's not just a sound,

It's a force,

A presence.

She finds her rhythm,

Boom,

Boom,

Boom,

Boom,

Boom,

Boom.

The beater dances across the drum's surface,

Sometimes striking the edge,

Sometimes the centre,

Creating different tones.

Each beat resonates through the skin,

The frame and into her body,

As if the drum was speaking directly to her bones.

Her eyes are closed,

She is lost in the rhythm.

Her body sways gently.

The beater seems to move of its own accord,

As if guided by an unseen force.

She can no longer hear the birds or see the forest around her.

She is no longer playing the drum.

She is the drum,

The beater,

The rhythm.

Past and future melt away,

Leaving only the now of the beat.

This is what I've been doing weekly for the past five years,

Drumming at dawn in a woodland with two other women.

This has given more gift than I can count,

A deeper connection to nature,

To myself,

A sense of sisterhood and belonging.

It has fulfilled my longing for more connection to the sacred.

But perhaps most importantly,

It has given me a growing sense of peace and spaciousness in my heart,

Something to hold on to in the midst of life's busyness and challenges.

What my ever-busy mind could not achieve with meditation,

The drum gives me without even having to try.