by Michael Arthur Baird
Know you have rhythm . . .
your very existence is a rhythm.
Awaken to your presence
and hear the song of everything around you.
Drumming,
sound, music, harmony, experiencing feelings, stepping into
the flow. . . this describes my life today, yet it didn’t
before I regained the awareness of the sounds and rhythms
of drumming.
Although they are no longer heeded, I still hear the yesterday
voices from my youth . . .demands from my parents faded
by time, yet forever offering control. I still hear my parents’
insistence that sound should be silenced, "children
should be seen and not heard". They didn’t remember
what they once knew, sound is our participation in life’s
symphony, music playing all around and in us. They knew
only their stress and demands of supporting five children;
our sounds escalated their stress. "Don’t drum,
don’t sing, sit still, why don’t you children
be still?"
There were many words from my parents, teachers and other
adults that shackled my enthusiasm, quieted my movement
and silenced my sound.
Several years ago, on a sunny spring day I quietly followed
and watched as two 14 month old children explored their
world. They laughed, giggled, touched everything
and even cried. I saw two people living in enthusiasm, experiencing
their feelings, two people affecting and being affected
by everything in their environment.
Most of all I heard, all their many sounds . . . un-silenced,
freely expressing their joy. I was the silenced and quiet
observer, separated from the awareness of living by the
restrictions of my long gone caregivers; restrictions that
I still maintained. Standing there watching the joy and
life of those two children, I saw my choices, remembered
my enthusiasm and the joy of being in this world. Then I
dried my few tears, squared my chin, disconnected from their
joy and stepped back into a cold state of detached separation.
Being the good parent, silently monitoring their safety;
I stood by watching as my own memories faded and my shackles
regained their hold.
Years later I bought a drum for a friend’s birthday,
which was several weeks away. This instrument of "noise",
banned by my mother decades earlier, sat silent in my home.
For many days I walked past it and even picked it up a few
times, yet never played it.
Then one lonely night, home
by myself, I picked up that instrument and very slowly began
to explore the sounds it and I could make. I released the
expectations of what the sound should be, and abandoned
fear of disapproval. I, like those children, just explored.
I imagined that I was a child; a child feeling sound flowing
from my interactions with the drum. Enthusiasm, joy and
even sadness flowed from me through that beautiful drum.
We sang, we danced and I cried tears of reunion with what
I had silenced years before, and what I had stilled to be
good in the eyes of others.
That night I remembered . . . then my shackles crumbled
from sound and joy.
Everything in your world is a drum, an instrument that emits
a sound with each stroke of your hands.
Imagine yourself as a young child discovering the world.
Remember your enthusiasm as you touch and hear each
responding sound.
Remember your joy as you interact with the world around
you. Hear the song, conducted by your heart, rise from the
silence.
Remember the child laughing and know this is you.
Celebrate your presence with sound.
Feel your heart beat with each stroke of the drum.
Know you have rhythm . . . your very existence is a
rhythm. Awaken to your presence and hear the song of everything
around you.
Michael is a retreat facilitator,
middle eastern drummer, and also teaches and practices complementary
healing methods.
Michael can be reached via email
copyright all rights reserved
2000 Michael Baird |
