There are times when I journey through life, completely forgetting to work with the amazing tools that I have. Times when life is overwhelming and everything seems to be falling apart. When I don't know what I am doing on this planet and when I have no where left to turn. In those moments of the deepest despair, when I just don't know what else to do, I reach for my drum, I sit on the Earth, and I allow myself to simply be. Be raw, be open, be in my grief, my sadness, my despair, and I allow the rhythm, the heart beat to simply move through me, flow with me, and allow all the emotions and energies that I have accumulated in my field to be expressed, be released and finally give me some space.
You see being an empath is not always great, or helpful. In fact most of the time it is quite overwhelming. Too often I feel like I am drowning in the emotions and energies of others, of the collective push down on me like the waves crashing down on me one after another, with barely a moment to catch my breathe.
The Drum is a wonder unto itself, it has the capacity to assist me when I need it, to help me find the strength when I cannot, to shift the stuck things that seem to have been set in stone, to lighten the load that seems impossible to set down. It helps me gain clarity when my thinking mind cannot decipher my world or circumstances. And most amazingly it does it quickly and completely. No matter how stuck I think I am, how weak or how depressed, she always proves my pessimistic mind wrong, proves that change is a simple choice away. We do not always need to know what to do or how to do it, we simply need to have the willingness to begin.
Of course I could tell you about all the mental and physical health benefits of drumming, there are many, but for me the drum has been a salve to my soul, to my spirit as I journey through this world, trying to make sense of all the madness, wondering where my lightness of heart can be found under all the rubble of lost dreams, grief and struggle. The drum reminds me of who I am, reminds me of who I can be, and reminds me that no matter what I do or don't do, I am destined to become or rather remember all that I have always been. A divine spark of creation, a creator myself and a soul on a journey to remembering.
Without the drum to hold me, to guide me, to give me access to parts of myself I had forgotten, I do not think I would be here, with my beautiful children and partner, journeying through a world that seems to get stranger by the day, but which also holds so much opportunity to growth, love and connection. I will forever to grateful to the boy that handed me my first drum at 17, who saw me, who held space for me and who was willing to say yes to my crazy requests of having to play the drum on a bolder in the middle of a ranging river. That day changed my life, and it is my greatest honour to birth these powerful creations into the world and share the journey that they have taken me on.
Blessings and Drum Beats,
Tamaryn
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