Drumbeat Heartbeat

There is something wonderfully primal about drumming. It takes you out of your thoughts and right back into your body, harkening back to the very first beat we heard in the womb-- the beat of our own heart, that of our mother, and the rhythm created between the two. The connection between drumming and the heart is self-evident. If the heart is "the beginning, the fountain of all things in the body, the primary cause of life," drumming is our first rhythm, tied to the origin of music, to community, ritual and rites of passage.

Kai has long been drawn to drums, as many children are (there's nothing quite like sticks + loud noise). While we were listening to "Paul Militello and the Rhythm Family" at the first ever Water Hill Music Festival last weekend (a fabulous celebration of local music, community and front porches in a neighborhood with water-related street names), Kai suddenly got up, walked down to the drummers, sat at one of the available drums and joined in playing. He did this without my (or the drummer's) invitation and with such self-assurance and resolve that it felt he was being summoned by the drums. His friend, Benny, came down and joined in, too. Here they are playing (bottom right hand corner).

I found this quote interesting in terms of making a connection between the heart, health, rhythm and seeking some kind of internal balance in stressful times (which they certainly are, on both the global and personal level):

"Our heart is the metronome of our body's biorhythm, and health happens when we are in rhythm within ourselves, synchronized with other living systems and moving to our present beat rather than trying to respond to the driving beat of the stressful outside world ... Healing, then, becomes the ability of our heart to improvise and develop its own new rhythms to the chaotic rhythms that continually emerge in our daily life." (Pearsall, The Heart's Code)