the trapped wild horse within
the other night i attended a drumming circle. there’s something very primal and therapeutic about hitting something rhythmically and making a deafening sound in unison with others.
to shake me out of my reality and tune into the earthly pulse. my inner cavewoman gets a kick out of it. and tonight especially i needed it!
to my dismay, there was only one other person there other than the facilitator and they were in a chatty mood ie not drumming. so i sat there with the drum, waiting through their conversation, or rather her long-winded monologue about mainstream news, and how fake and shitty it is. which is all true we all know it. but the longer she went on, the more agitated trapped and drained i felt inside her closed-loop rant where there was no space for anything else, at least that’s what it felt like.
my desire to drum, my freedom, felt impinged upon. the wild horse within me longed to run free, but trapped in a tiny stable with bad air. and then an epiphany came. zooming out, i saw the domino effect. her complaint essentially was about her feeling powerless to this News entity, and my complaint was about me feeling powerless to her - seeing her as the reason why i couldnt do what i wanted. i am familiar with this trapped feeling, it’s a pattern i’ve witnessed in myself my whole life. and recognizing that… very softly i started to drum, interjecting the pulse heartbeat but in a way where i was including her voice as a layer of sound with the beat. i became so tickled with the experiment that i actually even wanted her to keep talking, it was evolving into an improvised rhythmic spoken word piece, that eventually somehow also broke her out of her own rant-spell. they joined in with their drums and then we just really got into the groove, it was bonding, and i got my fix for the night.
the message i got through this was something about using the unwanted thing that’s happening in your life, whatever it is and including it into your experience, using it as more information, as fuel towards what you do want.
also - doing what you can with what you have right here in this moment.
AND if you dont like something, change the channel or create something different.
there’s also something about honoring the resistance that arises, as messages to heed and respond to. another Sliding Doors reality was possible that night where i just keep my feelings stuffed down believing that’s the good polite thing to do, while resenting everyone else for not knowing i have this burning desire, and go home without drumming. that’s very sad. every voice is valid because it exists and there’s space for everyone: including her fear, my annoyance, fox news, the djembes, the running toilet.
making space for magic. i think there’s magic in being awake and alert to your yearnings, in the tiniest mundane seeming moments and doing something about it.
“the more brave you are in your willingness to fully feel and be present to even the most extreme sensations, the more open you are to the whole field of life, and therefore you are vastly more available for good fortune to reach you.” - Carolyn Elliott