THE ARRIVAL OF FALL WILL SOON BE UPON US and the signs of this transition are slowly and quietly making themselves known to us through the annual and familiar shifts in Nature that bring awareness to the reality that another summer is ending. I am looking forward to the new season and the changes it brings to life...especially the enlivened plants and flowers and trees...I. too, can feel that energy surge...new beginnings...a new cycle...renewal. It is palpable in even the slightest hint of cool in an evening breeze, a change in the night sky, every slightly darkened dinner time and early morning breakfast, every lone leaf that falls or shows a tinge of Autumn's golden hue. The late summer brought with it some very harsh and dramatically high temperatures and record setting heat indexes that seemed surreal! Just as it seemed we might need to start thinking about finding another more reasonable state to live in ( just kidding!), Hurricane Harvey showed up and dropped the temperature dramatically lower and brought rains that we humans and every being still alive in these parts had desperately longed for since June! The price was high for the people and places South of us and the losses suffered on the devastated Texas Coastline will require years to recover and heal. Our hearts go out to the folks who have lost their homes and businesses and cherished possessions...their stability and balance and certainty.... their world now turned upside down and hope drowned.  May they all rise up from the wreckage of this experience with a deepened sense of what truly brings meaning and purpose to life here on Earth and what, in fact ,belongs to the realm of superficial. And may a strong sense of community arise in our consciousness and with it a commitment to respond through whatever means we we can muster, to share, to show we care and to help with the healing and well being in those places hard hit. If ever there was a time in our country when we must each search for and find ways to open and deepen our hearts, to reach across the lines and barriers we have constructed  around our differences and find our common ground with others, it s now. Helping our neighbors in need is one pathway.
One of the things I love the most about music in general, and drumming and rhythm in particular, is that it is also a very powerful and consistent pathway to bridging our differences and discovering our common ground...our connections. Drumming and rhythm deepen our connection to our own spirits and our own hearts in ways that overpower even our own resistance or trepidation around self- awareness or self-revelation or the value of our own authenticity. Eventually, if we stay on the drummer's path and delve into rhythm and the awakening of our natural rhythmic sensibility, we realize how much strength and understanding and courage and wisdom and value resides in our own unique inner being and the need to look outside of ourselves for guidance and answers begins to wane. We are free to BE more of who we ARE and we realize that simply being who we are is the greatest possible gift we could give to the world. When we release the bondage of living our lives solely by the structures and expectations imposed on us by others and trust instead our own inner knowing, we blossom...we are charged up and enlivened ....empowered to honor and develop and share our own unique gifts and talents and creative potential with the world! Fall is the perfect time to discover the magic and the mystery inherent in drumming and the exploration of rhythm and the transformative possibilities they hold might just be a key to a new way of being in relationship to your self, to others, and to all things. Community music making can be a powerful tool in rebuilding our world