First drumcircle of the year.. finally!
First drumcircle of the year.. finally!
Saturday night we hosted our first Erie Drumcircle Fire of the year. It felt like this was one of the most anticipated drummings that have happened in a while. Weather last month forced the first outright cancellation ever because of the road construction they’re doing at the end of the driveway. Instead of gravel, the first 50 yards were field dirt, and with the rain it left ruts that were nearly a foot deep. There were something like 80 people (i counted 60+ at one point, but there were a people who were away from the circle, and more folks arrived later). The first circle last year had about 70. I anticipate this being a year of large drummings. Parking’s gonna be tight later on, but there is that alfalfa field that’ll work fine as long as people don’t leave trash near their cars. The drumming itself was a little awkward at first, the circle had about 4 rhythms going on at the same time, no one really listening, not that it was easy because the circle started out really big. Folks really like to try to have it be one layer, but when the circle is that many people, the size it has to be to fit them makes it so that one side can’t hear the other. We’ve got some folks who bring dunduns, and that helps, up to a point, but the folks who play them are trained in African rhythms, and that can be a little heavy at times, especially when they fixate on one rhythm for a long time. But without them, it seems that some of the djembes have to fill in with really pronounced bass tones. i feel like I’m gonna have to do something about that soon, but I’m somewhat at a loss what to do. I had a few opportunities to keep or break my self-improvement resolve, and I kept it, despite a few moments of weakness in which i was trying to convince myself that it wouldn’t matter. I kept seeing the various groups congregating here, there.. I think I spent more time around the circle this time than at any other circle. Michelle said it made a difference, me not being gone from the circle. shrug I was and always am amazed at the variety of people who show up. My yard seems to be the intersection of a lot of different groups. It amuses me when people who have been coming around for years tell me they don’t know half of the people here. I think that because we don’t have a potluck that there isn’t a lot of mingling. I think we still have some folks coming down from Wyoming, although some of those folks moved to back down to the city. Several folks came up from the Springs. I remember driving up from south Colorado Springs to the BPA drum frenzies (i’m so glad nobody calls them that any more, but i wish we had a cooler name than “erie drumcirlce fire”, but that’s what ppl know them as), 80+ miles one way. When I was a kid, a 100 mile drive was cause for a weekend stay at gramma’s. My sense of “far” has really changed since I’ve lived in Coloradom but it’s really a function of the distances between spaces out here. Suburbia is filling in those spaces quickly, eventually will fill this space with McMansions, but until then we’re here. I really want this year to go well, and we seem to be off to a great start. I was going to list who all was there, but you all know who you were. Thanks for coming out, the rest of the summer is gonna be great.