Thunder and lightning woke Bhava and I up as the dawn was just beginning to break this morning. I walked outside with my drum and the sky was full of compassion and love displayed in many hues of pink and cloud formations of beauty.
I breathed in the breath of life in the deepest gratitude that filled my bones, every cell and space between the cell for our drum-making event that had just happened, for every soul and being there, for every miracle – both seen and unseen, for every heart opened and felt.
I saw in my mind’s eye again every magnificent, beautiful drum that had been created on buffalo hide yesterday. Each one a deep profound and gorgeous expression of their heart, soul, and prayer. I heard our drumbeats again beating together as one. I remembered and felt our hearts beating together as one again.
I walked over to the crystal labyrinth that rests in the open field bordered by rolling fields of waning yellow canola almost ready to harvest. This morning I knelt in the center of the labyrinth where the remnants of tiny iridescent and brilliant crystals laid from breaking open the solid geode. The little geode I had brought back from Arizona last year.
I knew there would be a perfect time to reveal the diamond crystals inside – but I didn’t know when, until the moment came. And that was yesterday morning. In one spontaneous moment under Don’s favorite and massive chestnut tree, while being with the altar that was in the center of our drum circle, this precious geode called out…’now is the time’.
The breaking open, the revealing, seeing the magnificence inside was the closure to an event that will always be imprinted in my heart.
Something else happened yesterday. My heart dropped. I was weak – how could this happen? And how could it be that as much as we searched on the internet for help – every site said, it’s impossible to change. I felt helpless, my mind racing to figure out how we could make this right. But how can you make it right or replace a buffalo drumhead that people had created with all their heart and soul in this sanctuary.
There was no way to re-create this time of being together and witnessing each other and each others expressions on buffalo hide. There was no way to ever replace the majority of drums that had dried warped, one drum especially was so wavy it resembled the rolling wheat fields to the west.
I knew the only way the drum surfaces would restore themselves to perfection would be a miracle.
I remembered being in Hawaii at a retreat years ago with Don and we bent forks. I was so irritated that Don was one of the first to easily bend his, and I was one of the last to finally bend that fork like it was a blade of grass. If we could bend forks and rearrange molecules then, we could do that with warped buffalo drumheads now.
And so… Deonne and I went to the quantum, we saw the drumheads as if the warping had never happened, we saw them perfect and it was already done. And it was.
At 9:00 a.m. when the participants arrived and went to the clothesline to find their drums, I followed the one who had the most warped drum, ready to support in whatever way I knew.
As he took his drum off the line, to my astonishment, deep gratitude and enormous celebration…. The drum was PERFECT.
AND….so was everyone else’s!! All drums had shifted into a smooth perfect beautiful unblemished surface.
Miracles are in every moment, but somehow these miracles that shift what we see and touch in this 3rd dimension surprise me every time, and yet – it’s how we were meant to live, move and be, every day. Expecting miracles.
Today is Don’s birthday. Through the tears, I see him, I feel him, I miss him, and I am so grateful he was so present, and is. I’m so grateful for this last weekend, the friends we made here and the loved ones we met on the other side, most of all for the drumbeat of life in everyone and everything, everywhere….drumming us back home to our heart.