{"id":1347,"date":"2016-01-19T15:25:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T19:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2016-01-19T17:10:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T21:10:20","slug":"planetary-heartbeats-and-rhythms-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1347","title":{"rendered":"Planetary Heartbeats and Rhythms of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ralf<\/a>It was his first drum. It was a creamy yellow color, a smooth ceramic. It possessed remarkable clarity \u2013 each tak <\/em>and dum <\/em>sounded precisely, cleanly — at least, when my husband, Ralf, played it.<\/p>\n

No wonder congregants shyly admitted to me that they were often mesmerized by Ralf\u2019s drumming hands during services. They watched, listened and prayed to the rhythms he played. Each time, Ralf called the living earth into the carpeted, dry-walled sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Dum tak-a-tak. <\/em>A planetary heartbeat of sorts. A prayer of land and waves falling and rolling against the shore, of wind clapping tree limbs together.<\/p>\n

Almost ten years ago, I held a wintertime healing service. One of my congregant\u2019s daughters-in-law was facing a losing battle with cancer. Her children were both under five years of age. There were other griefs brought to that service. Yet we prayed, and healed \u2013 at least a little.<\/p>\n

I do not remember how it happened. That first, beloved drum slipped off Ralf\u2019s leg and fell to the ground. We looked at the shards, calling immediately to the children to stay away.<\/p>\n

Ralf was not consolable.<\/p>\n

I wanted to make it good, so I went hunting for a replacement. Within days I found a ceramic drum online with a roughened surface. The Daveed drum got fantastic reviews. Despite the uncertainties \u2013 and the expense \u2013 we ordered it.<\/p>\n

Ralf loved it. I loved it. The congregants loved it. Ralf became far more attached to that drum than his first one.<\/p>\n

Almost a year later, we took it to UNC Charlotte where we both teach. We were co-leading a service for the Hillel chapter. As usual, there was a lot to shlepp. Several drums, my guitars, various kinds of equipment. The lecture hall featured heavy doors we had to drag open for every trip from the parking lot.<\/p>\n

On the way in, Ralf turned slightly as one of the doors shut. We felt the sound, rather than heard it. The door tapped against the Daveed drum. Hands shaking, we unpacked it. The bottom rim had cracked open.<\/p>\n

It does no good to tell anyone that mistakes happen — not when the mistake that person has made feels like an irretrievable loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t blame me like you are blaming yourself,\u201d I said. \u201cThings can be replaced,\u201d I added. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about the money. It\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t. When I went online I discovered that the drum was no longer being made. I searched, I asked at drummers\u2019 discussion boards. No more Daveed drum. Not anywhere.<\/p>\n

Please understand: Ralf’s Daveed drum cracked on November 21, 2008.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to Ralf, I went online every few months \u2013 looking for a Daveed drum somewhere, anywhere, new or used. I would find one for him. I would surprise him.<\/p>\n

Searching became a ritual disappointment. I\u2019d see one only to call the store and hear that their website and the pictures hadn\u2019t been updated. That drum wasn\u2019t being made anymore, they\u2019d tell me. Anything else they could help me with?<\/p>\n

Seven years of searching, seven years of intermittently recalling the sound of the door, the sadness, the look on Ralf\u2019s face in that darkened lecture hall \u2013 it hurt. I gave up last year. I told Ralf that I had been searching and he thanked me. I told him I had stopped looking. He understood.<\/p>\n

The first week of January, Ralf and I were working together on a set of workshops for our community. My part was to take everyone through the service structure and to demonstrate how creative, lay leadership was within everyone\u2019s grasp. Ralf\u2019s part was to teach a drum class.<\/p>\n

While he was creating handouts, Ralf started searching for pictures on how to hold a darbouka correctly. During the process, he ended up on a website for African drums. I knew the website myself. I had visited it in my own previous searches. It showed a Daveed drum, as it had when I had called, a couple years earlier.\u00a0 Still there — at least in a picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get your hopes up,\u201d I said. \u201cThey\u2019ll tell you they don\u2019t make them anymore and all that jazz. They will apologize for not updating the website.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called anyway.<\/p>\n

The woman he spoke to was surprised to hear him ask about a Daveed drum. She knew them and no, they weren\u2019t being made anymore. But then she paused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so odd,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her supplier of African drums had recently mentioned that he had a few darboukas he could bring with him at their next visit \u2013 would she be interested? One of them had been a Daveed drum. The day she placed it on the shelf four customers came in, played it, and left saying they would think about it.<\/p>\n

Ralf\u2019s call came in just minutes after the fourth customer had left.<\/p>\n

From the kitchen, I could hear that Ralf laughing.\u00a0 I realized that there was<\/em> a real Daveed drum at the store. I picked up the spare phone and began blurting out the whole, terrible story.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no idea!\u201d I said. \u201cWe can\u2019t thank you enough,\u201d I added.<\/p>\n

We have been waiting for this drum to arrive for a few weeks now. We have followed its progress across half these United States. This morning, we saw that it had arrived in Concord, where we live.<\/p>\n

For weeks I have imagined how Ralf will look, how those first moments will feel, how the first sounds will sound. I hear him playing now.<\/p>\n

Tak<\/em> tak dum tak-a-tak.<\/em><\/p>\n

A planet\u2019s heartbeat. Prayers called forth from the earth itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost ten years ago, when our community had just gotten its start, I held a wintertime healing service. One of my congregant\u2019s daughters-in-law was facing a losing battle with cancer. Her children were both under five years of age. There were other griefs brought to that service. Yet we prayed, and healed \u2013 at least a little.<\/p>\n

I do not remember how it happened. That first, beloved drum slipped off Ralf\u2019s leg and fell to the ground. We looked at the shards, calling to the children to stay away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[347,346,348],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-darbouka","tag-daveed-drum","tag-heartbeat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1359,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}