Brains!

When we went to Asheville I didn't take my laptop and I didn't take a journal. In the moments I wanted to write something down I had nothing to write on, and things I wanted to write about fell away. That always happens though. "Oh I won't take my camera today", then you see an elephant riding a bicycle. Anyway I digress...

One of the things I meant to make a note of in my absent journal to write about later is the human and the drum circle phenom. There is one that happens in the small triangle in the heart of downtown Asheville. Drum circles are just as mesmerizing as campfires. What the hell do I mean by that? Well do you ever find yourself staring unreasonably long at campfires? I do all the time. I like to think our reaction and love of campfires has practically become part of our DNA since the first human decided to build one and sit by it. I mean when it got dark, we couldn't see...and our lives revolved around campfires. The caveman's television set.

It's the same with drum circles. I mean come on, the easiest instrument in the world involves taking one thing and banging it against another. One white old man who stood by us and remarked "why do they do this?", if I hadn't seen a number of drum circles, I might say the same thing. At first they seem completely unorganized. And for the most part they are, you just show up with a drum and go at it. If there are enough people drumming loudly enough, it creates enough noise that patterns and skill don't matter. Something happens when you give yourself over to it. No matter how far we've come in the world of music, it all really revolves around beats. Maybe I'm alone in this...but I often feel an overwhelming urge to listen to drum circles. At first I think...crazy hippies, but in the end I succumb to wiggling my hips. And it becomes the most normal and human thing I could possibly do. Fire and drum circles are perfectly primordial.