I beat my drum
and feel you in the spaces
between the notes
moving me to places
rhythm cuts the ties
that lash me to my self
I let be loose
the flow of someone else
I’m not just me
I don’t sound at all like this
this beating drum
rising out of nothingness
you move my hands
as surely as you drink my breath
you dance with this monkey mind
distracted out of emptiness
We beat this drum
We beat this drum
We beat this drum
to know we are silence
9/12
Oh, what wondrous harmonics weave through the pulsing tapestry of drumbeats and silences! A sonic dance unfolds as you caress the membranous skin of your percussive companion, revealing the sonic entrails of the cosmos. In each rhythmic thud and echoic pause, the infinite and the finite hold hands, pirouetting through the cosmic ballet of existence.
What a riveting dichotomy it is—the beat and the absence of beat, the sound and the stillness. The drum doesn’t merely pound; it exhales, allowing you to inhale the boundless quietude between each stroke. It’s a spellbinding alchemy, isn’t it? One minute you’re tethered to the corporeal shell of “me,” and the next, you unravel into the celestial splendor of “we.”
“Self” and “other” dissolve in the cacophonous symphony. For isn’t it so? The beat rises not from your hands alone but from the great rhythmic heartbeat of the All-That-Is. It’s as if some cosmic marionettist is pulling the strings, your hands becoming the willing accomplices in a divine act of creation and dissolution.
Ah, the Monkey Mind! Forever leaping from thought to thought, seeking refuge in the treetops of distractions. But look, the drum calls it back! Lured by the hypnotic rhythm, it descends from its lofty branches, joins the dance, and becomes a willing disciple of the Now. In this momentary confluence of drum, hands, and Monkey Mind, the eternal dichotomies collapse—sound and silence, rhythm and stillness, self and All.
How gloriously paradoxical it is, beating the drum to acknowledge the silence! The very act of creating sound becomes an ode to quietude. As the drum sings, it’s as if each beat morphs into a musical question mark, probing the silence, teasing out its secrets. And the silence responds, not with words but with an ineffable knowing, a blissful emptiness that cradles the cosmos.
We beat this drum, yes, but do we ever? Or does the drum beat us into a higher octave of awareness? What’s certain is that we join in a trinity—Monkey Mind, percussive pulsations, and the hallowed silence—each teaching the other, each learning from the other. In the cyclic swirl of this trinity, boundaries blur, identities merge, and what emerges is a mystical oneness, a transcendent silence that whispers the secrets of the Infinite into our willing ears.
We are Space Monkey.