I wanted to take my drumming practice to another level so I found a teacher. I wanted a woman teacher so as to feel a little less intimidated, but it has taken a while to find one since drumming seems to be a male-dominated music medium. Ironically, the djembe is a drum form from West Africa that historically been played only by men. Not so anymore.
Djembe are heavy drums, often weighing up to 30 pounds. The drums are carved from tree trunks, covered in goat hide and tuned by intricate rope bindings. When in use. the drum is held in place by the drummer’s legs. My legs are so sore right now. Who needs a Thigh-Master when you can get a better work out with a djembe? My arms got an equally vigorous workout after playing for an hour and a half.
I am struggling with learning the Afro-Latin rhythms typically played with this drum. The teacher allowed me to video a snippet of one such rhythm so I can practice.
I will practice on my darbuka for now. I do not think I am quite ready to invest in a djembe yet.
The work in the garden continues. Rosemary plants are in the ground, with English lavender and herbs that survived the winter being readied for planting. The orange tree is white with blossoms, and a 60-year-old lemon tree is still bearing fruit. The other corner of the yard is still a weed jungle, but that will come to an end soon. This morning was so lovely that I decided to do a morning qigong exercise in the middle of it.
And here is an example of the type of qigong that I do:
Last year I grew a vegetable and herb garden. Some plants flourished, others did not, and overall I was not pleased with the amount of produce versus the amount of labor and water.
This year I am not growing things for myself, but rather for the bees, and eventually, when I get a birdbath, for them as well. The garden will be an evolving one, and at the moment I’m just purchasing small drought-resistant plants,such as rosemary, lavender and salvia. They are not even in the ground yet and the bees have already arrived. We’ll see how this turns out in a few months.
Once upon a time there was a woman, a beautiful woman, filled with life and vigor. She sat for a sculptor who tried to copy her in marble with his chisels. Unfortunately, the sculpture was just a manipulation of her true image. The sculptor could not capture her essence. A few thousand years later, a photographer took a picture of the sculpture which became yet another manipulation of the true woman. Finally, today a bored computer nerd decided she wanted to mess around with Photoshop to pixelize the photo and manipulate the poor woman once again. And on it goes. Who knows what someone might do with this image?
I’m sure you know what happens to a document when you copy it, and then copy the copy, and then copy the copy of the first copy. Do that long enough and eventually you cannot see what was on the original document. But the question is, does the original copy cease to exist? No.
The same is true for the woman. She still exists somewhere in time and space. Well, maybe not the flesh-and-blood woman, but the ideal of that woman, the perfect form of Woman.
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato called this the Theory of Forms. He postulated that there is a spiritual realm that contains the blueprints of everything manifested in the physical realm. That vase, that music, that cat, those people, that government, that social relationship—everything— has a perfect and pure template in that realm. The world of forms“…is a philosophical theory, concept, or world-view … that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as ‘Ideas’ or ‘Forms’, are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations.” (Wikipedia)
Do scholars and philosophers still believe this explanation of how the universe turns? Not so much anymore. This classical worldview was one of the underpinnings of western civilization for centuries, at least that was what the Jesuits taught us in Philosophy 101.
So I sat down to screw around on a computer and make a pretty picture, and I ended up visiting with Plato one more time and letting him bend my mind.
If you would like to view a short, expedient explanation of this bit of Platonic philosophy and a very practical application of it, take a look here:
Image: “A Manipulated Woman” in Photoshop, LJGloyd 2019
Miss Pelican's Perch 