a song with no end

drumming/music jam...my student damith, dear friend taeok, and group leader yatren

a couple who came all the way from pohang (2 hours away) to take part in the evening
wren and prem...
playing such a sweet little bird instrument

teddy on guitar and his friend who played stunningly on the violin
my student, "song"

when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:

to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.

we can't cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us

it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.

~ Charles Bukowski ~
From: The Night Torn With Mad Footsteps

drumming has come to daegu! as we gather every other saturday night in a circle at a friend's cafe downtown, the group is different each time...last saturday, two of my students and a dear friend joined me...we started out for an hour with only drums and later other instruments joined in...about 15 of us spent the evening drumming on djembes and congas and bowls turned upside down! a couple of folks brought guitars, one woman played the violin, yatren played his didgeridu...it was a wild magic.

singing...dancing....chanting..."om tara tuttare ture soha," which built up into an ecstatic, joyous rhythm.

"om namo bhagavate vasudevaya" (a chant for liberation)

teddy led us in a beautiful native american chant:

"the earth is our mother, we must take care of her,
the earth is our mother, we must take care of her,
hey yana, ho yana, hey yan yan,
hey yana, ho yana, hey yan yan."

when the clock struck midnight, no one wanted to go home...

creating spontaneous music together...no egos...only heart...experiencing the feeling of inhabiting the body, the present moment so fully. each person so brightly shining. bringing the essence of true being out to play...the collective energy pulsing with passion and joy. truly ecstatic!
the name that yatren has chosen for this drumming/music jam phenomenon is "sho ju ah tu," which has two meanings: "to be brave" and "when something comes, let it come...when something goes, let it go."