Having returned back to Los Angeles after pretty much growing up here, and after living the provincial lifestyle in Kentucky living on a beautiful small farmhouse and working in a small town in Lexington for 8 years, I am overwhelmed with not just the nostalgia of my old digs, but of renewed exuberance at how much Los Angeles has to offer in the way of lifestyle adventures, whether they be grand epic proportions, or small intimate personal ones.
I use to religiously drum at the Venice Beach Drum Circle every Saturday and Sunday, calling it my "church" where it is the renewal of mental and spiritual equilibrium drumming for hours at a time, sometimes drawing blood on my hands - the catharsis of a long week earning a living or the cleansing of a fresh slate for the week ahead. Music usually has this affect on many, and with the crowds of tourist, locals, the regulars, and even the homeless, gathering on almost a guaranteed basis, it becomes a transient weekly "family" gathering of sorts. Old friends come and go, as was my case disappearing for 8 years into the Midwest, only to "come home" and get reacquainted with old friends greeted with fist butts and bear hugs - a real honest to goodness homecoming...
The cold windy Saturday made for a small intimate drum circle consisting only of the die-hards. Sunday is the bigger turnout too turning into "rave" like circus and can become a real headache for law enforcements especially when trying to end it for the night. But on this intimate Saturday gathering, things were a lot more subdued, and the setting sun provided for the ambient lighting amidst the cool sounds of the wind mixed in with the rhythms.
Against this beautiful setting and backdrop, I listened to an old native friend of mine named Andy who is a Tohon...o O'odham native
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohono_O%27odham
tell me of his avocation as an oral history teacher and mentor to some of the kids in the reservation and his love for drumming and chanting at pow wows. Andy rarely touches a drum, he just stands there on the perimeter of the circle, with the constant mantra of his shaker, sometimes just gazing at the setting sun...such a good soul, and it felt good to know so much more about an old friend that intimate settings sometimes afford.
I in turn told him of my internship at Kitt Peak Observatory back in 1990, having studied and earning a degree in astrophysics at UCLA, and told him of spending time at the observatory doing research, while at the same time admiring the landscape of the Sonora Desert, and being under the ever present watchful presence of the sacred mountain called Baboquivari Peak which is prominently visible from the observatory.
Baboquivari Peak is the most sacred place to the Tohono O’odham people. A particularly striking physical attribute is it's almost surreal "bubble" head jutting up from the surrounding mountains - almost mimicking the observatory domes across its sister mountain Kitt Peak. You just can't help but feel awe and inspiration in its presence. What's beautiful about the whole setup is that Kitt Peak resides within the Tohono O'odham reservation in the Sonora Desert and sits on one of the sacred mountains of its people, and through mutual respect for the pursuit of science, and in turn the mutual respect for the traditions of the Tohono O'odham culture, it becomes a symbiotic respectful coexistence of seemingly opposite human endeavors. Both of which are engaged with nature - one with the spiritual respect for traditions and reverence, and one to study and learn as much from it. It is this respectful coexistence between two seemingly opposites that humans with their abstract, artistic, scientific brains are allotted for in this world, in this universe.
What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon and evening...and it was all for free...
