Seriously. After 4 years living in the Washington, DC metro, how did I not know about this?
The DC Drum Circle, housed at the Meridian Hill Park on Sunday afternoons, near the forever so popular U Street, there’s a party going on.
I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and despite [a] difficult circumstance evolving at the time — I was invited to attend this event, later discovering that it was exactly what I needed. It was just what I needed to get through my day and move forward into the next week + chapter of my life. I took a hard fall over the last 36 hours or so, but once I stepped foot into Meridian Hill Park to congregate with the many hippie drummers, dancers, yogis, hula-hoopers and all that jazz — everything wrong that was “evolving”, became right. I felt like I belonged with the crowd. I wandered around, cleared my mind, walked and met a few people whom I associated myself with. It was a new experience, but an experience I felt was long over due. I can now understand what it means to have a free spirit.
I fell in love. Completely.
For awhile — after relocating to the DC metro, I began to realize that I was different. I felt like I was suppose to belong to a “different” crowd. While in graduate school, I was introduced to veganism, freeformed dreadlocks, rastafari, hippie-ism, and more “authentic” cultural related stuff. That was me.
But at the time (back in graduate school) — I wasn’t technically associating myself with that crowd. The Drum Circle is now something that I believe I NEED. I used it as a form of meditation — which I will always approach it as. It’s a place that allows you to be exactly who you are.
FREE.
No judgements, no limitations on race, no one staring at you. You dance — you feel. You embody and engulf yourself into a world where only the people “like you”, will understand. You literally “come together” as one. Do you understand? I’m talking so many cultures in one place — you’re having an international experience all in ONE.
Walking onto the park’s greenery, yet composed grass accompanied by brown dirt and old leaves, I rocked to the beat. By beat, I do mean, BEAT. A beat that you feel pumping into your soul (for the soulful). Although I still haven’t learned the history + concept of the type of music performed (I’m assuming that it’s derived from Africa), it was me. It was something that I could appreciate and welcome to live in my heart forever.
After leaving Meridian Hill Park, I had a clear mind. I felt ready to take on the world. That issue that had once taken over my sense of well-being, no longer existed. I no longer felt the need to address it. I used it as my closure. And although this may sound cliche-ish, the experience made me a new person.
Peace + Love,
PSLovecharliXO 