The “Possessed” column in last Sunday’s New York Times Style Section has Shalom Harlow waxing (not so poetically, but still) about her meditation habits and percussion instruments–which include both tapping (as in tap dancing) and playing the drums.
Harlow says that drumming “puts you in this really interesting space” that’s both “meditative” and satisfyingly noisy, as opposed to what Harlow considers “old-fashioned,” more “traditional” meditative practices that just bored her to death.
“It’s a nice change from old-fashioned meditation, which she has tried, and respects, but she says, ‘This isn’t so complacent that it gets boring. You can sit in lotus and wait for divine enlightenment for years.’”
Apparently, she never leaves home without her drums.
Someone should introduce Ms. Harlow to the Sikh practice of Kirtan Singing (Kirtan means singing God’s praises)–a meditative ritual that involves lots of percussion, heavy on the drumming, chanting, and lots and lots of satisfying noise. It’s so old-fashioned that it’s ancient. Then maybe she could add some spiritual heft and community to her unstructured, individualistic tooling around.