Build This!

Building a Drum
Takes you deep;
Walking the steps that ancestors
Pioneered in times too distant to contemplate

The Numu,
masters of the secrets
of fire and steel,
brought them to us like alchemists,
taking the grinding of grain,
and transmuting that into
THE DJEMBE
bringing fire and joyful community
to their people.

Making a Djembe
Honors all of the elements
Sacred to West Africa:

Mineral—the wisdom of the ancestors
The truth passed on by the ancestors
The bones in our bodies,
Represented by the rings,
Hammered out with

Fire—change, transformation,
Passion, the fire that burns within
Fire, which can build,
Fire which can destroy.

Nature—the walking, flying and crawling beings,
Life which can’t be denied,
Not just surviving but thriving,
Brought to the party in the skin of a goat,
Sacrificed to give voice to the tree.

Water—flowing, transforming, renewing,
Flowing in our veins, making our food grow,
Water, which brings the tree into life,
Water—The element of grieving,
Also makes the goat skin
malleable, able to change,
to adapt to the drum it
will give voice to.

Earth—growing things, plants,
Taking death and turning it
Into life.
Earth—Nurturing the sprout,
which grows into the mighty tree,
which, when prayed to,
offers itself to create the body
of the Djembe

These are the elements.
We bring our passion,
our dreams,
our intentions
into this arena when we take on
the birthing of a Djembe.

No easy task this,
The gap between intention
And outcome often undermines
Our joy in building,
Taking us into the shadow of
Not being good enough
Not being smart enough
Not making our drums as nice as everyone else’s,
Not being strong enough,
Or perhaps suffering from some character flaw
we never knew we had.

We don’t give up.
Our community of drum builders keeps going.
Those who master each task reach out
And help those with specific
drum building learning disabilities.
Small successes build,
Reverses reverse,
A Djembe begins to emerge,
Not just A Djembe, but Our Djembe.

Finally, it is done.
All doubts and self-recriminations
Left behind,
A sure knowledge that feeling stupid
is not equivalent to being stupid,
and a growing understanding
that all of the struggles inherent in building a Djembe
give it it’s strength and specific voice.

Now a new drum
Begins its work in the world.
Check!

—Tom Harris