The kids are screaming, the man is tired, the dogs need to pee, and nobody knows what we’re eating for dinner. In the back of my mind, the things I haven’t done: taxes, unwritten blog posts, website edits, and an endless list of to-dos knock on the door of my already overstimulated attention.

In the last three years, I’ve only slept through the night twice, and I remember those nights with the same vagueness as my childhood birthday parties.

Yet within me, there is a calm center. I notice gratitude, joy, and an ease that feels almost impossible to describe. Every night I manage to show up to my vocation: To share magic with the world. I feel in my bones that this work is part of the medicine our collective soul needs in this dark night of humanity. The magic I know is a serum of peace, a lubricant for kindness, and a battery charger for profound love. It melts the ice in our hearts and helps us care more deeply in a world that needs our care more than ever.

Tonight, I find myself reflecting on how I do it. My life is overwhelming. I feel overwhelmed. If it weren’t for the magnetic whiteboard and rainbow of pens on my fridge, most of what I need to do would escape my mind—and even so, some things still slip away.

Where does my inner peace come from? How do joy and gratitude continue to bubble up from the fertile dark within my being?

The first thing that comes to mind is my drum. It was made in Germany, an hour from where I spent most of my years growing up. The man who crafted it has built instruments worth seven figures. A Greenlandic shaman, Angaangak, whom I once had the honor of speaking with, gave him the blessing to make it.

These days, on most nights, I hold her close to my heart as I gaze at the glistening reflections of streetlights on the Amsterdam canal outside my living room window. The soft green couch supports me as I sit cross-legged, a pillow straightening my back. My right hand caresses her skin while the handle rests on my ankle. Then, I begin to drum.

As I drum, my mind flows and wanders. I allow it, listening to its movements, watching its directions. I hear my judgments, follow the undulating waves of my emotions, notice my uncertainty, and smile at the wisdom that rises from within, spiraling outward in growth.

After what sometimes feels like forever, my mind stills. In the spaciousness it has been given to do whatever it needed, it comes to peace. Here, the ritual begins.

Spirits, gods, angels, and ancestors draw near. My awareness turns to what truly matters. Often, a question arises. Still drumming, maybe the rhythm changes, maybe my voice begins to sing. A journey unfolds—I am both traveler and witness.

By the end, I return free of doubt, full of clarity, resourced and nourished, tall in my spine, knowing: I am supported.

I am sharing this with you to remind you that even amidst exhaustion and overwhelm, ritual and rhythm can reconnect us to our calm center, where gratitude, clarity, and the magic of life are reborn.