Sunset Celebration
Siesta Key, Florida


By Rick Brown

Yvonne and I have visited Siesta Key Beach several times in the past couple years. Yet we had never been to the Sunday sunset celebration known simply as the Siesta Key Drum Circle. Now I‘ve seen a drum circle or two here in Ohio. So I was skeptical. Drum circles can be the good, the bad, or the flaky. Granted, there were a good number of aging hippies…myself included. But the spirit of the event impressed me. And the drumming was good…inspirational even.

Being the middle of March, spring break of some sort or another abounds in Florida. Siesta Key tends to be lighter on college students with mostly young families, the kids off from school for a week. But this evening was hardly Disney World. And thank God it wasn’t MTV. Yet I found the happening both subtly pagan and wonderfully tribal.

Early on a woman approached the two of us and asked, “You’re locals aren’t you? You’ve been here before right?” It’s always a good thing to be taken for a local rather than a tourist. We simply told her we were down more than most but had yet to come to the drum circle. She continued, “Oh, usually it’s much better. They have a fire and there is incense burning. But tonight the tourists surrounded the drummers and just began dancing! Closed right in on the drummers and danced! Took over the thing!”

To which I though sarcastically, “How dare they!?” I mean, shouldn’t it be a spontaneous thing? Demanding protocol for a drum circle seemed odd to me but I suppose it’s tiring being a local and getting invaded year after year for spring break. Still, I thought it charming that kids were hula hooping while their parents threw caution to the wind and danced like Gypsies…well…sort of.

But this night the star of the show was indeed the sunset. I’ve seen my share of them…Maui…Key West…Santa Cruz…The British Virgin Islands…Jamaica…and none of them were prettier than this one. It was the first time I ever heard a group of people actually applaud a sunset. But that’s what everyone did. And for a brief moment Yvonne and I felt connected to this place…these people…this earth.