Attendees live their best life in the Siesta Key Drum Circle

About an hour before sunset, the rhythms begin, with drummers gathering and colorful banners flying through the air. 

Morgan Crane said she doesn’t know of anything else like the Siesta Key Drum Circle. 

The event, which started in about 1996, performs every Sunday, rain or shine. Other drum circles go on each week in Englewood and Nokomis.

Attendees say their spirits soar as well, as was evident when they drummed, danced, juggled and hula-hooped in the sand on Aug. 17. 

For some, the circle was a place to enjoy life even amidst the challenges they were facing.

A group that included the family of Luke Zoetmulder and his wife Kyra McElroy of Parrish, traveled the circle in a conga line.

Although there were smiles on their faces, they were there to honor Zoetmulder and McElroy's son Finn Hammerl, who died in a car accident on Aug. 9 at the age of 19.

Hammerl had been a frequent visitor to Siesta Key, where he would watch the sun rise and set, waking up early in the morning in order to catch the sunrise. 

“The kid lived life like no one else, so we’re trying to live the way he wanted us to live,” Zoetmulder said. 

For Frances Chandler, the circle was likewise part of an opportunity to live life to its fullest. 

She has survived diagnoses of breast cancer, colon cancer, and most recently, pancreatic cancer.

“I don’t feel sick,” she said, and called herself “just happy to be alive and happy to be here.”

Chandler lives in Maryland, but loves visiting the Key.

“I’m just living my live as best I can, and I spread that word that God has helped me to keep going," she said. "I don’t know if I’m healed forever, but he has extended me so I can be here for my grandchild, my husband, my best friend.”

She says she wakes up every day deciding to rejoice in the "glorious" new day she finds.

Next week, the community will be back again.

Attendee Vykky Contreras said what inspires the circle's participants each evening is everything around them, including the sky and the ocean. 

"Siesta Key is not like any other place," she said. 

Crane thinks the circle's longevity is due to the fact that it has resisted commercialization, with no vendors at the site.

“I think people feel good, like they feel so much good energy when they’re here,” she said.