by meghanleborious | Oct 25, 2017 | Notes on Practice
“Moving with the spirit has taught me all I know.” -Gabrielle Roth
I didn’t have much time to contemplate what I might experience when I signed up for “Journey into Trance,” a two-day workshop with Jonathon Horan, who is both an experienced 5Rhythms teacher and the current holder of the entire 5Rhythms lineage. Stepping out of the elevator onto the 5th floor at the Joffrey in the West Village, I happily greeted many friends and prepared to step in to the studio, bringing many ongoing narratives into the room with me. Right before I entered, I ran across Jonathan and embraced him in greeting. Immediately after, I wished I had been more discreet, thinking that he probably has people coming at him from all sides, and may not have actually wanted to be hugged. I let that go and moved across the threshold of the studio, feeling a knot of emotion in my throat, along with a rush of gratitude.
A few days before I’d had a conversation with my seven-year-old son Simon about the difference between brain and mind. The brain, I shared, is a thing in your head with complex electrical wiring to the rest of your body. The mind is your brain, but also stretches past just your own head. Because all that you think and perceive and experience is influenced by things outside of your body, you could say that your mind also includes everything that ever is or ever was. After that, he asked several profound questions about the nature of existence and consciousness. Then he said, “Mommy, can we still get that book to hold all my Pokemon cards?”
Another thing I carried into the studio was the experience of teaching Mindfulness to teens. I have been dabbling for several years now, but this is the first year it has become a significant part of my schedule. The technique I taught students this week was “First Thought,” when you watch for a thought, then when one appears, simply label it “thinking” and return to the object of meditation. My experiences with the students (and also some with the adults) crowded my mind, and I kept reviewing my inspirational speeches, past and future. Then, I would catch myself and say, “thinking” and return to the experience of feet, breath, body, rhythm. Truly, I gave myself few escapes this weekend. A fortunate thing, because it doesn’t seem like Jonathan would have accepted less.
I started most sessions with laps around the perimeter of the room. I felt like it helped me to arrive in the space. I also imagined I was helping to establish an energetic container. On my first lap, as I walked past the beautiful black-feather-themed visual presentation created by Martha Peabody Walker and Peter Fodera, I discreetly dipped my hand into a metal washtub of salt that was part of the installation, scooped up a small amount, and rubbed it onto the soles of my feet. Initially, I moved gently around the space, saying internally, “I see you there; and I am grateful for it,” as I encountered each person.
As the wave progressed, drenched with sweat and thirsty, I paused to drink water, facing out the 5th floor window onto Sixth Avenue. For the first time ever, I saw people high up on an outdoor walkway by the clocktower of the historic church across the street. Smiling, I raised my hand in greeting. One woman waved back, and nudged a man next to her, who did the same. Delighted, I continued to be strongly connected to everyone in the room, and also to the world outside the studio throughout the weekend, often picturing the sky on the other side of the ceiling, and occasionally, the curving, vast earth. Once in Stillness I sent energy from one hand to another, but it took a long route, traveling not just across my hands, but around the entire sphere of the earth to arrive in my other hand, creating a long, circular arc that I completed into a circle with my own body.
In this opening wave, I danced a ferocious Chaos. At times, I wasn’t sure which rhythm we were in. Lately, I have had work to do in Staccato, and have been deliberately holding myself in Staccato rather than charging on directly into Chaos. During “Journey into Trance” there were times that I suddenly realized we were already moving into Lyrical without ever having really let loose in Chaos. As a result, my neck was very sore the first day.
Continuing to reflect on my own students, who are mostly people of color, I thought also of the courage of people of color who are part of the 5Rhythms community. That week, I had led circle discussions about the events in Charlottesville. During the same week, a student in a different class spoke out hotly during a reading, “This is making me feel a certain type of way!” he said. “How are you feeling exactly?” I asked. He started to explain that a character’s remark seemed racist. A teacher, who identifies as white, like me, and who I share the class with, tried to talk him out of it. “Well, I have a neighbor who…” I let her talk for a few moments, then said, “You could definitely read that statement as racist.” “Thank you!” gasped another student. I thought about how many times I’ve been in full 5Rhythms rooms where there has been just one apparent person of color. I thought about how incredibly important diversity of all kinds is for the integrity and vitality of the 5Rhythms community. I thought, too, of the incredible courage of my fellow dancers. How despite the daily ravages of racism, how somehow many people of color have managed to step up to be courageous, surrendered and vulnerable, fully in the dance. And how remarkable and valuable that is. And how inspiring. A point of hope in this ugly world that seems to grow uglier daily.
We took a break in the late afternoon. I didn’t feel like socializing, and ate in the nearly empty studio. I made a few notes about the morning in my journal, then followed the suit of another dancer and sat in meditation with my back to a column. Then, I lay myself down and entered a chthonic, deep relaxation, falling into the floor, the earth and darkness. As people returned from the lunch break, they thundered by me with their pounding footsteps, but I continued to rest until the music started again.
Instead of leading us into a wave right away, Jonathan gathered us together and began to speak. He talked about Gabrielle Roth, the founder of the 5Rhythms, first. He said that witnessing her dance, she was so transparent and embodied, you could just cry looking at her. Gabrielle Roth was also Jonathan’s mother, and he spoke of growing up with her at spiritually radical Esalen Institute in California, then moving to New Jersey at the age of 7, where he felt out of place.
At this point, he switched from his own experience to ontology. He argued that we have all pretty much entered into a fool’s agreement, “That I won’t see you, and you won’t see me.” Why be half-hearted? He posited. Gabrielle, herself, was not a rule follower. Instead, she relentlessly sought what was real and true and beautiful. What I heard was, Wake up! Wake up! Your very life is at stake. I’m making it all sound funny because it is, but we don’t have time to languish in generalities. Let go of the many limiting ego stories that are stifling you. Life is passing so quickly. Before we know it, we will die. Jonathan said later, “After all, we may only live once.”
Next Jonathan invited us to consider the frame of “Journey into Trance” and reflected that trance might look differently for different people. He also suggested that we approach the weekend with curiosity and an attitude of spaciousness, accepting that some might need to roll around on the floor screaming, make odd noises, or act in other socially unacceptable ways.
After Jonathans’ talk, we began with simply walking around the space. We experimented with allowing ourselves to be led with our bellies, and then with allowing ourselves to be led by our heads. I noticed that I had a much lower center of gravity when the belly was leading, and that I felt like part of the collective field, as opposed to when the head was leading. Despite a sore neck, I danced a very athletic wave. Every time a thought arose, I said, “thinking” internally and returned to the physical experience of my body, finding endless new ways to move: big back steps, a new complication of low-weighted spinning with open shoulders moving my hands up and over me like coiling carnival rides, deep front and back movement in the pelvis and sacrum, sunken with my heels touching the backs of my knees and then stepping forward, my heart bursting open, then coiling my entire abdomen back inside, then bursting my heart forward again, sometimes continuing this arcing in the space in front of my spine, and through the hips and pelvis.
“Are you in or out?” Jonathan asked. “And if you’re out, can you come back in?”
At a moment when my energy dipped, I encountered a friend at the outer edge of the moving room. She, too, seemed tired, and somehow we fell into each other, quivering, shimmying, small, precise. We rolled inside discreet shoulders, cascading forward and back. Making oblique eye contact, we both smiled. Moving from our bellies, I recalled images of Fela Kuti’s many wives who accompanied him onstage, dancing with vibrancy, the rhythm of the body pouring out at the heart, with arcing, arching intensity.
At day’s end, I was thoroughly exhausted, and my neck was very painful. I recalled that not only had I perhaps not given myself fully over to Chaos, but also that Simon had woken up very early and put on a movie, which I half-watched along with him, my neck propped awkwardly onto pillows and twisted for the duration of the three-hour film. I darted out, making my way to the subway, where I made the happy discovery that I had a little bag of snack food in my bag, then spent several minutes trying to open it. Struggling, I finally resorted to attempting to pierce the bag with one of the sharper keys on my keyring, when I finally looked around. Just across from me on the same platform stood Jonathan, two blazing sapphires staring out of his face, his arms crossed over the railing, one forearm over the other, grinning and giving off sharp little glints of light.
My parents were in town to care for Simon, and I met up with all of them. I was too tired for intelligible conversation. I went to bed as soon as I got Simon organized, tucking a sheet onto the couch in the living room since my parents would sleep in my bed, and settling in as quickly as possible.
Saturday night I slept very deeply, and, miraculously, woke Sunday with no pain in my neck. I went to brunch with my family, then made my way back to the Joffrey for the second day of “Journey into Trance.” As I pushed open the glass door from Sixth Avenue into the Joffrey, Jonathan was entering too.
As the music started, I did a few laps of the perimeter, then found Flowing easily. I was gentle, small, with my arms close to my torso, totally fluid, slotted in among the many prone dancers, almost crying, connected to the entire field, not separate. Moving around the space, I did what I call “Passing Through Practice” where I sort of energetically whoosh through everyone and everything–even the columns–and let them all whoosh through me.
Jonathan spoke of a “deep inquiry into the interior self.” Listening carefully to the teacher’s talk is a practice itself, and every time my mind drifted, I directed it quickly back. “Are you in or out?” he asked again, “and can you know when you’re out? Can you stay in?” I rebelled internally, thinking it would be better not to grasp and push, and instead to just notice. But maybe this is a different level of practice, I thought, maybe it is possible to stay in the entire time. Maybe even all the time, on and off the dance floor. Jonathan also suggested that we experiment with “soft eyes” rather than direct gaze, to support the experiment of working with trance.
eHe also said to the group, “If I were you, I might have come in with resistance today after dancing like you danced yesterday.” I reflected that I have, in a way, encountered very little resistance to 5Rhythms over the years. Even when I am aware of how vulnerable I am, how torn to bits, how connected, how surrendered, how energetically porous, even when I have felt judged or left out–even at these times I am not late on purpose, I don’t lie to myself and blame others when I don’t feel good (even when I do), and I always step into each rhythm with the sincere willingness to fully bring it to bear. It is a curious thing. In other practices, such as yoga, I have encountered much more resistance. Sometimes the edge is razor sharp, though, and when I go very deep I may spend ensuing days feeling irritable or otherwise “off,” perhaps my ego’s desperate attempts to re-assert itself.
At one point, Jonathan said something about how ridiculous it is to pay attention to how you look in the mirror. Here, too, I rebelled, realizing I had been so intent on not looking in the mirror, that it had acquired the flavor of aversion. So I spent a little time right next to the mirror, turning to the side so I could fully examine the complicated sways and arcings of my stomach, lower back and pelvis.
After the talk, I glued my belly to the floor and moved with weight, pulling myself around with my arms and coiling spine. I pulled up onto my knees and set about finding as much movement in my spine as possible, my head forward and simply following and completing the many ratcheting, twisting and undulating gestures of the spine. I stayed deeply connected to myself as new forms arose in Staccato. At one point as we moved from Staccato into Chaos, I played with balance, staying on one foot, and swinging, bounding and descending with the other, looking for the farthest edges of balance.
I recalled that when I first started dancing, I pretty much always kept “soft eyes” as it seemed rude or intrusive to look straight at anyone. Back then, almost a decade ago now, I often stayed inside a heavy trance for the duration. For me, it became most intense during Chaos. I was kind of a trance junkie–craving that depth, that intensity, the shamanic glimpses, the sense that life is deeply meaningful, that “this” layer of reality is just a tiny piece of the picture. Then, I started to open my eyes more, literally. I found the ground, I met people’s gazes more directly, more often. I felt like instead of privileging transcendence, I was connecting with greater awareness to the world. Trance would still come in pockets, spirits would visit, ancestors would soothe me, visions would present, energy would move tangibly and visibly. But I never experienced the sustained trances that I did in the first two years of dancing again. To my surprise, “Journey into Trance” was, for me, an opportunity to re-integrate those early experiences, and to enter into other dimensions with the full support and protection of my spiritual community and teachers.
Call on your guides, your ancestors, your spirit animals, your lineages, Jonathan invited at one point. I spread my arms as wide as the room and grew very tall, regal, a great trailing cape rushing from my arms as I moved in sweeping ribbons through the space, my spirit entourage in a phalanx beside and behind me–my emotional support system, my protectors.
During this wave, I was very released in Chaos, unleashing a massive proliferation of forms, including everything, somehow, leaving nothing out. In Lyrical, I again moved through the room, passing through people and objects, feeling the whoosh of merging. In Stillness I had a vision of eyes on the palms of my hands. Even with my eyes shut, I could see everyone in the room, could see the sky through the ceiling, and could see inside of my own body and the interior bodies of people in the room.
Before Sunday’s break, Jonathan lead us in a guided meditation. Laying with my full back on the floor, my arms and legs extended, he spoke into the microphone, suggesting an image for the cessation of ego defenses. At its conclusion, I had to remind myself where I was.
I floated down the elevator, avoiding eye contact, not wanting to dissipate, not wanting to disperse. I went to a local health food store, and chose food as efficiently as possible, thinking that I would write after eating. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my journal on the bench in the locker room at the Joffrey, so I didn’t have any way to write. Instead, I listened to the most curious, avant-garde recording of two older women in a fascinating conversation about movie stars from the 1980’s that was playing on speakers in the dining area. Slowly, I realized there was also music playing. Then, I realized that only music was playing, and the conversation I was listening to was actually taking place in real time, between two women just a table away from me.
I thought of a story about a conversation between Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the founder of the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and His Holiness Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche, who was the head of the Tibetan Nyingma lineage. As the story goes, the two friends were sitting in contented silence on a bench in a garden, enjoying a pleasant afternoon. After some time, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche pointed and said to the other, “They call that a tree!” at which point they both broke into peals of laughter, which went on for some time.
After lunch, Jonathan started us off with intentional self-care, guiding us as we massaged our necks. Most stood up for this, but I remained on the ground, sticking various parts of me to the floor emphatically. At this point, I moved around the room in Flowing, my eyes soft, saying, “I feel you there, and I am grateful for it,” rather than what I often say internally in Flowing, “I see you there, and I am grateful for it.” During this wave, I partnered less, turning more and more inside, “cruising the emptiness” as Jonathan said, quoting Gabrielle.
“What’s real, what’s true, what’s deep, what serves the big dance of love,” Jonathan chanted, ever suspicious of sanctimonious bullshit, calling out our egos stories, our feeble escapes, our neurotic self-making again and again. In Chaos, I moved with total engagement and energy, released, erased. I hung my skin onto a nail while I danced around in my skeleton, near a friend who always inspires me, both of us totally plugged in, but on different journeys. Moving into Lyrical, my bones glowed with ancient writing, light on every bone’s surface, the plane of my shoulder blade, the big femur bone of my leg, on every separate link of my spine. Then, a spirit visited me (or so I imagined). I remembered him from many years ago, when he came to dance and overlapped with me, weaving in and out of me as I swooned and tears poured down my cheeks, teaching me the Passing Through practice. This time we danced again, becoming one body and then separating, ending with swaying, my hands pressed to his hands.
Jonathan selected a soaring, tender song with the lyric, “There is a place I know. Only I can go there,” that I associate with the passing of his mother, the beloved Gabrielle Roth. A low, grazing groan of grief dragged out of me, a deep-bass lowing. I moved in a gesture that finds me nearly every time I am in Stillness, looking down, moving my hands slowly to the left, turning my body around, and felt I could see the origin of this gesture, many lifetimes ago, in a scene of trauma and destruction. I was a gigantic, swooping, flapping vulture, and the air displaced as I beat my wings. Still groaning, crying, breath totally moving me, not separate. Even as I gasped, every muscle echoed it.
Though I was totally lost in this place, I gently settled back in, like a feather landing.
At the end, my breath was rich and resonant. Like some ancient grief had cleared. In the coming days, I would experience the irritability and emotional volatility of an ego that feels seriously endangered after it has managed to step into the sky, into the vastness of experience, where its tiny stories are drowned out by the deafening hum of existence.
At the end of the day, I made to leave, still feeling private. I changed my mind and lingered for a little while, talking with several friends with whom I had shared gestures or insights. I made my way to Jonathan, remembering that my earlier hug might have been overkill, and stood with my hands in prayer, touching them to my forehead as I made a tiny bow, my eyes smiling. “Thank you. This has been so beautiful.” He gave me a generous hug and a kiss on the cheek.
The five-year anniversary of the death of Gabrielle Roth was just a few days after the “Journey into Trance” workshop. I hope we honored her memory this weekend. I hope we served her vision. I hope trance continues to unfold for all of us, in Jonathan’s words, inside this “cathedral of bones” this “wilderness of the heart.”
October 16, 2017, Brooklyn, NY
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Images are copyright Meghan LeBorious.
by meghanleborious | Sep 17, 2017 | Notes on Practice
My close world is torn apart with natural disasters – hurricanes in Texas, and in Florida & the Caribbean, earthquake in Mexico – at the same time, it is a spectacular day in New York. Temperatures in the 70’s, low humidity, blue skies with the kinds of clouds that are easy to see as friendly animals or as elaborate castles. In the Sunday morning Sweat Your Prayers class at the Joffrey Ballet in the West Village, taught today by Jason Goodman, I held both realities.
I have been teaching high school students for the past few years and the beginning of the year makes me feel joyful. Meeting new students, I can’t wait to find out what they can do. I’m twittery, imaging all the great structures we will co-create, thinking about how to set things up for them, reviewing my inspiring speeches and clear explanations. Imagining all of us having fun together at the first dance. Having done this for a few years, I also know how much I will come to love them by the end of the year; and I can feel it already. I’m choked up in advance just thinking about it, even as I write.
At the same time, sadness and fear visit me. People all over are suffering terribly, in particular as a result of the hurricanes and earthquake. I keep feeling wracked by sadness. And I am afraid. As of late, the Christian concept of apocalypse no longer seems as far-fetched as I once believed. As a human community, we really don’t seem to be moving in a good direction.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have let myself have access to joy in the face of this suffering. I would have thought that feeling joy would be an affront to others’ pain. Now, I feel differently, though. I realize that if I am suffering too, I haven’t actually helped anyone. There are just more of us suffering.
Stepping in to the fourth floor dance studio, movement nuzzled me from all sides and I felt free and inspired. I delighted in the clear blue sky pouring in the windows, smiled to greet many friends, and found myself a spot on the floor. There, I moved in big, arcing circles, attenuating my body in long gestures to stretch at the same time, pulling my feet up to warm up my quadriceps along the floor, rolling over my shoulders and over the crown of my head.
I wore wide-legged pants with a tucked-in tank top, which allowed me a full range of motion, and that I exploited with every angle, level and gesture. Lately, I have a good relationship with Staccato, and I sunk deep into my hips, playing with rocking my pelvis and taking big backsteps – at times holding my leg up and rocking my knee forward and back before placing my foot emphatically on the floor, garnering tremendous momentum and force in the process. Jason spoke of the need for Staccato, sometimes for ferocious and sudden action, since staying in Flowing all of the time would, at minimum, mean we might get nothing done; and at maximum, might mean we fail to act to save our own life or the lives of the people we love. Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of a patient warm-up, instead when the situation calls for it, we have to step into Staccato instantly, as warriors, with all of the power and force that is required of us.
We seemed to spend more time in Chaos than in any other rhythm today. Jason spoke directly of the devastating hurricanes and earthquake; and also reflected on the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, which he, like me, personally witnessed. I recalled a class Jason taught in the same room just three days after the election of Donald Trump, when he also kept us in Chaos for song after song after song. I reflected on the words of my yoga teacher, Maria Cutrona, in the days after the election, “As painful as this may be, as hard as it may be to take, this is exactly what we have been practicing for over all of these years. This is it. Right now.”
The ultimate test of our practice is to keep moving even inside a swirling maelstrom of Chaos. To find a way to ride the Chaos so it doesn’t destroy us. As the rhythm of Chaos unfolded, I was often low, finding a growling thread of Staccato, realizing the need for action. Deep in my knees and hips, I held my arms cactus-like and rocked and cracked into my upper spine at great velocity. I joined two friends, including the very woman who brought me to a 5Rhythms class for the first time over ten years ago, and we leapt and twisted and spun, inspiring me into a whole new set of gestures and ways of working with weight and extension, every minute muscle of my feet steering me into unending expression. I moved around the room and joined with several others in sequence, including with a man I hadn’t seen before whose lyrical expression of Chaos softened me into joy.
This school year, I will be teaching mindfulness & meditation to nearly my entire school community, going into many different classrooms for 20 minutes each week. I thought about how I would introduce the work. “Dear Ones, this world is crazy,” I rehearsed in my head, “We have hurricanes, earthquakes, racism. Donald Trump. There is pretty much nothing in the external world around us that we can count on. Even if you are lucky enough to have a safe home, enough money, classrooms where you feel respected and valued. Even if you have all that stuff, at some point, you, too, are going to feel like the world is crazy. Because that’s what the world does. It’s always changing and throwing new stuff at us. Since the external world is so crazy and is constantly shifting and changing, we can’t rely on it for our sense of peace and safety. Our only hope is to develop our internal world, what’s inside, so that we have at least one place of refuge we can count on, that’s always available to us, regardless of our shifting circumstances.”
In the second wave, I grew slightly distracted as a result of rehearsing my speech in my head. I forced myself to return attention to my feet, telling myself my speech would all still be there later on, after it was no longer time to practice; and I moved around the room in Flowing. I met the blue-green eyes of a woman who was close to my own diminutive height and felt flooded with sadness, receiving, feeling the emotions around me. I noted that I had hunger pangs and put my hand to my lower stomach. My energy dipped slightly. Playful regardless, I knelt with my forehead down next to two friends who were back to back, and they inched their feet apart, delighting me by making a little bridge for me to crawl under. I squirmed to the other side of them, then pushed hard on the ball of my right foot, leaping high into the air and curving into emphatic motion like a cartoon wizard casting a lightning spell.
I had another wind during the closing gestures of the class. In Lyrical, I, like many others, swooped throughout the room, joining other dancers in brief partnerships. In Stillness, I keyed into tiny articulations of my coccyx and lower spine, closing my eyes and feeling the movement of energy throughout my body, moving my hands in space as these quiet modulations swept to my edges. Jason gathered us into a big circle where we continued to move in Stillness, ending at last with several deep, collective breaths.
At the end of the class, I chatted for a moment with an effusive, beaming first-time 5Rhythms dancer who I had helped to greet. Then, I spoke with a friend who had seemed interior during the class, and learned that many of her family members live in the southern part of Florida, where they were being pummeled by Hurricane Irma even as we spoke, her eyes pinched in pain, her shoulders raised, her tone incredulous.
September 10, 2017, Brooklyn, NYC
( First image: of St. Thomas after Hurricane Irma from nydailynews.com. Second image: nbcnews.com of Florida during Irma)
by meghanleborious | Sep 8, 2017 | Other Writings
“I think we’re here to learn to be calm and gentle. And also to be fast. And to notice things.”
— Simon, age 7
My son, Simon, has taken a risk and let go of my hands for the first time today, up-rocking breakdance-style with intricately syncopated steps, twisting his waist emphatically, using all parts of his fast-moving feet, and following their gestures with sharp-angled arms. He is nearly as tall as me, lithe and bursting. Tight, brown, carefully-clipped curls frame his face, and his dark eyes flash with excitement and focus. Simon and I are at the Joffrey Studio in the West Village – in a Sunday morning 5Rhythms class. Simon suddenly looks around at the many dancers, then grabs hold of my hands again, pulling hard on my wrists.
Of everything that I do as a parent, I think giving Simon access to the 5Rhythms is, quite possibly, my best offering. Even at the age of 7, the practice has already equipped him with a powerful toolkit for moving through life.
Three years before Simon was born, I started dancing the 5Rhythms at the suggestion of a trusted friend. For the first two years of dancing, I cried almost constantly. I found that I needed to collapse again and again — an antidote for years of holding things back in difficult relationships. Sometimes I was crying out unexpressed grief, sometimes I was crying for joy; and often I wasn’t sure why I was crying — only that my at once tender and defended heart was becoming more and more available.
On first glance, a 5Rhythms class would probably just look like a wild dance club, but for most people, it is also much more. For me, it is a laboratory for life, encompassing psychological, emotional, philosophical, interpersonal and shamanic levels.
I had already been practicing for two years when I became pregnant with Simon. For me, pregnancy was a study in contrasts. My relationship with Simon’s father was marked by conflict and I felt anguish on a daily basis. At the same time, I loved being pregnant. In dance, I found a way to express and release the pain I was experiencing. Although I was as big as I would be by six months into pregnancy, I never moved like a pregnant woman as dancing gave me the ability to work with the fast changes in my body and allowed me to adapt consciously as my balance shifted. Also in dance, I was deeply aware of the miracle of pregnancy. I felt so full. So un-lonely. So fascinated with my own body. I danced both our rhythms at once, marveling that I contained two heartbeats and that I was both one person and two people at the same time.
When I was five months pregnant, I danced like a wild animal in the rhythm of Chaos during an intensive workshop and became concerned that I might have harmed my small son. After that, I decided to play it safe and take a break from 5Rhythms until after the baby came. Things got even worse in my relationship, however, and after a week I realized that I urgently needed my supportive 5Rhythms community to balance out the conflict at home. I also feared the pain I was experiencing could harm my son unless I was diligent about moving and not allowing the energies of afflictive emotions to lodge in either of our bodies.
In a way, I am grateful even for the difficulty, as it caused me to stay with practice, yielding moments of incomparable beauty. I continued to attend 5Rhythms classes until less than a week before Simon was born.
At a 5Rhythms class, sometimes an arrangement of objects and images is included in the studio, rather like an altar or an artwork installation. Right after Simon was born, the same friend who had first invited me to 5Rhythms included a picture of him in such an arrangement for the Friday Night Waves class. In the picture, he is tiny, his head nestled in the palm of Daddy’s hand, in exquisite profile. The teacher, Tammy Burstein, also announced that Simon had arrived, and, as my friend tells it, several dancers were moved to tears by this news, since they felt they had been dancing with him all along.
I took a break from classes right after Simon was born, but continued to practice daily in my apartment, putting him down in a baby chair when my movement became vigorous, but holding him through much of the practice. After a month, when he could take a bottle and I could be away from him for a few hours, I resumed regular attendance, at least on Friday nights.
When Simon was an infant, still only held or carried, I brought him several times to a small daytime 5Rhythms class that Tammy Burstein held at the now-defunct Sandra Cameron dance studio on the Lower East Side. I would dance with Simon in my arms, letting the weight of his little body pull me into dipping spins in Flowing, his presence affecting my experience of each of the rhythms. Dancers would partner with us, and we had many playful, deep, fascinating exchanges. I felt confident about dancing while holding him, and continued to be fully engaged in my own practice. Sometimes Simon would travel with other bodies, usually comfortable with being passed around. Once, I sent Tammy a song I thought she would love, “Be My Little Honeybee” from one of Simon’s children’s albums. After two absorbing waves, she surprised me by playing the honeybee song in the rhythm of Lyrical. Simon, though still barely speaking, recognized it and lit up with delight. The moment lives in my memory as one when I was fully aware of the gigantic, tender love that I feel for my son. In fact, it has been inside 5Rhythms classes, when I am not thinking about red tape or setting boundaries or the challenges of day-to-day living, that I have most fully noticed and enjoyed the powerful love that I have for him.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to raise Simon with the 5Rhythms. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine not raising Simon with 5Rhythms. But the question was: How? A few 5Rhythms teachers offer classes for children, but there are no classes for children in NYC, where we live. I was able to bring Simon occasionally to small, daytime classes, but once I started working during the day that was no longer possible. The guidelines for including children at night classes were extra hazy. It was sometimes done, but it seemed to be a favor granted on a case-by-case basis. Also, a lot of the night classes seemed too energetic, and occasionally too emotionally dark, to bring a small child. And I didn’t want to intrude too heavily on the adult space of the practice room.
For over a year, I produced an all-ages 5Rhythms class called Family Waves in two successive Brooklyn venues. The class was taught by rotating teachers including Jason Goodman, Michelle Lampis, Amber Ryan and Alex de Willermin, who generously volunteered their time. Picture many small children (including mine) running in circles and criss-crossing the room, narrowly missing (or not missing) collisions and occasionally indulging the adults by following the teacher’s directions. The class lasted only an hour, but we ranged through various terrain as the teachers attempted to address both the children and the adults at the same time, so it wouldn’t be either a children’s class the adults were just hanging around for or an adult class the children were permitted to attend.
For so many of us, 5Rhythms is what has allowed us to heal from a lifetime of pressure to stop moving. It is a doorway to freedom, a path out of constraint. How powerful, I thought, it would be to never stop moving — to have it from the beginning. To be taught and encouraged from when you are tiny that it is alright to be exactly who you are, that the possibilities for aliveness are beyond our wildest imaginings, that you will experience infinite different emotions and that they are all OK. That you are absolutely the only one who can dance your dance, and, at the same time, that you are in no way separate from the fabric of humanity, but are intricately connected with every other being. I very much wanted to share these teachings with my son, to help him to thrive in our increasingly stressful world.
But in reality, my precious child was like a wild animal, running at top speed, totally out of control. I was mired in conflict. Authentic movement seemed essential to my vision as a 5Rhythms parent, but somehow my son had to observe certain boundaries. I struggled to set limits without giving him the message that his way of being was somehow incorrect. Eventually, I had to admit that the format really was not working — at least not for Simon. And I was so stressed with trying to manage the red tape of the class and Simon’s behavior at the same time that it didn’t make sense to continue the project. Fortunately, a short time after the Family Waves class dissolved, a policy was made officially allowing children to attend the Sweat Your Prayers class on Sunday mornings, so I had a new way to hold the door open for Simon.
When I contacted Alex de Willermin, one of the Family Waves teachers, to ask her opinion about the best way to expose children to the 5Rhythms, she emphasized that the first point of contact is for parents to dance with their children at home so that their children could “see their parents dancing and feeling much more relaxed, present and connected after they do.” She stressed the importance of using “language to help tap into their curiosity, playfulness, and imagination; as well as clear rules: whether to give permission or set boundaries.” In Alex’s words, “Society could only benefit from children becoming more confident and comfortable in their bodies — with their emotions allowed and their being affirmed.” Notably, Alex is currently teaching Family Waves classes in her hometown, Paris, a re-incarnation of the multi-generational class that we piloted in Brooklyn.
Daniela Plattner, a 5Rhythms teacher who herself began practicing around the age of 8, also shared her thoughts on raising kids in the 5Rhythms. “The best way to expose children to 5Rhythms is to bring them to class.” She went on to say, “We need to get 5Rhythms in kid-relevant places.” Daniela, for example, did her first 5Rhythms class at her local skating rink.
Daniela believes that the practice could positively impact children. In her words, “It will help them develop their fine and gross motor skills, become comfortable in their skin, learn to work with healthy boundaries and non verbal communication, decrease stress and anxiety, and provide a healthy outlet for anger and sadness.”
Asked to describe her experience as a young practitioner and how it may have impacted her development, Daniela shared, “I practiced as a kid with Gabrielle growing up. When we were filming one of her videos, I remember thinking that I could do anything. I was free. I always felt empowered and intrigued by the 5Rhythms, especially with Gabrielle and Jonny (Jonathan Horan, Gabrielle Roth’s son). It gave me confidence to strut on the street and to be bold and brave in board rooms.”
In response to a question about how 5Rhythms is different for kids, Daniela said, “They need specificity and images, and sometimes more guidance. My preference is for teaching concepts through dance. Kids don’t need as much information about the science and goals of the practice as adults do in work-place settings.” The fundamental objective of 5Rhythms is the same for all ages, though: “to get people moving and expressing themselves.”
I asked a parent who has been diligently practicing the 5Rhythms for nearly twenty years his opinion on raising children in 5Rhythms. He stated, “I started 5Rhythms when my second child was born. I didn’t explain 5Rhythms or teach it to (my children). We just danced all the time. They came to one class and didn’t care for it. … What I’ve learned for myself is that if I’m grounded in my body, I’m a better parent. The funny thing is, my daughter is 20 now and is extremely confident; and my son is 17 and a professional dancer.”
At a Sweat Your Prayers class taught by Kierra Foster-Ba, I was joined by Simon, our ten-year-old cousin, and my uncle, who were visiting New York for the weekend. On entering, the two children settled into a spot at the edge of the dance floor and played with some action figure toys they had smuggled in. Before long they moved to the middle of the room, still playing with their toys, sticking close to a column. My uncle had entered before us, and seemed right at home, falling into movement right away.
In the car on the way to the class, I explained the expectations. “There aren’t too many rules,” I said, “But we can’t talk inside the dance room; and also you have to keep moving—at least a little. Even if you get tired, then you still just find a way to move a little something.” I asked Simon if he had anything to add. “You can’t crash into anyone,” he said — a rule he has heard many times repeated. I added an extra rule for the sake of my excitable little close-talker: “And you can only give your family member three hugs for the duration of the class. The other times you have to give them their personal space!”
I had a delightful dance, myself. At one point, one of my all-time favorite dance partners entered the studio and we jumped right into a high-energy dance of joyful abandon. My cousin watched this unbridled engagement with hesitant interest, but both children continued to play on the floor. I danced near them several times, gently prompting movement, then drifting away again, leaving them to their game. At one point I looked over and both were on their bellies, holding their ankles, laughing and rocking.
It wasn’t until the second wave that they started to enter into the dance, themselves. Remarkably, they got up the courage to move just as we entered into Chaos. I cheered them on with my gestures, smiling as they jittered and jumped, getting into the music.
This week, Simon turned seven. We had a jam-packed, rollicking party with nearly seventy people in our apartment that included singing, dancing, playing music and rough-housing — a chance to practice a manageable version of Chaos in the face of the growing chaos of the national arena. The day before his birthday, Simon called me back to the room after I put him to bed, crying. “Mommy, I’m sad for you that I’m getting older and I’m not a baby now!” “Oh, no! Simon, I’m a little sad that you are not a baby anymore, but I’m even more happy and proud about the young man you are becoming!” Realizing he is growing up quickly strengthens my resolve to offer Simon all that I can in terms of coping skills as he matures and inherits this crazy world.
Simon and I have a ritual for entering a class that started when he was tiny, designed to help him to be aware of sacred space. Our ritual is to stand on the threshold of the studio door, hold hands, take a big breath in, then, as we exhale forcefully, we jump into what we call “The Magic Dance Room.” Today, once across the threshold, we find a spot, tucked into a comfortable corner near a pile of coats, and Simon gets himself settled as I start to move around the room in Flowing. He pretty much burns through all of his snacks during Flowing in the first wave, then gets up in Staccato to join me on the dance floor. He wants me to hold both his hands, and he makes this very clear when I try to release one hand and extend my range of motion.
In the elevator, people are generous with their attention, and Simon feels seen and welcomed. The class’s producer, who is set up with a small table filled with postcards announcing upcoming events and a folding chair, kindly welcomes Simon’s hug and kiss with open arms as we prepare to enter the studio.
Simon and I have a ritual for entering a class that started when he was tiny, designed to help him to be aware of sacred space. Our ritual is to stand on the threshold of the studio door, hold hands, take a big breath in, then, as we exhale forcefully, we jump into what we call “The Magic Dance Room.” Today, once across the threshold, we find a spot, tucked into a comfortable corner near a pile of coats, and Simon gets himself settled as I start to move around the room in Flowing. He pretty much burns through all of his snacks during Flowing in the first wave, then gets up in Staccato to join me on the dance floor. He wants me to hold both his hands, and he makes this very clear when I try to release one hand and extend my range of motion.
When Simon was tiny, he often wanted to be carried during a class. If he was on the ground, he would wrap his arms around my leg. I found an entirely new and fascinating way of moving, a previously undiscovered aspect of self, even with one leg restricted and grounded, that I would never have otherwise uncovered — the depths we can perhaps only find when faced with limitations. I reflected that although some might see having a child as limiting their experience with his dependence and in providing certain constraints, Simon has given me a door into vaster freedom than I had previously been able to conceive of. Especially in the first two years after his birth, creative work has flowed from me into the world.
Since we had just celebrated Simon’s birthday, I relived the memory of giving birth to him. Simon was born at a warm, quiet birthing center without any drugs or medical interventions. I danced Flowing in the intervals between contractions, and worked through each of the rhythms in the process of giving birth, pounding out a staccato rhythm on the side of a large bathtub as I labored, raising massive energy and letting go in Chaos as the baby came to light, blinking my eyes in delighted Lyrical as I looked at him for the first time, and breathing in Stillness as we rested together, absorbed in a whole new reality.
In this case, in the Sunday class, I am moving very much in Staccato; and my dance remains attentive to Simon’s needs. He trots out some more fancy footwork as we move around the room, still holding tightly to my hands, and looking at all the dancers around us. As Chaos arises, Simon goes back to his spot in the corner and plays with his Legos. I move around the room, then join with a good friend in Lyrical, letting extensions pull me upward, and following her pendulous spinning.
In Stillness, Simon and I both stretch out on the floor and roll slowly, side by side, into the middle of the room. Before long, I sit up, continuing to move near him, but he remains on his back, pushing himself slowly through the room with his bent legs, gazing upward at the dancing adults.
Another 5Rhythms teacher who taught the Family Waves class, Michelle Lampis, is now the parent of a two-year-old. Although she feels her son is too young to attend classes, “we dance almost every day for fun. There are times when a particular rhythm stands out more. For example: on a given day my son might be feeling frustrated with not getting his way. I can help him move that frustration by stomping my feet along with him and saying ‘No’ to a staccato beat, or just by being playful in Lyrical together. Expressing his (and often my own) frustration can also introduce humor to the situation.”
Gabrielle Roth in “Maps to Ecstasy” writes, “The best thing to do with an angry child is not to try to turn off the anger, to push it down, to insist that the anger be controlled; rather, it is best to give the anger permission, to affirm it. Maybe you can get down with the child and do an angry, stomping, monster dance together. It is so vital for us to help our … children … in letting their emotions breathe and find apt expression. Compassion supports other people in entering into and releasing their authentic feelings.”
Michelle also believes that exposing children to 5Rhythms concepts “gives them more tools for expressing what they need and how they feel. Each rhythm can become a reference point and provide emotional vocabulary.” She goes on to say, “We don’t have a culture that gives us avenues to explore and understand our emotional world. Mostly we aren’t meant to feel ‘too much’ or ‘too big’. The 5Rhythms provide a place to express it all.” She adds, “I hope it will mean that my son and I have a language that will involve all aspects of our experience — our thoughts, our emotions and our bodily sensations.” 5Rhythms has the potential to not only expand our shared language but also, in the process, to expand our very capacity for experience.
Longtime 5Rhythms teacher, Jane Selzer, talks about the ways 5Rhythms training has influenced her as a parent. “The (advanced 5Rhythms maps) Mirrors and Cycles, in particular, have helped me to shift with my son as he grows. At the Waves level, 5Rhythms helps me to avoid getting stuck in patterns that aren’t working. Also, the playfulness and creativity of the practice have always helped me keep my relationship with my son light and fun instead of rigid and judgmental.”
As the next wave starts, Simon takes another Legos break. Joining me in Staccato, we dance close to where he has his Legos and toys. He lets go of my hands again and gets creative with his feet as we move toward Chaos, letting me loop around him, ranging over several feet. As Chaos deepens, Simon goes back to his spot in the corner again, while I move into an exceptionally creative Chaos with the favorite dance partner who has delighted me by making an appearance.
At home, we have always danced. There are often 5Rhythms-inspired experiments, but really it is a blend of yoga, dance and rough-housing that most often takes place in our living room. We also use the vocabulary of 5Rhythms in our discussions. For example, using the language of Flowing to talk about how to move on a crowded sidewalk in our home neighborhood, Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Another example is talking about the energy we need to bring to getting somewhere, Flowing — “taking our time and looking at everything mode,” or Staccato – “efficient mode” — when we need to be about business and timetables. Yet another is in talking about the Chaos of trying something new, and how sometimes people get stuck in ruts and are afraid to experiment. In fact, many of our daily conversations are inflected with the 5Rhythms, which helps us to connect and to communicate in ways that are meaningful.
Back to the Sunday class after the 7-year-old birthday party, in Lyrical, Simon points silently to the door, and we both step out of the studio briefly. “The music is too loud. It’s hurting my ears,” he says. “OK, we can stay out here for a little while.” “We can go back in when the song is done,” he says, leading me back into the room as soon as the music shifts.
Coming back through the door into the studio, the rhythm of Stillness has already begun to unfold. Simon pours his weight onto my forearm, as he does when we are walking home and he is extremely tired. We are invited to partner in a conscious speaking exercise to answer the question “Why are we here?” and sit on the floor facing each other, in “criss-cross-applesauce” posture. We snuggle with his head on my shoulder and our arms wrapped around each other. After a few moments, I say, “Do you want to talk about why you think we’re here?” Without pausing Simon says, “I think we’re here to learn to be calm. And gentle. And also to be fast. And to notice things,” he says, probably answering in terms of why he thinks we are here in the class, today, not existentially, as I had assumed the teacher meant the question. I kiss his forehead, then take my own turn to speak, saying, “I think we’re here to make others happy and to make ourselves happy.” It seems that his “today” answer and my “existential” answer were pretty similar anyway. We continue to snuggle and to rock back and forth gently. At one point, I gather him into my arms, sideways, like when he was a small baby, and rock him gently. As the final song begins, Simon rests the back of his head on the tops of my feet, leaning backward over my knees, relaxed. I feel a rush of love and gratitude, as we hold hands and gently move each other’s arms, listening to the last song Gabrielle Roth ever recorded.
When the music concludes, the mood in the room is reverent. Simon leads the way to our things. We quietly pick them up, then head out of the studio. “Simon, I’m so proud of you,” I say, “When the teacher asked us to leave the room silently, you followed the directions.” He responds, “I didn’t even hear that, Mommy. I just knew I was still in the Magic Dance Room and I couldn’t talk.”
I am grateful for the many moments of glorious connection, when the practice draws back the veil of mundane experience and reminds me of the divine blessing of my sweet little boy, my darling son. We end our adventure with a special lunch and talk about our experiences. I say, “Simon, I am so happy to have had this chance to practice with you. It makes me so happy. I hope that the 5Rhythms will help you build up your happiness skills”. I think, but don’t say, my little one, who is quickly getting big, I hope the practice arms you to deal with a frightening world that I can’t protect you from. I hope your heart will guide you always, and that you will never forget that moving is your birthright—the destiny that gave birth to you, that gave birth to all of us.
Practical Suggestions for Raising Kids in 5Rhythms
(Originally published in the Moving Center Newsletter, Summer 2017)
by meghanleborious | Aug 31, 2017 | Notes on Practice
“Wave anatomy is very simple. The highest surface of a wave is called the crest, and the lowest part is called the trough. The vertical distance between the crest and the trough is called the wave height. The horizontal distance between two adjacent crests or troughs is the known as the wavelength. … But wave behavior is a complicated dance, choreographed by the forces that cause them and the ocean around them.” –National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Monday
I’ve been on Martha’s Vineyard for over a week and I still haven’t found a place I love to practice. After dropping my son Simon off at camp, I spent an hour or more snarled in errands, in part arising from a minor car accident the previous week. I decide to try South Beach in Edgartown, and discover that it is just 11 driving minutes away. I find the sea spectacular, but the beach crowded. I look west and see open space, so I walk in that direction. I get happier and happier as I walk along, thinking I have finally found my place, how wonderful, how blessed. I am pretty much skipping. Then a bellicose man with grey teeth drives up to me on an ATV and tells me I have to go away, this is private property. “Don’t worry,” I say, wide-eyed, “I know I can’t go above the high tide line, and I’m not going to put down a blanket or anything, I’m just here to find some peace.” “You can’t be here. This is private property.” “But you can’t own the sea! The law says…” “I know the law. Are you saying you’re not leaving then? Do I have to call somebody?” I think about pushing it but instead say, “I’m leaving for today, but I’m going to do some research; and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Tuesday
“The wind not only produces currents, it creates waves. As wind blows across the smooth water surface, the friction or drag between the air and the water tends to stretch the surface. As waves form, the surface becomes rougher and it is easier for the wind to grip the water surface and intensify the waves.” –National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
In the morning I do a yoga class and it pours heavily, visible as white lines in the space of the air through the big window of the studio. I decide it is a perfect day to dance on the beach.
The loose sand of high tide gives me sore calves as I dance in Flowing. I move with the cresting and ending waves, rushing back under, folding into the next, curving to block. I try to hold myself in each of the rhythms a little longer than feels intuitive to stretch out my practice and give myself time for the rhythms to act on me. Staccato moves me quickly, still the thick sand crowds my ankles. My outbreaths are audible, rushing. I am not totally alone anymore but I can still move, letting the head go letting the diaphragm go, avoiding eye contact in case the family that just arrived thinks I’m crazy. Lyrical is the rhythm that most calls me today, though even when I feel light and my gaze lifts upward with the soaring sea birds, I still have no lift owing to the soft sand that doesn’t offer a foundation to leap off of. In Stillness, arms around, curving, gliding hand-to-hand and arcing up.
After Stillness draws to a close I practice sitting meditation for 20 slightly-distracted minutes, then have a brief swim in the swelling waves.
Wednesday
“As the waves close in on the coast, they begin to feel the bottom and their direction of travel might change due to the contour of the land. Eventually, the waves run ashore, increasing in height up to 1.5 times their height in deep water, finally breaking up as surf.” –National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
At Norton Point Beach in Edgartown. Black sand with striated markings like german shepherd fur. It is high tide again and my feet sink into the coarse sand. Two children are making a sandcastle when I arrive. It is huge, spanning 10 feet or more. They are using the same tools that are used for demure, small castles, but the open ocean and big waves seem to inspire things on a grander scale. In heavy fog, I walk out of sight.
There is no horizon. Flowing is the waves washing back being subsumed again to the ocean, form washing away, the backwash and the sea’s depths and their connection. I let it catch my back and pull and dip me, feeling the wide sea, deep and heavy and heaving. I could do this forever, I think. My legs too tired in the deep loose sand, a big hill of black sand dipping down to the waves. Staccato is the waves as they barrel toward shore. Staccato and I take forceful breaths out, deep and low, elbows bent like a destructive goddess, fire exhalation, the sand still deep. Chaos is the flowing backwash crashing into the staccato wave, the collision, the twisting, sometimes the diminishing of the big wave – cresting to end, sometimes they multiply each other, sometimes they crash and collide. Chaos and I let my head go. I have an audience now I try not to care, I want to be seen and I don’t at once, I keep giving myself permission to let go, let go, why such constraint and pessimism when life is so short, so infinitesimally tiny. Ferocious heartbeat, sweat between my breasts, my strapless dress drifts down becoming a skirt, a wave reaches us, saturating its hem. Fine mist kisses my exposed skin. I no longer feel limited by the deep sand. Gliding down the little sand cliff, finding suspensions with the uphill side of me, looking toward the fog-obscured horizon, for the first time seeing the birds, gliding, skittering, flapping, coasting. I am on and off the sand, on my knees, arcing up and around, to a knee then up in one powerful gesture. In Stillness I bow forward toward the sea in a reverent curtsie. One hand creates an arc drawing in the sand in front of me, then the other, from the other side, then the other again to make a little rainbow. I bow lower, then end standing with knees bent out to the sides, arms bent at the elbows, up and open – receptivity fused with strength.
I spend 19 restless minutes in sitting meditation, trying to force myself not to look at the timer on my phone.
Thursday
“After the wind begins to blow for a while, the waves get higher from trough to crest, and both the wave length and period become longer. As the wind continues or strengthens, the water first forms whitecaps and eventually the waves start to break. This is referred to as a fully developed sea.” –National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Hoping to get to another beach with surf, I type Long Point Beach into the GPS. It leads me down what seems like an unpaved cowpath, but seems to have expensive private homes set behind thick brush comprised of pines trees, shrub oak and tangled vines. I come to a gate, deep in the pine wood, and decide to continue forward into what appears to be a Wildlife Reserve. After 20 minutes of slow driving over ruts and rocks, I park and head up a path over a dune to the beach. Descending the dune, the waves are impressive, four feet or more, crashing with great force. I look to my left and see empty beach, so I head in that direction.
Before long, a sign announces that the area is not accessible because of wildlife preservation. Though I am tempted to continue on, I stop just before the sign, still in view of the beachgoers near the path, but far enough away to feel relatively alone.
Beginning to move in Flowing, I let the waves drag me into curves, attentive to the undertow – to the lacy, diagonal layers of swash – my feet sinking into the deep sand. I let my head release down, spine spiraling into gravity, into the coiling ended waves. As an ended wave rounds back into itself, I turn my body around, low, low, weight in my thighs, in my calves, in my feet, arms extended down from the shoulders. A cold breaking wave touches the skin of my feet and I move again toward the sea, feeling the magnetism of it, its pull. I consciously choose to stay in Flowing a little longer than I want to. It has a hint of inertia to it, and I am eager for the more vigorous energy of Staccato, which overtakes me soon enough. Now, I lift my gaze to the four foot waves racing toward the beach, piling one on top of the other. My arms come alive, as my feet are still in coarse, unpacked sand. Sharp angles and exhalations arise as the waves draw up, I draw my arms up too, arching my spine, deep into the back of my hips. As the wave crashes I arch forward, drawing my fists into my belly and rocking my pelvis. Bending my knees low, then lifting my legs one at a time, I start to gather energy, sweat on my skin, audible breath, strong heartbeat. At times my feet are still moving to the undertow and its curving pull, while the rest of me is arching and crashing. Chaos comes and goes quickly. As I start to release my head into it, a little current of Stillness flutters by and I honor it, pushing behind it with both hands in a plane. Then, I bound and twist, my head flailing, feeling the coming together of the heavy, spent undertow and the raw break of the wave. Before long, I extend my range, including the birds and horizon in my aperture. Feeling the broken waves on my skin, rising into extensions, letting my fingertips take over. Settling, hearing the hum under the breaking waves, a series of slow, tracked gestures arises, my hands are again moved by currents, my feet sinking into the sand as the waves lap around my ankles.
From there, I create a little pile of sand and dig a hole for my feet so I can perch comfortably, then sit in meditation. Absorbed, precise mindfulness shifts with my stream of awareness. After 20 minutes, I realize there is a slight vibration under me, and wonder what it could be. I remember my alarm, and realize I can’t hear over the crashing surf, but I can feel it from its place in my bag on the sand next to me. I had forgotten about the time.
Given the wave height and fast breaks, I decide to move back toward the more populated section of the beach before swimming. Because of the huge breaking waves, I have to time my entry carefully. Then, I am doing butterfly, flipping up into the fronts of waves not yet breaking, and briefly floating on my back. I check to see if I can touch the bottom and am knocked down by roiling undertow behind me. I gasp and wonder briefly if I am in a riptide, then it dissipates. I decide I should get back to the beach, and get knocked down two more times before I am on dry land thirty feet or more down the beach from where I put in. My hair is matted with sand, seaweed, and tiny blue-black mussels. My skin is a layer of salt, my eyes marine light, my spine a ululation.
Friday
“Winds drive ocean currents in the upper 100 meters of the ocean’s surface. However, ocean currents also flow thousands of meters below the surface. These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water’s density, which is controlled by temperature and salinity.” –National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
A white, chilly day, I head again to South Beach, hoping to find it quiet. I walk a short distance, then start moving with the waves – much smaller today, one to two feet at most – rising, falling, and turning as the waves wash up onto the shore, slow, and fall back away, receding and dissolving. I feel the changes of direction in the backwashing water deep in my belly, and sink lower, being lead from there. Staccato sparks but doesn’t ignite. Instead, Flowing keeps re-appearing, gentle. I could do this all day, I think. I start running back and forth in a little curved dip that is horizontal to the breaking waves, rushing up, turning, falling to the middle, then rushing up the other side, like I am at a skate park. Facing the waves head on, my arms raised like a cobra’s hood, sinking deep and flattening the plane of my arms definitively, I find momentum briefly, raising my knees, bounding, articulating small gestures in my pelvis, occasionally balling up my fists and drawing them in.
Using 5Rhythms creator Gabrielle’s Roth map of the 5Rhythms helps keep me engaged, even when I am practicing on my own. I could just come to the sea and dance, and sometimes I do, but giving myself new problems to investigate and holding myself in a given rhythm at least until it fully manifests (in some way) offers the possibility of greater insight.
Today, Staccato keeps wavering. I am edgeless, patient. I tell myself, face the sea, greet the waves as they roll in and gather force, the bottom of the wave slowing as it reaches the shallows, the top of the wave still racing, rising up, cresting. I sink deep again, and put my hand on my crotch over my black bathing suit bottom, rocking my pelvis forward and back with the muscles of my lower back and stomach, then find clipped, precise movements in the shoulders, elbows and legs. Finally, I accept that I have drawn Staccato out of myself, if briefly, and let myself move into Chaos. Chaos, like Staccato, is quieter than usual today. I have dug in and worked hard and know I can let Chaos act on me as it wants to. I release my head and bound around, shimmying my legs one at a time, shaking and spinning. I am happy to let go of the weight of Flowing, to rise up but still have the edgelessness, the unceasing movement, here becoming emphatic and expansive. Within just a few short minutes I let myself transition into Lyrical. I am covering ground, moving parallel to the sea, and away and toward, high up on my toes, arms outstretched, dancing a lilting waltz. I could do this all day, I think. Stillness finds me again moved by and creating currents, my hands in a unified plane, wind making my hair into a horizontal flag.
I am alone on the beach and I set up a throne for myself in the sand and sit for twenty patient minutes. Toward the end, I let go of formal practice, and instead eat a boiled egg and look at everything, the tiny ships sitting on the line of the horizon, the birds in their trolling arcs, the breaking waves, the lifeguards who have just arrived.
I consider not swimming today because it is so chilly, but I decide that going into the ocean every day is a practice, too, and I don’t know if I will have another opportunity today. The tide is starting to come in and the surf has picked up. I stand facing the waves for some moments, then finally take a few steps and dive, swimming butterfly straight into the horizon, then floating. The cold is sharp and exhilarating. Back on land, I am happy I pushed myself, happy for the influence of the sea on my body.
July 14, 2017, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
