“Step back you’re dancing kinda close. I feel a little pulse running through…”
Stepping out onto the deck at Commodore Barry, a NYC public pool in Fort Greene, I see a little dance party breaking out with some staff and join in. They welcome me enthusiastically; and we all wiggle and shimmy for a few joyful minutes.
“Thank you! It’s been such a hard day. And this made me so happy!” I try to hide that I’m heaving with sobs and make my way to the lap swim side of the pool. I greet a very dear, old friend, then push off the wall, loving the dancing ribbons of sunlight on the bottom of the pool and chugging hard, slapping my feet as I come over in the turns.
After our swim, I sit in the park with the same friend, and a whole cascade of woes come tumbling out.
The top one is that I lost a good friend two days ago. Many of us lost a good friend. Hundreds, maybe even thousands just lost a good friend. A viola player and teacher, she was loved by many, and was incredibly accomplished in her field. She has been my collaborator in a weekly dance class for almost two years; and we’ve worked closely together.
She was one of very few people in the world who honestly believed I am completely correct and good. I’m starting to think she thought that of a lot of people, though I still choose to believe that we had a special connection.
We’ve danced it and danced it and danced it.
One day in late June, her brother, who has been her devoted caretaker, sent messages to many of her friends and family sharing that she was at the stage of hospice and would love to see us.
Karen Ritscher’s doctor said she had come to a point when they could no longer treat her illnesses and that she likely had just a day or two left.
I went running.
When I walked into her hospital room, she said, “Did you hear? I’m dying! But I feel great. I’m not in pain. And I don’t have to worry about anything now.” She also shared that she has no regrets.
In the hospital, we danced to the song “On the Other Side of Here” by our teacher, Gabrielle Roth. Karen seemed radiant.
As I left, I said good bye, I thought for the very last time.
She shared that she wanted to be at home so she could be with her cats, and her brother and sister made it happen. She was set up in the middle of her living room with a hospital bed and a bell she could use to call her brother if she needed him at night.
The next time I visited I was sure would be the last.
“How are you, Karen?”
“I’m good, except I’m trying to die, and I’m not doing a very good job at it,” she joked.
She was dressed up, in makeup and oversize, stylish glasses. Her eyes shone, and she seemed to be glowing. There were hospice tubes and equipment, but the room was dominated by crystals, special objects, artwork, and the scent of the many cut flowers that were in vases on every surface of the room, including the top of the baby grand piano.
I got to spend the afternoon with her that day. There were people in and out, but I was blessed to have her mostly to myself for many patient minutes. Time washed over us like water, nowhere to go, nothing to prove, nothing to be. Only presence and love. And so many beautiful stories.
Her brother, David, massaged her feet as she told another story.
I said good bye. I said I love you. I said I’ll see you on the other side. “I’ll see you on the other side,” she said in response, her bright eyes shining.
Then I went away for a week, thinking I would never get to see Karen again in this life.
After I got back, Karen was still with us. I led Body Waves, the 5Rhythms class that Karen and I created together, on Friday night. Despite mid-summer travel, we were at capacity, and there was an extra flavor of the sacred.
The rhythm that led us on that Friday night was Stillness, the rhythm of the absolute. The place that all things arise from and return to. This was the same rhythm that vibrated in Karen’s living room as she moved through her final graceful exit.
I danced on Sunday morning. Hard! Really hard. Drenched-with-sweat, ring-out-your-clothes hard.
I saw David on the way in to class. He shared that Karen had almost left us in the very early morning, that he had been in ritual with her for much of the night.
I kept my eye on David for much of the dance. At one point, I couldn’t lay eyes on him, and feared he’d left because of receiving news. I lingered near him as much as I could. Then I thought maybe I should stay near the door. In case he was leaving early so I could drive him.
Eventually, I realized that I was trying too hard to control what wasn’t actually controllable, and let go of tracking David, surrendering fully into the dance, sinking low into the hips, rocking my pelvis, and sharing dances with anyone who crossed my path and was receptive to partnership.
At the end of the class, David was still there.
I asked if it would be ok to drive him home; and maybe even visit Karen. He checked his calendar, checked in with a possible lunch date, then said sure, let’s do it.
So I got to see Karen one more time. My third good bye. I was all sweaty from dance, but she was again well turned out in a beautiful dress–a black ground with brightly colored stripes. A friend had organized a pedicure, and her toenails were an impeccable cherry red–the same color as her viola case.
This time the room was very full, and I had to share Karen with many friends and family members.
On Monday night I barely slept.
Tuesday morning I woke to David’s text message, simply stating “Karen has passed on.”
I spent the day scrub-cleaning the entire apartment and talking on the phone, sharing grief and memories with others who also loved Karen.
Again, we danced. The very same night. 5Rhythms teacher Ray Diaz was leading, and Laura and Tsonga, who had been Karen’s drumming teacher, accompanied on drums.
“I have some news,” I whispered in the ear of a long-time dancer-friend. Her face grew reflective and attentive. “Oh no. I already know what you’re going to say.”
Ray dragged us low, pushed us to explore the room, and modulated long stretches of Chaos with softer passages in the face of the grueling heat.
I was in white to honor spirit. My long skirt got under my feet so I tucked its edges into the waistband and got low, rocking, vibrating, shimmying.
After a warmup, Tsonga and Laura began to drum, Laura holding steady, Tsonga with syncopated polyrhythms.
Ray talked about salsa, which he shared was part of his personal heritage, and how it’s all based on four counts. He said there are set combinations, 89 in total. In contrast to salsa’s set forms, he encouraged us to break out of our patterns.
I loved this encouragement, but I realized I was actually on the opposite journey. I had just come back from Puerto Rico with my son and niece. Dancing salsa, it was a challenge for me to follow, and a challenge for me to be on the same beat as everyone else.
That’s one of the reasons collaborating with Karen on the Body Waves class was such a joy. It’s not easy to work with other people when your own beat is a wildly galloping fireworks display, but with Karen, who meets the force of my chaotic explosiveness with her own wild beat, we found a rhythm together.
We joined forces in late 2023, and took turns leading different themes over the course of several weeks. Despite her incredible determination, she was ravaged with several serious diseases. I can’t really know what it took her to show up every night she was scheduled, but I do imagine it must have taken superhuman effort.
Karen left us on Tuesday in the very early morning–the sacred stretch just before the night transitions back into day.
That Tuesday night, I felt like I could hear and feel Karen everywhere.
At the end of the class, I found a vibrant Stillness, with pauses and twitters, my hands sometimes scurrying after one another, my upper body tilting forward, balanced by a leg or arm, seeming to find new ways to expand my energetic field.
As the music faded away, a group of a dozen or so dancers surrounded David on the floor, embracing and supporting him, and perhaps comforting our own selves in the process.
5Rhythms teacher Alyssa Jurewicz-Johns, who in May joined Karen and I in offering the Body Waves class, led a beautiful session on Friday night. It ended with a ritual where each participant was invited to say their name and share one gesture in Karen’s honor.
The Sunday after Karen’s transition, David gathered local 5Rhythms teachers and a few producers and crew members to honor Karen’s legacy. We sat in a circle in her apartment and shared remembrances. I was touched when another 5Rhythms teacher asked me a question, opening a door and inviting me to share my story with the group. I heaved with sobs several times, both for grief and because the beauty of Karen’s life and legacy touched me so deeply.
One of Karen’s close friends, another 5Rhythms teacher, asked her often during this period, “How is it now?” One of the last times she asked this, Karen, radiant, answered, “Life is ecstasy.”
Most dear Karen, I celebrate your vibrant, generous, creative life. Thank you for your many gifts and blessings. I am better for having walked this stretch of the path with you. May your legacy flourish, may you have an auspicious rebirth, and may you continue to dance wherever you are now.
I’ll see you on the other side.
July 27, 2025, Broad Brook, Connecticut
Photo of Karen Ritscher with her viola by Julie Skarratt
Meghan LeBorious is an author, designer, mother, and educator. She has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and joined the circle of 5Rhythms teachers in 2021. She has also been formally practicing meditation since 2006 within a tradition that emphasizes the idea that everything we experience, including painful emotions and challenges, can be included on the path to self-discovery and freedom. This writing is about her personal experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path; and does not necessarily represent the views of the 5Rhythms organization.
I’m sitting at a heavy wood table, with pillar candles flickering in the fireplace. As it’s gotten darker, the snowfall has gotten faster.
The first thing I saw when I walked into Karen Ritscher’s Fire in the Belly 5Rhythms Heartbeat workshop in the blackbox studio at Gibney Dance was a bold installation, created by Maamoun Tabbo, with red lights and sheer, red fabric hung from high above eye level, crystals, a prominent pelvic bone, and a slinky black dress that once belonged to Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms.
It held the space beautifully, and cast a glow throughout the room.
Karen opened Friday night even to people who weren’t attending the full workshop, and it was packed. We started with a wave, which is to say that we moved through each of the 5Rhythms–Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness–in sequence.
This was the first time Karen offered the Fire in the Belly workshop, and I know it’s something she’s been called to offer for a long time.
Soon, we stepped into a partner exercise that was about working with our inner judge. To my surprise, I sped up and went into the rhythm of Chaos, moving toward and away from my partner and almost writhing into spinning. It had kind of an “in your face!” feel.
Chaos is why I first fell in love with the 5Rhythms. I spent many years of my life trying to tidy myself up, hold myself back, make myself smaller. But in Chaos, I found that I could be as gigantic as my spirit wanted to be–and that was often wild, explosive, and unruly. In so many traditions, Chaos is a thing to be tamed, to be opposed. But in the 5Rhythms, Chaos is seen as a necessary part of the creative process.
On this opening night of Fire in the Belly, however, I noticed there was a script running that believed if I became chaotic enough, I would be unknowable. I would move faster than my partner’s judgement could keep up.
This Chaos discovery was an interesting shock. Sometimes I’ve seen Chaos as a deeply-wired part of my nature. It has always seemed like a place of power and of healing for me, but this time Chaos came through like an escape habit–a way to be in a defensive position, and maybe even to outrun intimacy.
Drummer Tsonga of the Valley, Gabrielle Roth’s longtime collaborotor, and his colleague, Laura, settled in to provide rhythms for the packed room, and people went wild as the intensity rose and fell.
As I rode the J train back home to Brooklyn, I explored this new Chaos thread, and reminded myself that any seemingly skillful habit can just as easily become a type of ego armoring, depending very much on the layers of intention that we bring to it.
That night George-the-Kitten snuggled under my left armpit purring, but still I slept fitfully. I put my book away and settled into the pillow, but my system was amped up.
I found myself tangled in anxiety thinking. When a new anxiety thought would come through, I could feel the sudden release of stress chemicals near my solar plexus. It was almost like a sewage pipe suddenly bursting into action, pumping polluted water and waste into a river. Instead it was pumping chemicals into my system, as my heart rate spiked, and my muscles tightened in an almost choreographed dance. I kept noticing the scrunching of my eyes, the clenching of my arches, a lessening of space in the hip joints. Then it would start to dissipate until a new anxiety thought would come and it would trigger a new flush of chemicals.
Eventually my thoughts turned on myself directly; and I started doubting myself and my choices, and judging myself harshly.
The snow continues. I’m in a remote house in southern Connecticut, a rare night on my own. The only sounds are the occasional voices of the pets I’m here to care for.
In Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance, she writes about the Dalai Lama’s response when a western student asked him how one should deal with self-hatred. The Dalai Lama was incredulous. He asked how someone could think like that when we are all a part of Buddha nature. He just didn’t get it at all.
I watched as my mind beat me up. Eventually I must have slept, but there wasn’t even any clear moment of waking.
I gathered my things to prepare for the next day. I thought I would have a slow morning, but I ran late and had to rush.
I finally got myself to the J train to head in to Gibney Dance, but after just a couple of stops the train stopped on the track to wait for a stalled train ahead of us.
I missed most of the opening wave on Saturday, and as I stepped in Karen invited us to move back and forth across the floor, embodying qualities that block “fire in the belly” such as resistance, rigidity, and numbness.
Then she did the loveliest thing. She gathered one person’s hand, and then another’s, and just waited in silence until everyone noticed that we were moving into a circle, rose, and joined their hand to another’s.
We moved into a seated circle, and Karen shared a triangle model for us to consider: victim, savior, and perpetrator. An incredibly honest, funny conversation bubbled up, with each person spontaneously contributing real-life examples of how these roles play out in our lives–our inner victim stories, savior stories, and perpetrator stories.
When the circle dissolved, a glimpse of mirror peeked through the black velvet studio curtains; and I was surprised by my image. I’d had long hair since I was a teen, and I had just cut it short. It was thinner on the ends and in the back, and I’d basically kept it in an unruly knot at my crown for several years, dying it blond-ish to try to hide the streaky grey.
I knew it needed to be changed, but I’d been a person with long hair for so long, it was hard to imagine deleting that part of my identity.
My stylist–who I visit much less often than I technically should–is a friend from childhood. I showed her a picture of a short, curly style I’d seen muraled on a wall during a run through Ridgewood, Queens. She told me she thought she could get close to the picture. Then looked at me and said, “Are you sure you want to do this?” I surprised myself by responding, “Yes! It’s just hair, right? It will grow back if I don’t like it.”
After years of resistance to this small cosmetic change, I was suddenly bold. She started to cut and even while the hair was still wet, curls started to bounce up. She cut off the dyed hair and what was left was a blend of dark blond, light brown, grey, and white.
I peeked into the mirror, then pulled my head back, playing hide-and-seek with myself, wondering what took me so long and why I thought changing my hair was such a big deal. After so many years, I just took the leap and it was perfectly fine. Good, even.
Karen released us for lunch at this point. In the past, I would have gone outside to gather a snack or tea – a holdover from many years ago when I was a smoker and would always step out for any break. I briefly considered leaving, but decided it was too cold, and that all of my needs were met inside anyway. I assembled cheese and crackers from the lovely spread Karen and Mary Beth, the producer, arranged, and prepared a spicy black tea with milk.
For lunch, I joined inside the studio with the good friend I had shared the judgement exercise with–when I had the realization that I sometimes use Chaos to evade feeling known or judged. My friend’s impression was that I had demonstrated a big range of ways to deal with judgement, and that I kept trying out new things, rolling out new strategies. I loved this idea. It was interesting that her takeaway was so much kinder to me than my own.
Before long, more people joined us for lunch. When we were two or three, we sat in folding chairs, but as more people came, we all shifted to the ground, and widened the circle seamlessly.
Tsonga and Laura joined us on drums again on Saturday afternoon. My neck was a little sore from the night before, and I was grateful that this wave felt gentle.
I had a really hard time in a recent workshop, and here I was grateful to feel immersed, engaged, and in love with the practice.
In a partner share, I spoke something with a catch in my throat and realized its truth. That I have my dream job, and that in a lot of ways the stuff of vision boards is my reality. And, too, that a dream realized becomes subject to the challenges of day-to-day reality, though that doesn’t make it any less a dream come true.
I realized that this time for me is not so much about finding my voice and my path, as it is a matter of finding joy in all of it.
5Rhythms teacher Ann Kite from the Washington D.C area collaborated with Karen throughout the weekend. She led the opening wave on Sunday morning; and the statement I remember most is, “I want to feel everything.”
The day moved by like a river.
After Sunday lunch, Karen led us through a wave. One thing that stood out was a jaunty, playful, chugging staccato dance with a good friend. Later in the wave, I silently invited a new friend to follow me, and we moved throughout the space together, soon switching so I was following her–swooping through the empty spaces and around the other dancers, at times coming around and surprising each other and lighting up with delight.
As the light started to fade in the studio, Karen set up an exercise that gave us a chance to move with a question we were working with.
The question I posed was, “Should I stay attached to relative, everyday reality, or let that go completely and expand into the absolute?” Before this exercise I had been tired, but once we started to move, energy was perfectly available.
What unfolded was exquisitely beautiful, as one dancer represented each option and I got to interact with them. What I noticed was that I could embrace both fully. I could meet relative reality with tenderness, and could stay connected with absolute reality at the same time. It was less a binary choice than a radical allowing.
One of the dancers told me after, “I was ready to let you be with the absolute, but you kept pulling me back.”
With full darkness outside, we each took a partner and prepared to dance a prayer for an intention they shared. I was touched by partner’s supportive words when I shared my intention, and by their commitment to helping to bring my prayer into being. My partner’s intention inspired me, and I did my best to give myself wholeheartedly.
We ended in a standing circle, with each person drawing an index card from a large singing bowl and reading it aloud.
The cold is strident today, and the many surfaces covered with white snow make the light seem blinding.
I didn’t write this for the singing bowl at the workshop closing, but I’m writing it now:
This fire in the belly,
This fire in the heart,
Let me keep it alive with love and breath.
It is all so very precious and temporary.
Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Gabrielle. Thank you, universe. I am blessed and grateful.
This writing is not sanctioned or produced by the 5Rhythms organization, and represents only the personal experiences of the writer. Meghan LeBorious is a certified 5Rhythms teacher, longtime 5Rhythms practitioner, and is an educator, maker, mother, and author.
January 19, 2025, Easton, CT & February 9, Brooklyn, NY
Today, December 31, 2024, I’m reflecting on what I release as the old year exits, and what I invite as the new year enters.
Today is the last day of the holiday break when I can practice in the woods by the Scantic River, near the home of my parents. I wake up early, to give myself time to reflect on this last day of the year, and sit at the counter in the quiet morning writing, then gather my things so I can go for a run and dance in the woods.
On the first day of the break, it was so frigid that I had to bundle myself in many heavy layers, but today the sun is shining and the dirt under my feet is soft. Early in the week, this bend of the river was completely frozen. Yesterday, it was opaque and fast with new mud, but today I find it clear with a strong, visible current.
As soon as I start to move in Flowing, I start to cry. I wonder how it is that I’ve moved in this place every day for over a week and this is the first day that tears come. The water is higher than it was yesterday, but there is still a smooth, sloping bank to dance on. I soften, drop my center of gravity, and allow myself to circle, working with the push and pull of weight as I move up and down the incline in low circles. My stomach tightens and reminds me that I haven’t eaten, and I’m grateful for this reminder of being a body.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Flowing, I release anxiety and welcome in a grounded, settled nervous system that believes itself fundamentally safe.
I release ill ease, craving, wishing things were different, pressing toward the future, pushing away the past, and addiction in all its subtle and gross forms; and I instead welcome in contentment, temperance, mindfulness and embodied presence.
I release self-importance and invite the tenderness of humility.
I release my false stories of separation, my futile, incessant selfing; and othering in all its forms including judgement, gossip, righteousness, and resentment.
Instead, I welcome community, collaboration, belonging, and immersion in the collective field.
Still moving on the soft ground of the riverbank, I’m surprised to find myself moving with the clarity of Staccato. Sometimes Staccato can be elusive, especially in times of low confidence and indecision, but in this moment, it seems to appear right on time, and I segment my elbows, rock my hips, and play with the angles in the heels of my hands.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Staccato, I release criticism, constraint, constriction and tightening to try to protect myself from past, present, and future harm.
Instead I welcome generosity of spirit, patience, compassion, the willingness to assume best intentions, and the wisdom to remember that no being is separate or other (and to let that wisdom guide my words and actions).
And too, I release self-criticism and self-hatred, with the recognition that being excessively hard on myself has never actually helped me to improve.
Instead I welcome self-compassion, and the knowledge that I am equally worthy of my own kindness.
I release defensiveness and instead welcome healthy and clear boundaries, skillful communication, and receptivity.
I release the tyranny of urgency, and instead welcome diligence.
I release holding my tongue and connect again with my voice as a writer, inviting the whole of existence to move through and find form in language.
I release the blinders of societal conditioning and instead invite the ability to accurately read phenomena and see the truth.
Though the pull is strong(!) I release nihilism and despair, and invite instead courage, conviction, motivation, and the belief that my words and actions matter.
I release morality and hypocrisy and instead invite grounded ethics; and invite the rhythms and creative life force to make me a vessel through which you can blow.
I keep dropping back into the low circling of Flowing, then back into Staccato, and now my newly liberated curls dance all around my head as I loosen my neck and spine, disorganize myself, and watch as the world spins by in blurring trails and dissolving shapes in the rhythm of Chaos.
In the spirit of Chaos, I release old patterns, entrenched positions, outworn identities, and clinging to the past.
I release the long hair that I’ve had since I was a teenager, and instead invite a return to the unruly curls of my youth, and remember my little- girl-self who was sensitive and wise and very much tapped into the sacred.
I release fundamentalism, one-true-god-ness, fixed thinking, and my own psychological autocracy.
Instead I welcome comfort in discomfort, ease in uncertainty, and radical acceptance for reality in all its messy, wild, shifting flux; and its unceasing rising & falling, shaping & dissolving, coming together & falling apart.
Lyrical comes softly, with an audible breeze in the naked tree tops, and cloudless blue shining through. I range wider than the circle I’ve made, opening the fronts of my shoulders, and finding extended, tiny, and twittering gestures with my hands, the bottoms of my feet, the joint between my head and neck, and the edge of my chin.
In the spirit of Lyrical, I release myself from small-mindedness and myopia, and instead invite equanimity and the widest possible view, where I can hold all things that arise in a vast container of space.
I release squandering my attention and dulling my senses with things that don’t matter.
Instead of overvaluing transactional thinking, I welcome artwork, poetry, voice, creativity, magic, and the soul’s creative expression in all its myriad forms.
I release the intractability of either-or thinking and instead welcome nuance, flexibility, and possibility.
I release jadedness and instead invite fascination.
I release superficial and half-hearted engagement, and instead welcome interconnection, delight in others’ successes, and shared joy.
I release clinging to the wish for a certain kind of love and instead welcome opening my attention to all forms of love around me, including the love that has no object.
Eventually, after being immersed in practice for I’m-not-sure-how-long and moving in and out of the first four rhythms again and again, silence envelops me. My gestures talk with the river’s woven currents. Ideas, emotions, and bits of poetry tumble through. I crouch, expand, trace, and breathe, and send this prayer far and wide, along with wishes for everyone I love and for all beings everywhere.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Stillness, I release my attachment to temporary things, and instead welcome the perspective that all things that arise and fall away are but expressions of absolute reality–source, the silence, divine resonance, the mystery, deity–home.
I release my petty preoccupations, and instead wear the mystery like a velvet cloak of night and stars, losing myself in its soft folds.
I invite non-separation, and take my place in the vast web of existence and all that is.
And for every day and every minute in 2025, may I move with the knowledge that this precious, interwoven, temporary life is a gift, and may I bow down in gratitude.
December 31, 2024, Broad Brook, Connecticut – With wholehearted thanks to my teachers and guides.
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not produced by the 5Rhythms® organization.
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, designer, and mother. She has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and joined the circle of 5Rhythms teachers in 2021. She has also been formally practicing meditation since 2006 within a tradition that emphasizes the idea that everything we experience, including painful emotions and challenges, can be included on the path to self-discovery and freedom.
For years, I wrote about my own experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path almost every week. It was posted both on my own website and on the official 5Rhythms site. Since I became a 5Rhythms teacher, however, a lot of that creative energy now goes into designing experiences for participants in my own classes and I haven’t written about my own practice as much.
I want to write about my perspective as a teacher on last night’s “Body Waves: Paint My Spirit Gold” class, since this time it was extra clear how much the participants teach me.
It’s been a challenging stretch, and leading up to class, my personal energy was low.
I plan the scope and sequence for each theme far in advance, and I had planned to offer a class with an emphasis on the rhythm of Lyrical. However, I had been feeling anxious and heavy-hearted, and it was hard to imagine how I could possibly embody Lyrical, which is often associated with joy and lightness.
I thought about changing the plan and instead offering a Flowing class with an emphasis on grounding, or maybe a Chaos class with an emphasis on messiness.
In the end, I decided to stay the course, and find a way to connect to Lyrical exactly as I am at this time.
I managed to gather music by Thursday night, but still couldn’t visualize how it would come together.
That day, I had several things dropped on me. Despite a full-court-press, I didn’t complete the tasks I needed to, though I was at work by 7:30AM. Sleep the night before wasn’t great and I wasn’t feeling particularly flexible or well-resourced. I realized yet another task I had to complete just as I was leaving work and plopped down with my coat still on to bang it out.
I got a message on the group chat for “Body Waves” crew that several would be able to make it to class, along with some enthusiastic and supportive words. “Crew” doesn’t seem quite accurate. This group includes two old friends and two new friends; and it’s starting to feel like a family. Their messages warmed me up on the cold afternoon, but I was still feeling low energy and slightly nauseous.
I arrived before 6PM and found that everything we needed was in the space, and that one crew member had arrived before me.
I actually love setting up for class when it’s not stressful; and this time it went smoothly.
I thought back to when I was teaching at the Joffrey and had to bring all speakers, sound equipment, and visuals by car to every single class, and softened with gratitude for how much the process has eased.
The first participant arrived at 6:15 for the 7PM class and wandered in to where we were setting up. We got her checked in and settled in an adjacent studio while we completed preparations.
Before long, I put on low, tonal music and gave the person who was checking people in a thumbs up. She started letting people in around 6:45PM.
Following the stretching music, I put on an Indie Rock song that aligned to the theme, Paint My Spirit Gold, and looked across the room, wondering how it would land. It was quite a transition, and I knew there was a chance it would flatten people out, and that they might need to be coaxed into moving.
To my surprise, many responded right away, beginning to sway and make their way up onto their feet.
It’s not always like that. People could come in locked in grief, not having slept in days, constrained in anxiety. You just don’t know. But on this night, people seemed to arrive very much ready and eager to move.
My whole system started to relax and have fun, and I made some trips around the room, pausing to dance with people along the way.
I offered a few prompts to help us ground in the rhythm of Flowing, but mostly let the music carry the wave.
As the first wave started to dissipate, I invited people to continue to move while I offered a few comments. I spoke into the mic as I moved throughout the room, sharing that I was considering changing the rhythm that I would emphasize during this class since I wasn’t feeling particularly connected to Lyrical, but that I had decided to go ahead anyway.
What came through is that Lyrical, though associated with lightness and joy, is a deeper energy. It holds joy, lightness, and too, fear, rage, grief, shame, and everything else inside of it. In fact, it holds everything in our experience inside this vast, spacious container, and like a soaring bird of prey takes in the panorama from above, seeing the entire picture.
I also shared that it took me years to learn the pathway to Lyrical, and that I would often panic when the room shifted from the rhythm of Chaos into Lyrical. One of the stories that blocked me from accessing Lyrical was the incorrect belief that if I was in joy it would be an affront to another’s suffering.
I also shared a quote by the baby boomer, African American poet Toi Derracotte, “Joy is an act of resistance.”
I love the idea that joy is not just self-indulgent, but that it can also serve.
If we are mean, afraid, small, tight, myopic, righteous…we are easy to control. But if we step into the full spaciousness and power of Lyrical, we can move mountains.
There are so many gifts practice has given me, but this is one of the most precious ones.
I put on a song called “Blessings” and many responded right away, beginning to gather into a second wave.
The next song was a thick, heavy Flowing track, and I cut it short to put on a soaring track with a waltz time signature. I made my way through the room and noticed that one dancer had started to waltz, stepping and holding both arms up, then letting them cascade down and stepping again while swaying his arms up again. He inspired me and I, too, started to waltz. Soon, the entire room seemed to be waltzing. I moved back to the DJ table with a big smile on my face, and continued to watch the room with delight.
The wave moved quickly from there, and the room seemed dynamic and charged. One woman was off to the side stretching and swaying. I put on a longer track then made my way over to check in. She smiled and said she was fine. “Ok! Do whatever feels right to you!” I said and moved away, thinking of a recent experience when I was having a hard time, and really would have appreciated it if the teacher had checked in with me.
Sometimes I have to work hard to keep myself grounded during class as the energy gathers and rises, but on this occasion, I felt gentle, present, and delighted.
I joined with another dancer, dipping our shoulders toward each other and circling around.
Tears rose up as the class wound down, and many dancers continued to move with wholehearted, creative expression.
I had arrived feeling tight, anxious, nauseous, and now here I was in the deep silence when the music ends and before anyone moves or says anything, just oozing gratitude, with gold spilling out all over.
After class, I ate with one of the crew members. She is less than half my age and is very wise. She shared her perspective on recent developments on the national stage, and I nodded, soaking it in.
One thing she said is that she knew she was always going to be involved in the fight for justice, and “that’s never changing.” This idea, that it’s not a failure that justice has not been achieved, but that it would always be in process, and that engaging in the process is worthwhile, touched me deeply.
I’ve always known that I gain a lot in the role of teacher, both in my daytime work with high school teens, and in my nighttime work teaching the 5Rhythms to adults, but on this day, it was an extra powerful dose of medicine.
I went to bed after midnight, slept over nine hours, and woke feeling optimistic, and remembering that God is everywhere, thanks in every measure to these wholehearted, powerful students who helped me to remember.
President Biden’s decision to step aside is a powerful example of surrender–a theme I’m still immersed in following the two-day 5Rhythms workshop “Surrender” that was led by Croatian 5Rhythms teacher Silvija Tomcik.
Friday I was unavoidably late. I just accepted a new job and a new role, and needed to attend a work event. I’ll be a founding teacher at a brand new high school.
This is exciting because I love beginnings. I love the creative territory when we have to create the map, when we can’t rely on what’s already in place. As a visual artist, I’m trained to make somethings from nothings; and I love feeling like anything is possible.
With Silvija’s skillful guidance, this is the territory we explored–the territory of Chaos, which is the third of the 5Rhythms.
Chaos is where we surrender to reality exactly as it is. Where we stop clinging to the past and grabbing toward the future. Where we let go of old habits and identities. And, as Biden embodied today, where we stop clinging to power and instead make space for something new to arise.
I don’t know what happened before I arrived on Friday, but by the time I got there people already seemed very sweaty and softened. I entered as gently as I could, and Silvija greeted me with a wide, wholehearted embrace. I joined two other dancers on the floor where we each spoke about where Chaos is showing up in our life at this time.
For me, I was almost never in Chaos for the first year that I danced. I thought I was in Chaos, but I was actually in a very fast, agitated Staccato–the second of the 5Rhythms. I hadn’t realized it, but I was actually afraid of Chaos. Afraid of being out of control and causing harm–a pattern I knew far too well.
The part of my life when I was most out of control is coming up for examination again now. Truthfully, I spent many years confused about what it means to be a free spirit. I thought it meant rebellion and saying fuck you to social norms and throwing myself recklessly into intense experiences.
I made a lot of unskillful choices during that time. My fourteen-year-old son, Simon, is taking a behavioral neuroscience class and part of what they are exploring are the impacts of alcohol and drug use on the brain, especially on developing brains. He’s wondering about how my choices might have impacted me and how they might have impacted him, and is asking a lot of hard questions.
Another reason I avoided Chaos is that I had somehow internalized that I was too big, too wild, too messy; and I had spent decades trying unsuccessfully to make myself smaller and tidier. When Chaos finally broke through for real, completely by accident, I was broken apart. My entire self sobbed and rocked and shook. I could finally just be myself. My whole self. Not my ideal self, not the self society makes of me, not the self I was trying to be to avoid triggering my partner at the time, not the fixed self that my ego is always angling for.
But instead someone real and alive and actually free.
So many practices are about trying to contain Chaos. Trying to control things. Staying positive, always being our best, being on point, holding ourselves together. But in the 5Rhythms, we understand that Chaos is an essential part of the creative process.
It’s because of Chaos that I decided to marry the 5Rhythms; and during the almost two decades since have become a 5Rhythms teacher myself.
For the rest of the session, Silvija guided us through exercises that encouraged us to integrate the spine and the head into our movement. She said, “The head is part of the rest of the body, not just up here all judge-y and critical.” She demonstrated humorously with her own body, and then showed us what the opposite would look like, when instead of the head being a tyrant who rules over the rest of the body, we drop down and surrender.
I took this on wholeheartedly, eventually moving through the entire space as I curved and twisted and undulated and dropped my head down and let it follow the rest of the body again and again.
At the end of the session I texted Simon, who was home alone at that point. He asked me to call him on facetime so he could show me something. Our kitten George had launched himself off the top of the kitchen cabinets and knocked down a large ceiling light fixture which shattered on the tile floor. Simon started his story with “This man…” I belly-laughed the whole way home.
I’ve been meaning to replace the outdated light fixture; and you could say George helped me make way for something new with his own flying leap of surrender.
The next morning, I found an unpublished text that I wrote about Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop in 2019. At that workshop, too, Silvija offered many new tools and insights. One that has been important for my own process is that moving the hips moves the spine which moves the head. When I teach and I say, “Maybe imagine that your spine is a roller coaster and your head is the very last car,” this comes directly from insights during Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop.
The next morning, I was determined to arrive on time following my late arrival the night before. I felt emotional as I walked from the J train to Paul Taylor studio on the Lower East Side. Part of my new job role will be teaching Art, and I kept thinking about ways to move with my students and open the doorway to the creative process, beyond just offering the tangible skills of art-making.
I silently greeted many friends of a decade or more, including several 5Rhythms teachers who were in my same teacher training cohort–a bond that is very meaningful to me.
We danced and danced and danced and danced. Sometimes alone, sometimes in partnership, sometimes in groups.
Early on, Silvija invited us to move in the first rhythm, Flowing, as though we were on an ocean boat, rocking with the swelling sea. I loved this, and rose and fell and circled and ranged through the big studio, allowing my legs and spine to buckle and soften and pull me deeper into circling.
We danced a full Chaos wave, then moved to different kinds of music that could be embodied as Chaos.
At one point, Silvija had us interact with a partner and move with something we want to surrender, and then what it would look and feel like if we actually did surrender this thing.
My partner went first. Then it was my turn. Per Silvija’s instructions, I whispered what I wished to surrender into my partner’s ear, “Blame and resentment.”
For years, I kept tweaking my left ankle; and I worried that if I really kept throwing myself into the dance as I’d been doing, I would injure it again. I also noticed a pain in my left hip flexor and groin. Lately sometimes after sitting, I get up and limp because it gets pinched and tight. I’ve had some brutal muscle pulls over the years, and I thought, this body has held up for 51 years. I’m so blessed that it’s not breaking down yet. But I should take it easy, I should moderate. I will get hurt if I fling myself into this in the way that I want to.
Curiously, when I sat down to write this, I totally forgot that I had been afraid. It took several layers to get back to it. I kept remembering, then it would jump out of my head again, and I’d be sitting in front of the computer thinking, What was it that I was about to write?
Probably it was my imagination, but a presence next to me said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be ok.”
I went all in. Dancing blame and resentment: pointing my finger, tightening my face, slamming my raised elbow backward, controlling my hips. Then I went all in with surrender, even moving throughout the room with maximum intensity, somehow with all the energy I needed–spinning, dipping, letting my head and spine stretch out and arc, touching down with my fingertips then stepping up and diagonally, coiling and twisting and twittering on the razor’s edge of completely out of control.
Later, my partner from the surrender exercise passed me in the hall to the bathroom.
They said, “I received a message for you.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“The message that came through was ‘You are protected.’ ”
I thanked them and slightly bowed my head, then continued down the hall.
We took only a short lunch break. I sat alone briefly, thinking I might make some notes. When I realized I had no pencil, I surrendered to not making notes, and happened to find one of my closest friends, who herself had been planning to make notes, but her pen had stopped working. She too surrendered and we instead took time to connect and share our experiences.
I stepped to the foyer outside the studio, where there were snacks and tea, and one friend shared that she was confused about these new and sometimes conflicting aspects of Chaos. I said, “I hear you. Sometimes I realize I’m working too hard with a prompt, and I just say, ‘fuck it’ let me just dance.” It’s possible I was giving advice more to myself than to my friend, as is often the case.
I also shared that to me, Chaos has two faces.
There is the intensity, the buildup, the press toward maximum expression and the moment when it explodes. This can also be a feeling of breaking through ropes or a straightjacket, a cathartic throwing off of societal conditioning, traumatic holding, oppression, existential gunk, and the relentless tyranny of should.
The other face of Chaos is the face of surrender. This face is much softer. It is a totally different kind of freedom. It lets everything in without having to relate the self to it, and lets everything right back out without clinging or pushing away. It is a freefall in the dynamic unfolding of all that is, ever moving and shifting and changing. It’s where the ordinary world and the absolute collide and we realize that everything, absolutely everything, is part of this vast, exquisite cosmic dance.
I had a dream when I was a teen that I’ll never forget. I was inside a painting that was in the process of becoming. It wasn’t so much about the material or the frame, but that I was inside, immersed in the very creative process, the irrepressible, unbridled, dynamic expression of life force.
When I first started dancing the 5Rhythms, artwork exploded out of me. Since then, I’ve surrendered much of my fixed identity as a visual artist, and instead open myself to the flow of creation as it arises, including creating 5Rhythms classes for the participants I’m blessed to work with.
I’ve become more of a midwife than a master; and it no longer matters to me what form creation takes, only that I swim in its river and am at its service.
This brings me tears as I write. What a blessing to live a creative life. Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, wrote in her first book, Maps to Ecstasy, “If you like to write, you don’t have to make the bestseller list: write letters to your friends, poems to your lover. Sing to your children. Make something for your mother. Once you enter the creative mode, you discover what it means to live in your soul.”
After our brief lunch, we continued to dance, exploring Chaos as it lives in each of the different rhythms.
Silvija playfully challenged those of us who actually seek out Chaos instead of just surrendering to it when it comes, and kept up a stream of prompts and suggestions to support our investigation throughout the afternoon.
Feeling loose and alive, I stopped at a grocery store on the way home, and the woman working at the checkout noticed and commented. I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something about shining.
I waited for the train next to a broken video screen. It was still working, but the glass was spider-web-shattered and the image twittered in disjointed ribbons.
I come back again and again to what Gabrielle said when she laid down the map of the 5Rhythms for us, “It takes discipline to be a free spirit.”
To my immense surprise and delight, I realize that I have become a free spirit. All it took was practice.
Thank you, Silvija. Thank you, Gabrielle. From the depths of my wild, free spirit. Thank you.
My notes from the RelationShifts workshop that Heeraa Sazevich led nearly a month ago in NYC look like an explosion of graphite squiggles – poking out in every possible direction, crammed into the margins, sideways, diagonal, and even upside down, but I’m going to try to make sense of them and see what I can bring to light and language.
On Saturday morning, I took the subway from home and was surprised when I emerged from underground already within site of the venue, Gibney Dance, steps away from City Hall in lower Manhattan.
This initial ease shifted temporarily when I had a miscommunication with a friend on the way into the workshop.
I felt a medium level of nervous system activation as I considered this exchange. Everyone else had already spent time attuning to one another the previous night, but I hadn’t been able to attend on Friday night. In a partnered speaking exercise I couldn’t think of anything to say (for once!) and instead let it wash over.
At the first break, I asked my friend if they would be willing to hear me out. They agreed, and listened patiently while I shared my feelings and explained the context. We hugged and moved on. And, at least from my perspective, our relationship shifted into a deeper level of trust.
This was just in the first hour.
RelationShifts’ main theme was inviting inquiry and awareness to our relationships and our ways of relating.
In the past, I might have stewed over something like this. I might have let a thousand threads get pulled at the edge of the sweater as I unravelled around what had been triggered. I might have catatrophized, been tempted to rage quit, or blamed others.
But in this case, I just stated my feelings and my needs. And recognized that the relationship is very much workable and valuable. And that the stuff that got triggered – all that, too, is workable. All just part of a process.
After that, my nervous system started to settle down as Heeraa guided us into an exploration of the first of the 5Rhythms, Flowing. She began with a body parts meditation, inviting us to move with awareness of different body parts and to ask ourselves what each specific body part needed, such as “What does my head really need right now?”
Also on Saturday morning, we were invited to step into a totally individual 5Rhythms wave, as opposed to being in partnership. I lowered my gaze and softened as Heeraa offered periodic suggestions.
Many shared that they loved this exercise, but I found it challenging to stay engaged. I love to dance by myself both in classes and alone in nature, but in this case I found that I had to keep reminding myself not to flow into anyone else, not to catch anyone’s eye. I even tried to avoid being inspired by the way others were moving. For me, it was challenging to specifically NOT interact with anyone else.
I’m sure I overthought this. But I didn’t enjoy this part as much as most everyone else seemed to. The cold hard truth is that long stretches of Flowing tend to bore me. Some tiny part of me wondered if it was a character flaw, but another voice reminded me that it’s all just information.
One participant made a fascinating comment, that they felt like it was delightful to dance totally independently. They went on to say that so often in a room everyone was trying to reinforce their personality by forcing everyone to interact with them.
I loved hearing this perspective, which is very different from my own. To me, our personalities are just one part of the cosmic display, one delightful, temporary expression of who we are in our tiny life in this tiny shifting instant.
I admired their integrity, and considered how important it is to be attuned to consent in connecting with people. What for me feels affirming, to be seen and acknowledged, might feel manipulative or disrespectful to someone who has a different orientation or is in a different place in their process.
In a way, this very internal individual wave acted as a counterpoint to all of the other external relationship configurations we explored as the weekend went on.
After lunch we moved into the key of Staccato, and my engagement got much stronger.
During the course of the weekend, we explored many relationships, and one that we explored at this point was what Heeraa called “smother mother.” My partner in this exercise was wildly present and wildly creative, at times chasing me through the space with her arms up, and crowding very close to me. I loved this kind of closeness, perhaps reflecting my very close relationship with my own mother, who I adore without any caveat.
There was also an experiment where we each related to a toxic substance as a partner, where one person danced as the toxic substance and the other related to it. I also loved this engagement, pushing and pulling the toxic substance toward and away.
I remembered a time in my life when I began to lapse into an addiction and gained a valuable insight. I had been telling myself a story that the addiction was inevitable, and would eventually, inevitably win me over, as it had in the past. Once I was able to identify the story, I was able to push back on it, and own that addiction was in no way inevitable, that I was fully empowered to make a different choice.
We danced a full wave, moving through each of the 5Rhythms, and I found myself in tears, grateful for the many wonderful relationships in my life, including with several people in the room.
With one friend, I got to be the grounded one. Sometimes I have not loved that role, but this time I felt honored as we moved together, that I could take a turn holding space while they freaked out, and that we could take turns supporting each other.
With another old friend, I loosed my hair and expanded my radius in a ferocious Staccato-Chaos, saying “Bring it!” with my entire body as they said the same to me.
With yet another, I lifted off, letting go of gravity and flying, barely touching down, my arms raising spontaneously, continuing a journey we have shared for over a decade.
I put my shoes and coat on to go out to get something for lunch, but changed my mind, instead deciding to stay close and enjoy the snacks that were generously provided.
Next, we moved into the rhythm of Chaos. We started with a very gentle, extended, vibrating shake and then moved through a short wave.
We explored another relationship, this time to someone who we were saying good-bye to forever. My partner moved deeply into this exercise, and I witnessed and moved with them, not fully knowing what was arising for them but intuiting that it was significant. I moved away, but then caught myself and came back, remaining connected.
Later, Heeraa put us into small groups, and we each took a turn dancing an offering of grief while the others bore witness. Then, we sat in a circle and each person shared their own story of grief. Every story moved me deeply.
I wish I could share the beautiful words of my fellow dancers, but I can only share my own experience.
I said something like, “I think grief is beautiful. At a workshop just two weeks ago, I bowed down to the grief of a friend who had just lost her mother. I haven’t lost anyone in my parents’ generation yet, so my feeling might change on this, but for me grief comes and goes. I’ve been dashed on the cliffs of grief countless times. In a way, we don’t have to let go. We are infinitely interconnected, and that doesn’t ever end.”
After that, we shared a very long chaos wave. At the end, I landed in a place that felt very clean and clear.
The last chapters of the workshop were in the key of Lyrical and Stillness.
In Lyrical, we stepped into a ritual theater exploration. Initially, I groaned internally. But as it unfolded, I was delighted and fascinated. Ten people formed a small group, who then formed five couples. Each couple was assigned a rhythm to enact, and the others were to write – poetically, non-literally – what they witnessed.
Then Heeraa had each person in each couple select a line from what people had written to move with, while their partner moved with their own line. Configurations with other couples shifted and morphed; and the resulting tableaux were touching, funny, and insightful.
After it was over, I lingered for a long time, not quite ready to leave the field of practice, grateful for all it had offered me, grateful to Heeraa, and immensely grateful to this powerful, flexible, transformative practice that just keeps revealing new aspects to me and spiraling me closer to truth, again and again and again.
Meghan LeBorious is a 5Rhythms teacher, meditator, artist, mother, and writer. She has been on the 5Rhythms dancing path since 2008. She was moved to write about her experiences following her very first 5Rhythms class; and has been writing about them ever since. This blog in independently generated and is not sanctioned or produced by the 5Rhythms organization.
