I just found a new doorway from Chaos into Lyrical.
For years, I couldn’t find my way to Lyrical. It was like I was wandering around in a dark forest and would sometimes come to a blue-sky clearing, but it popped up at random times, and I certainly didn’t know how to find my way back there.
When I find a new doorway in individual practice, it feels like a celebration. When I find a new doorway that I can also communicate and share and teach, it feels like a revelation.
In Tibetan Buddhism, terma is an ancient teaching that is concealed until people are ready to receive it. There are even stories of spiritual teachers opening up a hole in the sky and secreting a scroll inside it until the time is right. Sometimes I wonder if terma could be just as much a teaching that arrives in the body, perhaps after waiting patiently to be unlocked when conditions are ripe.
Last night I made my way to my parents’ house in Northern Connecticut to help out with my Dad’s campaign for a local office. It was Halloween and I expected traffic, but I didn’t hit a single delay. Then I slept peacefully through almost the entire night–a rare treat.
Today, before heading to the river to dance, I visited my garden. Everything was dry and colorless except one bright green and red swiss chard plant, which seemed oblivious to the turning of the year toward winter.
I took out my phone to take a picture and saw a calendar alert that startled me. Oh no! I forgot about an important appointment that I requested just yesterday! By the time I saw the alert it was too late.
My mood plummeted. I started beating myself up. When will I ever learn to manage my calendar effectively? When will I actually succeed at adulting?
My moods can feel like wild storms at times. As I gathered myself to go for a run I also noticed some old grievances running in the background like sitcom reruns.
After a short period of self-flagellation, I set out, first running along the river and then arriving at my favorite place to dance.
It might not seem like the most beautiful setting, but to me it is, partly because I’ve developed my relationship to it. I’ve spent a lot of time here, connecting with nature and with myself, honoring the people who stewarded this land for centuries, remembering my grandfather who fished here, and moving with the river itself.
It’s also where I love to practice and where what I’ll offer as a 5Rhythms teacher often pours through.
Today, the only leaves still on the trees are yellow and they quiver loudly every time the wind gusts.
The river is high today; and my little dirt dance floor is obscured by fallen leaves. I tuck my pants into my socks to protect from tics and clear the dry, rustling leaves away with my feet.
When I’m dancing alone with nature, I often I spend a long time in Flowing–the first of the 5Rhythms–but today the second rhythm of Staccato sparks quickly. I notice a lot of future/planning thinking; and that I’m feeling more optimistic than usual about my work in the world.
It’s chilly and windy, and I’m in a long-sleeved sweatshirt for the first time since last winter. It’s a hand-me-down from my son, but it’s still too big for me, and the cuffs hang lower than my hands.
This brings new attention to my arms, and I start replaying a favorite dancehall song in my head as Staccato enlivens me. My arms find shape and purpose, sometimes joining forces in front me, sometimes cutting and carving around my hips and torso.
I recall a question one practitioner has often asked me. “What should I do with my arms?”
I’ve had that same question myself.
When I don’t think about the arms, they can sort of fall out of the field of awareness. But then when I do think of the arms, I can get self-conscious in a way that feels unproductive.
Keeping the arms close to our side is maybe the safest choice. Not reaching out, not risking, not leaving our organs exposed. Or we could just stick them up straight in the air, like at a crowded dance club, and leave the rest of us behind. What, indeed, should we do with the arms?
In the 5Rhythms, we often place more emphasis on the lower body than the upper body, since being grounded is so important.
In my early years of practice, I often heard prompts encouraging us to drop the arms down and just let them follow.
That makes sense to me, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m fighting with myself, or like I’m disowning my arms or any part of me.
Once I notice my arms today, I start to play and exaggerate. The arms make sense here in Staccato. They have moves to make, things to do, plans to execute. But as I move into Chaos, the third of the 5Rhythms, their role shifts.
If I try to cling to the clear purpose my arms found in Staccato, they get tight and prevent me from surrendering.
But soon they are flopping and arcing and crossing the midline of me, part of this wildly moving matrix. Sometimes as they swing around, they knock against a thigh, a hip, a shoulder.
They’re following, as they are in flowing, but here it’s more sped up, more wild and erratic. Once in a while there is a jagged stop and the momentum of the arms keep going.
Sometimes in Chaos I think about how the hips move the spine, and how the head just follows along, like the last car on a rollercoaster.
But here I see how everything is just following along in Chaos. It’s almost like everything causes a chain reaction for everything else–and it’s just rippling through again and again. When a hip shifts, it starts a new chain reaction that eventually finds its way through the arm. And the feet move the knees which move the hips which move the spine which move the head which move the shoulders which move the arm which flings the other arm which flings the spine. And Chaos goes on, slowing and speeding, rising and falling, rioting and quieting until the energy of Lyrical, the fourth of the 5Rhythms, starts to break through.
Now as my arms are flinging and flopping, responding and provoking as part of this chain reaction, I notice that once in a while when an arm swings around it finds a tiny beat of suspension. And then it falls back into this wild matrix.
And then it comes around again and finds suspension, like the moment a playground swing pauses at the top before gravity draws it back through its arc.
Soon it’s almost all suspension, and my face turns up, taking in the crisp blue sky behind the tree branches.
A single yellow leaf sways and turns its way slowly from a high branch to the river’s surface and I move with it. It is turned around by the current and I, too, turn around. It dips into a tiny rapids and I too dip and speed up. It emerges again with its pale side up, continuing its journey toward the sea.
I spend the rest of the day driving my Dad and two other candidates around so they can campaign, preparing for election day on Tuesday.
In these times, when power is increasingly becoming concentrated and checks and balances seem to be collapsing, we need multiple options for finding our way through Chaos to Lyrical on its other side.
Gabrielle Roth, the founder of the 5Rhythms practice, taught that the hands are the gateway to Lyrical. I’m grateful to have a new way to embody this teaching.
I’m grateful for this tiny revelation, this doorway, this new gasp of possibility.
November 1, 2025
Broad Brook, CT
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. She co-teaches the weekly class “Body Waves” Friday Night 5Rhythms in NYC and also leads 5Rhythms workshops.
This writing is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. The views presented in this text are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 5Rhythms organization.
I’m deep inside my own inner darkness. My eyes are closed and I make my way slowly through the room, my feet whispering. I can actually feel the molecules of “me” intersecting with the molecules of everything around me: the ballet barre, the tin ceiling, the wood of the columns, the glass of the mirrors, the floor. The edges of me blur and vibrate, blending with everything. Tears are streaming down my face.
The teacher of this particular 5Rhythms dance and embodiment class felt strongly about everyone keeping their eyes open. Usually, I followed this guideline, but during this one period I started closing my eyes at times.
I couldn’t sense the energy of the materials around me with my eyes open, but when I closed them, it all rushed in.
This was a really important shift in my personal practice; and I don’t think it would have been available if I had followed a rule of “you must keep your eyes open.”
Blanket rules are important for some things, but when it comes to practice, I don’t think anything is always true.
Recently, a participant who came to one of my Friday night 5Rhythms classes was vocalizing loudly, screaming, actually, during the part of the class when everyone was being called into a deep Stillness. My attempts to re-direct only seemed to throw fuel on the fire.
I explored it at length with my collaborator, the late Karen Ritscher. Karen was extremely generous, and trusted each person to find their own medicine in the dance.
I was still a little concerned. I wanted this individual dancer to get their needs met, but I could see that the loud screaming startled people, amping up the sympathetic nervous system at a time when we
were calling the parasympathetic nervous system online.
Karen talked with the participant at length, learning that they’d been through a painful and intense period. The next week, the person was still very enthusiastic and vocal, but refrained from screaming when Stillness was starting to gather.
It got me thinking about how the needs of the individual intersect with the needs of the collective.
Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms, taught that the individual and the collective are of equal value: that we are at once exquisitely unique, and also unfathomably interconnected. One of my favorite quotes of Gabrielle’s expresses this better than I can:
“There’s only one of us here.”
I, myself, have had episodes of loud screaming. I remember a Cycles-level 5Rhythms workshop in Philadelphia when we were exploring adolescence, the period of the lifecycle that’s associated with Chaos. The teacher put on a song that strongly recalled my own adolescence. Painful memories surged up and broke off, floating freely inside and around me. A rage-scream also broke free.
After the workshop, I wrote an entire book about my adolescence. The words poured out of me. The more that poured out, the emptier and cleaner I felt.
I’m grateful to the teacher and to my fellow dancers that I had the space to fall apart in this way.
But if I showed up at every class and workshop and went straight into trauma screaming – well, that might be another story.
My individual need to scream no doubt impacted the room. Maybe some people felt inspired to let loose themselves. Maybe some were frightened. Or resentful. Or envious. Maybe it even took some people out of their own practice (whatever that might mean).
How do we find the right balance between the individual and the collective?
In this society, we’ve been conditioned to prioritize individual expression over everything else. But what if the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective were equally valued? Could we fall apart when we need to, and also be generous and hold space for others when they need to?
It might look one way on the outside, but it’s possible that what’s most telling is what’s happening on the inside.
Have I stifled my voice for decades and suddenly it’s coming out in a roar? Have I built up an ego story about myself as a victim, and is my screaming another way to shore up that story? Do I find it interesting to trigger people’s nervous systems with a sudden shout, embodying my dominance? Do I usually hide in plain view, but for the first time today claim my space with my voice? Does part of me want to manipulate people into feeling sorry for me? Does my cry give voice to generations of agony that my ancestors endured and set me and my descendents free from ancient harm?
I guess what I’m saying is that screaming might be skillful or might be not-skillful, depending on a lot of different factors.
This is a bold statement, but I believe that becoming adept at discernment is the key to effective practice that can eventually lead us to full awakening.
If we aren’t able to develop discernment, it’s possible that our practice could plateau once we’re moved through some initial layers of personal healing and catharsis.
For me the key question is: Does the thing I’m doing open me up, or does it strengthen and shore up my ego?
Anything that appears skillful could, in fact, be unskillful. And anything that looks like practice could in fact be escape or some other conditioned habit.
We each have to do that inner research for ourselves.
Partnering in the 5Rhythms is another place to invite discernment.
Am I always trolling for a partner, constantly roving and inserting myself into every dynamic, never willing to turn to my inner experience? In that case, not-partnering might be my practice. Am I totally opposed to partnering, resenting the imposition of others on “my” dance? In that case, experimenting with partnering might be my practice.
Over the years, partnership has been a rich inquiry for me, and my relationship to it has shifted many times.
One of the most beautiful gestures I’ve ever lived came at a workshop, when I was gliding through the room and a dancer happened to be rising just as I passed. We energetically twined together, our forearms softly touching, then each glided off in separate directions.
I remember one partner I connected with at a (long ago) workshop and then in classes over the following months. Our first dance together started as an energetic overlap, then it gathered momentum, magnetism, magnitude. We roved, we swooned, we soared.
I barely saw anyone else. Sometimes it was really sexy, sometimes cosmic. I wonder now if this was annoying for others in the room? Triggering? Touching?
Through the lens of the individual vs. the collective, I have to ask myself, was this engagement causing a huge drag on the collective space? Was my individual need to connect with a partner more important than considering the collective at this time? I still don’t have answers, only more and more questions.
And through the lens of discernment, I have to ask myself, to what extent was this engagement opening me up and expanding my capacity? To what extent was I clinging to a habit, a pattern, or the perpetuation of a self-story?
It might even be more than one thing at once. It might shift over time. Perhaps it could even start as practice, but then become its own unskillful activity.
As a teacher, I’ve occasionally gotten feedback about couples.
One participant said they were annoyed by a couple who only had eyes for each other and were very intimate in the way they were engaging. The person who shared said they felt like we were all building up energy together, sharing and moving it through the space and through our bodies, but that it seemed like the couple was just taking the group’s energy in, and not giving it back out.
I could understand this perspective. At the time, I remember being touched by the couple’s wholeheartedness; and also that I wondered how it might be perceived by dancers who did not identify as hetero, as this appeared to be a man-woman couple. Might it contribute to some feeling marginalized?
Following one of the first classes that I led as a 5Rhythms teacher, a dancer reached out and let me know that she felt another dancer was being intrusive in a way that didn’t feel good for her. He didn’t touch her or say anything offensive, he just didn’t seem to notice (or perhaps even to consider) that she was not open to partnering.
As a teacher, this gave me pause.
I wanted to hold space in a way that feels as safe and respectful as possible for every participant. But creating strict rules didn’t feel right either.
In the end, I landed on creating and sharing requested class agreements that I hoped would address the concern without unnecessary blame or shame.
These are the agreements I landed on:
*Adopt the perspective that everyone has gifts, and everyone is needed for what they bring.
*Everyone is at a different place in their process, and holding each other with respect and sensitivity (including in consideration of partnership) allows each person to move with their process as they need to.
*Although we don’t speak with words during practice, consent is always a consideration. Please move with the idea that different people may have different levels of privilege, though it might not always be obvious, especially to those with a lot of privilege. Set the intention to consider consent in your interactions, and be willing to give people space if they seem to need it or if they ask for it.
*All are encouraged to move with the medicine they need. Please be mindful that everyone else is also moving with the medicine they need, and be aware of the impact your own actions might have on others.
*During verbal interactions, set the intention to use affirming language around race, gender, LGBTQIA+, ability, and all matters of identity. Take the lead from whoever you are talking with, and ask for guidance if you aren’t sure about what language will be affirming. See making accidental mistakes as a way to grow and increase in skillfulness and generosity of spirit.
There is a printed copy of the requested agreements on the check-in table; and my collaborator, Alyssa, and I just created a large poster of the agreements that we can display more prominently. We also send the agreements, along with additional information, when people register for the Friday night “Body Waves” class.
The participant who bravely shared about her experience expressed that she felt better with these agreements in place.
I also started to include more verbal prompts touching on consent, and added this to the registration materials:
Prompts: The teacher will offer some prompts and invitations designed to engage and open up new ways to move. Each person is encouraged to decide whether or not responding to the prompt is correct for them in a given moment, as each person knows their own needs the best.
Since then, we also added the following agreement:
*Please do not take pictures or videos of participants. Although tempting, as all of the dancers are exquisitely beautiful especially when in motion, the possibility of photos can bring our “posing-selves” online, hold us in a fixed identity, and can make it hard to allow ego to soften its grip so we can explore the inner territories where we have no temporal name.
This is an ongoing exploration for me as a teacher; and I very much welcome feedback about what feels right for participants, including those who might feel most vulnerable.
Again, I really don’t have answers, just lots of curiosity and lots and lots of questions.
Another time comes to mind when I think about discernment.
During the 5Rhythms teacher training, I noticed a friend on the floor, heaving with sobs. Most of the time, it’s skillful to give people space to have their experience without trying to comfort or interfere in any way. One of the lead teachers even said exactly that at the beginning of one of our sessions. After all, someone might have been holding back tears for years or even decades. If I zoomed in to comfort her, she might stop crying and miss a precious chance to heal herself.
I also had to wonder, was I performing a story of myself as a “savior”? Was she performing a “victim” story to my “savior”? This time, though, I really didn’t think about it. I just trusted what seemed to be (what I hoped was!) intuition, and softly moved behind her on the floor, putting light pressure on her back. She started to rock back and forth with me, and cried even harder. Occasionally providing comfort and support is exactly what’s needed. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite of what’s needed.
Now, if I noticed a pattern that every time someone started crying I ran over to try to “fix” them or caretake, that would be a sign that what I was doing wasn’t practice, but was actually a way to shore up an ego story–the opposite of practice. On the other hand, if I was never willing to comfort anyone, and always told myself coldly that each person has to be responsible for their own experience…well, that could just as much be an example of me shoring up an ego story.
Author Naguib Mahfouz said, “You can tell whether a (hu)man is clever by (their) answers. You can tell whether a (hu)man is wise by (their) questions.”
And I love this quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, “Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart …Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Usually by the time I write one of these texts for Notes on Practice, a conclusion emerges organically, sometimes magically, sometimes poetically. But this time, no conclusion comes.
Just more questions.
I’m so grateful we have a path and a practice that give us the space to live the questions.
October 27, 2025
Brooklyn, New York
This writing is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. The views presented in this text are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 5Rhythms organization.
“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.
