RelationShifts-A 5Rhythms Heartbeat Workshop

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...

My Body Breathes a Sigh

My body breathes a sigh today. Yesterday, Saturday, the bright sun was too much for me. Grey clouds parted in the afternoon and instead of feeling the joyful charge of spring, I stood in the middle of the sidewalk blinking, unable to take it. The bright, warm...

Into the Woods

I went into the woods on December 26th with a heavy heart. Like most years, I spent the holidays with family in Northern Connecticut. It had been a delightful few days and I was counting my blessings.  Still, I couldn’t shake this heaviness.  Parenting has been a...

360 Emergence Workshop in NYC

After bowing to the space, to all of my teachers, and to practice itself, I took a slow lap around the perimeter, absorbing information with all of my senses, excited to join such a large gathering of dancers. I paused to put my fingertips on the speaker, to directly...

Thoughts on Partnership in the 5Rhythms

For me the 5Rhythms has been an interpersonal laboratory, among many other things. 

This week in the “Spirit Drenched in Gold” 5Rhythms class, we’ll focus on the rhythm of Staccato, and the theme of Intention; and if it feels right, the invitation is to step into the room as an interpersonal laboratory, to investigate what is alive for each of us in partnership. I don’t know if it will be true for you, but for me, it has made a difference in my life both on and off the dance floor. 

Kindness Is the Only Thing That’s Real

I felt the rocks, the give of earth under my feet, and the pull of gravity downhill as I picked my way along the path. I saw an orange butterfly on a purple-pink echinacea flower. Velvet moss deep in the woods. A tiny black-and-white woodpecker at work. Green tree leaves shimmering with moving breezes.

Coming Into Alignment

This morning, caked in sand, muscles awake and stretched, wind making a flag of my loose shirt, hair knotted and half-wet–I could feel my edges softening, recent and past experiences moving through, and my selves gliding into alignment.

Notes on Site Specificity

When I come to the ocean, there are so many things that fascinate and inspire me. As much as I love to dance to music, I can also dance the ocean, its crescendo, its decrescendo, its adagio, its allegro. The waves as they arrive and depart. The intersections and lively tussles between competing waves. The roaring crash as a wave dies. The moment right before…

Longer Days

It takes me awhile to change gears and trust that I don’t have to press to do every single thing in the most efficient way possible. I think it’s partly because the longer days make me feel like I have more time…

Help Me to See

For me, Flowing is where I re-align myself. Where I establish my mindfulness. Where I connect with my feet and let in whatever thoughts, emotions, sensations, or external phenomena appear, without forcing everything to have some kind of a supporting role in the ongoing story of myself. I try to move until it all flows by in the river of my mindstream.

Finger Pointing Instructions

The movie brought both of us to tears. It was the 2009 “Where the Wild Things Are” and my 12-year-old son, Simon, and I couldn’t believe that we had somehow missed it - given our shared love of the same children’s book. Near midnight, Simon sat with his head resting...

Spring Staccato

The birds have been downright rowdy this week. It still looks and feels like winter, but the birds seem to think spring has arrived.  [video width="1080" height="1080"...

Carved in Stone

Sunny days can be a lot of pressure. It’s like you know you should be grateful and cheerful. Everyone around you seems grateful and cheerful. But if you don’t feel grateful and cheerful, challenging emotions can feel amplified.

Working with Gaze in 5Rhythms Practice

This got me to thinking about the gaze–how we relate to and direct our vision–in 5Rhythms, and how it has different tendencies in each of the rhythms.

A Prayer

Blessings to you, Mati. Thank you for your many gifts.

Remembering the Way Home

I woke up at some point during the night. Things I hadn’t gotten around to yet that had been nagging at the edges of my mind moved to the foreground. Even so, I kept bringing attention to any muscle that tightened and encouraging it to relax - forehead, stomach, jaw,...

Snow Squall Warning

Beginning to move in Flowing, my phone screamed again. I ignored it and continued to move in looped circles, with no beginning and no end, no edges and no stops. Visibility dropped as snow fell wet and heavy against my cheeks and forehead. The wind started to pick up, too,

Dancing with the Sea: A Magical Encounter

I took a few pictures, then crept a little closer, daring to take a video. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Owls seem magical to me –

Observing Martin Luther King Day Through Dance

Eventually I was empty. The questions I had dropped into the well of practice were answered, as much as they could be for now. I was ready for Martin Luther King Day. I knew the way forward. Remembered. Back where I started and ready to begin again.

Dancing with Omicron

I thought about skipping the song to try to avoid too much twisting, but something interesting started happening. Some kind of chemical release in the legs and spine. I wondered if Covid was working its way out of the spine and out of the body, and dug a little deeper, let go a little more, gave myself a little more permission, and let the sacrum lead the rest of me into release.

Dancing With Covid This Christmas

“Yes, he’s definitely sick. But I can’t reach his parents and there is nowhere else to put him, so I’m sending him back to your class.” I held the phone receiver and scanned the full classroom as I huddled near the door, speaking with the school nurse. “But if he’s...

Lunar Eclipse

It was glowing dark, blood red. Then it was just black with a thin arc of light on the bottom right. I sat there in full darkness, clutching my elbows, amazed.  I woke up at 3AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, owing to a racing brain. The good news is that I got to...

Dancing Protection

It has been a wild ride lately.  There are serious teacher and substitute teacher shortages at this time and as a result, many are carrying an almost-unsustainable work load. Also as result things have been chaotic, which has arisen to more fights than usual among the...

Honoring the Ancestors

Today was the first day in a long time that work thoughts weren’t dominating my mindstream.  It has been a wild ride at work lately. We are very short-staffed at the school where I teach, and everyone is wearing too many hats and working too many hours - the case...

Moving with Mosquitos

I led myself – I mean my imaginary class – through a gravitational version of the body parts meditation, moving with strong engagement. When Flowing was well established, and my feet felt soft and awake, I invited the class to breathe in and allow the elbows to feel the pull of the earth’s magnetic center, and to allow it to pull them into circles.

Inner Currents

After several beautiful beach days in a row, this one was stormy. I spent last week at Cape Cod with family, a tradition that has continued since my mother was 13, in 1963. This year had an excellent turnout with 20 family members scattered through various cottages,...

What Just Happened?

Moving day was in the high 90’s and extremely humid, and by early afternoon I had heat exhaustion. My eyes were strained to the point that it hurt to look sideways. I pushed on regardless, telling myself that somehow it simply had to happen. By evening I felt like I was spinning off the surface of the earth. 

Afternoon Inertia

Little has outwardly changed about my practice in the last many months. After a long day of remote work and before picking up my 11-year-old son, Simon, at his pod learning group, I roll up the rug and dance in my apartment living room.  Some days, like today, I was...

Set Free What is No Longer Now

Today is my birthday, so I wanted to do all of my favorite things. After breakfast, my 11-year-old son, Simon, meditated with me for a little while, then I continued to meditate on my own. After that, I joined a zoom yoga class with a beloved master instructor who...

The Saturation Line

I had to pull over to take pictures. The entire hillside outside the rear fence of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden was covered with tiny purple crocuses, almost blurring completely together.  Spring is actually happening. It’s like how I feel about singing. For so long,...

High Tide, Height of Winter

I brought attention to a hovering wave and the moment when it gathered itself up and reached its full expression before crashing apart.

One Clean Wave

Today I danced a clean wave. A wave – in the 5Rhythms dance and movement meditation practice, that’s when we move through each of the five rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness – might feel heavy, spastic, reluctant, spacious, inspired, cathartic,...

Insurrection, Terrorism & Preparing for the Work Ahead

Today I danced with the sea.  I seriously bundled up with a heavy coat, sweater, wool socks, ski gloves, and hat since the last time I danced at the beach it was frigid. But to my surprise it was relatively mild. I was able to dance in just a sweater, and before long...

Take Me to the River

I reflected on the passing year. On the slow crushing roll of the pandemic and the toll it has taken, on families, on communities, and on the fact that it has killed nearly twice as many people of color as white people. I reflected too on the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahman Aubery and so many others, and on the protest movements these events have catalyzed. I thought about…

Freedom Is An Act

I was meditating when I heard horns honking and loud yelling. At first I thought it was teenagers playing around. But it wasn’t just coming from just one place, but from all over. 

Daily Practice in Grueling Times

I had a triggering weekend last week. It sat heavily on my shoulders, head, back. It was hard to get through the work day. The psychological brambles I’d stumbled into felt overwhelming and insurmountable.

Currents Pulling Resolutely Along

“It’s time to wake up,” Ray said firmly into the mic as we shifted into the rhythm of Staccato.

To The Waves and the Wind

I moved into the third rhythm of Chaos, again only for short intervals, again repeatedly returning to the first rhythm of Flowing. I let go softly as the sky drained of light, leaving only streaks of purple and blue on the west edge of darkness, feeling less conspicuous and more a tiny moving part of vast dynamic emptiness. “What do I need to hear?” I asked as I danced in shadows, and the sky whispered back.

Rhythm & Reckoning

My earliest memory is of watching a summer parade from our big, second-floor apartment window in Chicopee, Massachusetts with my father. What I remember most was not watching, though. It was what I heard and felt. A passing marching band included a musician with a...

A Small Shift in Practice

This is where indigenous Podunk people once lived during cold months, where my grandfather loved to fish, and where I’ve brought my ten-year-old son, Simon, to experience the changing seasons more closely. For months, since Simon and I have been staying with my...

Facing Real Obstacles

I climbed onto the slippery, protruding section of the log that was blocking us and tried pushing. The canoe remained stuck. I instructed Simon to get out too, then balanced my way to a spot on the limb that had an extra branch where we could hold on to balance and exchange places. My Dad shifted from the back of the canoe to the front and leaned heavily backward, trying to lever the canoe over the tree trunk that was blocking our passage while I pushed and tugged.

The Intention to Listen

I remain eager to charge forward with making the world better, but for the moment, I’m sticking close to the ground, calling in humility, trying to avoid causing harm, and doing my best to become a worthy listener and ally.

Letting the World Lead

I saw how intensely I wanted the discomfort to end, but recognized that I could not avoid the process of reckoning that was unfolding, and determined to let it run its course.

An Apology

 I would like to open with an apology.  This is an apology for all the ways that I’ve benefitted from White privilege, for all the things I’ve wittingly or unwittingly done to sustain systems of oppression, for all the times I’ve made myself separate and superior from...

I Won’t Die From Being Uncomfortable

Sunlight is streaming into the hidden corners of our psyches and of our societies. I realize that I have to speak up and act decisively, that we all do.

I Can’t Breathe

Like many, I’ve been preoccupied with the killing of George Floyd and the protests across the nation. As throughout the pandemic, I continue to do the 5Rhythms dance and movement practice and to meditate, sometimes multiple times a day.  Yesterday, I had a video call...

Parenting & Practice in the Time of Coronavirus

I stayed a long time in Flowing, and when I finally did move into the second rhythm of Staccato, I could feel myself wanting to collapse. “I can’t” my mind kept saying. This time, I really had to rely on practice.

With Feet on the Earth

I resolved to drop my full attention and weight into one foot and then the other, and this opened me into generous, weighted circling. Sometimes my steps were even subsumed and pulled into the larger falling circling of the body.

Reclaiming the Earth: An Urban Confession

I’m making a garden. Today, a local man came with a rototiller and churned the ground up, breaking through a thick layer of grass. And yesterday I spent the afternoon planting flower seeds. I haven’t experienced spring outside of a city since I left home for college...

Taking a Break from Practice

A lone duck appeared while I was meditating on the bank of the modest Scantic River. The duck was industriously chugging her little head back and forth like a small child on a big wheel, letting out a periodic call of “quack” as she floated by. I was touched by her...

Notes on Practice

I really didn’t feel like practicing. It had already been a long day; and I had another big day coming. I was on a meditation retreat at Garrison Institute, and part of my personal practice was to dance a 5Rhythms wave, o sea, in other words, to move through each of...

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Persistent Habits

For the last two nights, I’ve slept on my back. This despite being a side-sleeper for pretty much my whole life. I have a certain way of tucking the pillow into the side of my neck, settling in, and nestling my back up to a pillow or another body. But my shoulders suffer, and the asymmetry sets me up for all kinds of misalignments. I’ve tried re-training myself many times, but I let myself go back to what’s comfortable when sleep has eluded me. This time, I think I’m on track to finally interrupt this persistent habit.

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Uncertainty

I had just broken up with the love of my life. The first time we embraced, our heartbeats had shifted to match each other, beating in sync. This was the first of many times that we broke up before it would eventually stick. I had built a whole identity around being...

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Concluding Self Isolation

I’m listening to a livestream piano concert now given by a teen named Donny, who is the nephew of a friend. She shared that he has blastoma and autism, and just lost his mother. As I join the stream, Donny opens with three of my lounge-singer-grandmother’s favorite...

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Dancing in Circles

Today is the 14th day of a 14 day quarantine for my ten-year-old son, Simon, and me. We’ve been staying in an apartment that is attached to my parents’ house. We’re in quarantine because we just came from our home in Brooklyn, NYC, the epicenter of the US coronavirus...

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Fear & Injustice

Things I wrote even two or three days ago seem so dated now. The pandemic is intensifying in this region. I’m in the eleventh day of a 14-day quarantine in an apartment attached to my parents’ house, along with my ten-year-old son, Simon. We are in quarantine because...

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: A Parenthesis

“Mommy, why do you cry so much?”

Practice in the Time of Coronavirus: Day 3 of 14

The stress is making me feel blurry. It is exhausting.

I’m in the third day of 14-day quarantine

Notes on Individual Practice

In this time of worldwide fear and pain, practice is more important than ever. But what we usually do to practice the 5Rhythms is not safe at this time. So we are called on to be flexible, creative, and to test our ingenuity. 

I Remember: Mindful Schools Closing Retreat at Garrison Institute

On this retreat, walking meditation delighted me. My feet delighted me. The natural world delighted me, including the sky and its endless parades; and the gravel, sand, stone, and pavement surfaces that provided so many engaging textures for the soles of my feet.

I Hear a Glow on You

…Finally, sound fell away again, as I moved with one tiny bug at a time.  Lightning bugs tend to hover and linger, so they make excellent dance partners.  Still dusk, I could see and track an individual even when it was not lit, and I cupped my palm, letting it lead me, rising and opening my hands in a slowly turning gesture, delighting in its slow transition into illumination, bowing my head to its tiny expression of majesty, part of the unified whole and spectacularly unique at once…

Grass Roots

“Yeeaaah, definitely heel spurs. Both feet. See?”  The doctor points at a section in the middle of my right foot on the x-ray that really should be shadowy black, but instead shows white, almost as dense as nearby bones. As early as February, when I participated in...

Alive! Alive! Alive!

At one point, I planted my left foot firmly, setting up a physical problem to respond to.  I swung the right foot forward, walked it out, cast it back, sunk low and angular, rocked my pelvis, and played with isolating my back hip on just the right side, experimenting with levels and angles.

I’m Praying with My Feet (& The Pernicious Scourge of Racism)

I wasn’t sure if would attend today’s Sweat Your Prayers class or if I would practice yoga closer to home instead.  When I learned that the class would be held at Martha Graham studio in the West Village, rather than at its usual home at the Joffrey, and that 5Rhythms...

Two Arctic Fridays: Community Chaos & Limitless Space

"Community is the next Buddha." -Thich Nhat Hanh I threw up in the car on the way to class while crossing the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn into Manhattan for Tammy Burstein’s Friday Night Waves 5Rhythms class last week.  I think the extreme cold tightened all of my...

The Last Dance

The outer boundaries of me are not so clear, the other bodies might be my body, too. I dance my friend’s heart, feeling the pain of her heartbreaks, feeling her incredible tenderness, her magic, her power. Chaos and Lyrical dance back and forth with each other as the wave finds its closing expression. In Stillness, cold wind from the window causes a strong sensation on my exposed skin; and I turn to dance with it, beginning with the rocking and bouncing tree branches below the height of the window, then with the wind itself. Turning toward the room again, I move with inner winds that swirl around inside and near my body, especially along the sides of the spine.

A Range of Reds & The Death of a Spider

Daniela Peltekova, who moved from NYC to Los Angeles a year ago, taught the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers class at the Joffrey in the West Village today.  For her, a homecoming, for me, an occasion of unbridled joy and unflagging engagement.  I asked Henya, the class...

No Time to Lose

The themes Tammy addressed during this week’s Friday Night Waves class aligned with what I had been experiencing in my own life that day.  Yet another hurricane had ravaged the Caribbean a short time before, causing vast destruction, including flattening nearly the...

Journey into Trance

“Moving with the spirit has taught me all I know.”  -Gabrielle Roth I didn’t have much time to contemplate what I might experience when I signed up for “Journey into Trance,” a two-day workshop with Jonathon Horan, who is both an experienced 5Rhythms teacher and the...

Natural Disasters, Friendly Animals & the Need for Warriorship

We seemed to spend more time in Chaos than in any other rhythm today. Jason spoke directly of the devastating hurricanes and earthquake; and also reflected on the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, which he, like me, personally witnessed. I recalled a class Jason taught in the same room just three days after the election of Donald Trump, when he also kept us in Chaos for song after song after song. I reflected on the words of my yoga teacher, Maria Cutrona, in the days after the election, “As painful as this may be, as hard as it may be to take, this is exactly what we have been practicing for over all of these years. This is it. Right now.”

The Anatomy of a Wave

“Wave anatomy is very simple.  The highest surface of a wave is called the crest, and the lowest part is called the trough.  The vertical distance between the crest and the trough is called the wave height.  The horizontal distance between two adjacent crests or...

Fly in Formation

At Riis Park, the solitary birds are my first dance partners this morning.  Before long, however, I join with an entire flock, soaring as they soar, holding my arms out wide, twisting in an arc as they move to the farthest edge of an orbit, sinking deep and looping...

To Notice Things

“I think we’re here to learn to be calm.  And gentle.  And also to be fast.  And to notice things.” -Simon, age 7 Have I mentioned recently that I adore my son?  Absolutely, totally and completely adore him.  Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice,...

A Woman’s Place

  “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” –Martin Luther King, Jr. “There is only one of us here.” –Gabrielle Roth, creator of the 5Rhythms practice Packed body-to-body with the many hundred thousand protesters who attended the Women’s March in NYC on...

Love Letter to Flowing

“The Earth is above you, below you, all around you and even inside you.  The Earth is everywhere.  You may be used to thinking of the Earth as only the ground beneath your feet.  But the water, the sea, the sky, and everything around us comes from the Earth.”  –Thich...

Joy, Not-joy & Happy Clichés

Typically, after a 5Rhythms class I make a few journal notes right away that I can expand on at a later time, when I tease out themes, follow the threads of narrative, and connect what has arisen in dance to the world off the dance floor.  This Friday, however, as...

Times A Changin’ – Finding Lyrical Even Inside Chaos

“Imagine the conversation we’d be having if we weren’t debating facts.” –Masha Gessen “The impulse to normalize” was the subject of a radio interview I heard in the car on the way to class at the Joffrey in the West Village.   In the interview, Masha Gessen, author of...

Moving Chaos-The Survival Art of Our Time

“Dancing Chaos is the survival art of our time.”  -Gabrielle Roth, creator of the 5Rhtythms dance and movement meditation practice. “I know this is going to sound a little weird, but the Novocain will work better if you get up and move around a little,” said my...

Converging Polarities & Internal Fire

The morning was brisk, with nearly violent wind.  The sky was white and opaque, hiding the spacious blue that surely existed behind the low, dense clouds. There is a personal ritual that I go through on stepping into a 5Rhythms class to mark the shift from the space...

Harsh Reality

“What?  This can’t be.  Oh, my God, this can’t be.  How could this be?  This can’t possibly be.  What are all of these overnight text messages about.  They are no longer celebratory, as they were last night.  This can’t be true.  Let me look at the internet.  Oh, my...

Light & Shadow

“The intention for this workshop is full, complete and unrelenting self-acceptance,” said highly regarded 5Rhythms teacher Kierra Foster-Ba during the course of the one-day workshop “Light & Shadow” at Martha Graham studios on Saturday.  5Rhythms is a dance and...

Heart’s Content

I gave a little shudder as I stepped up onto the sprung dance floor at Martha Graham studio this weekend and gently eased my body down onto it, tears coming even in these first few moments. I fell in love at “Heart’s Content,” the 5Rhythms Heartbeat workshop lead by...

Joyful Patterns

“In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are...

“Ouch!”

“Ouch!” one teenager cried out as another slammed her into the hallway wall, smiling not kindly, her arm shooting straight out from her shoulder as she passed, not even looking as she struck.  The teen who got slammed walked not ten paces, then slammed another girl...

Sweat Your Prayers, Dance Your Pain & Move On

“Take a minute to notice what you’re arriving with,” said 5Rhythms teacher Amber Ryan as she started the Sweat Your Prayers class today with a long, attenuated period of tonal music.  I found a spot on the floor in the northeast corner of the studio, nearest to the...

Extreme Heat, Releasing the Neck & Doing Great Things

Heat lightning ripped through the grey-purple sky as I was driving to the Friday Night Waves class.  Looking down my Brooklyn street to the East River a bolt jagged to the right and down, next to a looming metal crane.  Crossing the blue expanse of the Manhattan...

Flowing and What Is Not Flowing

I caught Tammy’s eye as I stepped into her Friday Night Waves class after nearly a month away.  Smiling and meeting her gaze across the room, I tapped my heart with my right fist, then held my hands together in a gesture of excitement and gratitude, bowing as I passed...

Sacred Places, Otherworldly Fog & Cheerful Good Byes

Otherworldly fog took over the landscape on Monday.  After dropping my six-year-old son, Simon, off at camp in Dunhill, I went to the unmarked beach again.  Suffering from heavy anxiety, I paused to look out over the vast beach from the top of the steep cement stairs,...

Falling Rocks & Strong Currents

Yesterday we woke to blue skies for the first time since we have been in Ireland.  After dropping my son, Simon, off at camp, I set out to explore the local beach again, hoping to find a place to dance.  Given the fair...

Things to Climb & Games of Invention

I was overly optimistic in putting on a bathing suit.  During a brief glimpse of blue, we rushed to get to the sea, hoping for at least a few moments of beach fun.  As it was, the blue was enclosed again by white sky long before we made it to the beach, but we decided...

Ruined Castles, Faery Doors & Patchworked Fields

While everyone in New York is suffering through a heat wave, I have been wearing sweaters and still shivering.  This is my seventh day in chilly Ireland, traveling with my six-year-old son, Simon.  First, we explored the astonishingly beautiful western region of...

On Open Sky, Going Anywhere & Partnership

For the second week in a row, I unexpectedly attended the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers class. For the second week in a row, the class was guest taught by an accomplished teacher from another country, in this case Hannah...

On Special Intentions, The Cessation of Pain & Partnership

My grandmother used to say that you get a “special intention” every time you enter a new church for the first time, as my mother reminded me recently. A special intention is pretty much guaranteed to travel straight to God’s ear, and has a strong chance of a good...

Float Like a Butterfly; Sting Like a Bee

On Friday, I spent much of the afternoon listening to the funeral service for Muhammed Ali that took place his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky on June 10.  One reporter said that she was concerned that the driver of the hearse carrying Ali’s body might not be able to...

I See You There

“When we dance together, even when we dance near each other, I feel so good.  It is like you bring out the spirit in me, somehow.  You are like a little shaman.”  This compliment, delivered by a friend after a recent Friday Night Waves class, was perhaps the nicest...

Zero Zone & Basic Goodness Retreat

We walked up to the meadow in silence, without flashlights, through the nighttime woods.  I inhaled the dark shapes of moving bodies, and exhaled the passing trees.  Arriving, the diamond-fierce sky opened up.  Our guide and the retreat’s coordinator pointed out...

You Can’t Crash Into Anyone!

Today’s Sweat Your Prayers class at the Joffrey in the West Village was taught by Kierra Foster-Ba; and I was joined by my 6-year-old son, Simon, our 10-year-old cousin, Maya, and our Uncle Larry. My cousin and uncle had come to town to attend Simon’s recital the day...

There Is Only One of Us Here

When Jilsarah Moscowitz taught the first Sweat Your Prayers class of the spring season two years ago, for the first time ever I considered the possibility that I might secretly have a lyrical nature.* This came as a great surprise since from the very beginning of my...

Word Dance (Radical Summons)

The days leading up to the 2016 Word Dance workshop were exceptionally delightful. I went on something of a walkabout with my now-six-year-old son, Simon. He is in a lovely phase at the moment—cooperative, funny, insightful and affectionate—and I thoroughly enjoyed...

A Notable Blizzard & A Good Bullshit Detector

Today is a rare interlude of Stillness in a typically dynamic city. The windows are impossibly bright. Snow is caked on the screens outside. Still-falling snow makes the air seem opaque. Piles of white obscure Brooklyn’s sharp edges and make everything blur together....

IN Sight: In Pursuit of Magic

 The first 5Rhythms workshop in NYC to focus on visual, artistic expressions of creativity, 5R Visual, took place at the Joffrey in the West Village on Sunday, January 10th.  The workshop—IN Sight:  In Pursuit of Magic—was lead by Martha Peabody, who worked...

It Speaks Very Much For Itself

I had an urgent errand this morning, but it cooperated and I was able to make it to this Sunday’s Sweat Your Prayers class, which was taught today by Daniela Peltekova. Stepping into the already vibrant room, I happily greeted many friends, found a spot on the floor,...

Rhythms in Waves Workshop (The Entire Universe Opens Up)

The first night of Tammy Burstein’s “Rhythms in Waves” 5Rhythms workshop at the Paul Taylor Studio on the Lower East Side followed an extremely unpleasant day in my own small life. I stepped into the high-ceilinged rectangular room, with its clean, metal theatrical...

Putty in Its Hands

I arrived early to today’s Sweat Your Prayers class at the Joffrey Ballet, and stepped in to an already breathing room. Amber Ryan, who lead the class, played tonal, attenuated music and I langored on the floor close to one of the mirrored walls, moving in great...

Inverse Operations, Love Songs & The Pain of Living

I have had Amber Ryan’s “Examine Stillness” workshop on my calendar for over a year. When I first spotted the date on Amber’s calendar, I emailed her, thinking it was a typo. She responded, letting me know it would take place in 2015, not 2014, and that the date was...

An Invitation

A new friend came to the Friday Night Waves with me this week—her first 5Rhythms class ever. She and her son joined me and my son for dinner beforehand and we left them both in my son’s father’s care to travel by car to the Joffrey Ballet in the West Village. On the...

Let the Ground Receive It

I was lucky to attend two 5Rhythms classes this weekend, Tammy’s Friday Night Waves class, and Jason Goodman’s The 7th Wave class, which was taught this week by Ray Diaz. I encountered no significant obstacles in arriving to Tammy’s class this Friday, and found...

Road Rage, Soccer & Playful Antics

Despite the fact that the babysitter arrived right at 7pm and I left promptly, I arrived an hour late to Tammy’s Night Waves class on Friday. The car was literally stationary, embroiled in constipated traffic, on Broome Street just east of Broadway for over half an...

Good Dances: 0, Bad Dances: 2

Sometimes I am tempted to keep a running tally of “good” dances vs. “bad” dances.   The more “good” dances that I have in a row, the more surprised I am when I have a “bad” dance. In the past three weeks, I am 0 for 2—unless you count the elation of dancing at my...

Expand Lyrical

I have a confession to make. This is hard for me, but here it is. I have been cheating on Chaos. It all started during the summer, when I spent extended time in Costa Rica playing in the waves with my small son, contemplating rainbows, and dancing for long stretches...

My Mother’s Hair Turned White That Day

There is a chill in the air as I write, though I refuse to admit that summer is over and close the windows. Lately, I have been rushing to dance, eager to see if Lyrical will show up for me once again, leaning forward like a fifteen year old with a consuming...

The Body of Joy

When practicing alone, I tend gloss over Lyrical, technically attending to it, but rarely taking it on fully. Which is why I am delighted, in this languorous late summer air, to find Lyrical a persistent partner.In the afternoon before Tammy’s Friday Night Waves class...

Memento Mori

Lately I have been feeling embodied, creative, productive and inspired; and connecting with others has been unusually available. Sunday was notably different, however. In the Sweat Your Prayers class, which was taught by Amber Ryan, Martha Peabody created a visual...

Dangerous Currents

August 16, 2015: Yesterday I went to Riis Park beach with my five-year old son, Simon, my sister, and her soon-husband. Right after we parked our belongings on the sand, we played in the water for a long time. Simon was not a swimmer just a short time ago, but he has...

Dancing From One Low Tide to the Next (Everything is Perfect)

One day during my last week in Nosara, Costa Rica, I danced from low tide at 5:30 in the morning until the next low tide over twelve hours later—from 5:30AM to nearly 5:30PM. This was not 5Rhythms practice, but rather an artwork performance, a ritual, and, indeed, an...

Being Worn Away in Bits

Pura vida literally means “pure life.” In Costa Rica, you hear it many times a day. I was trying to explain “pura vida” to my five-year-old son, Simon, yesterday. It means “life is extremely beautiful.” It can also mean “you are welcome, I offer this thing to you with...

High Tide

Despite the often-experienced bliss of being here in Costa Rica, the magnetic pull of my life in New York has been acting on me lately, and it feels like everything is falling apart.Yesterday was a blissful day. After my son, Simon, and I did our morning drawings and...

Pura Vida, Sunset Waves & Kite Chasing

I managed to injure my neck on the one day I wasn’t doing anything strenuous. I was grateful to put myself in the hands of a highly-skilled new masseuse offering discount massages; and left feeling radically improved. Regardless, I got a late start and I was airy,...

The Shadows of Gliding Birds

My morning investigations were delayed today because I had to continue to work on a solution for how to access money. When I did get to the sea, it was later in the morning and I wondered if the beach would be overrun.The little artwork I had created the day before,...

Arms Raised For Balance

Aspects of today were grueling, but in the morning I found a more inspired connection to the 5Rhythms than I have experienced since I arrived in Costa Rica. After I dropped Simon off at camp, I headed to the closest beach, Playa Pelada, parking the golf cart I have...

Staying in the Shade

Low tide is the best time to dance on the beach. I have found a spot I like, at the farthest reach of Playa Pelada in Costa Rica—where I can dance, move and rest in the morning shade of an impressive cliff. At high tide, I would be killed if I stood in the same spot....

Individual Practice and Multiple Threads

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.Today I danced the 5Rhythms by myself at the farthest reach of Playa Pelado in Nosara, Costa Rica. I am here in Costa Rica...

What Do You Want?

Hello world. Thank you, as ever, immensely, for your kind attention in reading these words. I love to write in this modality, and knowing that you are there to receive and respond gives it density—it helps me to show up for you (and for me) with all the commitment and...

Ick! (Insights, Inspirations & Challenges)

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I promised my uncle—who has been kind enough to read this blog, but has no context for the writing—that I would offer...

Love is Love

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.In the last post, I wrote about the intensive Mirrors workshop, Jane Selzer’s 5Rhythms class at my local YMCA, and a...

More Than This

 May 30, 2015, Brooklyn, NYC  The Mirrors level workshop More Than This, which was lead by Alain Allard April 15-19 in New York City, was exquisite. Remarkably, the feeling of it—of boundless, loving connection—lingered for days. Immediately after, I wrote...

Dance Is My Religion

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. “Kids:  they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.” –William Stafford Dance is my religion. I go to...

Chaos in Tiny Increments

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. In Tammy’s class last night, she led us through two long, gentle periods of Chaos.  I noticed that I was already feeling...

Antique Clothespins, Feathers, Glitter, Pearls, Collected Baby Forks & Paper Lace

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Peter Fodera’s one-day Flowing workshop was held at the Paul Taylor Studio on the Lower East Side.  I remember once...

A Tiny Sunshine

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Today’s Sweat Your Prayers class was held at the Martha Graham Studio on Bethune Street in the West Village rather than...

The (Really, Really) Most Grueling Stretch of Winter

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Did I really title my post a couple of weeks ago “The Most Grueling Stretch of Winter”?  It is a little like turning to...

Pregnancy, Birth & The Creative Process

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. The most spectacular human being on the planet was born five years ago tomorrow. I mean my own small son, of course....

The Most Grueling Stretch of Winter

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. You know the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz? They are the terrifying, taloned, swooping creatures allied with the...

Embodied Waves: Flowing

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I was happy to arrive on time to Jonathan Horan’s sold-out, one day workshop “5Rhythms Fundamentals: Embodied Waves” that...

Notes on Practice: You Won’t Hear This with Your Ears

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I arrived on time to Tammy’s class on Friday, excessively bundled as the nearly balmy night was set in a string of frigid...

Are You “In” or “Out”?

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I was happy to arrive on time to Jonathan Horan’s sold-out, one day workshop “5Rhythms Fundamentals: Embodied Waves” that...

Mindfulness and Awareness in 5Rhythms Practice

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Today I went to one of my favorite places—a quiet spot next to a river that my grandfather loved.  Though it was cold, I...

The Winter Solstice, the Dis-comfort Zone & the “No Talking” Rule

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I arrived a few minutes late to Tammy’s class on Friday, once again, although this time I was legitimately...

Making, Process, Progress, Challenge and Growth

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Somehow on Friday I managed to arrive a little late to Tammy’s Night Waves class, although I arrived in front of the...

A Week Like This Should Not Go Un-danced

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.   I didn’t think that I would be able to dance last night, but a babysitter came through at the last moment.  I was...

My Private Sadness

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Tammy’s “Faint of Heart” Heartbeat workshop took place over three days at the Martha Graham Dance Studio in the West...

Out of Town

November 29, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I have been away from New York for a few days visiting my parents in northern Connecticut.  Since I...

Divination by Birds’ Flight

November 24, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. One of my favorite things to dance to is the flight of pigeon flocks, especially as they are directed...

In the Middle

October 26, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Lately, I have a very strong sense of being in the middle of many exciting trajectories.  My very first...

I Think the Theme is Pain

October 19, 2014   This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Occasionally, I suffer with this weird pain.  It feels like the sciatic pain I had in my legs during...

Everything is Perfect

October 5, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.  Everything is perfect.   Even when it is all a gigantic mess. I showed up to Tammy’s class on Friday,...

Endless Space

August 30, 2014This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I dreamt of rainbows.They came dancing in.(2010) While on vacation in Cape Cod, I saw the most vivid...

I Danced Myself Empty Today

August 10, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. I danced myself empty today. I showed up tired and a little sore from Friday night’s dance and a long...

Family Waves August 2, 2014

August 3, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Taught by teacher-trainee Alex de Willermin, the second meeting of the Family Waves class—the first...

Edges, Devotion & Drunken Sailors

July 21, 2014This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.I did not dance for two consecutive Fridays; and was eager to get to dance on Friday night.  There was a...

“Family Waves” Inaugural Class

July 14, 2014, Brooklyn, New YorkThis blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.Family Waves, the first regularly-occurring 5Rhythms class in New York City to...

Bringing the Dance to Life

June 28, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Kiera taught in Tammy’s stead on Friday. I loved her comments on Stillness in particular—that in...

The Lion’s Cage

June 22, 2014This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.Two posts ago I wrote about how I have worked with having aversion to someone in dance.  In the last post I...

Pull, Push and Related Factors in Dance

June 8, 2014This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.My last post was about the phenomenon of aversion in dance—how I work with it when I discover that I really...

How I Work with Aversion in Dance

May 18, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms organization or teacher. Friday I arrived to class twenty minutes late. I tried to find a place to stretch on the floor, but the room...

Word Dance Workshop

April 29, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms organization or teacher. Jewel Mathieson’s Word Dance 5Rhythms workshop this past weekend was a journey that I have few words for....

Parenting (Pregnancy and First Weeks)

April 6, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Dancing 5Rhythms with my small son has made me a better and more reflective parent; and has helped me to...

Exuberance & Gratitude

March 30, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Writing is so much like dance, in that I never know what will happen when I jump in. If I am lucky, I dive...

Lessons Arising from Injury and Even More Notes on Flowing

March 9, 2014 This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms organization or teacher. Dancing on Friday night, I moved with about 60% intensity, as I am still tentative after a recent groin/quad...

Halting, Tentative Steps

February 22, 2014 All of the remarks in this blog depict my own subjective experiences within the 5Rhythms® dancing path. I have less to write this week. My practice is correct but it doesn’t narrate as well as usual. As I wrote in the last post, I badly pulled a...

Light and Shadow, Dumbo, Brooklyn, February 14-16, 2014

February 16, 2014 It is nearly noon on Sunday, February 16th, the third day of a 5Rhythms Waves workshop, titled Light and Shadow, that I have been participating in. I sent Tammy Burstein, the teacher, a request for advice: should I come to the workshop in the name of...

Even More Thoughts on Flowing

February 9, 2014 Even More Thoughts on Flowing I really wasn’t kidding when I said that of all the five rhythms of 5Rhythms—Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness—the teachings of Flowing have had the most to offer me. I attribute this to the fact that...

More Thoughts on Flowing

January 26, 2014 More Thoughts on Flowing Class last week was patient. I entered a few minutes after the start, and met friends’ eyes, smiling, as I looked for a good spot to stretch on the floor. I stretched dynamically, using my legs and head as counterweights, and...

Thoughts on Flowing

January 19, 2014 Thoughts on Flowing The week before last in Tammy’s Waves class, I felt more relaxed and connected than in the previous class when I wrote about an un-fun night.  At one point, my mind said, “Lead with your heart,” and about a minute later Tammy said,...

Note on Practice

January 4, 2014, Brooklyn, NY Last night dance was not fun. Everyone else seemed to be having fun, but I could barely move. I notice that once I start not having fun, I wish that I could connect with someone, but at once lose my ability to connect. Most of the time, I...

5Rhythms – My Experiences – Lucia Horan’s Graceful Journey Workshop

5Rhythms – My Experiences After years of practicing Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms dance and movement meditation practice and writing extensively about my experiences, I have decided to create a blog to share some of my writings. This blog is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms...