by meghanleborious | Jan 17, 2022 | Notes on Practice
The first time I set foot in a meditation center was on Martin Luther King Day in 2007. I had to work during the day, but I felt called to find a way to observe the occasion in the evening.
I snuck in an internet search at work, and found that a meditation center in the West Village was hosting a public sit that evening. Meditation felt right to me – a way to reflect on and honor the legacy of Dr. King and countless other activists who have given their labor and lives to the cause of racial justice.
There was never a time that I didn’t meditate, but this was the first time I found myself in a mediation community. Previous to this, whenever someone brought up meditation or anything else that seemed New Age-y I would roll my eyes and make sarcastic comments, even though I was meditating daily myself.
Following this night, I was swept onto a new path entirely.
Today, I hadn’t been to dance with the ocean in a couple of weeks. I dug through storage to find ski clothes, and put on snow pants, winter boots, wool socks, a sweater, ski jacket, neck warmer, hat, and gloves.
There was very little traffic, and I arrived in less than 30 minutes. The giant parking lot at Jacob Riis Park Beach in Queens was almost completely empty, owing to the frigid temperatures.
The sand of the wide beach was laced with ice. The old wooden pilings that were being slammed by powerful waves had ice caps. And the tide was low, leaving a wide area of packed sand for a dance floor.
Once I stepped onto a path of meditation, I progressed quickly. Thankfully, the tradition I joined had an initial linear path, so I didn’t have to ask too many neurotic questions about what to do next. I just kept stepping forward.
Today, I drew a giant circle in the sand, then walked around it three times, calling my teachers, ancestors, spirits, guides, and deities. I decided to record myself this time, and pulled off my neck warmer to prop my phone onto. As I began to move in Flowing, I occasionally glanced at the phone, checking to see if I was in the frame.
I asked for answers to some questions that seemed important to me in that moment: Where does the swelling anger that rises in me at times come from? What should I do about a particular work dilemma? What is my path forward?
Less than a year after I stepped onto this meditation path, I also stepped onto the 5Rhythms dancing path, and the two traditions have worked together to dismember and remember me again and again.
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about how meditation can support racial justice, especially since I teach meditation to teens of color in a Brooklyn high school. Meditation can make us aware of the inner stories and assumptions that drive our words and actions, the necessary prerequisite for beginning to mitigate our internal biases, including internalized oppression. Meditation and other forms of practice like the 5Rhythms can also be essential triage and harm reduction for people who may be subjected daily to harms arising from living in a racist culture.
From my perspective, the purpose of practice is to be fully in reality – that is to say without the filters of coping mechanisms, escape behaviors, racist assumptions, the push and pull of desire and aversion, stuck emotions, ego attachments, unprocessed trauma, cultural conditioning, and internalized oppression.
No wonder that it was on Martin Luther King Day that I first found meditation as a path. The call is not only for individual practice, but is also a prayer for collective awakening.
Today was cold and I knew I had to get moving quickly. As soon as the giant circle in the sand was drawn, I brought attention into my feet and began to move with the pull of the deep sea and the dynamic, shifting waves and tides. I also started working with the feeling of having weight in my hands and feet, and let that draw me into circling and shift me through different levels and spinning tracked circles.
I was in no rush to leave Flowing. My body felt like it was sloshing, rolling liquid in a container. Today, I kept rising and presenting my chest, then falling back into circling. I sang whatever bits of songs drifted into my mind, grateful to be almost completely alone and more free to vocalize. Lately, I let my body dip and fall in circling, then catch my weight and spin again around the track I’ve created.
Work has been shitty lately, and it doesn’t seem like I have many options to improve it at the moment. I didn’t expect Staccato to arise easily, so when it did it surprised me. First it just peeked through my patient, delighted circling. I took off my coat and moved with confidence and vigor, still bursting my chest forward, now sitting back low, squatting, dropping, growling, and calling out with guttural force. I moved forward and back in a line, hesitating then bursting, then stepping back across, using the elbows to power my gestures, receiving an answer to one of my burning questions.
I kept myself in Staccato just a little longer when I was already feeling the pull of Chaos, and finally letting myself fall into it. After the drawn-out ferocity of Staccato, I thought I would stay in Chaos at length, but today it blew through like a storm. Lyrical, the fourth of the five rhythms, lifted me and also blew through quickly.
Stillness found me tiny, a little speck in a gigantic landscape with the roaring sea stretching to the wide horizon and luminous overcast sky huge above me.
A few weeks before when I was dancing with the sea, a pod of whales appeared, shooting water through their blowholes, with a crowd of sea birds swarming around them.
At this point, I started crying from the throat and belly, almost braying. I don’t even know what rhythm I was in at this point. In fact, most of my practice today happened after the first wave completed itself. I kept thinking about the whale that was beached here in December, how it died alone. I thought about the likely future for whales, the likely future for the earth, and ongoing, entrenched injustices. I cried a lot, pausing to compose myself when a lone pair of beach walkers strolled by, then shifting into a bounding Lyrical, then back into sobbing. Now I was moving with gratitude and freedom, still sobbing, still moving. I laughed at myself, then started crying even louder.
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.
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, and meditation facilitator who has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and recently became a 5Rhythms teacher. She was inspired to begin chronicling her experiences following her very first class; and she sees the writing process as an extension of practice—yet another way to be moved and transformed. This blog is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. Photos courtesy of the writer.
by meghanleborious | Dec 25, 2021 | Notes on Practice
“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 sick, I don’t think it’s a good idea if he’s in the classroom. There are over 20 students in here. What if it’s Covid.”
“Listen, I can guarantee you’ve already had sick kids in your room. Just make sure everyone keeps the mask on. I’m sorry, but it’s the only option,” the nurse said firmly.
***
Symptoms started for me on Tuesday night, though I wasn’t sure it was Covid. I woke up at 3AM with a headache and felt odd. I wasn’t sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, or if I had some kind of allergies or sinus infection. Simon, my 11-year-old son, seemed ok, but I kept both of us home as a precaution.
Both of us had waited in line for four hours on Saturday and tested negative on the PCR and rapid test. I left Simon home by himself and went again to wait in the long line for testing. Again, I got a negative on a rapid test.
Extended family held their breath as we waited for PCR results. Late Thursday they finally came in.
“Negative!”
“Negative! That’s great! It’s going to be a great Christmas this year. We’ll see you tomorrow,” my Dad said.
The rattle-y, respiratory dissonance must be from a cold or some other kind of virus, I reasoned. I would wear a mask just in case. I continued to wrap gifts and pack for our trip.
The next morning, Christmas Eve Day, Simon’s symptoms started to kick in. I heard him coughing before I even got out of bed. I was able to get an immediate sick visit at his doctor.
“You both tested negative on the weekend, and you just got negative PCR results yesterday? And you’ve been in since Tuesday night? You’re probably good then. I could just swab him in case since you’re here, though.”
The doctor came back and told us he was positive from outside the examination room, “No Christmas for you this year! You have to stay home,” she said. Then ushered us quickly out while opening up the window and rushing in with Lysol.
By sheer luck, I was able to get hard-to-find rapid tests at the pharmacy across the street from Simon’s doctor. This time, mine also came back positive.
This was a frightening near miss. My parents, Simon’s grandparents, are 71 years old.
I don’t know for sure if I was infected by my student. There is so much Covid at the moment, it is hard to say. Many of my students’ families have shared that their kids have symptoms, but were not able to officially test because they couldn’t wait in line for hours and couldn’t find rapid tests at any local stores.
I put away all the stuff I was packing to go away for the holiday. Then I cleaned the shit out of the apartment, picked some music that called me, and settled in to dance.
My living room is easily converted to a dance studio. The rug has a big, long cut so I can easily roll it without moving the couch off it and reveal the hardwood floor. I swept the grit from underneath it, too.
This time I decided to record myself dancing, something I haven’t done since the first long year of Covid.
The first song I play is “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues – which starts out with the lyrics:
“It’s Christmas Eve, babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won’t see another one.”
In the video, as soon as the melancholy story starts, so do my tears. I think I was crying for multiple reasons, including the exhaustion of nearly two years of fear and anxiety. I fall right into lively spinning and dipping despite the phlegm in my throat and lungs. Part of the song shifts into Lyrical as the story moves into a fantasy about New York, and I move with energy in tracked and lifting circles.
I took care to breathe extra deeply, and to drink a lot of water. I had to stop often to blow my nose, especially when I was crying.
I included extra flowing songs in this playlist, as I anticipated a lot of inertia due to illness, but (to my surprise) when I stepped in, I had plenty of energy and inspiration. I continued to circle, sometimes wobbling backward into my hips, swaying from side to side as I lifted from spin and back into it. My arms look released and awake, and these little ribbons of Lyrical keep lifting them up and then dropping me back into low, weighted, grooved spinning.
“We Might as Well Dance” by Madeleine Peyroux, a song suggested to me by a friend, brings my circling to an ever-wider radius. I alternate between gratitude and grief, sometimes smiling, sometimes holding my sore swollen throat and groaning.
I started thinking about the Italian folk dance, the Tarantella. There are some conflicting accounts, but some believe that the dance originally arose as a way to save the life of a villager who had been bitten by a poisonous spider. The idea was that to survive, the victim would have to dance the poison out. Musicians would play wildly to keep her moving and the entire community would assemble to dance along, for hours or even sometimes days, to help the dancer stay alive.
A new staccato song I can’t trace the origin of comes on. The beginning is mysterious and I’m not even sure it’s a staccato track, but within 20 seconds I’m hooked in – dancing right back into my hips, low. I make the arm of the couch a partner, sweeping my leg over it, pausing mid air, pushing my foot against it and finding a whole new set of movements. Thankfully, though the song is energetic, there are a lot of spacious rests and the tempo is not too fast. During a pause I cough heavily, then start this diagonal dropping and cutting, bringing the knees in ferociously, letting the elbows express themselves freely, sometimes in big arcs in front of my face, sometimes leading me in a dropping spin.
I pause to cough and drink water again, still grooving, then hold both my arms out, palms up, and rock side to side while shifting one hand higher, then the other, like a living balance scale.
I started thinking of Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, and that she died of lung cancer. I interviewed her during the time that she had lung cancer. Once, she had to postpone because her voice was too weak to talk. I was thinking, too, of how vulnerable my own lungs felt. I imagined that Gabrielle was there with me, standing firm and holding the sides of my ribcage, sending healing to the lungs, reminding me that I had a lot of work to do in this world yet, that there was still a path in front of me.
I tried to put my parents’ neighbor, who just died of Covid at age 45 despite being vaccinated, out of my head.
Today while I’m watching back the video of myself dancing, Simon asks me to cut the sound and put on Christmas music, since it is after all Christmas morning.
“And none of that weird Christmas music from yesterday, Mom! Real Christmas music!”
I oblige, and shift to listening to Burl Ives and watching myself without music.
I look really happy and engaged in this part, I think it’s a Dre beat that I love. I can see my energy dip periodically, my shoulders and elbows lock a little, especially on the left side, then move back into sometimes blurry-fast-engaged, no-holding-back Staccato.
My arms are both extended straight up and my face is contorted. I put one hand on my ribcage and then the other, praying for my own full recovery and for Simon’s. I raise both arms back up and turn left and right at 30 degrees, straight up and down like a cake mixer, my face still crumpled. Wiping tears, I go back to moving around my entire individual dance floor – the twinkling Christmas tree in the background of the frame.
All of these long months of the pandemic, I had worked so hard to keep us safe, taking every precaution, drilling the importance of mask-wearing and hand-washing into Simon, wearing the finish off the floors with bleach cleaning, staying home for long stretches. At one point I didn’t even get into the car for over two months. I was so afraid of the long-term impacts on the body – all the horrifying accounts I’d heard, some of them first hand.
And here we were with Covid. All that aversion and warding off and pushing away and fear and constraint. And now nothing left to do but accept, drink lots of fluids, monitor ourselves, and try to avoid infecting others.
We spent Christmas eve home in Brooklyn, playing Scrabble and drawing together at the table – me, Simon and my not-husband, his father.
***
And now in the video it’s clear that Chaos has taken me over completely. I remember originally thinking I should pick a chaos song that wouldn’t drive too hard. And then I change my mind, add a heavy-drumming Rishi and Harshil track, and throw down: moving low, raising my knees and stepping on every fast beat like I have percussion instruments tied to my ankles. I’m going crazy now, my head released and fast, jiggling and throbbing and flinging, gestures flipping through the spine from the tailbone and out my coiling head.
I click slightly forward in the video, and now I’m smiling and playful, though still moving so fast I’m blurry. This is the lighter chaos track that I had originally picked – a song that always inspires me.
I open a door and disappear from the frame here, going to ask Simon if he will please dance with me. He declines, but I come back and set the intention to dance for both of us, energy rising up, lilting. I imagine that sickness is leaving us, exiting in whirls into the air above.
I take another drink of water, and ride the wave into Stillness, moving with a tender cover of “Higher Love.”
My aunt sent a video of multiple family members wishing Simon a Merry Christmas at a family party, and he buried his face in a pillow and cried.
Later, Simon developed a fever and was too dizzy to shower. Tylenol brought the fever down, but I was still concerned, and monitored him for a lot of the night.
Today, Christmas, I worked hard to make a happy occasion in collaboration with my not-husband. Today, Simon seemed to appreciate his gifts. He even said, “Do you ever have that feeling that you can’t stop smiling?”
Bending over to tie up my hair, I feel the weight in my lungs pulling down from the bottom to the top with gravity as I am bent upside down. Simon is drawing in his room, my not-husband is watching a video and resting. Soon, they’ll go for a walk to get some fresh air, and I’ll dance again. Maybe they’ll even dance with me later.
I’m not sure if I’m the one who has been bitten by the spider, or the villager who is supporting her in staying alive by dancing in wild frenzy at her side.
December 25, 2021
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, and meditation facilitator who has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and recently completed the 5Rhythms teacher training. She was inspired to begin chronicling her experiences following her very first class; and she sees the writing process as an extension of practice—yet another way to be moved and transformed. This blog is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. Images in this post are courtesy of the writer. The blue drawing is by the artist and depicts the wing of a great horned owl.
by meghanleborious | Nov 24, 2021 | Notes on Practice
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 see the almost-full lunar eclipse on Thursday night. The bad news is that I had another night of poor sleep. Nights of poor sleep have been too frequent lately. I just haven’t had enough time to process my experiences given the pace of work lately.
Saturday was another sleepless night. At one point I jumped up and ran to the window, hearing screaming and fearing someone was in danger. Then I heard, “Happy Belated!” and realized it was just people celebrating. I did fall asleep at some point, but slept less than two hours in total.
“You know, I don’t have that problem,” one of my close advisors shared, “I just lay down and I let the day go and that’s that. You can’t hold onto that stuff.” I gritted my teeth, knowing he was trying to help, but feeling judged and annoyed.
Sunday I dragged. It was hard to form thoughts. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I was quick to tears and slow to regulate.
In the afternoon, I went for a massage. My trusted massage therapist (who I visit once every four or five months) was not available so I went to a new person at the same studio. I practiced my lines on the way over, “I haven’t had a massage in a long time, and I’m feeling really sensitive, so if it doesn’t feel right, I’m going to need to cancel. It’s nothing personal.”
For whatever reason, I trusted him right away. He started with my neck and back. My muscles cramped and relaxed again and again. I was able to stay present in the pain, although at times it was very intense.
The tears started within five minutes. At first just dripping down through the face-shaped hole in the massage table, but by the time the masseuse started working through the knots on my right shoulder I was crying more loudly.
Recollections of the fights at the school where I work drifted in and out. Of the time when a student charged into my room, going after another student. Then after I pushed him out, the same student banging on the door, along with several of his friends. Of the fight when kids barricaded themselves in a room, and several filmed it and posted videos. Of other experiences in my life when I felt unsafe or vulnerable.
When he was working on the nerve tangles around my sacrum, I got very activated then very relaxed. I really felt like a spirit, somehow. I thought, “I might die now. I think I’m going to die,” realizing that letting go of the fear that was controlling my body felt like a potential threat to my survival.
By the time he got to the nerve tangle in my right hip and gluteal, I was scream-crying, sobbing and trying to suck air in, wondering if the asymptomatic case of COVID that lead to a recent positive antibody test had impacted my lungs because I couldn’t seem to get a breath.
He ended with a head massage, with a lot of attention to the base of the skull.
I felt very relaxed at the end, and kind of transparent.
Today was better. Work is still a lot but I have drawn some boundaries. Classes flowed and there were threads of joy.
After school, some students came to visit since they had extra time before basketball practice. “Guys, I’m about to dance. You either have to go or dance,” I said.
“Ok, I’ll dance,” one good-humored, receptive student shrugged.
“Naw. I’m not dancing,” another said.
“Me either. At my middle school they forced me to be in a dance club that the dean taught. They all laughed at me, and when I told them to fuck off I got in trouble.”
“Well, you can’t just sit there and watch the two of us. That’s just weird.”
“Fine. Ok. I guess we’ll dance.”
I had mixed feelings about giving up my personal practice time, but was curious to see what could happen. I figured it would last five minutes or so.
In the end, we danced for 45 minutes and ended sucking wind and dripping with sweat.
“Can we use the ball?” one student asked, picking up the plush globe that I use as a talking piece to pass around for circle discussions in classes.
“Sure, that’s a good idea,” I answered.
I put on a flowing song that sounds like a video game.
“Ok, so now every time you pass the ball, you have to spin around first.”
We started playing with spinning and dropping, all moving around the room.
I said, “Ok, now drop your weight way down when you spin,” and we all did our own version of the prompt.
I put on another flowing song, this one quite a bit edgier, and they started getting in each other’s faces in a playful way. I put the song on freeze, and they all froze, then moved, then froze, then moved.
I pulled out another “ball” as I put on a staccato track, and watched the magic unfold. We took turns with the spotlight, including the kid with dance trauma, cheering each other on. We moved into partnership, the kids delightfully present with each other, flexing and advancing, busting complex moves with attitude and precision, sarcastic but real, alive and honest and present.
Eventually I had to kick them out so I could dance like a wild animal and not worry that if I raised my arms my back might show. But they want to do this every day.
I could think of worse things.
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, and meditation facilitator who has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and is currently enrolled in the 5Rhythms teacher training. She was inspired to begin chronicling her experiences following her very first class; and she sees the writing process as an extension of practice—yet another way to be moved and transformed. This blog is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. Photos in this post are from blogs.nasa.gov.
by meghanleborious | Aug 14, 2021 | Notes on Practice
I have the most mosquito bites I’ve ever had per square inch of skin. The most affected area is my left calf, but there are bites covering my entire body.
This year I’m spending the summer with my parents in Northern Connecticut, along with my 11-year-old son, Simon. In the past, I brought a heavy duty speaker and set it up under a shady maple tree to dance. A big patch of grass was worn away by mid-August last year and the dirt was dusty and hard packed.
On the days I didn’t dance in the yard, I would run to a place I love in the woods by the humble Scantic River and dance there instead.
This summer, I didn’t bring the heavy duty speaker, so my best option has been to dance in the woods.
The only problem is the mosquitos.
On Monday there were a lot of mosquitos. But Tuesday and Wednesday were ridiculous.
Turning down the road into the woods, gnats and mosquitos swarmed my face. Both days, I was happy to find my favorite spot available, and no one fishing anywhere nearby. Making sure I was alone, I created a circle on the sandy riverbank, asking all ancestors, deities, guides, and protectors to support me in my practice. The mosquitos smothered me as I moved through this ritual, landing on my arms and biting right through my leggings. At one point, I looked down and there were five mosquitos all attached to one leg.
I realized it was either leave the woods or surrender, so I stopped my wild swatting and said, “Ok, mosquitos, have at it! Feast on me for all you’re worth.” And I started to move in Flowing. I found that the more I moved the more I was able to discourage the mosquitos from landing, but they continued to bite as I turned my attention to the soles of the feet, noticing the pull of gravity and allowing it to draw me into circling.
Sustaining attention throughout an entire 5Rhythms wave for nearly an hour both days, I barely noticed the tiny parasites.
Later, scratching the many bites on my legs, I asked myself if this was really the best idea. It was a valuable experience to decide to re-cast something that was extremely unpleasant into something neutral, but I thought I might have to suspend the woods practice at least temporarily if the mosquitos kept up at this level.
I wasn’t feeling inspired about moving in any other spot, though.
So I decided to try a little harder to make it work. I laid leggings, a tank top, baseball hat, running shoes, and socks over a chair on the deck and sprayed them down with a highly concentrated Deet bug repellent. As soon as the Deet dried I put all of this on. Despite the over-100 soaring temperatures and high humidity, I also pulled on a pair of light, loose pants over the leggings, hoping to thwart the mosquitos who had bitten me right through the leggings on the previous two days. I tucked in the tank top and tied the pants at the waist. Finally, I sprayed my exposed skin with a citronella bug repellent, and sprayed my sneakers again for good measure.
I told Simon I would be back shortly and set out for the woods. Today, I once again found my favorite spot available. Again, I drew a circle in the sand of the riverbank and asked for support. The mosquitos were still thick but they didn’t seem to be swarming my head as much.
Since I’ve been training to become a 5Rhythms teacher, my practice takes one of two frames. Either I work with what’s inside and around me, allowing whatever needs to arise. Or I practice teaching, talking out loud and providing prompting to an imaginary class. Today, I taught to a class.
In practice, I never know what will arise. Today, I led my class into Flowing from the ground up, encouraging them to patiently enter the space, to connect with the floor, to consider helping me to move around the perimeter of the room, recognizing that space is sacred because we choose to define it as sacred.
In nature, with no music, on an angled river bank, I could feel the pull of gravity and of the earth’s center, so I initiated a theme of feeling the immense density, the magnetic pull of the earth’s center, and allowing it to pull us into weighted circling.
A pickup truck drove by, rushing the road gravel not far from my sandy riverbank. I looked out the side of my eye, wishing for solitude and hoping they would leave quickly. I continued to move anyway, regardless of self consciousness and a slight flavor of fear. Thankfully, they pulled out again long before Staccato sparked.
Occasionally I said too much, diluting the power of my prompts, so I backed up and offered the same prompt again, aiming to be economical with words, to say just what was needed.
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.
I invited them to meet a partner with their elbows as my breath grew sharp and I began to snap and cut the hips. Each partner took a turn to dance their heart, while the other partner witnessed. I kept bringing my gaze to a nearby tree stump – a sort of surrogate partner. “What if none of these gestures are arbitrary?” I offered. “What if this moment is your destiny? What would it mean to meet your destiny in this moment? What are you holding back right now? What more can you give right now?” This series of prompts hitched a sob in my throat, and I lowed slowly, feeling tears rise as I continued to move.
After meeting every partner in the space, we started to notice that holding all of those stories was too much. “You are not responsible for all of these stories,” I said. “You don’t have to hold them in your body. You can let them in completely and then let them all go.”
Chaos was vivid, emphatic. I found new patterns and new ways to disorganize my patterns. “Nothing to grasp toward, nothing to push away,” I intoned. “What are you holding back?” I said evenly as I hung my baseball hat on a cut off branch and released my head completely. “This moment is your destiny. There is nothing but this.”
Lyrical found me looping and extending, energetically porous, circling in an entirely different way. I led myself and the imaginary class through the portal of the body and into infinite space, sharing an ancient practice that was given to me by a sky goddess.
When the final gestures of Stillness concluded, it occurred to me that I’d been in the woods for a long time, and that I needed to get back and make sure Simon was ok. I again noticed the pesky mosquitos and the grueling heat, marveling that I hadn’t paid attention to either for at least an hour – and perhaps quite a lot more – as I had been absorbed in this beautiful practice.
I wondered what else in my life I can decide not to be irritated by, and what ways I can give more, what ways I can step up for the life that is right in front of me, the destiny that calls me to it and is only available right now – the rest is just holding back.
Meghan LeBorious is an artist, writer, and meditation teacher who lives in Brooklyn, New York. This blog consists of her own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Photos are courtesy of the author.
by meghanleborious | Aug 9, 2021 | Notes on Practice
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, including my 11-year old son, Simon, and three other kids. Maybe the drain from this long year of isolation and uncertainty made us crave time with family more than usual, though I found that I still needed a lot of time alone.
Each morning I packed a small bag with drinking water, a towel, goggles, and swim cap, then hiked around jetties and down several beaches to the two-mile-long West Dennis beach. Then I would put my bag under a lifeguard chair and walk until it felt far enough and swim back to where I started. On the way I might be rocked by choppy waves, find beachgoers’ lost treasures, or observe golden sand ripples and busy crabs under calm water.
A storm at sea made the water so turbulent and green-grey opaque that I was afraid sharks would be near the shore. I put on my bathing suit and packed my bag anyway, this time putting loose legged pajamas back on over my suit and tying my towel and bag inside a plastic shopping bag so they wouldn’t get soaked.
I planned to dance a 5Rhythms wave on the sand, then decide later if I would still swim along the shore. The tide was nearly high and there was not much packed sand to move on, but I started to circle in Flowing, giving full attention to my feet as they churned half moons and indentations in the sand. The rain faded from the center of my attention and I got wetter as my body warmed up from moving. After some time, I realized I hadn’t given any attention at all to the sea, and shifted to feeling the pull of its depths and moving with the broken, asymmetrical waves as they were dragged back into the sea’s body.
At the beginning of the week, I had noticed a rare arising. My inner talk was gently confident and self-compassionate. In contrast, on this day, I could feel the drag of inner currents; and self hatred kept flaring. I dropped lower and returned attention to my circling feet every time I noticed my mind turn against me, or turn away from the feet, the wind, the sea, the feeling of rain and mist on my skin, the sounds of crashing waves and crying birds, or the smell of seaweed and salt.
I expanded my radius briefly but a heavy cache of sharp slipper shells was too much for me and I returned to a smaller area. The tide was climbing higher, leaving me just a thin margin of packed sand for my dance floor. A longing I don’t have language for swelled in my throat. I moved in this small space, and kept my wide pajama legs clear of the landing waves to avoid getting totally drenched. These factors became part of my dance, too.
As the sand darkened with wet, I moved into a short phase of Staccato. A lone beach walker with her rain jacket tied tightly around her face approached. I moved toward the water, making space for her as I sank into the hips, exhaling strongly and moving emphatically as the waves rose and crashed.
Chaos came and went quickly on this day. My spine coiled, curved, and twisted – gestures originating in the hips and tailbone, then whipping along the length of the vertebrae and out the top of the head.
I threw a piece of drift-plastic close to my towel so I would remember to put it in the trash can on the way out and a black-faced tern hovered just above it, thinking it might be a snack. More terns and several seagulls came rushing in. The wind caused them to jerk and wobble, ready to fight over it.
I rose up onto my toes and followed the birds, moving in light, extended loops as they expanded into wider and wider orbits, cutting the wind with the flats of my hands as they changed direction and arced back around. The wind passed right through me as much as it whipped my hair and clothing.
Stillness was several breaths of gazing at the wide horizon and balancing different parts of me against other parts.
This led into a yoga practice which seemed to last a long time. I moved around my small dance floor to find better packed sand for my hands and feet so I could balance more easily, frequently changing the direction of my front from east to west so a different hip would be tipping downhill. Sand caked my wet skin and pajama pants as I stretched on the ground.
Eventually I settled into a sitting pose just past the tongues of waves and wrapped a big towel around my shoulders against the rain, resting my hands on my knees. I usually spend time tucking myself into a custom-made sand cushion so I can meditate comfortably, but on this day, I moved effortlessly into a comfortable seat. I rocked side to side with the wind, wet and covered with sand, still subject to an indescribable longing, still grateful for time with family, and feeling absorbed by the elements, blissfully connected.
My brother walked onto the beach just as I was about to leave so I joined him for a swim before heading back to re-join the rest of the family.
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher. Photos are courtesy of the author. Meghan LeBorious is an artist, writer, and meditation teacher who lives in Brooklyn, New York.
