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Coming Into Alignment

by | Aug 18, 2022 | Notes on Practice

Practice aligns me.

This week, in West Dennis Cape Cod with extended family, my mornings are devoted to practice with the ocean. Today was my earliest start time this week, since many of my family members–including my 12-year-old son–were up early for a deep sea fishing trip. By 7:30, I was walking ankle deep in the waves toward West Dennis Beach. 

I treat all parts of this process as practice, which is to say that from the time that I leave the cottage to the time that I return, I do my best to settle into the experience and not press forward, wishing time away. It also means that I show up every day–or nearly every day–regardless of conditions and sometimes regardless of what I feel like doing. For example, yesterday’s forecast was for 100% likelihood of rain. I wasn’t eager to get up early and head out to the sea, but I pushed a little, recognizing that practice means you don’t evaluate it every day; and you don’t allow your mind to have a conversation with itself about the pros and cons. I put my towel in a plastic shopping bag so when I got out of the water it wouldn’t be drenched, and headed out.

Today was bright and high tide was falling. My mom, who is delightful, enthusiastic, walked with me for a while. We paused to interact with a dog, fondly remembering our own dog of many years ago who was mostly the same breed as this one based on our best guess.

After I passed the Lighthouse Inn, I pulled out swim goggles and cap, peeled off the layer I had on over my bathing suit, then dropped my backpack with afterswim supplies on the sand and continued west. 

Walking away from the morning sun, I gave my attention to the feet as they fell on the ultra-soft sand, to the sound of the waves, and to my moving body, inviting the shoulders to relax down, the belly to soften, and the hips to deepen in their sockets. Whenever I shifted into a story, a plan, an explanation, an analysis of my body’s symmetry, or an argument for or against my good character, I noted it and gently shifted attention back to the feet when I could so without excessive effort.

At Bass River, the boundary between West Dennis and Yarmouth, I turned my back to the wind and bent over to gather my hair in my hands, then stood up and turned toward the wind to coil it just behind the crown of my head. I put on the bathing cap and goggles, then hesitated briefly, tightening my shoulders against the cold water and wind, then wading in and diving hands first, heading back east. 

There was a fierce chop today, and the wind was coming from the southwest, an assist on today’s eastward journey. In a pool, once my attention starts to settle with movement, I move my focus throughout the body. But in the ocean, there is usually plenty to anchor my attention in the present. Today, the waves rolled across me, lifting me up and casting me down, and I had to pay attention to the timing of my breaths to avoid getting a mouthful. The water was ochre and gold, the bottom rippled sand or obscured in stands of seaweed. I noted razor shells, clam shells, one big conch with an animal still inside it, and horseshoe crabs underneath me. 

Periodically, I lowered a leg down to make sure I could still stand. I can handle the deep water just fine as a swimmer, but a (somewhat irrational) fear of sharks keeps me close to shore. And I figure if a shark ever does attack me, I’ll have a better chance of survival if I can stand up on my feet and punch them in the nose. I have it all figured out.

That doesn’t stop me from an occasional mounting shark panic, but I try to see even that emergence of fear as another opportunity to work with my mind.

I’ve been doing this swim or a similar swim for over 20 years now. It started back when I actually competed in triathlons, and really took off when my sister was doing triathlons too. Those days are long gone, but I still love long swims in the ocean. At first it was an occasional thing, at any time of the day it happened to fit. Over the years, I noted how much it helps me–not just during the week that I’m doing it but in the bigger picture, too–and became more and more committed to the point that I actually plan around it, even declining the offer to join a deep sea fishing trip with my son, my Dad, and other family members this morning.

That’s just how it went when I started to dance the 5Rhythms 15 years ago. At first it was just a class or two here or there. But within less than a year I was planning my life around attending Tammy Burstein’s Friday Night Waves class in the West Village, and also added whatever additional classes I could squeeze in and every workshop that came up. 

Everything changed for me then. I galloped through layers of trauma and learned habitual patterns. Creativity exploded. I was able to connect with people with much greater intimacy. I was more playful. Walking on the sidewalk in Midtown became a game. 

I also moved through agonizing stretches of feeling isolated, witnessing my own self abuse, and coping with difficult emotions, but following each period of agony somehow emerged even more committed to practice.

After the wild west end of the beach, I passed the first lifeguard chair: white painted wood with a red number 8 on its side. The wind and waves helped me out, and I continued to note each successive chair from 7 all the way to 1 as I made it the two miles back to my backpack in what seemed like a shorter time than usual.

I moved quickly to the towel, then changed my wet bathing suit for loose pants and long sleeve shirt. I sat for a while in meditation, then decided to do some yoga movements to warm myself up. Once I was warm I sat for longer, in no particular hurry to get on to anything else.

Last night, I danced the 5Rhythms. I walked with some family members, but they headed west and I stayed put. The evening beach was more crowded than I hoped, but I found a quiet-ish corner to practice. The tide was high and I circled up and down from the high tide line as I began to move in the rhythm of Flowing. In this session I made a clear distinction between each of the five rhythms–Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness–as I moved through each of them. I could see my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and niece in the distance, occasionally bending over to gather a treasure, and figured I would dance just until they made it back to me. After moving through each of the rhythms, an internal gear slipped me deeply into Stillness, and I whisper moved with the waves, the horizon, and the soaring birds. Vision tracked energy. I could feel heat rising to my cheekbones and the crown of my head. Chemical releases in my leg muscles set loose a shake. When they were almost back to me, I reconnected with my feet, intending to reconnect with day-to-day reality, though practice had opened the doorway to a different layer.

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.

Thank you, my beautiful son. Thank you, family. Thank you, ocean. Thank you, Gabrielle Roth. Thank you, practice. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I bow down to the universe, to my teachers, and to this precious life.

August 18, 2022, West Dennis, Cape Cod

 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.

***For NYC dancers, Meghan has a seven-class 5Rhythms series coming up that starts on October 14, “Spirit Drenched in Gold.” Join a single class or join the full series for a discount. Registration is required – https://spiritdrenchedingold.eventbrite.com

***Meghan also has a five-class online writing/dance 5Rhythms “Writing Waves” class that starts on September 15. Registration is required – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/writing-waves-tickets-397987811257

To The Waves and the Wind

by | Aug 23, 2020 | Notes on Practice

The wind was blowing west so I decided to move in the same direction, in sync with the waves. It was like using a pedal-assist bike. Each time I pulled the water with my cupped hand I shot forward. The sea rocked and lifted my body, and I kept my senses immersed, timing breathing with the rolling swells. After several days of this daily ritual, I started to feel grounded, like I could let go of the stress and anxiety of the previous months and move into the oncoming stress and anxiety with less baggage. 

Usually by the end of July I’m really starting to relax. I look my best and feel my best. But this year, as fall looms, my stress level is increasing rather than decreasing as I scramble to organize conditions for my ten-year-old son, Simon’s, schooling, and prepare for my own job, which is also in a school, during the ongoing pandemic.

Driving to Cape Cod with my Dad, we ranged through heavy topics, like the upcoming election and issues related to racial justice. I used an expression – I wish I could remember what it was now – and realized I had no idea about its origin. I shared that for all I knew, it could have racist roots and I should find out its history before I used it again. My Dad shared that he had recently heard an expression that definitely has racist roots, but was used in conversation without its original intention. He felt that if the original intention was lost, it was no longer problematic. I disagreed with him, and we also talked about whether or not the association of light with positive things, and of dark with negative things might have a racial implication. He felt like this was going too far, and expressed frustration. I said, “I’m not trying to shut anyone down or make it impossible for anyone to express themselves. But I’m very interested in mining language for clues about my unconscious and the culture I’ve been raised in. And everything seems like fair game for examination at this point.” 

Something small triggered me one evening during the week, and I realized how sensitive I was. I took a break and went to the beach as sunset lit the sky. Walking west, I talked by phone with my brother, who advised me there had been a significant COVID spike in the area of Cape Cod where we were staying along with extended family for the week. Anxiety surged in my body.

Dusk and the sky’s full expression had my back as I headed toward home. Pausing a few beaches away, I decided to dance a 5Rhythms wave, which is to move in sequence in the energy of each of the 5Rhythms – Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.

There were still some lingering beach walkers, but (feeling slightly conspicuous) I drew a big circle in the packed sand close to the water, calling my ancestors, guides, and helpers to help make a space of safety and power, where I could work with the strong emotions that were coming and hear underneath what can be heard with my ears. 

As I settled into the circling cadences of Flowing, I tried to avoid eye contact as a group passed by. “What are you dancing to?”  a middle-aged white man in a baseball hat asked curiously. “To the waves and the wind,” I answered, trying for good humor. “Oh! And you made a circle!” “Yes, there’s a lot to move with lately,” I responded in a trying-for-bantering tone as they passed, though this probably made no sense whatsoever to them.

I settled deeper into Flowing, giving myself the space to express the obvious underpinning of anxiety: fear. My mind gushed with recent news items such as the local COVID spike, conversations, possible scenarios for fall, and ideas for how to protect Simon and myself. But I kept bringing my weight low, and bringing attention back to the feet and back to the senses, gathering mindfulness, and accepting the fear that has danced with me and so many others for months now.

I doubted I would ever move from the rhythm of Flowing into the second rhythm of Staccato. Instead, I rocked myself in motion, churning up the sand in every section of my inscribed circle, but staying inside its boundaries. I gave myself the space to settle my body – language emphasized by Resmaa Menachem, whose excellent book on embodied personal, generational, and racial trauma I read over the course of this healing week.

I finally did move into Staccato, but only for short intervals, noting the increased energy and activation, then settling the body back into Flowing again and again. I sensed or imagined that a presence joined me, a dark goddess, almost a pillar in the center of my circle, energetically overlapping with my body. I moved in and out of Flowing and Staccato, feeling her power and support.

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.

I thought about Resmaa’s remarks on how important it is to know the difference between when we are productively settling the body, and when we are escaping into a calmly drugged state.  This led me to reflect that intuition, conditioned responses, and trauma responses can look very similar, and how important it is to learn to discern between the three, especially as we are working to unravel racism in our bodies, minds, and cultures. 

The next morning, I did my swim as usual, gently rocked by the sea as I moved along the shore. I went past the lifeguards, past the beachgoers, and nearly to a river in the town of Yarmouth. After some time, I emerged from the waves and walked back east. 

I stopped at the beach I’d danced on the night before to pick up an exquisite piece of beach glass – with smoothed edges and frosted white surfaces – and held it in my hand. 

I turned toward the ocean, remembering my dance of the night before, with tears streaming down my face. I could feel the entire universe in this one little piece of glass – the sand used to form it, the fire process that made it into glass, the person who used it and held it, the process by which it made its way into the sea, the vast body of the ocean and its endless motions smoothing the edges of things, and bringing this little piece of glass in with the tide, and now into my open hand.

***

Simon was already on the beach with my Mom when I finally made it back, so we got into the water together, playing at climbing onto an inflatable raft and trying to tip each other over, then letting the waves rock us and talking about the world and our place in it.

August 10, 2020, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.

Photo1: Photo of artwork by Meghan LeBorious. Please not copy without permission. Photo2: https://www.theknot.com/us/christine-mariano-and-adam-frymoyer