I’m sitting at a heavy wood table, with pillar candles flickering in the fireplace. As it’s gotten darker, the snowfall has gotten faster.
The first thing I saw when I walked into Karen Ritscher’s Fire in the Belly 5Rhythms Heartbeat workshop in the blackbox studio at Gibney Dance was a bold installation, created by Maamoun Tabbo, with red lights and sheer, red fabric hung from high above eye level, crystals, a prominent pelvic bone, and a slinky black dress that once belonged to Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms.
It held the space beautifully, and cast a glow throughout the room.
Karen opened Friday night even to people who weren’t attending the full workshop, and it was packed. We started with a wave, which is to say that we moved through each of the 5Rhythms–Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness–in sequence.
This was the first time Karen offered the Fire in the Belly workshop, and I know it’s something she’s been called to offer for a long time.
Soon, we stepped into a partner exercise that was about working with our inner judge. To my surprise, I sped up and went into the rhythm of Chaos, moving toward and away from my partner and almost writhing into spinning. It had kind of an “in your face!” feel.
Chaos is why I first fell in love with the 5Rhythms. I spent many years of my life trying to tidy myself up, hold myself back, make myself smaller. But in Chaos, I found that I could be as gigantic as my spirit wanted to be–and that was often wild, explosive, and unruly. In so many traditions, Chaos is a thing to be tamed, to be opposed. But in the 5Rhythms, Chaos is seen as a necessary part of the creative process.
On this opening night of Fire in the Belly, however, I noticed there was a script running that believed if I became chaotic enough, I would be unknowable. I would move faster than my partner’s judgement could keep up.
This Chaos discovery was an interesting shock. Sometimes I’ve seen Chaos as a deeply-wired part of my nature. It has always seemed like a place of power and of healing for me, but this time Chaos came through like an escape habit–a way to be in a defensive position, and maybe even to outrun intimacy.
Drummer Tsonga of the Valley, Gabrielle Roth’s longtime collaborotor, and his colleague, Laura, settled in to provide rhythms for the packed room, and people went wild as the intensity rose and fell.
As I rode the J train back home to Brooklyn, I explored this new Chaos thread, and reminded myself that any seemingly skillful habit can just as easily become a type of ego armoring, depending very much on the layers of intention that we bring to it.
That night George-the-Kitten snuggled under my left armpit purring, but still I slept fitfully. I put my book away and settled into the pillow, but my system was amped up.
I found myself tangled in anxiety thinking. When a new anxiety thought would come through, I could feel the sudden release of stress chemicals near my solar plexus. It was almost like a sewage pipe suddenly bursting into action, pumping polluted water and waste into a river. Instead it was pumping chemicals into my system, as my heart rate spiked, and my muscles tightened in an almost choreographed dance. I kept noticing the scrunching of my eyes, the clenching of my arches, a lessening of space in the hip joints. Then it would start to dissipate until a new anxiety thought would come and it would trigger a new flush of chemicals.
Eventually my thoughts turned on myself directly; and I started doubting myself and my choices, and judging myself harshly.
The snow continues. I’m in a remote house in southern Connecticut, a rare night on my own. The only sounds are the occasional voices of the pets I’m here to care for.
In Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance, she writes about the Dalai Lama’s response when a western student asked him how one should deal with self-hatred. The Dalai Lama was incredulous. He asked how someone could think like that when we are all a part of Buddha nature. He just didn’t get it at all.
I watched as my mind beat me up. Eventually I must have slept, but there wasn’t even any clear moment of waking.
I gathered my things to prepare for the next day. I thought I would have a slow morning, but I ran late and had to rush.
I finally got myself to the J train to head in to Gibney Dance, but after just a couple of stops the train stopped on the track to wait for a stalled train ahead of us.
I missed most of the opening wave on Saturday, and as I stepped in Karen invited us to move back and forth across the floor, embodying qualities that block “fire in the belly” such as resistance, rigidity, and numbness.
Then she did the loveliest thing. She gathered one person’s hand, and then another’s, and just waited in silence until everyone noticed that we were moving into a circle, rose, and joined their hand to another’s.
We moved into a seated circle, and Karen shared a triangle model for us to consider: victim, savior, and perpetrator. An incredibly honest, funny conversation bubbled up, with each person spontaneously contributing real-life examples of how these roles play out in our lives–our inner victim stories, savior stories, and perpetrator stories.
When the circle dissolved, a glimpse of mirror peeked through the black velvet studio curtains; and I was surprised by my image. I’d had long hair since I was a teen, and I had just cut it short. It was thinner on the ends and in the back, and I’d basically kept it in an unruly knot at my crown for several years, dying it blond-ish to try to hide the streaky grey.
I knew it needed to be changed, but I’d been a person with long hair for so long, it was hard to imagine deleting that part of my identity.
My stylist–who I visit much less often than I technically should–is a friend from childhood. I showed her a picture of a short, curly style I’d seen muraled on a wall during a run through Ridgewood, Queens. She told me she thought she could get close to the picture. Then looked at me and said, “Are you sure you want to do this?” I surprised myself by responding, “Yes! It’s just hair, right? It will grow back if I don’t like it.”
After years of resistance to this small cosmetic change, I was suddenly bold. She started to cut and even while the hair was still wet, curls started to bounce up. She cut off the dyed hair and what was left was a blend of dark blond, light brown, grey, and white.
I peeked into the mirror, then pulled my head back, playing hide-and-seek with myself, wondering what took me so long and why I thought changing my hair was such a big deal. After so many years, I just took the leap and it was perfectly fine. Good, even.
Karen released us for lunch at this point. In the past, I would have gone outside to gather a snack or tea – a holdover from many years ago when I was a smoker and would always step out for any break. I briefly considered leaving, but decided it was too cold, and that all of my needs were met inside anyway. I assembled cheese and crackers from the lovely spread Karen and Mary Beth, the producer, arranged, and prepared a spicy black tea with milk.
For lunch, I joined inside the studio with the good friend I had shared the judgement exercise with–when I had the realization that I sometimes use Chaos to evade feeling known or judged. My friend’s impression was that I had demonstrated a big range of ways to deal with judgement, and that I kept trying out new things, rolling out new strategies. I loved this idea. It was interesting that her takeaway was so much kinder to me than my own.
Before long, more people joined us for lunch. When we were two or three, we sat in folding chairs, but as more people came, we all shifted to the ground, and widened the circle seamlessly.
Tsonga and Laura joined us on drums again on Saturday afternoon. My neck was a little sore from the night before, and I was grateful that this wave felt gentle.
I had a really hard time in a recent workshop, and here I was grateful to feel immersed, engaged, and in love with the practice.
In a partner share, I spoke something with a catch in my throat and realized its truth. That I have my dream job, and that in a lot of ways the stuff of vision boards is my reality. And, too, that a dream realized becomes subject to the challenges of day-to-day reality, though that doesn’t make it any less a dream come true.
I realized that this time for me is not so much about finding my voice and my path, as it is a matter of finding joy in all of it.
5Rhythms teacher Ann Kite from the Washington D.C area collaborated with Karen throughout the weekend. She led the opening wave on Sunday morning; and the statement I remember most is, “I want to feel everything.”
The day moved by like a river.
After Sunday lunch, Karen led us through a wave. One thing that stood out was a jaunty, playful, chugging staccato dance with a good friend. Later in the wave, I silently invited a new friend to follow me, and we moved throughout the space together, soon switching so I was following her–swooping through the empty spaces and around the other dancers, at times coming around and surprising each other and lighting up with delight.
As the light started to fade in the studio, Karen set up an exercise that gave us a chance to move with a question we were working with.
The question I posed was, “Should I stay attached to relative, everyday reality, or let that go completely and expand into the absolute?” Before this exercise I had been tired, but once we started to move, energy was perfectly available.
What unfolded was exquisitely beautiful, as one dancer represented each option and I got to interact with them. What I noticed was that I could embrace both fully. I could meet relative reality with tenderness, and could stay connected with absolute reality at the same time. It was less a binary choice than a radical allowing.
One of the dancers told me after, “I was ready to let you be with the absolute, but you kept pulling me back.”
With full darkness outside, we each took a partner and prepared to dance a prayer for an intention they shared. I was touched by partner’s supportive words when I shared my intention, and by their commitment to helping to bring my prayer into being. My partner’s intention inspired me, and I did my best to give myself wholeheartedly.
We ended in a standing circle, with each person drawing an index card from a large singing bowl and reading it aloud.
The cold is strident today, and the many surfaces covered with white snow make the light seem blinding.
I didn’t write this for the singing bowl at the workshop closing, but I’m writing it now:
This fire in the belly,
This fire in the heart,
Let me keep it alive with love and breath.
It is all so very precious and temporary.
Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Gabrielle. Thank you, universe. I am blessed and grateful.
This writing is not sanctioned or produced by the 5Rhythms organization, and represents only the personal experiences of the writer. Meghan LeBorious is a certified 5Rhythms teacher, longtime 5Rhythms practitioner, and is an educator, maker, mother, and author.
January 19, 2025, Easton, CT & February 9, Brooklyn, NY
Today, December 31, 2024, I’m reflecting on what I release as the old year exits, and what I invite as the new year enters.
Today is the last day of the holiday break when I can practice in the woods by the Scantic River, near the home of my parents. I wake up early, to give myself time to reflect on this last day of the year, and sit at the counter in the quiet morning writing, then gather my things so I can go for a run and dance in the woods.
On the first day of the break, it was so frigid that I had to bundle myself in many heavy layers, but today the sun is shining and the dirt under my feet is soft. Early in the week, this bend of the river was completely frozen. Yesterday, it was opaque and fast with new mud, but today I find it clear with a strong, visible current.
As soon as I start to move in Flowing, I start to cry. I wonder how it is that I’ve moved in this place every day for over a week and this is the first day that tears come. The water is higher than it was yesterday, but there is still a smooth, sloping bank to dance on. I soften, drop my center of gravity, and allow myself to circle, working with the push and pull of weight as I move up and down the incline in low circles. My stomach tightens and reminds me that I haven’t eaten, and I’m grateful for this reminder of being a body.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Flowing, I release anxiety and welcome in a grounded, settled nervous system that believes itself fundamentally safe.
I release ill ease, craving, wishing things were different, pressing toward the future, pushing away the past, and addiction in all its subtle and gross forms; and I instead welcome in contentment, temperance, mindfulness and embodied presence.
I release self-importance and invite the tenderness of humility.
I release my false stories of separation, my futile, incessant selfing; and othering in all its forms including judgement, gossip, righteousness, and resentment.
Instead, I welcome community, collaboration, belonging, and immersion in the collective field.
Still moving on the soft ground of the riverbank, I’m surprised to find myself moving with the clarity of Staccato. Sometimes Staccato can be elusive, especially in times of low confidence and indecision, but in this moment, it seems to appear right on time, and I segment my elbows, rock my hips, and play with the angles in the heels of my hands.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Staccato, I release criticism, constraint, constriction and tightening to try to protect myself from past, present, and future harm.
Instead I welcome generosity of spirit, patience, compassion, the willingness to assume best intentions, and the wisdom to remember that no being is separate or other (and to let that wisdom guide my words and actions).
And too, I release self-criticism and self-hatred, with the recognition that being excessively hard on myself has never actually helped me to improve.
Instead I welcome self-compassion, and the knowledge that I am equally worthy of my own kindness.
I release defensiveness and instead welcome healthy and clear boundaries, skillful communication, and receptivity.
I release the tyranny of urgency, and instead welcome diligence.
I release holding my tongue and connect again with my voice as a writer, inviting the whole of existence to move through and find form in language.
I release the blinders of societal conditioning and instead invite the ability to accurately read phenomena and see the truth.
Though the pull is strong(!) I release nihilism and despair, and invite instead courage, conviction, motivation, and the belief that my words and actions matter.
I release morality and hypocrisy and instead invite grounded ethics; and invite the rhythms and creative life force to make me a vessel through which you can blow.
I keep dropping back into the low circling of Flowing, then back into Staccato, and now my newly liberated curls dance all around my head as I loosen my neck and spine, disorganize myself, and watch as the world spins by in blurring trails and dissolving shapes in the rhythm of Chaos.
In the spirit of Chaos, I release old patterns, entrenched positions, outworn identities, and clinging to the past.
I release the long hair that I’ve had since I was a teenager, and instead invite a return to the unruly curls of my youth, and remember my little- girl-self who was sensitive and wise and very much tapped into the sacred.
I release fundamentalism, one-true-god-ness, fixed thinking, and my own psychological autocracy.
Instead I welcome comfort in discomfort, ease in uncertainty, and radical acceptance for reality in all its messy, wild, shifting flux; and its unceasing rising & falling, shaping & dissolving, coming together & falling apart.
Lyrical comes softly, with an audible breeze in the naked tree tops, and cloudless blue shining through. I range wider than the circle I’ve made, opening the fronts of my shoulders, and finding extended, tiny, and twittering gestures with my hands, the bottoms of my feet, the joint between my head and neck, and the edge of my chin.
In the spirit of Lyrical, I release myself from small-mindedness and myopia, and instead invite equanimity and the widest possible view, where I can hold all things that arise in a vast container of space.
I release squandering my attention and dulling my senses with things that don’t matter.
Instead of overvaluing transactional thinking, I welcome artwork, poetry, voice, creativity, magic, and the soul’s creative expression in all its myriad forms.
I release the intractability of either-or thinking and instead welcome nuance, flexibility, and possibility.
I release jadedness and instead invite fascination.
I release superficial and half-hearted engagement, and instead welcome interconnection, delight in others’ successes, and shared joy.
I release clinging to the wish for a certain kind of love and instead welcome opening my attention to all forms of love around me, including the love that has no object.
Eventually, after being immersed in practice for I’m-not-sure-how-long and moving in and out of the first four rhythms again and again, silence envelops me. My gestures talk with the river’s woven currents. Ideas, emotions, and bits of poetry tumble through. I crouch, expand, trace, and breathe, and send this prayer far and wide, along with wishes for everyone I love and for all beings everywhere.
In the spirit of the rhythm of Stillness, I release my attachment to temporary things, and instead welcome the perspective that all things that arise and fall away are but expressions of absolute reality–source, the silence, divine resonance, the mystery, deity–home.
I release my petty preoccupations, and instead wear the mystery like a velvet cloak of night and stars, losing myself in its soft folds.
I invite non-separation, and take my place in the vast web of existence and all that is.
And for every day and every minute in 2025, may I move with the knowledge that this precious, interwoven, temporary life is a gift, and may I bow down in gratitude.
December 31, 2024, Broad Brook, Connecticut – With wholehearted thanks to my teachers and guides.
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not produced by the 5Rhythms® organization.
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, designer, and mother. She has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and joined the circle of 5Rhythms teachers in 2021. She has also been formally practicing meditation since 2006 within a tradition that emphasizes the idea that everything we experience, including painful emotions and challenges, can be included on the path to self-discovery and freedom.
For years, I wrote about my own experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path almost every week. It was posted both on my own website and on the official 5Rhythms site. Since I became a 5Rhythms teacher, however, a lot of that creative energy now goes into designing experiences for participants in my own classes and I haven’t written about my own practice as much.
I want to write about my perspective as a teacher on last night’s “Body Waves: Paint My Spirit Gold” class, since this time it was extra clear how much the participants teach me.
It’s been a challenging stretch, and leading up to class, my personal energy was low.
I plan the scope and sequence for each theme far in advance, and I had planned to offer a class with an emphasis on the rhythm of Lyrical. However, I had been feeling anxious and heavy-hearted, and it was hard to imagine how I could possibly embody Lyrical, which is often associated with joy and lightness.
I thought about changing the plan and instead offering a Flowing class with an emphasis on grounding, or maybe a Chaos class with an emphasis on messiness.
In the end, I decided to stay the course, and find a way to connect to Lyrical exactly as I am at this time.
I managed to gather music by Thursday night, but still couldn’t visualize how it would come together.
That day, I had several things dropped on me. Despite a full-court-press, I didn’t complete the tasks I needed to, though I was at work by 7:30AM. Sleep the night before wasn’t great and I wasn’t feeling particularly flexible or well-resourced. I realized yet another task I had to complete just as I was leaving work and plopped down with my coat still on to bang it out.
I got a message on the group chat for “Body Waves” crew that several would be able to make it to class, along with some enthusiastic and supportive words. “Crew” doesn’t seem quite accurate. This group includes two old friends and two new friends; and it’s starting to feel like a family. Their messages warmed me up on the cold afternoon, but I was still feeling low energy and slightly nauseous.
I arrived before 6PM and found that everything we needed was in the space, and that one crew member had arrived before me.
I actually love setting up for class when it’s not stressful; and this time it went smoothly.
I thought back to when I was teaching at the Joffrey and had to bring all speakers, sound equipment, and visuals by car to every single class, and softened with gratitude for how much the process has eased.
The first participant arrived at 6:15 for the 7PM class and wandered in to where we were setting up. We got her checked in and settled in an adjacent studio while we completed preparations.
Before long, I put on low, tonal music and gave the person who was checking people in a thumbs up. She started letting people in around 6:45PM.
Following the stretching music, I put on an Indie Rock song that aligned to the theme, Paint My Spirit Gold, and looked across the room, wondering how it would land. It was quite a transition, and I knew there was a chance it would flatten people out, and that they might need to be coaxed into moving.
To my surprise, many responded right away, beginning to sway and make their way up onto their feet.
It’s not always like that. People could come in locked in grief, not having slept in days, constrained in anxiety. You just don’t know. But on this night, people seemed to arrive very much ready and eager to move.
My whole system started to relax and have fun, and I made some trips around the room, pausing to dance with people along the way.
I offered a few prompts to help us ground in the rhythm of Flowing, but mostly let the music carry the wave.
As the first wave started to dissipate, I invited people to continue to move while I offered a few comments. I spoke into the mic as I moved throughout the room, sharing that I was considering changing the rhythm that I would emphasize during this class since I wasn’t feeling particularly connected to Lyrical, but that I had decided to go ahead anyway.
What came through is that Lyrical, though associated with lightness and joy, is a deeper energy. It holds joy, lightness, and too, fear, rage, grief, shame, and everything else inside of it. In fact, it holds everything in our experience inside this vast, spacious container, and like a soaring bird of prey takes in the panorama from above, seeing the entire picture.
I also shared that it took me years to learn the pathway to Lyrical, and that I would often panic when the room shifted from the rhythm of Chaos into Lyrical. One of the stories that blocked me from accessing Lyrical was the incorrect belief that if I was in joy it would be an affront to another’s suffering.
I also shared a quote by the baby boomer, African American poet Toi Derracotte, “Joy is an act of resistance.”
I love the idea that joy is not just self-indulgent, but that it can also serve.
If we are mean, afraid, small, tight, myopic, righteous…we are easy to control. But if we step into the full spaciousness and power of Lyrical, we can move mountains.
There are so many gifts practice has given me, but this is one of the most precious ones.
I put on a song called “Blessings” and many responded right away, beginning to gather into a second wave.
The next song was a thick, heavy Flowing track, and I cut it short to put on a soaring track with a waltz time signature. I made my way through the room and noticed that one dancer had started to waltz, stepping and holding both arms up, then letting them cascade down and stepping again while swaying his arms up again. He inspired me and I, too, started to waltz. Soon, the entire room seemed to be waltzing. I moved back to the DJ table with a big smile on my face, and continued to watch the room with delight.
The wave moved quickly from there, and the room seemed dynamic and charged. One woman was off to the side stretching and swaying. I put on a longer track then made my way over to check in. She smiled and said she was fine. “Ok! Do whatever feels right to you!” I said and moved away, thinking of a recent experience when I was having a hard time, and really would have appreciated it if the teacher had checked in with me.
Sometimes I have to work hard to keep myself grounded during class as the energy gathers and rises, but on this occasion, I felt gentle, present, and delighted.
I joined with another dancer, dipping our shoulders toward each other and circling around.
Tears rose up as the class wound down, and many dancers continued to move with wholehearted, creative expression.
I had arrived feeling tight, anxious, nauseous, and now here I was in the deep silence when the music ends and before anyone moves or says anything, just oozing gratitude, with gold spilling out all over.
After class, I ate with one of the crew members. She is less than half my age and is very wise. She shared her perspective on recent developments on the national stage, and I nodded, soaking it in.
One thing she said is that she knew she was always going to be involved in the fight for justice, and “that’s never changing.” This idea, that it’s not a failure that justice has not been achieved, but that it would always be in process, and that engaging in the process is worthwhile, touched me deeply.
I’ve always known that I gain a lot in the role of teacher, both in my daytime work with high school teens, and in my nighttime work teaching the 5Rhythms to adults, but on this day, it was an extra powerful dose of medicine.
I went to bed after midnight, slept over nine hours, and woke feeling optimistic, and remembering that God is everywhere, thanks in every measure to these wholehearted, powerful students who helped me to remember.
President Biden’s decision to step aside is a powerful example of surrender–a theme I’m still immersed in following the two-day 5Rhythms workshop “Surrender” that was led by Croatian 5Rhythms teacher Silvija Tomcik.
Friday I was unavoidably late. I just accepted a new job and a new role, and needed to attend a work event. I’ll be a founding teacher at a brand new high school.
This is exciting because I love beginnings. I love the creative territory when we have to create the map, when we can’t rely on what’s already in place. As a visual artist, I’m trained to make somethings from nothings; and I love feeling like anything is possible.
With Silvija’s skillful guidance, this is the territory we explored–the territory of Chaos, which is the third of the 5Rhythms.
Chaos is where we surrender to reality exactly as it is. Where we stop clinging to the past and grabbing toward the future. Where we let go of old habits and identities. And, as Biden embodied today, where we stop clinging to power and instead make space for something new to arise.
I don’t know what happened before I arrived on Friday, but by the time I got there people already seemed very sweaty and softened. I entered as gently as I could, and Silvija greeted me with a wide, wholehearted embrace. I joined two other dancers on the floor where we each spoke about where Chaos is showing up in our life at this time.
For me, I was almost never in Chaos for the first year that I danced. I thought I was in Chaos, but I was actually in a very fast, agitated Staccato–the second of the 5Rhythms. I hadn’t realized it, but I was actually afraid of Chaos. Afraid of being out of control and causing harm–a pattern I knew far too well.
The part of my life when I was most out of control is coming up for examination again now. Truthfully, I spent many years confused about what it means to be a free spirit. I thought it meant rebellion and saying fuck you to social norms and throwing myself recklessly into intense experiences.
I made a lot of unskillful choices during that time. My fourteen-year-old son, Simon, is taking a behavioral neuroscience class and part of what they are exploring are the impacts of alcohol and drug use on the brain, especially on developing brains. He’s wondering about how my choices might have impacted me and how they might have impacted him, and is asking a lot of hard questions.
Another reason I avoided Chaos is that I had somehow internalized that I was too big, too wild, too messy; and I had spent decades trying unsuccessfully to make myself smaller and tidier. When Chaos finally broke through for real, completely by accident, I was broken apart. My entire self sobbed and rocked and shook. I could finally just be myself. My whole self. Not my ideal self, not the self society makes of me, not the self I was trying to be to avoid triggering my partner at the time, not the fixed self that my ego is always angling for.
But instead someone real and alive and actually free.
So many practices are about trying to contain Chaos. Trying to control things. Staying positive, always being our best, being on point, holding ourselves together. But in the 5Rhythms, we understand that Chaos is an essential part of the creative process.
It’s because of Chaos that I decided to marry the 5Rhythms; and during the almost two decades since have become a 5Rhythms teacher myself.
For the rest of the session, Silvija guided us through exercises that encouraged us to integrate the spine and the head into our movement. She said, “The head is part of the rest of the body, not just up here all judge-y and critical.” She demonstrated humorously with her own body, and then showed us what the opposite would look like, when instead of the head being a tyrant who rules over the rest of the body, we drop down and surrender.
I took this on wholeheartedly, eventually moving through the entire space as I curved and twisted and undulated and dropped my head down and let it follow the rest of the body again and again.
At the end of the session I texted Simon, who was home alone at that point. He asked me to call him on facetime so he could show me something. Our kitten George had launched himself off the top of the kitchen cabinets and knocked down a large ceiling light fixture which shattered on the tile floor. Simon started his story with “This man…” I belly-laughed the whole way home.
I’ve been meaning to replace the outdated light fixture; and you could say George helped me make way for something new with his own flying leap of surrender.
The next morning, I found an unpublished text that I wrote about Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop in 2019. At that workshop, too, Silvija offered many new tools and insights. One that has been important for my own process is that moving the hips moves the spine which moves the head. When I teach and I say, “Maybe imagine that your spine is a roller coaster and your head is the very last car,” this comes directly from insights during Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop.
The next morning, I was determined to arrive on time following my late arrival the night before. I felt emotional as I walked from the J train to Paul Taylor studio on the Lower East Side. Part of my new job role will be teaching Art, and I kept thinking about ways to move with my students and open the doorway to the creative process, beyond just offering the tangible skills of art-making.
I silently greeted many friends of a decade or more, including several 5Rhythms teachers who were in my same teacher training cohort–a bond that is very meaningful to me.
We danced and danced and danced and danced. Sometimes alone, sometimes in partnership, sometimes in groups.
Early on, Silvija invited us to move in the first rhythm, Flowing, as though we were on an ocean boat, rocking with the swelling sea. I loved this, and rose and fell and circled and ranged through the big studio, allowing my legs and spine to buckle and soften and pull me deeper into circling.
We danced a full Chaos wave, then moved to different kinds of music that could be embodied as Chaos.
At one point, Silvija had us interact with a partner and move with something we want to surrender, and then what it would look and feel like if we actually did surrender this thing.
My partner went first. Then it was my turn. Per Silvija’s instructions, I whispered what I wished to surrender into my partner’s ear, “Blame and resentment.”
For years, I kept tweaking my left ankle; and I worried that if I really kept throwing myself into the dance as I’d been doing, I would injure it again. I also noticed a pain in my left hip flexor and groin. Lately sometimes after sitting, I get up and limp because it gets pinched and tight. I’ve had some brutal muscle pulls over the years, and I thought, this body has held up for 51 years. I’m so blessed that it’s not breaking down yet. But I should take it easy, I should moderate. I will get hurt if I fling myself into this in the way that I want to.
Curiously, when I sat down to write this, I totally forgot that I had been afraid. It took several layers to get back to it. I kept remembering, then it would jump out of my head again, and I’d be sitting in front of the computer thinking, What was it that I was about to write?
Probably it was my imagination, but a presence next to me said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be ok.”
I went all in. Dancing blame and resentment: pointing my finger, tightening my face, slamming my raised elbow backward, controlling my hips. Then I went all in with surrender, even moving throughout the room with maximum intensity, somehow with all the energy I needed–spinning, dipping, letting my head and spine stretch out and arc, touching down with my fingertips then stepping up and diagonally, coiling and twisting and twittering on the razor’s edge of completely out of control.
Later, my partner from the surrender exercise passed me in the hall to the bathroom.
They said, “I received a message for you.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“The message that came through was ‘You are protected.’ ”
I thanked them and slightly bowed my head, then continued down the hall.
We took only a short lunch break. I sat alone briefly, thinking I might make some notes. When I realized I had no pencil, I surrendered to not making notes, and happened to find one of my closest friends, who herself had been planning to make notes, but her pen had stopped working. She too surrendered and we instead took time to connect and share our experiences.
I stepped to the foyer outside the studio, where there were snacks and tea, and one friend shared that she was confused about these new and sometimes conflicting aspects of Chaos. I said, “I hear you. Sometimes I realize I’m working too hard with a prompt, and I just say, ‘fuck it’ let me just dance.” It’s possible I was giving advice more to myself than to my friend, as is often the case.
I also shared that to me, Chaos has two faces.
There is the intensity, the buildup, the press toward maximum expression and the moment when it explodes. This can also be a feeling of breaking through ropes or a straightjacket, a cathartic throwing off of societal conditioning, traumatic holding, oppression, existential gunk, and the relentless tyranny of should.
The other face of Chaos is the face of surrender. This face is much softer. It is a totally different kind of freedom. It lets everything in without having to relate the self to it, and lets everything right back out without clinging or pushing away. It is a freefall in the dynamic unfolding of all that is, ever moving and shifting and changing. It’s where the ordinary world and the absolute collide and we realize that everything, absolutely everything, is part of this vast, exquisite cosmic dance.
I had a dream when I was a teen that I’ll never forget. I was inside a painting that was in the process of becoming. It wasn’t so much about the material or the frame, but that I was inside, immersed in the very creative process, the irrepressible, unbridled, dynamic expression of life force.
When I first started dancing the 5Rhythms, artwork exploded out of me. Since then, I’ve surrendered much of my fixed identity as a visual artist, and instead open myself to the flow of creation as it arises, including creating 5Rhythms classes for the participants I’m blessed to work with.
I’ve become more of a midwife than a master; and it no longer matters to me what form creation takes, only that I swim in its river and am at its service.
This brings me tears as I write. What a blessing to live a creative life. Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, wrote in her first book, Maps to Ecstasy, “If you like to write, you don’t have to make the bestseller list: write letters to your friends, poems to your lover. Sing to your children. Make something for your mother. Once you enter the creative mode, you discover what it means to live in your soul.”
After our brief lunch, we continued to dance, exploring Chaos as it lives in each of the different rhythms.
Silvija playfully challenged those of us who actually seek out Chaos instead of just surrendering to it when it comes, and kept up a stream of prompts and suggestions to support our investigation throughout the afternoon.
Feeling loose and alive, I stopped at a grocery store on the way home, and the woman working at the checkout noticed and commented. I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something about shining.
I waited for the train next to a broken video screen. It was still working, but the glass was spider-web-shattered and the image twittered in disjointed ribbons.
I come back again and again to what Gabrielle said when she laid down the map of the 5Rhythms for us, “It takes discipline to be a free spirit.”
To my immense surprise and delight, I realize that I have become a free spirit. All it took was practice.
Thank you, Silvija. Thank you, Gabrielle. From the depths of my wild, free spirit. Thank you.
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 heavy lift lately. I’m working hard to find the right construct for my bright, talented 12-year-old, where he feels included, motivated, and inspired; and we definitely have not hit the right balance in the past year and half.
I tried to talk myself out of it, arguing that my parents are growing older and I should be enjoying every second I have with them.
But still the painful heaviness persisted.
The air was frigid as I made my way to the river. I chose a favorite spot and picked up a branch to clear dead, wet leaves away, creating a sandy circle. I invited my ancestors, guides, and deities to help me see what I needed to see.
There was agony in my chest and back and I wondered if I would even be able to move. Almost as soon as I began to drop my weight and circle – the soft river sand yielding under my running shoes – I began to sob. I continued to allow difficult feelings to move through me as I invited more and more of me to release to gravity and to endless, circling motion.
Flowing is the rhythm of the ground, of the instinctive self, of receptivity, and of raw, unfiltered experience.
I stayed in Flowing for a long time, late enough that the winter sun started to shift and spotlight through the trees on the other side of the river.
I realized that anxiety had taken me over in recent weeks, especially with respect to my son’s schooling. I was focused on the future, toggling through all possible dangers and scenarios. I was sacrificing the present for a desired later time, and I was acting out of fear.
I told myself that I had to find a way to be in this present, even if it is uncertain and frightening, and even as we continue to make plans and make moves. I also realized that my fear could easily be interpreted as a lack of confidence in my only son. At moments I howled with emotion, thankful I was alone in the woods.
After an hour or more, I shifted into the rhythm of Staccato, with the sun dipping low and dappling and the white sky draining of light.
Anything can happen; and practice doesn’t always shift painful and difficult states, but on this day it did. I moved through the rest of the rhythms with engagement, eventually growing quiet and moving like a whisper.
Resolving to be a more skillful parent, I went home and hugged my son tightly, telling him how proud of him I am and how much I love him.
The next day was warmer.
My circle was still visible on the sandy bank, and I redrew its edges with a stick, then began to move in Flowing, the first of the 5Rhythms. After a short time, I naturally and seamlessly found myself in Staccato, the second rhythm. I exhaled, I moved with clarity, found angles with the knees and elbows, and explored the different shapes that were coming through.
Staccato is the rhythm of taking bold action in this world, of making moves, of creating systems; and it is the rhythm of the heart. I realized I was dancing prayers, and, as the day before, moved through each of the rhythms, and remained engaged for a long time. Once I moved through a full wave and found myself in Stillness, I pushed off of the 5Rhythms map and simply moved with the woods, the river, and inner and outer forces.
The third day was warmer still. It is over a week ago now, but I can remember my delight at finding my circle still undisturbed, the comfort of redrawing its edges, and the feeling of losing myself in movement, of total immersion. After moving through all of the rhythms and drawing a ribbon of prayer through each, I danced a snowy owl, imagining what it would be like to sense the edges of things with the tips of my powerful wings, and scanning for subtle movement in the underbrush.
I ran back up the big hill toward home, feeling grateful and bright. My eye caught on a white feather on the side of the road. I looked up and the first thing I saw was a snowy owl statue on a neighbor’s front porch, its wings outstretched, ready to soar, ready to greet a new year.
Meghan LeBorious is a 5Rhythms teacher, meditator, artist, mother, and writer. She has been on the 5Rhythms dancing path since 2008. She was moved to write about her experiences following her very first 5Rhythms class; and has been writing about them ever since. This blog in independently generated and is not sanctioned or produced by the 5Rhythms organization.
There was agony in my chest and back and I wondered if I would even be able to move. Almost as soon as I began to drop my weight and circle – the soft river sand yielding under my running shoes – I began to sob. I continued to allow difficult feelings to move through me as I invited more and more of me to release to gravity and to endless, circling motion. 
Anything can happen; and practice doesn’t always shift painful and difficult states, but on this day it did. I moved through the rest of the rhythms with engagement, eventually growing quiet and moving like a whisper. 
The third day was warmer still. It is over a week ago now, but I can remember my delight at finding my circle still undisturbed, the comfort of redrawing its edges, and the feeling of losing myself in movement, of total immersion. After moving through all of the rhythms and drawing a ribbon of prayer through each, I danced a snowy owl, imagining what it would be like to sense the edges of things with the tips of my powerful wings, and scanning for subtle movement in the underbrush.
Meghan LeBorious is a 5Rhythms teacher, meditator, artist, mother, and writer. She has been on the 5Rhythms dancing path since 2008. She was moved to write about her experiences following her very first 5Rhythms class; and has been writing about them ever since. This blog in independently generated and is not sanctioned or produced by the 5Rhythms organization.