Fly in Formation

At Riis Park, the solitary birds are my first dance partners this morning.  Before long, however, I join with an entire flock, soaring as they soar, holding my arms out wide, twisting in an arc as they move to the farthest edge of an orbit, sinking deep and looping one arm through the other as they change sides, rising suddenly and falling back into my edge, my feet grinding circles in the cold winter sand, covering vast distances on the deserted beach.  Seeking solace and insight in these deeply troubling times, I planned this artwork performance—a ritual, of sorts—hoping to find some clues to show me the way forward.

Another place I go to seek solace and insight are 5Rhythms classes and workshops.  Created by Gabrielle Roth in the 1980’s, 5Rhythms is a dance and movement meditation practice that embodies Gabrielle’s vision, “A body in motion will heal itself.”  The five rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.  Each rhythm has its own character, which becomes territory for endless experiments.  To dance a wave is to pass through each of the 5Rhythms in sequence.  In a typical two-hour class, we move through two waves.  On first glance, a 5Rhythms room would probably just look like a wild dance club, but for most people it is also much more.  For me, it is laboratory for life, encompassing psychological, emotional, philosophical, interpersonal and shamanic levels.

At a 5Rhythms class just a few days before the performance at Riis Park, 5Rhythms teacher Tammy Burstein says, “We don’t have to just be at a loss, because we have a map,” remarking that many people seem to be stepping into the class “still carrying a lot.” In having a map, we have the comfort of knowing that we have a way forward that doesn’t rely solely on our own initiative or motivation.  This is particularly useful when we feel stuck or overwhelmed, as many, including myself, have felt for the last several months.

Waiting in line for the bathroom before class, a woman I had shared a dance with the week before says, “I love your dance.  It is like you are always weaving, somehow.”  I think she is talking about the way I move through the room, sharing dances, winding gestures inside the empty spaces, and following the currents caused by the many moving bodies.  I introduce myself and smile, thanking her for the compliment and for the feedback.

Just two days later, I find myself weaving the air with my arms as I undertake the performance artwork at Jacob Riis National Seashore.  I had been thinking of doing this performance for many months, but when I finally decide to actually do it, I have less than a week to prepare.  I send an invite to a few close friends, but I send it late at night, just a few days before; and I anticipate that it might be just me and the photographer.

In frigid temperatures, my hair a taut flag in the caustic wind, I set up a wooden box as a table, a dozen glass bottles with corks, a pen, and a ream of paper—barely held in place by a jagged piece of brick.  Then, I begin to move with the ocean birds as they appear in the sky.  I watch them carefully, doing my best to revive the lost art of augury—an important ritual for several groups of ancients—divination, or fortune telling, by the flights of birds.  I hoped to draw some meaning from the sky that might offer hope and direction in the coming months, especially since the political situation has grown increasingly worrisome of late.

Stepping into the 5Rhythms class a few minutes late, I do not start down on the floor, as is my usual custom, but instead stay on my feet and join the group in moving my attention slowly through different body parts, as led by the teacher.  I find vibrant movement quickly, releasing the shoulders, releasing the spine and releasing the head’s weight, which cascade me into circular motion in the first rhythm of Flowing.  Flowing is characterized by rounded, unending motion with a strong emphasis on the feet; and I move softly, with weight, the soles of my feet in in close contact with the floor.

Still engaging in the Body Parts exercise, we segue into the second rhythm of Staccato, and I begin to move around the room. Staccato is characterized by sharp, clear movements with an emphasis on the hips; and I sink low, my knees sharply bent, moving forward and back, my elbows forming pointed triangles and leading me into movement.  Tammy suggests that we could make a choice to just let go of everything we are carrying.  I stop thinking of things outside of the dance and step into many successive, brief partnerships.  Wondering if she perhaps prefers to be left alone, I nonetheless join with a friend who often favors the periphery.  As I move toward her, she smiles and steps forward to dance with me.  Another friend joins us, seeming to boing upward as he approaches, then twisting and weaving around us. We both become even more activated, the three of us moving in an elastic matrix, swapping places and moving around the edge of our small group, and taking turns moving through the middle.

The third rhythm of Chaos and the fourth rhythm of Lyrical reveal the miracle of being totally unique and totally universal, at once.  I join with a woman in Lyrical with whom I have shared many dances of rolling shoulders and circling hips, each of us bending forward in turn as our shoulders descend and cross downward, losing eye contact, then rising again as the shoulder pulls back from blocking the jaw, smiling, and moving similarly around each other’s backs, always arriving again at smiling eye contact.  This time we find new patterns—intricately-syncopated steps inside of steps—as a playful, remixed disco song booms from the powerful speakers.

I learned that the Ancient Roman augurs—the ritualists who read the flights of the birds for official purposes—would have had a great deal of say in who would lead Rome.  If the signs were interpreted favorably, a king or emperor would be crowned—the origin of the word “inauguration.”  It was believed that the birds transmitted the will of the Gods, and reflected the relative chaos or harmony of the larger cosmos.  I wondered what would have happened if anyone read the birds’ flights on January 20, 2017; and if dire predictions would have mattered.

Total porousness comes a little easier after so many years of practice; and it’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure of being totally shattered as a result of feeling integrated into the collective field.  In this case, during the fifth and final rhythm, Stillness, I move through the room gently, like breeze, passing through people’s energy fields and allowing them to pass through mine.

Again on the beach in the performance ritual, as words arise, I kneel in front of my little table and write down any phrases that come to mind.  Then, I roll up the paper I have written on, push it into a glass bottle and cork it.  It is very cold and I have to sustain vigorous movement, but I do this a dozen times, quickly, preparing the bottles that will be thrown into the sea at the conclusion of the ritual.  Of my attempts at divination, one stands out:

“In times of fear,

Turn to community-

Fly in formation.”

The following week at class, the experience of having undergone the performance ritual with the birds works its way into my dance.

This time I begin with my body in full contact with the floor in the first rhythm of Flowing, moving in concentric circles in every direction, edgeless, finding tension at the most extended points to stretch my muscles, arcing through my side, shifting over the back of my head onto the spine, then back around.  Still moving in concentric circles on the floor, I begin to move through the room, one leg reaching far behind me and pulling me into another level of circling.  While rolling over the back of my head, I gaze up at the standing people around me, finding empty space as it opens up and moving into it, still on the floor.

I’ve been working with a therapist lately; and we begin each of our sessions with five minutes of movement.  Recently, I started with my ear on the soft oriental carpet.  Hums from the building became audible; and I heard two voices from the floor below in conversation.  I thought of 5Rhythms teacher Kierra Foster-Ba, who has often said, “Just like any other animal, we receive a lot of information from the ground.”  With my ear to the ground, literally, I felt like I could listen for danger, read the signs, and respond appropriately—engaging my primal instincts during a time when I might otherwise be tempted to rationalize the signs of danger to convince myself I am safe.

A recurring dream came up then, too.  I am at Cape Cod in a rented cottage on a cliff by the sea with several members of my family.  The ocean has receded by miles, exposing the sand beneath; and an eerie quiet had arisen.  Although when I first had this dream I didn’t know the early signs of a tsunami, somehow I knew that a gigantic wave was about to erupt from the silence.  Walking through the screen door, I plead with my mother and sister to leave with me, to flee to high ground.  They decline, peacefully resigned.  I get into a car and drive uphill, overtaken by complex emotions—a sharp desire to live, both grief and admiration for my mother and sister, and fear that the massive wave will overtake me.

On the way in to class, I feel annoyed and unreceptive.  There is someone in attendance I always have a lot of mind chatter about, believing she is superficial for some reason that surely has little to do with her.  But before long, the music hooks me and I am moving through the room.  A dance version of Erykah Badu’s “On and On” offers me a Staccato door to enter through, and I step into multiple partnerships, moving low and backward, ratcheting different body parts, and articulating movements with precision and thoroughness.

Before dance that night, my seven-year-old son, Simon, uses the phrase “magical sweat” in relation to some wet socks that have surprised him by drying quickly.  The phrase “magical sweat” repeats for me several times during the class, and particularly as Staccato gathers fire.  As Staccato transitions into Chaos, I let loose, grateful for a reserve of easily available energy.  My hair falls over my face and eyes as my head whirls freely, leading my entire body in spinning.  I note the woman who I had judged as superficial dancing right next to me, and realize the smallness of my petty resentment.  The truth is that we are all superficial to some extent, myself included.  As I let go, I inwardly celebrate that she lets go, too, and move with many emphatic and wild dancers in close proximity.

In Lyrical and then in Stillness, I spin and leap in the center of the room, my wings held wide, recalling the movements of my many bird partners the week before.  Several successive dancers join me in flight, each seamlessly integrating into my dance of sky, swooping and soaring very close to me, then spinning off into new partnerships.

Realizing that my feet will get wet when I go to the edge of the sea to throw in the bottles, I know I have to move quickly or risk frost bite.  I make three trips, carrying several bottles at once, and toss the bottles into the waves.  As soon as the last one hits the water, I sprint to put on my boots and winter jacket, considering the performance complete.

Regardless of whether the signs I have divined in any way foretell the future, and, too, regardless of the direction the map may or may not take me, I am grateful to have a map, grateful for a way forward, and grateful for the unlikely blessing of this life, this tiny glimmer that reflects the magnitude of infinity.

“Good hope is often beguiled by her own augury.”  -Ovid

March 19, 2017, Brooklyn, NYC

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

To Notice Things

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“I think we’re here to learn to be calm.  And gentle.  And also to be fast.  And to notice things.”

-Simon, age 7

Have I mentioned recently that I adore my son?  Absolutely, totally and completely adore him.  Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, provided a model for me in this.  She adored her son, Jonathan Horan, too—unabashedly, wholeheartedly—and made it no secret.  Sometimes I think my own wounds might have kept me from fully embracing and displaying this love if it hadn’t been for Gabrielle’s powerful example.

This week, my son, Simon, turned seven.  We had a jam-packed, rollicking party with nearly seventy people in our apartment that included singing, dancing, playing music and rough housing—a chance to practice a manageable version of chaos in the face of the growing chaos of the national arena.  The day before his birthday, Simon called me back to the room after I put him to bed, crying.  “Mommy, I’m sad for you that I’m getting older and I’m not a baby now!”  “Oh, no!  Simon, I’m a little sad that you are not a baby anymore, but I’m even more happy and proud about the young man you are becoming!”

The times I have felt closest with Simon and most aware of the love I have for him have been inside 5Rhythms classes.  I started dancing two years before Simon was born; and I danced throughout pregnancy, right up until the very last week before giving birth.  A short time after he was born, he started to come to daytime 5Rhythms classes; and he has been attending classes periodically ever since.

Simon is too young to come to Tammy Burstein’s Friday Night Waves class (though he has been trying to convince me otherwise), but I thought of him during the class this week, especially since his birthday was just the day before.  In the first wave—what we call it when we move through each of the 5Rhythms in sequence: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness—I entered the studio after Flowing was already transitioning to Staccato, but still felt I had enough of Flowing, somehow.  Though I have noted some reluctance toward Staccato recently, I entered into Staccato with ease.  Trying to work against my recent impulse to rush through Staccato straight into the next rhythm, Chaos, I lingered in Staccato.  In the process, I missed Chaos completely, waiting, as I was, for it to fully arrive.  I vowed to let loose in Chaos during the second wave if it was at all available to me.  At moments, I thought about the chaos of the country and how it might affect Simon’s life.

In the gap between the first and second waves of the class, Tammy offered spoken instructions as she moved through the different rhythms.  Her words caused me to reflect on what I consider to be “normal,” and how much my perspective on what is normal has shifted since November’s election.  Given that affronts to democracy have become frequent, frequency does not mean that these affronts are normal, by any means.  There is absolutely nothing normal about the current moment.

In the second wave, I made sure not to miss Chaos.  As Flowing began, Tammy encouraged us to turn in, and I had a flash of the starry cosmos inside as I lowered my eyelids.  Stepping in to Staccato, Chaos seemed to come quickly.  I shook, almost violently, rocking deep in the pelvis during the transition from Staccato to Chaos, then continuing to shake.  More than one rhythm operated on me at once.  I intersected with a friend briefly, and we were wild, creative, expansive.  We separated, then came back together again in Lyrical.  Lyrical kicked in like a switch had been hit, with a flick, and with a rush of delighted inbreath.  I noted the millisecond it arrived, thinking, “Lyrical!  Here it is!” We twittered and flew, but retained the ferocity of our earlier Chaos.

Next, I joined with a dancer I hadn’t ever seen before in an athletic Stillness.  We bounded and leapt, on and off the ground, in an attitude of breakdancing, sliding and twittering, pulling and gliding, pausing in curious, emphatic shapes the whole while, once with my cheek pressed to the floor, weight in my hands, and my legs twisted and raised, with tension in the balls of the feet.  I tossed myself under the bridge of his back, both of us laughing.  We disregarded Tammy’s instructions when she said, “Change” into the microphone, inviting us to take a new partner, but after the third “Change” we bowed melodramatically to each other and finally moved on.

I joined, once again, with my creative and expansive friend, both on our knees, our hands fluttering a gentle dance.

Simon and I had decided to attend the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers class the night before, and waded through the considerable rubble of Saturday’s birthday party, deciding to leave the bulk of the cleaning for later in the day so we would have enough time to get a snack before class.  He was short-tempered as we were preparing, and I told him, “That’s it!  You can’t use a screaming voice.  I don’t think we’re going to be able to go today.”  “No!  Please! Please, Mommy! Please! Please, I promise I won’t scream anymore!  Please take me to the class!”  I told him he would have one final chance and we set out.

We arrived at the Joffrey Ballet, where most 5Rhythms classes in NYC are held, with enough time to pay and get settled.  There was a line all the way up the stairs and out the door that seemed to be made up of ballerinas, based on the tights and smooth ballet hairstyles.  We learned that they were trying out for a professional ballet company as we threaded past them and into the crowded elevator.  In the elevator, people were generous with their attention, and Simon felt seen and welcomed.  The class’s producer, too, kindly welcomed Simon’s hug and kiss with open arms after we arrived on the 4th floor.

Simon and I have a ritual for entering a class, designed to help him understand and notice sacred space.  This was especially useful when he was smaller, to help him notice that once we enter, we don’t speak with words.  We stand in the threshold of the studio door, hold hands, take a big breath in, then, as we exhale, we jump into what we call “The Magic Dance Room.”

Once across the threshold, we found a spot, tucked into a comfortable corner near a pile of coats, and Simon got himself settled as I started to move around the room in Flowing.  He pretty much burned through all of his snacks during Flowing in the first wave, then got up in Staccato to join me on the dance floor.  He wanted me to hold both his hands, and he made this very clear when I tried to release one hand and extend my range of motion.  When he was tiny, he often wanted to be carried during a class.  If he was on the ground, he would wrap his arms around my leg.  I found a whole way of moving, even with one leg restricted, that I never would have otherwise uncovered.  In this case, I still moved very much in Staccato, though my dance remained attentive to his needs.  He trotted out some fancy footwork as we moved around the room, still holding tightly to my hands, and looking at all the dancers around us.  As Chaos arose, Simon went back to his spot in the corner and played with his Legos.  I moved around the room, then joined with a good friend in Lyrical, letting extensions pull me upward, and following her pendulous spinning.  The dancers close to us influenced the dance, too, as we found unending new forms.

In Stillness, Simon and I both stretched out on the floor and rolled, side by side, slowly into the middle of the room. Before long, I sat up and moved near him, but he remained on his back, pushing himself slowly through the room with his bent legs, gazing upward at the dancing adults.

At one point, someone triggered my anger.  I perseverated for a few short moments, then let it go, not wanting to taint the experience for myself or for Simon.

As the next wave started, Simon took another Legos break.  In Staccato, we danced near his spot.  For the first time, he let go of my hands and got creative with his feet as we moved toward Chaos, letting me loop around him and ranging over several feet.  As Chaos deepened, Simon went back to his spot in the corner again, while I moved into an exceptionally creative Chaos with one of my favorite dance partners.  We found new patterns, as one of us would express a sequence and the other would fall into it, each delighting in surprising the other with a new idea or expression.  The room was crowded, and our usually unbridled dance was softer (though still wild) and slotted in around the dancers close to us, but still taking up all the space we needed.

In Lyrical, Simon pointed to the door of the studio, and we both stepped out briefly.  “The music is too loud.  It’s hurting my ears,” he said.  “OK, we can stay out here for a little while.”  “We can go back in when the song is done,” he said, leading me back into the room as soon as the music shifted.

Coming back through the door into the studio, Stillness had already begun to unfold.  Simon poured his weight onto my forearm, as he does when we are walking home and he is extremely tired.  We were invited to partner, and to take turns telling the other, “Why are we here?”  We snuggled with his head on my shoulder and our arms wrapped around each other.  I said, “Do you want to talk about why you think we’re here?”  “I think we’re here to learn to be calm.  And gentle.  And also to be fast.  And to notice things,” he said, prompting me to kiss him on the forehead.  I took my own turn to speak, saying, “I think we’re here to make others happy and to make ourselves happy.”   We continued to snuggle and to rock back and forth gently.  At one point, I gathered him into my arms, sideways, like when he was a small baby, and rocked him gently.  As the final song began, Simon rested his head on the tops of my feet, leaning back, relaxed.  I felt a rush of love and gratitude, as we held hands and gently moved each other’s arms, listening to the last song Gabrielle Roth ever recorded.

When the music concluded, the mood in the room was reverent. Simon lead the way to our things.  We quietly picked them up, then headed out of the studio. I said, “Simon, I’m so proud of you.  When the teacher asked us to leave the room silently, you followed the directions.”  He said, “I didn’t even hear that, Mommy.  I just knew I was still in the Magic Dance Room and I couldn’t talk.”

We ended our adventure with a special lunch, and talked about our experiences.  Of everything that I do as a parent, I think that giving Simon access to the 5Rhythms is, quite possibly, my best offering.  Every phase of his development and of our ever-evolving relationship has been reflected in the 5Rhythms.  I am grateful for the many moments of glorious connection, when the practice draws back the veil of mundane experience, and reminds me of the divine blessing of my sweet little boy, my darling son.

February 7, 2017, Brooklyn, NYC

Times A Changin’ – Finding Lyrical Even Inside Chaos

“Imagine the conversation we’d be having if we weren’t debating facts.” –Masha Gessen

“The impulse to normalize” was the subject of a radio interview I heard in the car on the way to class at the Joffrey in the West Village.   In the interview, Masha Gessen, author of “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” encouraged the press to continue to report lies and inaccuracies, but at once to analyze language and missives for hidden intentions, and to include reporting on the deeper stories at play.  In my mind, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, economic opportunism, and hatred should never be seen as normal.

These thoughts preoccupied me as I stepped in to the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers class, taught today by Mark Bonder.  I began to move in looping circles, occasionally changing level or direction with a drop or rise of weight, absorbed in gentle movement, my entire body released before Mark even stepped into the room.  One song brought me to the floor to stretch and move in continuing circles and arcs, then I was up again, continuing an endless, weighted spin.

During Flowing, Mark put on the Herbie Hancock version of Bob Dylan’s 1964 protest song, “Times They Are A’ Changin” with the female vocalist Lisa Hannigan.  Her gentle voice broke my heart as I considered that in 1964, though there were many challenges and obstacles, times seemed to be changing for the better, at least in terms of prospects for oppressed communities.  Now, in post-election 2016, times are again changing, though from my perspective, not for the better.  I encountered a friend and remembered the powerful tide of emotion she expressed during a discussion at a spring workshop because of the outbreak of overt misogyny directed toward Hillary Clinton.  Hugging each other softly and rocking from side to side, we both cried, understanding each other’s grief without any need for words.

According to the 5Rhythms Heartbeat Map that was created by Gabrielle Roth, the originator of the practice, each of the rhythms corresponds to a fundamental emotion.  For example, Flowing corresponds with fear, and Chaos corresponds with sadness.  For me, however, these two are reversed. In Chaos, I find relief from fear, the release of trapped emotions, and the expression of previously repressed energies—which might include grief.  The sadness and grief that are intrinsic to human experience, or that occur in current events—both personal and collective—for me, that all finds its expression in Flowing.

Flowing—of the five rhythms, the rhythm that is perhaps most foreign to my nature—has been a solace for me lately.  Once I begin to move in circles and feel my feet on the ground, I often move around the room, awash in humanity, floating in a sea of gestures.  There is a brushing, touching kind of seeing-and-being-seen.  It is not the direct, individual eye contact of Staccato, but rather the humble seeing-and-being-seen that drifts gently, letting in without judging, framing or resisting.   I move patiently, saying to each person (whether I meet their eye or not) “I see you there; and I am grateful for it.”

When Staccato arrived, I groaned inwardly.  Lately, I have not wanted to move into Staccato.  My mind wants to argue, “Isn’t it enough to be alive now? To be moving and finding some small joy? Must I find direction on top of it all?  Do I really have to act?”  My yoga teacher yesterday delivered a staid, yet impassioned call to arms about the state of the union.  In principle, I totally agree with her.  Yet the fact is that I have no direction at the moment.  At some point, I have to stop reeling and pick a point to move toward.  In Staccato, the music featured big, clear beats, then some small skirmishes.  I focused my attention and tried to step directly on the big beats—no small accomplishment, given my affinity for syncopation.  I had a useful insight as a result: in addition to being expressive, bold and sometimes uptight, Staccato can be methodical.

In a culture where we are encouraged to live from the heart in a hallmark sense—to be bold in flashy gestures—the heartfulness of methodical action—of discipline—is often overlooked.  In the last couple of weeks, I have been seriously considering quitting my current work and finding a way to earn a living as a healer.  I very much want to be immersed in practice and in work of spirit.  However, I realized within today’s Staccato dance that chucking everything and starting a new path wouldn’t necessarily be the most skillful way to follow my heart.  In fact, in my current work I am very much a healer already.  If I continue to water the seeds I have been planting, I will realize my dream within my existing context, without even having to defect from my profession.

Staccato, Chaos and Lyrical toggled back and forth in the first wave.  I joined forces with a new friend and we leapt and flew, including dramatic stops, extensions and emphasis at the far edges of our gestures.

In Stillness, I drew inside.  My eyes nearly shut, a litany of symbolic gestures arose.  I imagined that I spun a thick cocoon around myself, then created an exit, stepped out of it, and left it on the floor.  Revealed, exposed, I felt as though the Gods could fully see me, dancing in a light body, though I told myself that if I needed it, I could always re-gather the cocoon, which was laying close by on the floor.

In the second wave of the class, Chaos and Lyrical were braided together.  A few days previous, in the elevator with a friend, we talked about the current political situation.  “We’re fucked,” she said, trying to sound casual.  I said, “Lately, whenever I have had a moment of Lyrical, of joy, amongst the Chaos, I’m like, ‘Wow! I’m actually happy! Let me just appreciate this!” I was delighted to find pockets of Lyrical even inside of intense, prolonged Chaos.  At one point, Mark played a rollicking, jig-like song by the Swedish band Hedningarna and I soared, along with many others, sailing, flicking, fluttering—with every possible pattern of ball change, high up on my toes, then we moved back into heavy Chaos—clearly, the rhythm of our time, reflecting that the only thing that seems “normal” to me at the moment is the inevitability of Chaos.

December 4, 2016, Brooklyn, NYC

(Image of Bob Dylan on winning the Nobel Peace Prize from consequencesofsound.files.wordpress)

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

Harsh Reality

“What?  This can’t be.  Oh, my God, this can’t be.  How could this be?  This can’t possibly be.  What are all of these overnight text messages about.  They are no longer celebratory, as they were last night.  This can’t be true.  Let me look at the internet.  Oh, my God.  Oh, my God.  Please, no.  Please, this can’t be.  So many people would suffer.  This is impossible.  How could Americans elect this person?  How could anyone vote for this man?  Please this is just a nightmare.  Let me wake up.  This can’t be.  Let me text back to some of the texts.  Please let it not be so.  It can’t be!  My God!  No, please, this can’t be! So many people would suffer!  The economy! Unchecked hatred!  Please say it is just a nightmare!”

Often before I start a new text for this blog, I write automatically for ten minutes. Writing automatically usually helps me to find an entry point, a theme, maybe even an idea for a structure, but today my mind remains scattered, dulled by its struggle to accommodate the new reality that my fellow Americans have elected Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States.

At Kierra Foster Ba’s workshop “Light & Shadow” last weekend, Kierra took us on a journey through the shadow aspects of each of the 5Rhythms—the shadow of Flowing, which is inertia; the shadow of Staccato, which is tension; the shadow of Chaos, which is confusion; the shadow of Lyrical, which is the quality of being spaced out; and the shadow of Stillness, which is numbness.  In addition, she introduced the idea that the shadows might have to do with the parts of ourselves we would rather keep hidden or disown completely.

After the workshop, I wrote feverishly, very much wanting to deliver a text on the shadows work of last weekend before Tuesday’s election results, realizing that no matter what happened, anything written before Tuesday would become automatically outdated.  Although I was very nervous, I wrote with the assumption that there would be a Hillary victory in the end, and, too, with the assumption that after the election that we would have to find ways to work with and address America’s unleased collective shadows of abject hatred and opportunism.

Before the election, my psyche simply could not accommodate the possibility that Donald Trump might actually win the election.  It was simply too surreal—too much the stuff of nightmares.  It simply could not be. Americans certainly would not go to such extremes, even in the face of anger and disempowerment, that we would actually elect such a person, someone who does not believe in and would threaten our very democracy, who is the confirmed perpetrator of countless, outrageous crimes and abuses, possibly even of rape.

The lively activity at my polling place in Brooklyn made me feel like Hillary would surely win.  The better the voter turnout, I argued in my head, the more likely she would prevail.  I brought my six-year-old son along with me, regaling him with stories of when Obama was first elected—the long, happy lines to vote; and after the results came in, the streets filled with celebration, people thronging Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I lived at the time.  I told him excitedly, “This is a moment you will always remember, when we voted for the first woman president!”

The memory of the first 5Rhythms class I attended after Obama was elected in 2008 seemed like a totally different lifetime.  It was Tammy’s Friday Night Waves class.  For days, I had been walking around the city sobbing for joy.  It would hit me, buying a tea, waiting for the walk sign, standing on the subway.  Talking with everyone.  Beaming.  Not only had we—a nation built with the blood and sweat of slaves—elected a Black man, but we had elected an ethical, competent, intelligent leader, who was intent on building consensus, examining the minutiae of evidence on the many matters that faced him, and with the stated intention—and possibly the skill—to extend the prosperity that a small number of Americans enjoyed to a larger portion of society.  That was the first time since I was a baby in a leaf pile playing with my parents, that I had ever moved in pure joy.  The room was filled with a different kind of vocalization than what we experienced in class this week—hooting and hollering that moved through the air in waves of its own.  We were a glowing mess, drenched, crying, leaping many feet off the ground, the entire wood floor bouncing, the music getting louder and louder.  It was paradise.  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was—to be alive in this time, to be part of this seismic shift, this uncontainable joy.

A few sleepless, dark morning hours after learning the results (during which my son and I sat on a meditation cushion together, my stomach in knots, him reading quietly or practicing meditation along with me) one of the people I am closest to—a Black and Latino man—entered the house.  He shared an opinion that I have since heard echoed by more than one person of color—that this was no surprise, and that “Black people in America have been dealing with this level of hatred and injustice all along.   Now, it is just out in the open.”  He also reminded me that his joy when Obama was elected had been mitigated by his prediction that there would be a monstrous backlash after Obama’s term.

Since the election, hate crimes have surged, according to the New York Times, USA Today, CNN and a long list of reputable sources.  “Make America White Again” has been scrawled on a whiteboard in a University of North Florida library, and in countless other places countrywide.  My father told me with grave consternation that there had been a KKK rally in my parents’ small town in Northern Connecticut, to my knowledge an unprecedented event.

During and after the “Light & Shadow” workshop, I grappled with the concept of ground, wondering if in clinging to the idea of ground, I might be limiting my perception of reality.  Kierra sought to share her insight, and an insight likely shared by Gabrielle Roth—the creator of the 5Rhythms practice—that the ground is always there; and that it is possible to find the ground even in an earthquake.  Instead of only finding the ground in Flowing, where we traditionally establish it, Kierra lead me to also consider finding it through releasing into Chaos.  My idea of “the ground” as Gabrielle Roth intended it continues to evolve, but I realize that the idea of ground is compatible with the realization that absolutely everything is in constant, dynamic flux; and that there is truly nothing to cling to.  The ground is the foundation, from which we hear and trust our instinctive, physical selves, and from which we come to trust the fundamental correctness and workability of reality.  Truly, finding the ground and being at ease through releasing into Chaos is a powerful tool, as we seek to navigate (at minimum) the next four years.

Driving alone to a 5Rhythms class, my first since the election, I bawled and keened, my face contorted, tears streaming down my cheeks to the point that my skin actually started to itch from all of the salt.  My mind raced, “Would I choose to leave the US?  What steps would I have to take?  Is there anywhere in the western world that is exempt from this impulse toward xenophobia and aggression, this reaction to globalism?  Should I stay and be part of the resistance?  What would the resistance be?  What would happen to all the people without insurance?  Would my son be safe from racism, hatred and violence?  Would New York City be safe, once Trump started provoking countries around the world?  Would I lose my job as a result of recession?  Would my friends lose their jobs?  Would all of my parents’ lifelong hard work for social justice be wiped away, just as they are growing old, beginning to tally their contributions?  Would they lose heart and lose faith?  Would I?  Do all of the people who voted for Trump hate women?  Do all of the people who voted for Trump hate me?  Do they all think that the sexual trauma I have suffered in my own life is no big deal and that the pain I have struggled with for a lifetime is just someone’s lark—locker room pranks—without accountability?  And how, in this crazy world, would I counter this monstrous influence on my small son?  Is there any way to protect him?”  I had no schema for any of this.  Through years of diligent practice, I had developed powerful faith in the basic goodness of human beings.  How could I reconcile these seemingly contradictory realities?

Arriving at class, I took my time to enter the studio, noticing the powerful ritual of stepping from the world into the space of formal practice.  I was not wracked by grief.  There was no catharsis, as I had in a way hoped for.  Instead, the group moved through the first wave, breathing in and out, trying our best to release into Flowing and then into each of the other rhythms.  I noticed that my version of Flowing was agitated, and I made an effort to slow down, to let it in.  To let in the reality of my stress and grief-wracked body, and the reality of the outcome of the election, which I still could not fully grasp.  Staccato barely arrived in this first wave, finding me fumbling, unsure of my feet for once, disassociated, perhaps still in the throes of shock despite my stated willingness to let in. Chaos was loud and energetic, though mental activity continued to churn, in disjointed snippets and unruly threads.  The tiniest hint of Lyrical emerged, and it crossed my mind that somehow I would have to find a way to let joy in, too, despite everything, or I would lose four years of my life, perhaps even causing an atrophy of joy that I would not recover from.  I reminded myself that expressing joy is not an intrinsic affront to suffering, and that being miserable, angry or sad wouldn’t help me to control anything.  It would just make me miserable or angry or sad.  Whether I find Lyrical or not—the situation is very much outside of my control.

On Wednesday morning, arriving to work, I went straight to my one strong work ally.  Hugging him, I sobbed.  Although there were a few people there who were also devastated by the results of the election, I felt very alone, both at work and in the context of the country.  On parting, I said, “This is a call to arms.  We must each become a warrior of the heart.  That is our only hope at this point.  As of today, any kindness is now an act of political resistance.”

At the class, I felt like a whole layer of neurosis had become outdated, along with everything else that happened before November 8, 2016.  Most of the people I was moving with were allies, and could be trusted.  Petty irritations seemed extra pointless, considering the need to build community.  Despite this, some irritations did arise, and I wondered if they were a last sprint of a certain kind of ego, or if they might be a way for my psyche to work on some things that I couldn’t manage to confront directly.

In the interim between the two waves, I sat leaning in a little pod with a small group of friends who happened to be seated near me; then, began to flow back-to-back with one friend, at first just gently swaying from side to side.  I was still disassociated and not capable of fully releasing to ground, but did my best to show up for my friend and for myself.  Eventually gaining our feet, we moved around each other with great energy, then smiled thankfully, beginning to move separately throughout the room.  I spent part of this wave considering disaster preparedness, with a long list of specifics, despite the shared intention to really see each other, to really give to each other.  In Staccato, I found ferocity in bursts, but still felt disassociated.  I partnered with one friend, and marveled at her fire.  Inspired, I grew gigantic, too, forcing it ever so slightly, trying it as an experiment, an intention, rather than as my full expression in that moment.  Even so, I recognized the need to step up in every way, to step into my power, to help the people around me to step into their power, to organize, to defy, to build community, to speak, to listen, to offer, to receive.

Today, as I write, I have a bone infection in my jaw.  It is incredibly painful.  Instead of succumbing to self-pity, I remind myself that there are many people around the world who at this very moment are also experiencing excruciating dental pain.  Maybe also on top of other kinds of pain, too. The great Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron teaches a Tibetan meditation practice called Tonglen.  In Tonglen, instead of resisting or pushing away pain, negativity or other afflictive emotions, we breathe them in.  Then, we breathe out equanimity, positivity and pleasant emotions. In the process, we work against our conditioned impulse to push away what threatens us, frightens us, or rocks our fundamental notions of who we are.  In doing so, we transform our relationship to aversion—the energetic pushing away or non-acceptance of things we usually can’t escape anyway.  An aspect of Tonglen that acts as a counter to despair is that we remind ourselves again and again that we are not alone, that whatever pain we are experiencing, there are countless others who feel or have felt the same pain.  As such, it is impossible not to call to mind the billions of people who suffer or have suffered under the leadership of corrupt, greedy, dishonest or incompetent leaders.  I am not alone.  We are not alone.

I have been very careful to write about the nation as “we,” though it is a stretch for me at this moment.  One sneaky form of aversion is setting up a group of people as “others” who are distinct from “us.”  This is a fundamental premise of postmodern identity politics and of post-colonial theory—the idea that in order to construct ourselves a certain way, we set up groups of people as “others” as a counterpoint to the “us.” It is like we can only have an identity by defining who does not have our identity, excluding certain people from our experience completely. I am using “we,” and thinking of the many complex causes that gave rise to this moment, rather than succumbing to the temptation to simply revile Trump’s supporters to make them “other.”  Truly, this is a phenomenon that all of us have participated in producing.  This place we find ourselves is not an anomaly, and is not simply the result of someone else’s misconduct.

The Black and Latino man I wrote of earlier and who is one of my most important allies again shared his thoughts on the current political moment, reminding me very much of the teachings on the shadow aspects of the 5Rhythms.  He said, “The thing is, people of color have always known it was this bad.  It always has been.  The good thing is that we know that the only way to change things is to first actually accept how bad things are.  That’s the thing that white people just haven’t realized; and that’s why so many people are so shocked.  It is only when we can really accept what is actually happening that real change can finally occur.”

Gabrielle Roth often expressed that the rhythm of our time is Chaos.  As volatile as it inevitably has been, she believed that our era is also marked by possibility and creativity.  I try to imagine what she would say now, if she were still alive.  Perhaps that no matter what, we have to keep moving.  Perhaps that to shut down and lock up would be the real death of us.  Perhaps that the best way to work with Chaos is to release directly into the middle of it.  Perhaps that, ultimately, nothing and no one can take away our freedom or peace of mind, unless we ourselves allow it.

Rending, guttural screams flew through the space as we moved in Chaos.  I found the floor, pulsing vigorously through my middle back, on my hands and knees and crouched into the hips with my pubis almost touching the ground, then I would leap and spin, finding all the while stops and edges inside my own maelstrom.  The friend who was so ferocious in Staccato moved with just as much vigor right next to me.  I moved to the floor and up from it, leaping quickly, perhaps in a primal defensive gesture, landing first in a deep squat, bursting upward, my head a car on the speeding rollercoaster of my spine, then moved back to the ground.  I remembered Kierra’s words about releasing into Chaos, and as the rhythm played out I found more softness, less edge.  If I was tempted to check myself out of this intensity, I reminded myself of the critical importance of releasing to Chaos as a tool for survival.

Lyrical came, too, and then Stillness.  I partnered with a friend who I love to dance with, and we beamed as we moved together, more expansive than in our past dances.  High up on my toes and both finding discrete patterns, we played in and out of each other’s orbits.  In Stillness, I moved unselfconsciously, pulling away from a friend who wanted to partner, giving myself a quiet moment to turn inward.

Though there will be times that we all need to turn inward, community has become critical.  Right before the election, I had invited several friends to a series of dinner parties because I had realized the need to re-focus my priorities on the people around me, rather than on my very stressful job.  Now, after the election, having a way to gather together and cultivate our relationships seems even more important—in fact, like a matter of emotional and political necessity.

At the height of dental pain, I decided to take a yoga class.  I reasoned that I would try it, and if it was impossible I would just leave.  The pain was an 8 or 9 on a scale of 1-10 most of the time, but at moments it receded to the back of my mind, as I attended diligently to the poses and to the breath.  I was surprised that I made it through the entire class, despite the pain.  The teacher, who I trust deeply, said, “It might be hard to hear this right now, but the truth is that we are made for these times.  This is what we have been practicing for.”

On Saturday, I attended a candlelight vigil and rally at Fort Greene Park, where thousands of all races, classes, ages, religions and orientations came together to affirm our commitment to oppose injustice and hatred in all its manifestations, to affirm our commitment to love, and to support each other in resisting the temptation to feel isolated or incapacitated.  A heartful voice sang out, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” We all joined in, raising our candles in the falling night.  My voice was ragged, the words barely coherent.  A friend from the neighborhood I hadn’t realized was right next to me turned and embraced me.  I looked to my other side and saw another friend—this one from college in Boston—and I turned and kissed her cheek.

We are not alone, my loves.  We are in this together.  In the words of the woman whose light guides me, the woman who continues to show my heart the way, Gabrielle Roth, “There is only one of us here.”

November 13, 2016, Brooklyn, NYC

(Image is a photo I took at the “Vigil for Hope & Human Kindness” that took place in Fort Greene Park on November 12, 2016)

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

Light & Shadow

“The intention for this workshop is full, complete and unrelenting self-acceptance,” said highly regarded 5Rhythms teacher Kierra Foster-Ba during the course of the one-day workshop “Light & Shadow” at Martha Graham studios on Saturday.  5Rhythms is a dance and movement meditation practice created by the late Gabrielle Roth; and the “Light & Shadows” workshop was a committed investigation of the shadow aspects of each of the five rhythms—Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.  After a series of tightly scheduled events, I found myself en route to the West Village, hoping a miracle would grant me parking; and pondering the fact that there are so many terrifying, uncomfortable, collective shadows to dance at this particular moment.  No matter how things go with the election, there is no denying that we have seen some horrifically ugly aspects of our humanity recently.

Before stepping up onto the gloriously forgiving sprung floor, I took several moments to notice the powerful ritual of stepping from the world into the space of formal practice.  We began with a brief wave—what we call it when we move through each of the 5Rhythms in sequence—and I found movement easily, though I noticed that I was more introverted than usual.

After the opening wave, Kierra gathered us together to offer spoken instruction and to demonstrate one way of moving in each rhythm.  Kierra noted that there were several participants who had never before attended a 5Rhythms class or workshop; and she took the time to teach essential points before moving on to the shadow work.  She spent the most time on Flowing—the first and most foundational rhythm.  She explained that Flowing is led by the feet, and is an invitation to drop all the way down into the feet in order to connect with the instinctive self.  Next, her movements became sharp and she exhaled noticeably, “Staccato is about being in the world.”  She went on to say, “Staccato is directional.  Letting in and letting out.”  The movement of her head accelerated and she began to rock back and forth energetically, saying, “Chaos is about letting go.”  She emphasized that if you give yourself over to Chaos, including not caring at all about how you look to others, you are inevitably led into Lyrical—the rhythm of joy, of lightening up.  At Kierra’s request, another well regarded 5Rhythms teacher, Jane Selzer, got up to demonstrate the rhythm of Stillness, as Kierra explained on the microphone that breath is the gateway to Stillness, and that in Stillness we begin to let pauses come into our movements.

Having set the foundation of the rhythms, Kierra went on to speak about the shadows.  The shadow of Flowing is inertia, of Staccato is tension, of Chaos is confusion, of Lyrical is being spaced out, and of Stillness is numbness.  Although the temptation is to see the shadow as a negative aspect of the rhythms or as something to get rid of, Kierra encouraged us to think of the shadows as something with real “nutrition,” and even went on to later describe the “gravy” of each shadow, inviting us to consider that the shadow rhythms might even be as enjoyable as the “essential” rhythm in some ways.  She also introduced the theme that the shadow rhythms could relate to parts of us that we are ashamed of and keep hidden, sometimes even from ourselves.

Tuesday was a difficult day for me.  I can’t exactly say why.  A stressful situation had dissolved a few days before; and perhaps it could only hit me after the fact.  My nails were bitten down, my hair’s ends broken, my skin was unhappy, I couldn’t eat as I had something that must have been heartburn, and my lower back hurt.  The dentist told me the pain I was feeling in my jaw was not because I needed some urgent dental surgery, but that the likely cause was that my gums and teeth were showing signs of stress.  I couldn’t find joy or optimism, especially in the context of work.  Everything seemed hopeless and useless.  To make matters worse, I couldn’t swim after work, my daily habit for re-setting myself to neutral, because in my rushing movements I had forgotten my swim bag.

That evening, my six-year-old son, Simon, did his very best to cheer me up.  He is an exceedingly charming child and tried all the tricks that usually work.  “How can I make you happy, Mommy?” he finally asked.  “Oh, my beautiful son!  You always make me happy.  But today I am just not feeling good.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I just don’t feel happy.  Sometimes it is like that, little one.  Sometimes you just have to let whatever it is work its way through without trying to fix it.”  After Simon went to bed, I was tempted to call my mother, as she always helps me feel better, but I decided not to.  I wanted to have a beer as soon as Simon went to bed, too, but I decided not to.  Instead, I practiced yoga for a while, letting the painful, disheartened feelings I was experiencing have full sway. It was not easy to be with the discomfort.

Kierra was transparent about the structure of the workshop; and explained her plans for working with inertia—the shadow of Flowing.  She invited us to stretch out on the floor and let ourselves slowly be called to action by the music.  There would be three songs to let ourselves be in inertia, then find our way into moving.  I started out moving kind of quickly, and consciously tried to slow way down.  The gravity and resistance of inertia didn’t feel that different from how I normally experience Flowing—where I love to whirl and grind myself into the floor, partnering with gravity and solidity.  I slowly gathered myself and rose to my feet, beginning to move throughout the room.  Kierra picked up the microphone, “At this point, ask yourself, ‘What do I need right now in order to find Flowing?”  What came immediately to mind for me was, “I need other people.  I need to see and be seen—not direct, not confrontational, but obliquely, softly.  To be influenced by other people’s gestures, to be swept along by the currents of the bodies around me and to gently affect the currents of the room, myself.”  I thought of traces, of mingling, and of kelp plants, waving their tethered arms with the movements of the deep ocean.

To some extent, working with the shadows is about transforming our relationship to aversion; and Kierra again and again visited the theme of loving and supporting all parts of ourselves, including the parts we would perhaps rather disown.  In Buddhist terms, aversion is the act of pushing away from what we find distasteful or frightening.  Working intentionally with the shadows is to choose to move toward the things we would normally try to push away.  Both in 5Rhythms and in many Buddhist traditions, moving intentionally into what we want to move away from is seen as a way to open the heart and mind, not as some form of masochistic self-abuse.  Perhaps moving directly into pain—rather than doing everything in our power to get away from it, through over-drinking, over-eating, over-exercising, over-working, gambling, drugs, filling up every space in our minds with churning thoughts, or filling up every space of our lives with frantic activity—can serve us.

Next, we moved on to the investigation of Staccato.  The shadows of each rhythm are even less fixed than the essential rhythms; and though we learned that the shadow of Staccato is tension, Kierra also added that the tension can lead to repression and control.  I clenched my fists and set to it.  I had to keep fluttering my lips and shaking out my head, as the level of tension in my body didn’t feel healthy.  My dance at this point was not very inspired.  I thought about Gabrielle Roth, how she used to stop and straight out tell people to dig deeper, to give more.  At that point, Kierra stopped the music and said, “I’m going to play a song now that is really going to allow us to go there.  This might even be a little bit aggressive.”  And, oh, was it!  Filled with angst and speed and resistance, I became a demon, letting aggression and anger arise, deep, deep in the hips, scraping, clawing the air around me, raking my knees into sharp angles, my head released and flinging itself with as much speed as my hips, feet, knees and elbows.  I danced near a friend with a very strong practice and his devotion, passion and energy inspired me to dig even deeper.  A giddy, chemical release flooded my quadriceps and soon the rest of me.  As the last Staccato song concluded, Kierra commented that anger can be a teacher; and that it can alert us when our boundaries have been inappropriately transgressed.

On the note of repression, I thought about an incident that took place during a meditation retreat I was staffing several years ago.  We were sitting on meditation cushions in a small group of perhaps ten people, engaged in a formal discussion.  We were talking about aversion—again, the Buddhist concept of pushing away what is unpleasant or uncomfortable.  In response to one of the comments about the aversive shell we create to keep ourselves safe, I said, “Well, you know.  It would be one thing if shutting down or pushing away actually worked to make us happier or keep us safe.  The thing is that it really doesn’t work.  If it did I would be all for it, but it doesn’t.”  I’m not exactly sure how it was framed, but I said something about, “It’s not like it’s the subway in the South Bronx at 2AM in the late 1980’s, when you might actually need a shell around you.”  A flash of raw anger shot around the circle; and every single person felt it before even a word was said.  One woman spoke up, expressing that she felt that what I said was racist.  Man, that hurt.  Shame of the most intense possible quality flooded me.  My heart started beating like crazy.  My partner of many years was a black and latino man.  We had shared hundreds of hours in discussion about racism, ranging through many different levels.  Secretly, I had always been terrified that on some deep level I was actually a racist. Though I was afraid, I approached the woman during the next break and asked her to talk with me about her feelings.  She was very receptive; and after, I understood how she could see my comment as racist.  She also thanked me, saying that she was always calling people out for racist comments; and that I was the first person who had ever come and asked her to talk about it.

This terribly painful experience gave me great insight; and a rush of relief flooded me with another set of powerful chemicals.  I realized I had been afraid that there was some essential part of me that was racist.  Every other essentialist part of my psyche had been rigorously interrogated, but this part remained hidden, obscured by shame and fear.  (Note:  As you probably know, from the perspective of some Buddhist philosophy “essentialism” is the belief that there is a separate and definable “self” and too, implies that reality has some logical kind of coherence or definability.)  I realized that just as there is no essential self; too, there is no essential racism.  As I currently understand it, racism is a process—one that affects every single person who lives in this culture.  Fundamentally, it is our flawed human tendency to separate the world into “us” and “them” that lays the foundation for racism, not an intrinsic hidden evil; though there is no denying the intensity and complexity of racism as it now functions.  It would be impossible to overstate the importance of this insight for my personal path.  Even my firmly-held idea that I was a not-racist was limiting my perception of phenomena, and, as such, needed to be interrogated, as much as any other part of me, in the interest of uncovering the deepest truth.

As the songs devoted to the investigation of tension—the shadow of Staccato—ended, I caught a friend’s eye.  We both smiled, and our shoulders started a conversation.  Without any thought, we stepped into a Staccato dance, with open chests and shyly playful gestures, before sitting down with the rest of the group to debrief the round of exercises.

Before the second half of the Light & Shadow workshop, we took a brief break, then danced another short wave before settling into an investigation of confusion—the shadow of Chaos.  For the first song, we were invited to start with the shapes of “I don’t know.”  This exercise did not resonate for me—which is not to say that it didn’t work for me.  Certainly, it was acting on me in some way.  In every class and workshop, even when I am transported by bliss, there are some exercises that have more charge than others.  The following suggestion, that we dance an agitated kind of confusion, didn’t really resonate this time either.  Maybe it is partly because I don’t actually mind being confused.  I am as cerebral as they come, but I don’t mind that I have all kinds of contradictory opinions and experiences and theories.  The final invitation during the Chaos shadow work was, “What does it look like when you really don’t know something, but you are pretending that you do.”

Just that morning, I had been bragging that I don’t usually hide when I don’t know something.  I saw a friend—the parent of a child in my son’s class; and I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name (it was this friend I was bragging to).  We had shared at least four or five conversations, been at the same party or picnic several times, and our children genuinely like each other.  Her name has four syllables and seems unusual to me.  I felt embarrassed that I still couldn’t remember it, but I came clean right away, rather than trying to skirt around my lapse.  We spoke at length about names and naming and identity; and I learned a lot about her home country. And I have finally committed her name to memory, so I will be able to hug her and greet her by name the next time I see her.

At the workshop, we paused to share thoughts on the shadow of Chaos.  Kierra was kind enough to acknowledge my barely-raised hand, and I shared, “What I got was…that confusion arises from misunderstanding the nature of reality.  The dissolution of all meaning systems.  That everything is moving.  And that even the ground isn’t fixed.”

Kierra surprised me by asking, “Can I work with you for a minute? To help you find the ground.  I want to ask you to go into Chaos.”  I stood up and moved instantly into a massively energetic Chaos, with whipping head and whirling gestures, moving from the floor to the sky and back, with occasional pauses of sharpness in a fast-spinning storm.  Kierra offered an oblique compliment that made me feel happy, then went on to talk about how the 5Rhythms can also be seen as a philosophy and as a way to live.

I was very grateful for her kind attention, but I feared I hadn’t communicated the emotional truth of my experience very well.  That even the ground moves feels like a revelation (or at least a reminder), rather than a lament.  For three years, I worked with teens from Haiti who had been in the devastating earthquake, when the ground literally broke apart.  Nearly all lost many family members; and some were injured.  I have also practiced 5Rhythms extensively at the edge of the sea, where the ground shifts constantly.  There, what was once ground could suddenly be underwater, roiling with rocks and sand.  I have incredible gratitude for the principle of ground, but believe there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that is fixed.  I think that the principle of grounding is a different matter, in a way. When I say there is no ground, I guess what I really mean is that the only ground we can count on is actually an experience that comes mostly from within.  Rather than trying to find a fixed external point to attach myself to, I try to build the skills I need to live in a world that is always in joyful, terrifying, ceaseless motion.

Kierra seemed to be wanting to demonstrate that release is part of the secret to finding the ground.  I understand and appreciate this perspective, but I continue to grapple with a new level of what “ground” is.  Somehow I have to find a way to trust, surrender to, and adore the ground—at once without clinging in any way to the notion of it.  Yet another thread that is a work in progress!

To conclude our debrief of the Chaos exercise, another participant raised his hand to share that, ironically, letting himself go into confusion seemed to allow him to find direction and focus.

Then, there was Lyrical—the rhythm that for years was so foreign to me I would pretty much skip it when I practiced independently.  During classes, when Lyrical arrived, I would often be stricken with terror, and have to fight an impulse to check my phone to make sure there hadn’t been some horrible calamity.  Kierra invited us to start by making “spaced out” shapes.  I started with the familiar shapes of feeling verbally attacked, withdrawn completely—disassociated to the point that I literally could not follow a conversation, prompting a criticism I heard hundreds of times, “Oh, great!  The ‘deer in headlights’ look again.  That is just like you.  You…” Our next investigation was of being distracted.  I marched anxiously around the room fixated on an imaginary cel phone.  During the final song, Kierra invited us to let ourselves space out to see what might happen.  I loved this part!  I fixed my gaze on some high up, far off point, sometimes in a different direction than the one my body was moving, and soared through the room, high up on my toes.

The rhythm of Lyrical—after many lifetimes of estrangement—opened up for me the summer before last.  After sinking several levels into connection with the ground as a result of many years of disciplined practice, space beckoned me.  On a wide beach, a man was flying a huge, red kite-surfing kite, the kind with two heavy-duty handles.  It became my partner, and we joined in a massive, radial dance of perhaps a hundred yards or more, surrounded and joined by my son and a group of running children.  From then, Lyrical became available to me, accompanied by rainbows, and I welcomed it as a miracle.  It was only the combination of ground and open space that allowed me access to this gateway.

I recall another experience of space that offered me an earlier glimpse of Lyrical.  It was also during a meditation retreat.  We had been following instructions about how to work with our minds and bodies for many weekends.  During the first weekend, we held our eyes open, with our gaze just a few feet ahead of us.  In the second, we raised the gaze slightly.  By the fourth, we would occasionally lift our gaze upward, even into the space above us.  We went to practice in Madison Square Park on a beautiful fall day.  I sat cross-legged on a park bench; and began to practice.  At the moment that I lifted my gaze, I drew breath in quickly, in a sudden rush of delight. In a flash, I saw many beings that hovered in the air, above the fountain, above the park, above the trees.  The dynamic aliveness of this moment wrote itself into my body.

In the current political context, and also in the context of my work, it occurs to me that the maturity of Lyrical—the full, shimmering, vibrating, sharp, vivid, spectacular, booming beauty of Lyrical has to do with stepping in to joy with full, open-eyed awareness and acceptance of all our pain and of the collective pain of the world.  It is only with the integration of the shadow principles, and, too, of our own psychological shadows, that joy can fully arrive—not just the happy-because-something-went-well-joy or the I’m-going-to-look-happy-since-I’m-not-sure-how I’m-feeling-joy, it is not the innocent joy of a child either.  Rather, it is the joy that has wisdom in it, joy that pushes nothing away, joy that sees from vast heights, joy that has enough space to hold all things inside it.

As the workshop drew to a close, Kierra invited us to create a circle, saying, “Now we are going to go in, one at a time.  You can do whatever you want once you are there, but the rest of us are all going to hoot and holler and really make you feel appreciated.”  I was so happy, clapping and cheering as nearly every participant stepped in.  I waited for inspiration, thinking I might walk discretely into the middle then turn slowly, looking each person in the eye, then dance whatever came.  As it was, I stepped in just as another dancer, too, stepped into the circle.  I backed away, but she beckoned me.  Instead of our individual time in the circle, we shared the spotlight, leaping and cascading and smiling as we met each other’s eyes and swooped in and out of each other.  I briefly circled her shoulder with my arm, turning her to look at the circle, but we only turned through one small arc.  She returned to her original spot in the circle; and I cross-stepped back to my own spot.

Kierra drew us together again and invited us to hold hands, close our eyes, and stand in both our light and in our shadow.  Then, gathering us together for a final chat, she tied some of the threads together, expressing that it is only when we fully support and accept all parts of who we are can we live authentically, from the heart.  Kierra also said something to the effect that the thing that causes us to suffer the most is the idea that we are separate from each other, and that actually we are deeply connected, in ways “both miraculous and mundane.”

Today, as I write, is marathon Sunday.  I got to watch the middle of the pack for a little while, and cheered enthusiastically. There is nothing more gorgeous than people being beautiful—living their dreams, perhaps pushing themselves far beyond what they thought they were capable of.  My cheers were jagged with little sobs of joy.  What a blessing, to be alive.  How incredibly lucky we are.  To live and to witness others in living.

I had to leave the discussion a few minutes before the end, as I didn’t want to be too late for the babysitter.  The friend I shared the spontaneous, staccato dance with stood up and followed me to the studio door while the discussion continued, embracing me warmly before I stepped down off of the dance floor and the sacred space of formal practice, and back into the world.

November 7, 2016, Brooklyn, NYC

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

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” –Albert Einstein