by meghanleborious | Dec 4, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Tammy’s “Faint of Heart” Heartbeat workshop took place over three days at the Martha Graham Dance Studio in the West Village. I arrived preoccupied, as I’d been mentally tangling with a sticky interpersonal issue throughout the afternoon. After organizing my things in the female dancers’ locker area, I stepped into the big, open room, and instantly forgot my pressing dilemma. Once inside, I crossed another threshold by stepping up onto the welcoming sprung floor. People were more or less evenly distributed throughout the space, prone with closed or averted eyes, moving slowly. Instead of finding space on the floor to stretch and unfurl as is often my inclination, my spine moved quickly into Flowing—curling and undulating the rest of me. I took tiny steps, in deference to the many quiet bodies around me, noticing the movement in my released spine as it rose up from subtle connections of all the parts of my feet with the floor.
5Rhythms is articulated through a series of “maps” that Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, laid out. The first map is the Waves map, which is the foundational practice, and is concerned with the investigation of each of the 5Rhythms—Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The Heartbeat map comes next; and is a way to investigate emotional experience. This was my third Heartbeat workshop, and my second Heartbeat workshop with Tammy.
I wasn’t able to attend the last day of the workshop because I attended, instead, a wake for my sister, Courtney’s, best friend, Lisa. She and Courtney were close friends since childhood; and Courtney stayed close to her as she moved painfully through the process of dying. Lisa was 38 years old, and left a seven-year-old son behind.
I was at Courtney’s house just moments after she got the news that Lisa had passed. She had called to ask my opinion about whether she should go to Lisa’s immediately after receiving an alarming text from Lisa’s fiancé. She also wanted to alert me that I might need to pick up Simon (my son) who was sleeping over at her house that night. I decided to go to her in either case, and was there within five minutes. During that time, she received the call. When I walked in, she was coiled sideways on a barrel shaped chair, rocking, sobbing quietly, keening at moments, and clutching the phone while she talked with another close friend who wailed audibly.
That first night, I moved with great freedom. It is absolutely amazing to me that I can spend countless hours dancing and still, again and again, find new ways to move. My spine was very released and I found a lot of my gestures ending with looking up, often arcing back and raising my hands above my head.
Tammy led us through an exercise called a “body parts meditation.” Next, she told us to take a partner and to take turns with one person doing the body parts meditation while the other witnessed them. After each took a turn witnessing, the mover then told the other what she felt during the exercise, and the witness described what she saw. I went first. My partner was a dancer who I have developed a relationship with over many years. I closed my eyes for most of the exercise and moved with inspired focus. At the end, I stood facing my friend. I said, “I was really into moving my spine—like twisting and curving and undulating. I was thinking about how unbelievable it is, all the infinite ways of articulating the spine.” I also said, “There is a spot in my neck that I can’t really get into. I noticed that it correlates with my sore right shoulder and inflexible right shoulder blade.”
She said, “First, I want to say that I love your dance.” It made me feel happy to hear that, celebrated, in a way. “I’m always happy when you are in the room. You really did seem to be moving from the spine, from the heart. It is like your entire rhythm is heartbeat, like it’s inside your bones. It gets a little heavy at times, and then light again, but it is always from the heart.” I loved her poetic words. It was magic to be seen so tenderly. After her dance, I said, “There is something frontal that your arms do, sort of straightforward. Maybe it is offering? Your elbows are very flexible and willing to go along with whatever your shoulders decide is happening. There is also a kind of integration to the way you move, and you are very planar and diagonal, somehow.”
We had another group talk at the end of the night, and it seemed people had endless comments. Although many were insightful, I was nervous that we went 20 minutes over. I gathered my things and went into the blustery night without even pausing to change out of my cold, sweaty clothes so I wouldn’t arrive home too late.
On Saturday, we started fresh. For me, it was another beautiful wave—characterized by a fluid spine, creative engagement and new discoveries. I began with dramatic balancing stretches and found my way quickly into unbridled movement. A plaintive, tonal opening song by FC/Kahuna included the lyric, “Don’t think about…all those things you…fear. Just be glad to be here.” I sobbed raggedly as I moved, grounded firmly, yet drawing everything up, toward heaven, my eyes half closed, finding inexplicable movements as the music moved into Stillness. Grief—both for Lisa and for other lost friends—found its shapes with my body.
After Saturday’s first wave, we gathered together to talk and Tammy opened the floor. After a couple of comments, she encouraged us to try to stay involved with what we were actually feeling physically—at least for now—and to avoid analyzing the feelings or considering the many metaphors that arise. She explained that the work we do in the territory described by the Heartbeat map is specifically about the infinite aspects of how we feel. This proved to be too much for us, collectively. Another hand went up and shared a story about childhood, and another, a personal insight.
Today, Lisa’s minister, Pastor Bessy, lead the service at the funeral home. She emphasized again and again, the many accomplishments of Lisa’s short life, and the many people she had loved well. My sister and another friend stood at the podium to share their own experiences. Courtney’s words were very moving. She was humble; and she grounded her words in lived experience. She quoted from letters she had received from Lisa; and she included many of the people in attendance in her generous reflections.
Next, Tammy assigned an exercise that involved firmly clasping a partner’s arm, then reflecting on what arose. My first partner had piercing blue eyes, and I moved slightly forward as she touched my arm. At once, I felt like laughing. With the second partner for the clasping exercise, when I stood in front of her and looked into her eyes, I felt such a surge of tenderness that I almost began to cry. When she clasped my arm, I felt solidly grounded and did not react aversively at all, nor did I dig in or resist the movement.
Later, again seated and discussing our felt experiences as a group, my second partner shared her thoughts. She first said that when she came to face me, she felt I was someone she could trust, partly because I am short (yes, short!). She went on to say that with her first partner, she had a key insight that when she was clasped, her neck went into a sharp sideways jolt. She felt like she was always supposed to be moving forward and accomplishing things, and this was her learned way of resisting. She shared that she’d had chronic neck pain for years and hadn’t realized that this action was the root of the neck pain. When she came to be partnered with me, I went first. She felt like my response to being clasped was to surrender forward, like an undulating wave. She decided to try on her perception of my approach, and again had a key insight.
These words, too, made my impressionable ears happy. I reflected on the fact that upon entering Friday, I was embroiled in my own thoughts about a difficult interpersonal situation, but that I let it go. And not just for the moment, and not that I am just going to walk away. Rather, that I will act as skillfully as can, and will employ all the passion and vision that I possess, but that, on some level, I have surrendered. I cannot control the situation, and whether I like it or not, it will unfold as it unfolds. No need to be preoccupied, since it won’t change the outcome. After my partner spoke, I experienced this little moment of gratitude. It seemed, at least for that moment, that after eight years of devoted practice, I was finally beginning to see a tiny bit of progress. I don’t think anyone in my life ten years ago would have observed an epic, graceful forward surrender, for example. Quite the contrary. Maybe there is hope for me after all!
The thing about Lisa dying—my private sadness—is that I wish I had loved her better. Things haven’t always been easy with my sister, and although I was occasionally invited to be part of their close circle, I chose instead to protect myself and to remain apart.
On Saturday at the workshop we worked extensively with fear. At the end of the day, I shared that I wouldn’t be able to attend Sunday’s session, and thanked Tammy and my fellow dancers in a breathy rush for their many beautiful offerings—my palms pressed together like a prayer as I spoke. I chose to offer my own insight (not limiting my comments to how I was feeling), that it is a very worthwhile project, working with fear. “Tomorrow I have to attend a funeral,” I said, “Not only does fear hold us back from fully living. But fear also holds us back from fully loving the people we love, and we really need to realize that they won’t be here forever. And neither will we.”
Tammy designed an exercise that involved encountering another dancer as “fear” with different variables. A dancer who was new to me touched me while my back was turned, caressing me at length. I was furious. I even thought about sharing publicly that if we don’t already have a relationship that includes touch, I would appreciate if people would make eye contact and see if I am really receptive to being touched before they touch me.
I danced with a very close friend at length—a dance of fear and reticence and the sharp edges that fear engenders, each of us with, at once, our hearts at stake. This dance continued in three major movements during the course of the day, finding us together in conclusion, linked in wordless honesty.
After so much strenuous dancing and so much sobbing, I needed to spend lunch reflecting and writing. The workshop producers had laid out tea and snacks for us, and I gratefully helped myself to an apple, some chips and a thick rectangle of dark chocolate before venturing outside.
Outside, I plodded along, dazed. After several blocks of aimless walking, hoping to find a comfortable place for tea, I settled on a deli and planned to sit in the cold on an outdoor bench across the street. Inside, I encountered the same dancer who made me angry by caressing my back. I found her manner off-putting; and I squirmed, wanting to be alone during lunch and hoping she would not ask to join me.
After lunch, we danced yet another beautiful wave. Tammy was extremely bouncy in Lyrical as she stepped away from the music-generating computer and moved around the room; and I cheered inside to see her so apparently happy.
Tammy asked us to take a partner, which, as always, means to turn to the person closest to you without thinking about it. My partner happened to be the very same person I saw in the deli, the very same person I was angry at for caressing my back when I didn’t want to be touched. Of course. How could it be otherwise? We were instructed to face each other. Then, she explained that one person would keep asking the other, “What do you fear?” I answered first, while my partner asked the question. I only remember a few of my responses, but without any warning, my answers veered into past life experiences. I took a sharp in-breath, alarmed by the sudden intensity, and let loose a shuddering sob. When it was her turn to answer the question, “What do you fear?” I realized that she and I had a lot in common, that she suffers, and that she is just trying to be happy, like everyone else in the world. By the end of the exercise, my irritation with her had dissolved completely.
Next, we used the same format for the question, “What makes you angry?” Remarkably, I had a hard time calling up sources of anger and kept finding myself silent and shrugging. When I do experience anger, it is so red-hot, so urgent, so dense, so intense…yet I couldn’t recall much at all. “When people try to team with me against other people,” I said. “When I get a parking ticket.” “When someone tries to round me off for their own understanding,” I continued. “When I burn the food.”
Shortly, I found myself in a dance exploring the gestures of Yes and the gestures of No with a friend, T. T. and I have totally different ways of relating to the beat in a given song, but in the Yes/No dance we were more in sync than we ever have been before.
I encountered T. again later but during the same wave. I had told her about Lisa during the lunch break; and when she looked into my eyes I felt totally seen, then felt a rush of sorrow. We fell into an emotional dance and gently held hands and spun each other as we moved through the wave of emotion. I passed through another episode of sobbing, finding myself cleaner and more empty after every round.
The thing is that if you are blessed to love a lot of people, and you manage to stay alive for a certain number of years, then there is no doubt that you will experience a lot of grief. When I experience grief again, it charges up all the burning embers of grief that lay scattered through my psyche. I was crying not only for Lisa, but for all of the friends I’ve lost.
I had no idea how much I loved my friend, Howard, for example, until I lost him. On a white day in early November, I was teaching then-infant Simon how to dance to the flights of soaring and arcing flocks of city pigeons when I got a call telling me that Howard had died. I was instantly ravaged with grief. Perhaps it was a dream, but two days after Howard died, he came to Tammy’s daytime Thursday class. Not knowing what else to do, I offered to loan him my body, so he could move and physically process this most difficult of experiences. He was grief-stricken, and accepted my offer. (That was the first time that I danced the grief of a spirit.)
This reverberation often angers the people for whom the grief is most immediate, in this case my sister, another close friend of Lisa’s, and Lisa’s closest family. For them, there is no once-removed, it is just the full intensity of final and irreversible loss.
Later in the afternoon, Tammy instructed us to make a big circle and we took turns dancing in the middle. I did not feel moved initially, but after the second Chaos song, I wanted to be in the middle. Several people beat me to it, however, and I hung back. I jumped as soon as a person left the middle and didn’t realize for several seconds that another friend had already entered the circle, too. I bowed and started to back away to give her the space, and in the process we began to interact. Tammy instructed us to go with it, and to turn it into a couple’s dance. My friend and I became emphatic, dancing Yes/No according to our instructions, dramatically recoiling to the floor and sailing around one another in circles. I literally lost my balance and found myself flat on my back. For a couple of seconds I surrendered, throwing my hands up and smiling in a snow angel pose before I bounded back up onto my feet and back into the dance. Many other couples took their turns; and I was awed by the creativity and specificity of the many displays.
By the end of the day I felt wrung-out and fully-open. I found myself in the third phase of a dance that went on all day with the first friend I mentioned, moving un-self-consciously and with patient reverence as the dance paused momentarily at day’s end.
I left this writing to attend to other urgencies, thinking I was in the middle of the story and that I would return to the writing as soon as possible. I realize now as I re-read it that I reached the end quite suddenly, without realizing it. Thank God I held nothing back in the telling, and that my heart danced me completely. I can only hope that I may say the same for my life.
November 10, 2014, NYC
by meghanleborious | Nov 24, 2014 | Notes on Practice
November 24, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
One of my favorite things to dance to is the flight of pigeon flocks, especially as they are directed by a keeper from a rooftop. They arc and swoop in great, epic, collective gestures. My arms and body swoop and arc and spin as they do. Four years ago this month, I was teaching then-infant Simon to dance to the flights of birds just as I got a call letting me know that my friend, Howard, had died.
Recently, I have been wondering about something within my practice. How willing am I to fully take on the rhythms and to try on whatever instruction comes to me under this category? At what point does following the instructions become an orthodoxy, and hinder progress instead of supporting it? Is there a point that I should ignore the instructions and follow an inner guide? Likely, this is a shifting continuum that changes over time, but it is something I consider often. It makes sense to take intuition as a guide, but (un-enlightened as I am) I wonder if I mistake my own complex conditioning for intuition. I have no time to lose, after all, and I want to adopt the most productive mindset so I don’t waste too much of this short, precious life I’ve been blessed with.
I have been studying the history of western civilization lately, where the Ancient Romans have a big role. It seems, the Romans had many different ways of divining the future, including analyzing the flights of birds.
On Friday, I stepped into Tammy’s class feeling slightly unsettled, and, as often happens, was quickly folded into the room, forgetting my ill-ease. There is not a theme that dominates my memory, and there doesn’t appear to be one emerging here, but I noticed that nothing hurt, that I had a perfect amount of energy, and that I was neither holding back nor overexerting.
A neighbor asked Simon if he was good. Being four, he said, “No!” laughing as he said it. The neighbor said, “Well, what’s bad? If nothing’s bad, then you’re good, right? That’s how it works!”
In a dance of partnership, Tammy instructed us to investigate what feels like too close and what feels like too far. I fell into a friend who was the perfect ally in this investigation. He is sharp, confident, very handsome, unflinching. It makes me nervous to dance very close with him, yet I always want to engage him. Perhaps he is just matching me, but I perceive that he has an exceptional capacity for precision—many razor sharp edges that are not aggressive–but vivid, articulated and wild in the most cosmic sense possible. We stepped sharply in and out of each others’ fields, spinning and stopping, behind, beside, around—stretching the space between us, then snapping back together and rolling away from each other like two grooved cogs.
I also continued a dance begun during Tammy’s Faint of Heart workshop with a friend who witnessed me as I moved and who I witnessed as she moved through a body parts meditation. We fell forward and back, rotating up and down like coins spinning and slowing, coiled softly around one another’s spines, holding each other’s eyes by arching backward even as we spun all the way around.
Looking for answers from the sky, my eyes soar upward, into vast space, and I realize, once again, that I am but a tiny little piece of this vast, poetic dance, and that my own little dance is one of an infinite number who collaborate in creating the world, moment by moment, gesture by gesture.
Note: There is a post that precedes this one that has yet to be published. It should be up within 2-3 days (once it is approved by everyone mentioned in it) and will shed additional light on some of the topics discussed in the current post.
by meghanleborious | Dec 30, 2013 | Notes on Practice
5Rhythms – My Experiences
After years of practicing Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms dance and movement meditation practice and writing extensively about my experiences, I have decided to create a blog to share some of my writings. This blog is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms organization or teacher, and only represents my personal experiences and reflections. Some posts will pertain to last night’s class, some will be about past experiences, and some will address broader themes. The following post is about Lucia Horan’s Waves workshop held on the first weekend of December this winter. In case an explanation of the 5Rhythms practice would be helpful, I have included one at the end of this post.
December, 2013, Brooklyn, NY
Today was the first day of a three-day 5Rhythms Waves workshop taught by Lucia Horan, titled Graceful Journey.
I bumped slowly along the exposed cobble streets of Dumbo, Brooklyn, and eventually found a parking spot in the vicinity. I set forth in the rainy, windy night to find the White Wave Dance Studio. I walked in the wrong direction initially, but soon realized it was on John Street—the last stop before the shimmering East River.
I was surprised to step directly into the studio—no antechamber, no lobby—and was ushered to the basement to store my things. I descended a ladder-like stair into the resident dance troupe’s dressing room. It was filled with mirrored dressing tables and had big, exposed beams and clean wood floors. I left my things and ventured upstairs.
As is my habit, I paused to bow as I crossed the threshold onto the dance floor. The studio had a wood floor, two white central columns, exposed wood beams in the high ceiling, and black velvet on two of the walls. There was only one visible window—above the door, and it looked onto the stacked-sphere tops of transformers at a power plant by the river’s edge. The light was atmospheric and the big gas heater whirred periodically with blue flame. One of the participants created a temporary installation for the weekend with yards of white crinoline fabric, glass cake dishes, feathers and crystal elements.
We began slowly, with tonal music. Most people lay on the floor and gently stretched or rocked. I was happy to discover that I could move with freedom and energy. I never know what will be available until I start moving, and have, at times, been painfully inert.
One thing I noticed right away is that I didn’t dislike anyone. Or hate anyone. Or even feel irritated. At all. Usually, there is at least someone who rubs my edges, but tonight I felt genuinely curious and willing to connect with anyone in attendance.
The 5Rhythms is a dance and movement meditation practice articulated by Gabrielle Roth, the recently-deceased founder of the practice. She laid out a number of themes for practitioners. The Waves theme, Lucia explained, has to do with the creative process, and with investigating how we transition between things, how we begin and end, and what we do in the middle.
I guess I thought the series would be introductory since Waves is the first workshop for most people. I had done a Waves workshop already. The last time it was powerful and interesting, but in this case it was full-on in every way from the very beginning.
Friday night we investigated the Flowing rhythm of the Wave; and I danced so hard I left nauseous. We were instructed to move through the room by moving into empty space, and allowing the body continuous motion. I felt playful and grounded, though I noticed that it was hard for me to stay in Flowing. Rather, any time a breakbeat or any other exciting sound arose, I dove straight into the rhythm of Staccato and even into Chaos. It was only Lucia’s spoken instructions that slowed me down and brought me back into the investigation of Flowing.
As I moved through the room, I began to do something I call Passing-Through Practice. It involves energetic intermingling with everyone and everything in your field. It surprised me when Lucia said, “Passing through, but not holding on.” She repeated the phrase several times, and it felt almost magically cogent to my own thoughts in that moment.
As the first wave concluded, I moved out of the center of the room and shut my eyes. Rainbows danced out of my hands, and I smiled as they arced and undulated above me.
After the first wave, we sat in a semi-circle facing Lucia. She told us that a wave is a perfect map, birthed by the adored and venerable Gabrielle Roth (the mother of her brother); and that the Waves work is particularly dear to her. She went on to say that over the years, she has developed her own way of relating to the themes. While she was moving to demonstrate Staccato she explained that Staccato has to do with how we commit to things, how we see them through, and how we apply effort strategically. She also talked about knowing how to begin and how to end things with honorability and maturity. When we don’t have 10,000 loose ends and 10,000 fucked up relationships, we can show up for things with a clean heart. We can start new things with integrity and vision. I love this way of thinking about Staccato.
During the same session, she talked about how the Graceful Journey of Waves has to do with surrendering resistance, in order to live gracefully in the face of constant change. My brain said, “but resistance is so interesting! If it were just all surrender and gracefulness, what would we work with?” I confess that edges—my own and others’—intrigue me, and are central to my own investigation of Staccato. By “edges” I mean the knots, the places of resistance, the sticky spots, the glitches, the repeated actions and the ongoing, occasionally-contentious dialogues that I have with my own mind.
I put on a sweater during Lucia’s teaching, but was downright cold by the end of the middle, and was grateful when she told us to rise and start moving again. We were instructed to look for empty space and move into it. Soon, she had us take a partner. Then, she told us to switch partners in rapid succession.
As the wave unfolded, I shared many beautiful dances. One was with a man in cheerful, printed tights named H. As I move around the room, I often try on the movement of anyone who is near me—this helps me to discover new ways of moving and to expand my own capacity. H. had his hands high in the air and was bouncing and shaking when I enthusiastically joined him.
Saturday’s session began at 12 noon. My parents arrived from a few hours away to care for my small son, Simon. I bid them good-bye and hurried to the dance studio in Dumbo, about two miles from my home. I moved through the routine of arrival easily, bowed, and set foot on the dance floor. To start, I arced and twisted and stretched on the floor. I was in high, high gear as we moved through this first wave of the day.
I found myself in a spin, slightly off to the side, cutting the air with the sides of my hands as I moved, eyes wide open, seeing everything in the room from within my spinning trance. It is peaceful for me, inside a spin. I don’t get dizzy, but feel grounded and at ease. At one point, I felt winds begin to rise along the sides of my spine, and up to my head. It was curious; and I wondered if these particular energies are what are discussed in Buddhist Vajrayana teachings.
At the conclusion of Saturday’s first wave, Lucia gathered us in a circle and asked us to introduce ourselves with a gesture while saying our name, and told us the whole group would follow. I find this very hard: distilling my expression into a single gesture. I guess that is why, as an artist, I tend to work on large projects with several component artworks that cohere to create an overarching meaning. Someone said, “M.!” and stepped forward, offering her gesture. Then, we all repeated her name while attempting to mirror her. It was funny at times. I kicked my legs forward and said, “Meghan!” muttering at the same time that I couldn’t think of anything. Everyone did their best to copy my awkward movement while calling out my name.
Lucia then gathered us and taught with greater depth on the topic of beginnings and transitions. She invited people to share their own experience of the night before, particularly how we were relating to the topic of beginnings.
I raised my hand, but never got to speak, as the conversation came to its natural conclusion before I had a turn.
Lucia asked us to experiment with how we move when we take the first step. I was enthusiastic about this exercise, but through it I was thinking about how I relate to the middle. Often, I still think I am gearing up, warming up, getting going, when I am in fact well into the middle. For example, sometimes the middle of a weeklong meditation retreat is day two, and the remainder of it is the end. If I don’t notice that the middle has arrived, I am still pacing myself when I should be sprinting for glory. The race ends and I privately have to live with the fact that I had more to give. I experienced grief for moments I’ve lost because I wasted my time thinking I was going to arrive at some other, future time and then give my all, instead of giving it up for every moment as it presented itself.
This is extra poignant because I turned forty this year. It is not like I am warming up to something. This is it. This is the middle. As Lucia said, “all that you have been and done that has brought you to this place.” I am in the middle. I am in the middle of my career as an artist, in the middle of my career as a writer, in the middle of my life, in the middle of my experience as a mother, in the middle of many friendships, even in the middle of my experiences teaching. Of all the many insights of the weekend, this was the deepest for me, this re-knowing of the tenderness of now, of the middle, of the full expression of things, as they are in this moment.
This investigation continued as we moved into Staccato and Chaos—the middle of the wave. I kept finding myself with C—a dancer who I had seen before but never danced with. As Lucia fed suggestions into the microphone, we danced with all the cagey angles and oblique approaches and stops and starts and rushing retreats and frontal advances that Staccato can be. Lucia’s words were about the commitment of being in the middle, of having the courage and ferocity and passion to engage wholeheartedly with your experience.
One thing I have not been whole-hearted about in my life is teaching high school. Last year, I applied on a whim to a rigorous, free teacher-training program. I was accepted, and, concurrent with grad school, have taught high school for the past two years.
Last year was not just bad, but traumatic. Previously, I had been a textile and graphic designer, working mostly freelance. I cried for three solid days when I accepted the fellowship. I accepted because I haven’t been able to fully support myself, especially with my small son, and have had to ask my parents for help at times. The job is much less pay, but has insurance and stability—exactly what my parents want for me, as they believe it will make me happier in the long run.
Despite all of this, I love and connect with the kids I work with. Now in my second year and at a different school, I co-teach four subjects—English, Math, History and Science. I see the same kids four classes a day. I have fallen in love with them, and work tirelessly for their success. I also find (to my surprise) that I am a competent—maybe even a good—teacher.
Still, secretly, there is this lack of commitment. It is not that I don’t want to teach. Rather, it is all the half-finished books and articles that are like little un-hatched robins in their little blue eggs, all the complex artwork projects, all the visions and dreams and collaborations that I chip slowly away at—a prisoner trying to tunnel my way out of Alcatraz with a cafeteria spoon. I am so afraid that if I lose the thread I will lose my connection to creative work, and to my heart in the process.
Engaging in anything without wholeheartedness is a lack of integrity, a secret poison that erodes peace of mind. In addition to talking about commitment and passion, Lucia talked repeatedly about developing honorability and maturity with beginnings, middles and endings. I think wholeheartedness, awareness and integrity are stars in the same constellation.
The question of teaching has still not been resolved, but at least I have found another angle of inquiry. It turns out that C, who I shared this investigation through dance with, has a daughter with special needs, who has been receiving special education services since infancy.
I had countless beautiful dances of partnership. One was with my friend T. in the rhythm of Lyrical as we investigated the middle. We spun and moved around each other—almost coy, athletic, with spun shoulders and beautiful rolling pauses—beaming smiles, and on the ground and in the air as we moved.
Another was with a woman named M. who is very beautiful and has a very big dance. I wasn’t sure about her at first, but over time I have come to trust her integrity. We came together several times during the evening, and notably, shared a huge dance moving together from Chaos into Lyrical. We were like a 100-point star, jagged and matrix-like, then spinning with abandon. It was so energetic I thought I might faint. I kept thinking “she is so brave,” with this very tender feeling. During a group discussion shortly after, I was not surprised that she made a comment about courage.
We had a break for lunch and it was surreal to step out into the cold, overcast, white afternoon. Four glowing birds circled over the river, illuminated by the first cast of sunset. I watched them in quiet amazement on the steps of the dance studio.
It is hard for me to remember when Lucia said what. Truthfully, I was in a trance for much of the weekend and a lot of the content felt like it was coming to me in a dream. She spoke several times about how important it is to let go of resistance. She did not resort to allusions, but told us repeatedly that everything changes and everything ends. That one day we will have to let go of everyone we love and will even have to let go of our very bodies. The final stop for all of us is death; and we will be much better off when the transition of death arrives if we have learned to be graceful in all transitions, including the ones in the dance.
That afternoon, we began to shift into the rhythm of Lyrical. I was ecstatic. The whole room danced as one. I reflected that the letting go of Chaos comes so naturally to me, but the letting go that lets joy come in—the letting go of Lyrical, is another matter entirely. I thought back to when Barack Obama was elected for the first time. The world would never be the same and we all knew it. I cried with joy for days, my throat tense with the wish to keen with all my volume. That Friday, in Tammy’s class, we were swept up by a huge wave of cathartic joy. I/We had to let go of many ideas about who we are and what America is to let this new experience in. I was all in: wild, ecstatic, sobbing, bouncing and twirling with the room, but I confess that it was hard for me.
My brain suspects that things will get worse after the joy comes. When my son was first born, every time we came into Lyrical during class, I had to contend with a powerful impulse to run to the phone and call home to make sure he was ok. My mind was sure he had had an accident or a seizure or some other unthinkable calamity. This lasted for many months and was almost exclusive to the transition into Lyrical. I cried all weekend during the Waves workshop, but as I moved through the space, dancing with everyone in the room in this phase of Lyrical, tears absolutely coursed down my cheeks.
Lucia had us take out journals and instructed us to begin with the prompt, “in the heart of the middle, I find….” Again, tears poured down my cheeks as wrote. “In the heart of the middle, I find…that if the middle passes without my noticing, there is grief.” I re-iterated the same idea for seven pages.
Saturday night, I had dinner with my parents and small son at a festive restaurant close to the dance studio. My parents slept in my bed and I slept next to Simon in his room. He took this opportunity to coil himself around my neck, lay on top of me, give me kisses again and again just as I was drifting off, and push me repeatedly off the side of the bed with his ardency to be close.
I woke up stiff and tired. My neck hurt bad. My knees hurt. My middle back. My lower back. The arch of my right foot. I had a cut on top of one of my toes. I even had a slight limp, thanks to a tender Achilles. Thankfully, my parents and sister, Courtney, who joined us from her apartment down the block, agreed to scrap our plan for brunch out and instead cook at my place.
After brunch, I set off once again for the White Wave Dance Studio in Dumbo, while my Dad drove Courtney to a 5Rhythms class in the West Village, and my Mom and Simon prepared for a puppet show they would attend along with my Dad.
Still, I hurt. I arrived early on Sunday, attended to all of my fluttering needs, then set to rocking and stretching to the tonal, attenuated music. I could not imagine how I would possibly move. Miraculously, as soon as the music started, I found that I had all the energy I needed, and could move with grace and joy. To my amazement, the pain and stiffness of Sunday morning never returned.
Sunday’s first wave was powerful, subtle, complex, honest….at least from my perspective. When we sat to listen to Lucia’s teaching, she remarked that she had witnessed a particularly beautiful Stillness, and even thanked us for our efforts.
She talked to us of endings. Of how in our culture, we turn away from old age and from death. The end of life. How Stillness is an investigation of the pause between things. Maybe even of the pause between lives, I thought. And how counter to our conditioning that pause is—that acknowledgement of something ending—or perhaps of something just ended. And of our culture’s achievement and activity-driven morality.
This discussion was very coherent with my own artwork. I have been working on a project called Memento Mori that has taken me by surprise. It started with the intention to place a veil between two trees in the winter woods near my childhood home, then pass through it repeatedly. It took my breath away when I realized that I was really engaging with the veil between the worlds, between flesh and spirit—the veil we pass through in birth and in death, and if we are careful, discreet and lucky, we get to peek through occasionally during the course of our lives.
The woods there are filled with the spirits of my ancestors, and I worked for many days in and out of trance. The spirits moved around me, and I titled the main artwork of the series From the Corner of My Eye. It is a reckoning with death, really. The winds rushed and clattered the leafless tree branches as I reminded myself that I can only fully live in this life—this middle—if I can accept the inevitability that it will end. That I will die. That everyone I love and everything I love will one day cease to be.
H, who became a new friend during the course of the weekend, changed the installation for the third and final day, re-arranging the elements and adding a central spiral made of salt, coiled on the black ledge, like a vision of brilliant stars, burning in the black sky.
5Rhythms is a dance and movement meditation practice discovered by Gabrielle Roth. In a typical 5Rhythms class, practitioners move through a series of “Waves.” Each Wave consists of the rhythms of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness; and the teacher-selected music and occasional instruction guides you through. There are no prescribed steps and the only rules are that you cannot speak with words, and that you must keep moving. In Gabrielle’s own words, “it is not free dance, but rather dance that frees.” Please visit www.gabrielleroth.com to learn more.
