I just found a new doorway from Chaos into Lyrical.
For years, I couldn’t find my way to Lyrical. It was like I was wandering around in a dark forest and would sometimes come to a blue-sky clearing, but it popped up at random times, and I certainly didn’t know how to find my way back there.
When I find a new doorway in individual practice, it feels like a celebration. When I find a new doorway that I can also communicate and share and teach, it feels like a revelation.
In Tibetan Buddhism, terma is an ancient teaching that is concealed until people are ready to receive it. There are even stories of spiritual teachers opening up a hole in the sky and secreting a scroll inside it until the time is right. Sometimes I wonder if terma could be just as much a teaching that arrives in the body, perhaps after waiting patiently to be unlocked when conditions are ripe.
Last night I made my way to my parents’ house in Northern Connecticut to help out with my Dad’s campaign for a local office. It was Halloween and I expected traffic, but I didn’t hit a single delay. Then I slept peacefully through almost the entire night–a rare treat.
Today, before heading to the river to dance, I visited my garden. Everything was dry and colorless except one bright green and red swiss chard plant, which seemed oblivious to the turning of the year toward winter.
I took out my phone to take a picture and saw a calendar alert that startled me. Oh no! I forgot about an important appointment that I requested just yesterday! By the time I saw the alert it was too late.
My mood plummeted. I started beating myself up. When will I ever learn to manage my calendar effectively? When will I actually succeed at adulting?
My moods can feel like wild storms at times. As I gathered myself to go for a run I also noticed some old grievances running in the background like sitcom reruns.
After a short period of self-flagellation, I set out, first running along the river and then arriving at my favorite place to dance.
It might not seem like the most beautiful setting, but to me it is, partly because I’ve developed my relationship to it. I’ve spent a lot of time here, connecting with nature and with myself, honoring the people who stewarded this land for centuries, remembering my grandfather who fished here, and moving with the river itself.
It’s also where I love to practice and where what I’ll offer as a 5Rhythms teacher often pours through.
Today, the only leaves still on the trees are yellow and they quiver loudly every time the wind gusts.
The river is high today; and my little dirt dance floor is obscured by fallen leaves. I tuck my pants into my socks to protect from tics and clear the dry, rustling leaves away with my feet.
When I’m dancing alone with nature, I often I spend a long time in Flowing–the first of the 5Rhythms–but today the second rhythm of Staccato sparks quickly. I notice a lot of future/planning thinking; and that I’m feeling more optimistic than usual about my work in the world.
It’s chilly and windy, and I’m in a long-sleeved sweatshirt for the first time since last winter. It’s a hand-me-down from my son, but it’s still too big for me, and the cuffs hang lower than my hands.
This brings new attention to my arms, and I start replaying a favorite dancehall song in my head as Staccato enlivens me. My arms find shape and purpose, sometimes joining forces in front me, sometimes cutting and carving around my hips and torso.
I recall a question one practitioner has often asked me. “What should I do with my arms?”
I’ve had that same question myself.
When I don’t think about the arms, they can sort of fall out of the field of awareness. But then when I do think of the arms, I can get self-conscious in a way that feels unproductive.
Keeping the arms close to our side is maybe the safest choice. Not reaching out, not risking, not leaving our organs exposed. Or we could just stick them up straight in the air, like at a crowded dance club, and leave the rest of us behind. What, indeed, should we do with the arms?
In the 5Rhythms, we often place more emphasis on the lower body than the upper body, since being grounded is so important.
In my early years of practice, I often heard prompts encouraging us to drop the arms down and just let them follow.
That makes sense to me, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m fighting with myself, or like I’m disowning my arms or any part of me.
Once I notice my arms today, I start to play and exaggerate. The arms make sense here in Staccato. They have moves to make, things to do, plans to execute. But as I move into Chaos, the third of the 5Rhythms, their role shifts.
If I try to cling to the clear purpose my arms found in Staccato, they get tight and prevent me from surrendering.
But soon they are flopping and arcing and crossing the midline of me, part of this wildly moving matrix. Sometimes as they swing around, they knock against a thigh, a hip, a shoulder.
They’re following, as they are in flowing, but here it’s more sped up, more wild and erratic. Once in a while there is a jagged stop and the momentum of the arms keep going.
Sometimes in Chaos I think about how the hips move the spine, and how the head just follows along, like the last car on a rollercoaster.
But here I see how everything is just following along in Chaos. It’s almost like everything causes a chain reaction for everything else–and it’s just rippling through again and again. When a hip shifts, it starts a new chain reaction that eventually finds its way through the arm. And the feet move the knees which move the hips which move the spine which move the head which move the shoulders which move the arm which flings the other arm which flings the spine. And Chaos goes on, slowing and speeding, rising and falling, rioting and quieting until the energy of Lyrical, the fourth of the 5Rhythms, starts to break through.
Now as my arms are flinging and flopping, responding and provoking as part of this chain reaction, I notice that once in a while when an arm swings around it finds a tiny beat of suspension. And then it falls back into this wild matrix.
And then it comes around again and finds suspension, like the moment a playground swing pauses at the top before gravity draws it back through its arc.
Soon it’s almost all suspension, and my face turns up, taking in the crisp blue sky behind the tree branches.
A single yellow leaf sways and turns its way slowly from a high branch to the river’s surface and I move with it. It is turned around by the current and I, too, turn around. It dips into a tiny rapids and I too dip and speed up. It emerges again with its pale side up, continuing its journey toward the sea.
I spend the rest of the day driving my Dad and two other candidates around so they can campaign, preparing for election day on Tuesday.
In these times, when power is increasingly becoming concentrated and checks and balances seem to be collapsing, we need multiple options for finding our way through Chaos to Lyrical on its other side.
Gabrielle Roth, the founder of the 5Rhythms practice, taught that the hands are the gateway to Lyrical. I’m grateful to have a new way to embody this teaching.
I’m grateful for this tiny revelation, this doorway, this new gasp of possibility.
November 1, 2025
Broad Brook, CT
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, teacher, designer, and mother. She has been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2008 and joined the circle of 5Rhythms teachers in 2021. She has also been formally practicing meditation since 2006 within a tradition that emphasizes the idea that everything we experience, including painful emotions and challenges, can be included on the path to self-discovery and freedom. She co-teaches the weekly class “Body Waves” Friday Night 5Rhythms in NYC and also leads 5Rhythms workshops.
This writing is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. The views presented in this text are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 5Rhythms organization.
I’m deep inside my own inner darkness. My eyes are closed and I make my way slowly through the room, my feet whispering. I can actually feel the molecules of “me” intersecting with the molecules of everything around me: the ballet barre, the tin ceiling, the wood of the columns, the glass of the mirrors, the floor. The edges of me blur and vibrate, blending with everything. Tears are streaming down my face.
The teacher of this particular 5Rhythms dance and embodiment class felt strongly about everyone keeping their eyes open. Usually, I followed this guideline, but during this one period I started closing my eyes at times.
I couldn’t sense the energy of the materials around me with my eyes open, but when I closed them, it all rushed in.
This was a really important shift in my personal practice; and I don’t think it would have been available if I had followed a rule of “you must keep your eyes open.”
Blanket rules are important for some things, but when it comes to practice, I don’t think anything is always true.
Recently, a participant who came to one of my Friday night 5Rhythms classes was vocalizing loudly, screaming, actually, during the part of the class when everyone was being called into a deep Stillness. My attempts to re-direct only seemed to throw fuel on the fire.
I explored it at length with my collaborator, the late Karen Ritscher. Karen was extremely generous, and trusted each person to find their own medicine in the dance.
I was still a little concerned. I wanted this individual dancer to get their needs met, but I could see that the loud screaming startled people, amping up the sympathetic nervous system at a time when we
were calling the parasympathetic nervous system online.
Karen talked with the participant at length, learning that they’d been through a painful and intense period. The next week, the person was still very enthusiastic and vocal, but refrained from screaming when Stillness was starting to gather.
It got me thinking about how the needs of the individual intersect with the needs of the collective.
Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms, taught that the individual and the collective are of equal value: that we are at once exquisitely unique, and also unfathomably interconnected. One of my favorite quotes of Gabrielle’s expresses this better than I can:
“There’s only one of us here.”
I, myself, have had episodes of loud screaming. I remember a Cycles-level 5Rhythms workshop in Philadelphia when we were exploring adolescence, the period of the lifecycle that’s associated with Chaos. The teacher put on a song that strongly recalled my own adolescence. Painful memories surged up and broke off, floating freely inside and around me. A rage-scream also broke free.
After the workshop, I wrote an entire book about my adolescence. The words poured out of me. The more that poured out, the emptier and cleaner I felt.
I’m grateful to the teacher and to my fellow dancers that I had the space to fall apart in this way.
But if I showed up at every class and workshop and went straight into trauma screaming – well, that might be another story.
My individual need to scream no doubt impacted the room. Maybe some people felt inspired to let loose themselves. Maybe some were frightened. Or resentful. Or envious. Maybe it even took some people out of their own practice (whatever that might mean).
How do we find the right balance between the individual and the collective?
In this society, we’ve been conditioned to prioritize individual expression over everything else. But what if the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective were equally valued? Could we fall apart when we need to, and also be generous and hold space for others when they need to?
It might look one way on the outside, but it’s possible that what’s most telling is what’s happening on the inside.
Have I stifled my voice for decades and suddenly it’s coming out in a roar? Have I built up an ego story about myself as a victim, and is my screaming another way to shore up that story? Do I find it interesting to trigger people’s nervous systems with a sudden shout, embodying my dominance? Do I usually hide in plain view, but for the first time today claim my space with my voice? Does part of me want to manipulate people into feeling sorry for me? Does my cry give voice to generations of agony that my ancestors endured and set me and my descendents free from ancient harm?
I guess what I’m saying is that screaming might be skillful or might be not-skillful, depending on a lot of different factors.
This is a bold statement, but I believe that becoming adept at discernment is the key to effective practice that can eventually lead us to full awakening.
If we aren’t able to develop discernment, it’s possible that our practice could plateau once we’re moved through some initial layers of personal healing and catharsis.
For me the key question is: Does the thing I’m doing open me up, or does it strengthen and shore up my ego?
Anything that appears skillful could, in fact, be unskillful. And anything that looks like practice could in fact be escape or some other conditioned habit.
We each have to do that inner research for ourselves.
Partnering in the 5Rhythms is another place to invite discernment.
Am I always trolling for a partner, constantly roving and inserting myself into every dynamic, never willing to turn to my inner experience? In that case, not-partnering might be my practice. Am I totally opposed to partnering, resenting the imposition of others on “my” dance? In that case, experimenting with partnering might be my practice.
Over the years, partnership has been a rich inquiry for me, and my relationship to it has shifted many times.
One of the most beautiful gestures I’ve ever lived came at a workshop, when I was gliding through the room and a dancer happened to be rising just as I passed. We energetically twined together, our forearms softly touching, then each glided off in separate directions.
I remember one partner I connected with at a (long ago) workshop and then in classes over the following months. Our first dance together started as an energetic overlap, then it gathered momentum, magnetism, magnitude. We roved, we swooned, we soared.
I barely saw anyone else. Sometimes it was really sexy, sometimes cosmic. I wonder now if this was annoying for others in the room? Triggering? Touching?
Through the lens of the individual vs. the collective, I have to ask myself, was this engagement causing a huge drag on the collective space? Was my individual need to connect with a partner more important than considering the collective at this time? I still don’t have answers, only more and more questions.
And through the lens of discernment, I have to ask myself, to what extent was this engagement opening me up and expanding my capacity? To what extent was I clinging to a habit, a pattern, or the perpetuation of a self-story?
It might even be more than one thing at once. It might shift over time. Perhaps it could even start as practice, but then become its own unskillful activity.
As a teacher, I’ve occasionally gotten feedback about couples.
One participant said they were annoyed by a couple who only had eyes for each other and were very intimate in the way they were engaging. The person who shared said they felt like we were all building up energy together, sharing and moving it through the space and through our bodies, but that it seemed like the couple was just taking the group’s energy in, and not giving it back out.
I could understand this perspective. At the time, I remember being touched by the couple’s wholeheartedness; and also that I wondered how it might be perceived by dancers who did not identify as hetero, as this appeared to be a man-woman couple. Might it contribute to some feeling marginalized?
Following one of the first classes that I led as a 5Rhythms teacher, a dancer reached out and let me know that she felt another dancer was being intrusive in a way that didn’t feel good for her. He didn’t touch her or say anything offensive, he just didn’t seem to notice (or perhaps even to consider) that she was not open to partnering.
As a teacher, this gave me pause.
I wanted to hold space in a way that feels as safe and respectful as possible for every participant. But creating strict rules didn’t feel right either.
In the end, I landed on creating and sharing requested class agreements that I hoped would address the concern without unnecessary blame or shame.
These are the agreements I landed on:
*Adopt the perspective that everyone has gifts, and everyone is needed for what they bring.
*Everyone is at a different place in their process, and holding each other with respect and sensitivity (including in consideration of partnership) allows each person to move with their process as they need to.
*Although we don’t speak with words during practice, consent is always a consideration. Please move with the idea that different people may have different levels of privilege, though it might not always be obvious, especially to those with a lot of privilege. Set the intention to consider consent in your interactions, and be willing to give people space if they seem to need it or if they ask for it.
*All are encouraged to move with the medicine they need. Please be mindful that everyone else is also moving with the medicine they need, and be aware of the impact your own actions might have on others.
*During verbal interactions, set the intention to use affirming language around race, gender, LGBTQIA+, ability, and all matters of identity. Take the lead from whoever you are talking with, and ask for guidance if you aren’t sure about what language will be affirming. See making accidental mistakes as a way to grow and increase in skillfulness and generosity of spirit.
There is a printed copy of the requested agreements on the check-in table; and my collaborator, Alyssa, and I just created a large poster of the agreements that we can display more prominently. We also send the agreements, along with additional information, when people register for the Friday night “Body Waves” class.
The participant who bravely shared about her experience expressed that she felt better with these agreements in place.
I also started to include more verbal prompts touching on consent, and added this to the registration materials:
Prompts: The teacher will offer some prompts and invitations designed to engage and open up new ways to move. Each person is encouraged to decide whether or not responding to the prompt is correct for them in a given moment, as each person knows their own needs the best.
Since then, we also added the following agreement:
*Please do not take pictures or videos of participants. Although tempting, as all of the dancers are exquisitely beautiful especially when in motion, the possibility of photos can bring our “posing-selves” online, hold us in a fixed identity, and can make it hard to allow ego to soften its grip so we can explore the inner territories where we have no temporal name.
This is an ongoing exploration for me as a teacher; and I very much welcome feedback about what feels right for participants, including those who might feel most vulnerable.
Again, I really don’t have answers, just lots of curiosity and lots and lots of questions.
Another time comes to mind when I think about discernment.
During the 5Rhythms teacher training, I noticed a friend on the floor, heaving with sobs. Most of the time, it’s skillful to give people space to have their experience without trying to comfort or interfere in any way. One of the lead teachers even said exactly that at the beginning of one of our sessions. After all, someone might have been holding back tears for years or even decades. If I zoomed in to comfort her, she might stop crying and miss a precious chance to heal herself.
I also had to wonder, was I performing a story of myself as a “savior”? Was she performing a “victim” story to my “savior”? This time, though, I really didn’t think about it. I just trusted what seemed to be (what I hoped was!) intuition, and softly moved behind her on the floor, putting light pressure on her back. She started to rock back and forth with me, and cried even harder. Occasionally providing comfort and support is exactly what’s needed. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite of what’s needed.
Now, if I noticed a pattern that every time someone started crying I ran over to try to “fix” them or caretake, that would be a sign that what I was doing wasn’t practice, but was actually a way to shore up an ego story–the opposite of practice. On the other hand, if I was never willing to comfort anyone, and always told myself coldly that each person has to be responsible for their own experience…well, that could just as much be an example of me shoring up an ego story.
Author Naguib Mahfouz said, “You can tell whether a (hu)man is clever by (their) answers. You can tell whether a (hu)man is wise by (their) questions.”
And I love this quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, “Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart …Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Usually by the time I write one of these texts for Notes on Practice, a conclusion emerges organically, sometimes magically, sometimes poetically. But this time, no conclusion comes.
Just more questions.
I’m so grateful we have a path and a practice that give us the space to live the questions.
October 27, 2025
Brooklyn, New York
This writing is not produced or sanctioned by the 5Rhythms organization. The views presented in this text are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 5Rhythms organization.
For years, I wrote about my own experiences on the 5Rhythms dancing path almost every week. It was posted both on my own website and on the official 5Rhythms site. Since I became a 5Rhythms teacher, however, a lot of that creative energy now goes into designing experiences for participants in my own classes and I haven’t written about my own practice as much.
I want to write about my perspective as a teacher on last night’s “Body Waves: Paint My Spirit Gold” class, since this time it was extra clear how much the participants teach me.
It’s been a challenging stretch, and leading up to class, my personal energy was low.
I plan the scope and sequence for each theme far in advance, and I had planned to offer a class with an emphasis on the rhythm of Lyrical. However, I had been feeling anxious and heavy-hearted, and it was hard to imagine how I could possibly embody Lyrical, which is often associated with joy and lightness.
I thought about changing the plan and instead offering a Flowing class with an emphasis on grounding, or maybe a Chaos class with an emphasis on messiness.
In the end, I decided to stay the course, and find a way to connect to Lyrical exactly as I am at this time.
I managed to gather music by Thursday night, but still couldn’t visualize how it would come together.
That day, I had several things dropped on me. Despite a full-court-press, I didn’t complete the tasks I needed to, though I was at work by 7:30AM. Sleep the night before wasn’t great and I wasn’t feeling particularly flexible or well-resourced. I realized yet another task I had to complete just as I was leaving work and plopped down with my coat still on to bang it out.
I got a message on the group chat for “Body Waves” crew that several would be able to make it to class, along with some enthusiastic and supportive words. “Crew” doesn’t seem quite accurate. This group includes two old friends and two new friends; and it’s starting to feel like a family. Their messages warmed me up on the cold afternoon, but I was still feeling low energy and slightly nauseous.
I arrived before 6PM and found that everything we needed was in the space, and that one crew member had arrived before me.
I actually love setting up for class when it’s not stressful; and this time it went smoothly.
I thought back to when I was teaching at the Joffrey and had to bring all speakers, sound equipment, and visuals by car to every single class, and softened with gratitude for how much the process has eased.
The first participant arrived at 6:15 for the 7PM class and wandered in to where we were setting up. We got her checked in and settled in an adjacent studio while we completed preparations.
Before long, I put on low, tonal music and gave the person who was checking people in a thumbs up. She started letting people in around 6:45PM.
Following the stretching music, I put on an Indie Rock song that aligned to the theme, Paint My Spirit Gold, and looked across the room, wondering how it would land. It was quite a transition, and I knew there was a chance it would flatten people out, and that they might need to be coaxed into moving.
To my surprise, many responded right away, beginning to sway and make their way up onto their feet.
It’s not always like that. People could come in locked in grief, not having slept in days, constrained in anxiety. You just don’t know. But on this night, people seemed to arrive very much ready and eager to move.
My whole system started to relax and have fun, and I made some trips around the room, pausing to dance with people along the way.
I offered a few prompts to help us ground in the rhythm of Flowing, but mostly let the music carry the wave.
As the first wave started to dissipate, I invited people to continue to move while I offered a few comments. I spoke into the mic as I moved throughout the room, sharing that I was considering changing the rhythm that I would emphasize during this class since I wasn’t feeling particularly connected to Lyrical, but that I had decided to go ahead anyway.
What came through is that Lyrical, though associated with lightness and joy, is a deeper energy. It holds joy, lightness, and too, fear, rage, grief, shame, and everything else inside of it. In fact, it holds everything in our experience inside this vast, spacious container, and like a soaring bird of prey takes in the panorama from above, seeing the entire picture.
I also shared that it took me years to learn the pathway to Lyrical, and that I would often panic when the room shifted from the rhythm of Chaos into Lyrical. One of the stories that blocked me from accessing Lyrical was the incorrect belief that if I was in joy it would be an affront to another’s suffering.
I also shared a quote by the baby boomer, African American poet Toi Derracotte, “Joy is an act of resistance.”
I love the idea that joy is not just self-indulgent, but that it can also serve.
If we are mean, afraid, small, tight, myopic, righteous…we are easy to control. But if we step into the full spaciousness and power of Lyrical, we can move mountains.
There are so many gifts practice has given me, but this is one of the most precious ones.
I put on a song called “Blessings” and many responded right away, beginning to gather into a second wave.
The next song was a thick, heavy Flowing track, and I cut it short to put on a soaring track with a waltz time signature. I made my way through the room and noticed that one dancer had started to waltz, stepping and holding both arms up, then letting them cascade down and stepping again while swaying his arms up again. He inspired me and I, too, started to waltz. Soon, the entire room seemed to be waltzing. I moved back to the DJ table with a big smile on my face, and continued to watch the room with delight.
The wave moved quickly from there, and the room seemed dynamic and charged. One woman was off to the side stretching and swaying. I put on a longer track then made my way over to check in. She smiled and said she was fine. “Ok! Do whatever feels right to you!” I said and moved away, thinking of a recent experience when I was having a hard time, and really would have appreciated it if the teacher had checked in with me.
Sometimes I have to work hard to keep myself grounded during class as the energy gathers and rises, but on this occasion, I felt gentle, present, and delighted.
I joined with another dancer, dipping our shoulders toward each other and circling around.
Tears rose up as the class wound down, and many dancers continued to move with wholehearted, creative expression.
I had arrived feeling tight, anxious, nauseous, and now here I was in the deep silence when the music ends and before anyone moves or says anything, just oozing gratitude, with gold spilling out all over.
After class, I ate with one of the crew members. She is less than half my age and is very wise. She shared her perspective on recent developments on the national stage, and I nodded, soaking it in.
One thing she said is that she knew she was always going to be involved in the fight for justice, and “that’s never changing.” This idea, that it’s not a failure that justice has not been achieved, but that it would always be in process, and that engaging in the process is worthwhile, touched me deeply.
I’ve always known that I gain a lot in the role of teacher, both in my daytime work with high school teens, and in my nighttime work teaching the 5Rhythms to adults, but on this day, it was an extra powerful dose of medicine.
I went to bed after midnight, slept over nine hours, and woke feeling optimistic, and remembering that God is everywhere, thanks in every measure to these wholehearted, powerful students who helped me to remember.
President Biden’s decision to step aside is a powerful example of surrender–a theme I’m still immersed in following the two-day 5Rhythms workshop “Surrender” that was led by Croatian 5Rhythms teacher Silvija Tomcik.
Friday I was unavoidably late. I just accepted a new job and a new role, and needed to attend a work event. I’ll be a founding teacher at a brand new high school.
This is exciting because I love beginnings. I love the creative territory when we have to create the map, when we can’t rely on what’s already in place. As a visual artist, I’m trained to make somethings from nothings; and I love feeling like anything is possible.
With Silvija’s skillful guidance, this is the territory we explored–the territory of Chaos, which is the third of the 5Rhythms.
Chaos is where we surrender to reality exactly as it is. Where we stop clinging to the past and grabbing toward the future. Where we let go of old habits and identities. And, as Biden embodied today, where we stop clinging to power and instead make space for something new to arise.
I don’t know what happened before I arrived on Friday, but by the time I got there people already seemed very sweaty and softened. I entered as gently as I could, and Silvija greeted me with a wide, wholehearted embrace. I joined two other dancers on the floor where we each spoke about where Chaos is showing up in our life at this time.
For me, I was almost never in Chaos for the first year that I danced. I thought I was in Chaos, but I was actually in a very fast, agitated Staccato–the second of the 5Rhythms. I hadn’t realized it, but I was actually afraid of Chaos. Afraid of being out of control and causing harm–a pattern I knew far too well.
The part of my life when I was most out of control is coming up for examination again now. Truthfully, I spent many years confused about what it means to be a free spirit. I thought it meant rebellion and saying fuck you to social norms and throwing myself recklessly into intense experiences.
I made a lot of unskillful choices during that time. My fourteen-year-old son, Simon, is taking a behavioral neuroscience class and part of what they are exploring are the impacts of alcohol and drug use on the brain, especially on developing brains. He’s wondering about how my choices might have impacted me and how they might have impacted him, and is asking a lot of hard questions.
Another reason I avoided Chaos is that I had somehow internalized that I was too big, too wild, too messy; and I had spent decades trying unsuccessfully to make myself smaller and tidier. When Chaos finally broke through for real, completely by accident, I was broken apart. My entire self sobbed and rocked and shook. I could finally just be myself. My whole self. Not my ideal self, not the self society makes of me, not the self I was trying to be to avoid triggering my partner at the time, not the fixed self that my ego is always angling for.
But instead someone real and alive and actually free.
So many practices are about trying to contain Chaos. Trying to control things. Staying positive, always being our best, being on point, holding ourselves together. But in the 5Rhythms, we understand that Chaos is an essential part of the creative process.
It’s because of Chaos that I decided to marry the 5Rhythms; and during the almost two decades since have become a 5Rhythms teacher myself.
For the rest of the session, Silvija guided us through exercises that encouraged us to integrate the spine and the head into our movement. She said, “The head is part of the rest of the body, not just up here all judge-y and critical.” She demonstrated humorously with her own body, and then showed us what the opposite would look like, when instead of the head being a tyrant who rules over the rest of the body, we drop down and surrender.
I took this on wholeheartedly, eventually moving through the entire space as I curved and twisted and undulated and dropped my head down and let it follow the rest of the body again and again.
At the end of the session I texted Simon, who was home alone at that point. He asked me to call him on facetime so he could show me something. Our kitten George had launched himself off the top of the kitchen cabinets and knocked down a large ceiling light fixture which shattered on the tile floor. Simon started his story with “This man…” I belly-laughed the whole way home.
I’ve been meaning to replace the outdated light fixture; and you could say George helped me make way for something new with his own flying leap of surrender.
The next morning, I found an unpublished text that I wrote about Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop in 2019. At that workshop, too, Silvija offered many new tools and insights. One that has been important for my own process is that moving the hips moves the spine which moves the head. When I teach and I say, “Maybe imagine that your spine is a roller coaster and your head is the very last car,” this comes directly from insights during Silvija’s “Read My Hips” workshop.
The next morning, I was determined to arrive on time following my late arrival the night before. I felt emotional as I walked from the J train to Paul Taylor studio on the Lower East Side. Part of my new job role will be teaching Art, and I kept thinking about ways to move with my students and open the doorway to the creative process, beyond just offering the tangible skills of art-making.
I silently greeted many friends of a decade or more, including several 5Rhythms teachers who were in my same teacher training cohort–a bond that is very meaningful to me.
We danced and danced and danced and danced. Sometimes alone, sometimes in partnership, sometimes in groups.
Early on, Silvija invited us to move in the first rhythm, Flowing, as though we were on an ocean boat, rocking with the swelling sea. I loved this, and rose and fell and circled and ranged through the big studio, allowing my legs and spine to buckle and soften and pull me deeper into circling.
We danced a full Chaos wave, then moved to different kinds of music that could be embodied as Chaos.
At one point, Silvija had us interact with a partner and move with something we want to surrender, and then what it would look and feel like if we actually did surrender this thing.
My partner went first. Then it was my turn. Per Silvija’s instructions, I whispered what I wished to surrender into my partner’s ear, “Blame and resentment.”
For years, I kept tweaking my left ankle; and I worried that if I really kept throwing myself into the dance as I’d been doing, I would injure it again. I also noticed a pain in my left hip flexor and groin. Lately sometimes after sitting, I get up and limp because it gets pinched and tight. I’ve had some brutal muscle pulls over the years, and I thought, this body has held up for 51 years. I’m so blessed that it’s not breaking down yet. But I should take it easy, I should moderate. I will get hurt if I fling myself into this in the way that I want to.
Curiously, when I sat down to write this, I totally forgot that I had been afraid. It took several layers to get back to it. I kept remembering, then it would jump out of my head again, and I’d be sitting in front of the computer thinking, What was it that I was about to write?
Probably it was my imagination, but a presence next to me said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be ok.”
I went all in. Dancing blame and resentment: pointing my finger, tightening my face, slamming my raised elbow backward, controlling my hips. Then I went all in with surrender, even moving throughout the room with maximum intensity, somehow with all the energy I needed–spinning, dipping, letting my head and spine stretch out and arc, touching down with my fingertips then stepping up and diagonally, coiling and twisting and twittering on the razor’s edge of completely out of control.
Later, my partner from the surrender exercise passed me in the hall to the bathroom.
They said, “I received a message for you.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“The message that came through was ‘You are protected.’ ”
I thanked them and slightly bowed my head, then continued down the hall.
We took only a short lunch break. I sat alone briefly, thinking I might make some notes. When I realized I had no pencil, I surrendered to not making notes, and happened to find one of my closest friends, who herself had been planning to make notes, but her pen had stopped working. She too surrendered and we instead took time to connect and share our experiences.
I stepped to the foyer outside the studio, where there were snacks and tea, and one friend shared that she was confused about these new and sometimes conflicting aspects of Chaos. I said, “I hear you. Sometimes I realize I’m working too hard with a prompt, and I just say, ‘fuck it’ let me just dance.” It’s possible I was giving advice more to myself than to my friend, as is often the case.
I also shared that to me, Chaos has two faces.
There is the intensity, the buildup, the press toward maximum expression and the moment when it explodes. This can also be a feeling of breaking through ropes or a straightjacket, a cathartic throwing off of societal conditioning, traumatic holding, oppression, existential gunk, and the relentless tyranny of should.
The other face of Chaos is the face of surrender. This face is much softer. It is a totally different kind of freedom. It lets everything in without having to relate the self to it, and lets everything right back out without clinging or pushing away. It is a freefall in the dynamic unfolding of all that is, ever moving and shifting and changing. It’s where the ordinary world and the absolute collide and we realize that everything, absolutely everything, is part of this vast, exquisite cosmic dance.
I had a dream when I was a teen that I’ll never forget. I was inside a painting that was in the process of becoming. It wasn’t so much about the material or the frame, but that I was inside, immersed in the very creative process, the irrepressible, unbridled, dynamic expression of life force.
When I first started dancing the 5Rhythms, artwork exploded out of me. Since then, I’ve surrendered much of my fixed identity as a visual artist, and instead open myself to the flow of creation as it arises, including creating 5Rhythms classes for the participants I’m blessed to work with.
I’ve become more of a midwife than a master; and it no longer matters to me what form creation takes, only that I swim in its river and am at its service.
This brings me tears as I write. What a blessing to live a creative life. Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, wrote in her first book, Maps to Ecstasy, “If you like to write, you don’t have to make the bestseller list: write letters to your friends, poems to your lover. Sing to your children. Make something for your mother. Once you enter the creative mode, you discover what it means to live in your soul.”
After our brief lunch, we continued to dance, exploring Chaos as it lives in each of the different rhythms.
Silvija playfully challenged those of us who actually seek out Chaos instead of just surrendering to it when it comes, and kept up a stream of prompts and suggestions to support our investigation throughout the afternoon.
Feeling loose and alive, I stopped at a grocery store on the way home, and the woman working at the checkout noticed and commented. I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something about shining.
I waited for the train next to a broken video screen. It was still working, but the glass was spider-web-shattered and the image twittered in disjointed ribbons.
I come back again and again to what Gabrielle said when she laid down the map of the 5Rhythms for us, “It takes discipline to be a free spirit.”
To my immense surprise and delight, I realize that I have become a free spirit. All it took was practice.
Thank you, Silvija. Thank you, Gabrielle. From the depths of my wild, free spirit. Thank you.
Yesterday, Saturday, the bright sun was too much for me. Grey clouds parted in the afternoon and instead of feeling the joyful charge of spring, I stood in the middle of the sidewalk blinking, unable to take it. The bright, warm afternoon just felt like too much pressure.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been struggling. What is that tiny shift that happens when things go from workable to hopeless? The truth is that there is nothing wrong – at least not compared to what people around me are coping with. I know better than to try to talk myself out of feeling bad, but still there I was. Miserable and shaming myself on top of it.
I did yoga in the living room in the morning. It helped to move, but a few times I noticed myself stopping. Not like taking a break, not even like holding my breath, really. More like just blanking out in the middle of a chaturanga with my face to the floor. And thinking vaguely of some ancient reason I should beat myself up until I gave a little shake and restarted the breath and movement.
My thirteen year old son, Simon, was feeling down, too, and I was happy that he decided to join a friend’s family for dinner and a sleepover.
Almost simultaneously, I learned that Amber Ryan was offering a 360 Emergence class at Paul Taylor studio on the Lower East Side; and I bought a ticket immediately. Amber is a former 5Rhythms teacher; and the 360 Emergence is a new practice with deep roots in the 5Rhythms.
I barely had time to gather my things, bring Simon to his friend’s house, and find parking. On the way, I learned that a powerful storm was in the forecast, and that there was a tornado watch.
Me and a crowd of afflictive emotions walked up the stairs, and they all entered the studio with me. I paused to move through an energetic ritual as I crossed the threshold, then walked across the wide floor.
One friend’s gaze seemed to skitter over me, not registering when I tried to catch his eye to silently say hello.
I moved around the edge of the room to orient myself to the space and the group, bringing attention to my feet, and occasionally glancing my fingertips or inner arm along the wall to wake up sensation in different parts of the body.
And soon delight arrived.
It’s not always like that. You never know what will happen when you step into practice. Sometimes you even feel worse at the end than when you started. But on this evening, I made the barely perceptible shift from feeling like things were hopeless back into believing they are workable.
Within ten minutes, I was ranging softly through different levels, stretching intuitively, and tasting the air in the different parts of the room.
Amber guided us through a practice to connect with different energy centers in the body. As encouraged us to engage the ribcage in moving energy around the solar plexus, a wide groan escaped me along with unleashing some painful teen and early adult memories.
Since Simon has become a teen recently I’m finding that I have new strata of unresolved trauma – trauma that I thought had been long dispensed with. I recognize the need to move with it quickly, so I can be clear and direct in parenting this extraordinary human, and not mire him in the tangles of my own psychology and the fears that arise for me.
A friend from my long-ago days in the underground dance world found me this week, too. She wants to hold a reunion – a rave, actually – for those of us who are still alive. I was happy to hear from her, and plan to participate, but it knocked on the door of some pesky demons.
My whole face was wet with tears as I threaded throughout the space, slipping through gaps between bodies, sliding in and out of partnerships, and collaborating with the circling room.
Amber kept inviting us to pause and return to “zero” throughout the class.
Many years ago, Amber led a workshop in this very same space called “Zero Zone,” which was the first time I heard her talk about zero.
I wondered briefly if “zero” was influenced by Dzogchen, an energetic Tibetan practice of dropping into raw awareness on the spot. And I wondered how it relates to Stillness in the 5Rhythms. And a chain of other associations. Then, the thoughts receded again into the background as my own body and its experiments emerged in the foreground.
At one point, Amber invited us to very intentionally move with the breath, then opened up the music again to allow us time to integrate these new seeds that had been planted.
When the intensity peaked again and again, I found myself right in the middle a lot of the time, moving with all the energy I could need, sinking to the ground, then spiraling back up, casting upward, diagonaling myself back down and across, sometimes finding myself face to face with a partner, and sometimes on my own.
I was so engaged that I didn’t notice darkness shining through the many windows until there was a flash of lightning outside.
In an experiment that involved taking turns with one person in the middle while three others supported them and held space, I felt heat rising to my face and crown when it was my turn to be in the middle. And I felt just as engaged when it was my turn to hold space. I remembered my nature as a healer, as an energy worker, and that we are all healers and energy workers.
In the final stretch of dancing, some stayed with their small group, while others moved through the space. Amber put on an electronic dance song with an engaging beat that pulled us deeper into motion. Then, to my surprise and delight, the beat dropped fast in a low, heavy bassline and the room exploded.
I found many new ways to move, sometimes quirky, jerking, skimming, bursting. I found a new loop around the back of my neck, a new way to rise up through my back from the hips, a new flutter in the heels, a new triple count step to stop short without jamming.
All that is to say that I found new ways to be alive.
Before stepping in, I wondered if I would have the energy to move given how disheartened I had been feeling.
By the end I felt grateful again. Grateful to be alive, grateful for the dancing path, grateful to have the chance to do my best as a parent, grateful that my body has accumulated decades of athletic experience yet still hasn’t broken down, grateful for the spirits and ancestors who I believe dance with me. Grateful for all of it. For everything.
My body remembered why I set foot on this dancing path to begin with. I also remembered what my body never forgets – that the mysterious tiny shift I was contemplating is really just a matter of being embodied. Of being alive to this moment, to this precious life.
Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Gabrielle. Thank you, my son. Thank you, this body. Thank you, this life. I am blessed in every sense. My path is strewn with flowers, and I can again see the gentle rain of blessings.
Meghan LeBorious is a certified teacher of the 5Rhythms dance and movement meditation practice. This writing is not sanctioned or commissioned by the 5Rhythms organization and is solely the writer’s personal experience.
