by meghanleborious | Jul 30, 2020 | Notes on Practice
My earliest memory is of watching a summer parade from our big, second-floor apartment window in Chicopee, Massachusetts with my father. What I remember most was not watching, though. It was what I heard and felt. A passing marching band included a musician with a huge bass drum. When he slammed the instrument, the air vibrated. I was stunned, my little mouth wide open. I could feel the drum through my entire body.
Gabrielle Roth, the founder of the 5Rhythms practice said, “Rhythm is our mother tongue.” Lately, rhythm is holding me, even during this period of grueling pandemic uncertainty and intense racial reckoning.
Today I danced the same wave – the same song list – twice. In 5Rhythms, a wave is when we move through each of the 5Rhythms – Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stilness – in sequence.
The first was at high noon, after a long bike ride with my ten-year-old son, Simon, and a period of sitting meditation. I slathered on sunblock and set up speakers in the backyard at my parents’ house in Northern Connecticut, where Simon and I are temporarily staying.
Thoughts circled in my brain as I settled down into Flowing. Thoughts about racial justice initiatives, red tape I need to attend to, the many challenges around Simon’s schooling for the fall, and challenges around my own work, which is also in a school, kept spiking even as I turned attention to the feet again and again, moving in unending circles in the dappled shade of a maple tree on the yard’s edge.
As the flowing songs I had planned ended, instead of a flowing staccato song to transition into Staccato, I put on a thick, twitchy, poetic track that moved me to shake and swoon, a mini moment of Chaos that set the tone for the rest of the wave.
For the second rhythm, Staccato, one of the songs in this playlist was a remix of a Paul Simon song. I thought at length about a conversation about how different songs had impacted different people; and how important it is to listen carefully to lyrics, to research the artists, to understand the context of a song, and to consider it through a lens of racial justice before playing it publicly. I find this remix irresistible, but because of issues of cultural appropriation (which may or may not be valid) with Paul Simon’s work in South Africa in the 1980’s, I would be hesitant about playing it publicly.
Still, I felt ferocious as song after staccato song ran me all over the yard.
Chaos surprised me. When I dance at high noon, I have to be under the shade of the big maple tree, and I’m much more visible than usual to my parents’ neighbors and passing cars. I tend to be less vocal and less explosive. Today, that was not the case. Some potent emotion came gripping my throat and I danced it before I could name it, throwing my head wildly, dropping low, vocalizing, and moving in a wild matrix.
The emotion that was presenting was rage.
In recent facilitated conversations during this moment of racial reckoning, I’ve tried to talk myself out of this emotion.
Who am I, a white woman, to feel or express rage now, of all times? At a time when Black and Brown voices should be centered, my place is to listen deeply, to be in service. But then what to do with this emotion, that is boiling over, that is taking over my body? It’s rage toward myself for the times I should have spoken up or taken action against racism but stayed silent. For the times I’ve been unskillful. And for the times I’ve caused harm.
Back in April, I had a conflict with a family member who wasn’t observing social distancing with my ten-year-old son, Simon, in a way that felt safe for me. And just last week, my sister came to visit with my niece. My niece wanted to see something in the garden, and without even thinking about it, I scooped her up and carried her over the fence, totally disregarding social distancing, and certainly upsetting my sister. I didn’t even realize I’d done it until the next day.
Some unexamined impulse that felt automatic came up and I just acted. Just like my own family member who I was so upset with. This is part of the inner work for me now, to deeply examine what feels automatic for underlying narratives of racial superiority, and its supportive underpinings.
This is not only a moral prerogative, but I also stand to personally benefit. Every time I identify and interrogate a story that makes me believe I am in any way separate, I move closer to truth, freedom, and a true sense of belonging.
And this rage that came up in the dance wasn’t just directed toward myself. It was also rage for the systems we are immersed in. For all the times I’ve brought things up and been gaslighted. For what I’ve seen and felt and known as the parent of a child of color. For all the instances of generalized oppression and othering that contribute to and create a basis for racism.
Who am I to feel all of this?
And yet I feel it and what to do. Where to put it, where to express it. Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. And this body, that is not separate from all bodies, is in pain. And this pain is problematic, but there it is, searing and tight.
I want to express this and I don’t. I don’t want to bog down collective forums with the individual work that I must take personal responsibility for. And at the same time, I answer to my body, above everyone else, and it is speaking loudly.
I love and respect the activists who are generous, patient, and committed to the long haul. But I’m not feeling that way right now.
Right now, I want to blow things up.
I’m tired. I’ve had a front row seat to oppression for too long now, as a white teacher in a segregated public school district; as a human being in a country that voted for Donald Trump; as a practitioner in a Buddhist tradition that basically detonated because of patriarchy and abuse, where I bumped into a wall of opacity again and again.
Please, please don’t tell me to put it into the practice. For more than a decade, I’ve been putting it into practice. And that has helped me to cope and to gain insight. But it can’t just end with personal practice. Now it’s time to move beyond just my personal reckoning, to a reckoning on a larger stage. To a systemic reckoning.
And all that was just the first wave.
Later in the day, I danced to the same wave. I had planned to join a group of dancers via zoom, but misinterpreted time zones and class invites and wound up on my own instead. I considered having a glass of wine and relaxing with my family, but decided to play the day’s earlier wave and move to it again instead.
Flowing was brief. I thought maybe I could half-ass it a little, cut out some of the songs, sort of move through the motions. I felt bad because my family was finishing up dinner, and I didn’t want the music to disturb them. I was clipped, noting the very hard, dry ground and wondering if I could even go all out without hurting myself.
Then that same thick, poetic song, which was “Let the Devil In” by TV on the Radio, exploded me again, giving me exactly what I needed – a peek into gigantic, poetic reality, a chance to shake myself to life. I thought about the folk belief of letting the devil in, the idea that you made this mess, you brought this on, you let it in, and I couldn’t help but relate it to American society as I now experience it, and my part in it.
I put on a lyrical-feeling staccato track, Jerusalema, by South African DJ and producer Master KG featuring vocalist Nomcebo Zikode. I threw down in delighted engagement, at times doing my best to replicate the dance I’d seen on a youtube video, moving my hips for four counts, jumping my feet in scissors for four counts, dipping and turning, then repeating the sequence.
In staccato chaos, I fell out to a song by Tribe Called Red, which I’m embarrassed to say I only just learned is an Indigenous Canadian band. I sunk low, rocked hips in a planar experiment, and bounce-paused in rhythmic expression.
Chaos was, again, the centerpoint and critical mass of this dance, seducing me to explode with what I was carrying. I thought Chaos was over after a long, psy trance track, but the next song took me deeper still.
This was also a TV on the Radio Song, this one titled “Happy Idiot” – my version of a shadow lyrical song. It’s about a breakup, but also about shutting down and trying to convince yourself and others that you’re happy when you actually are not. It’s the same song I had put on after a long, formal conversation about racial justice the day before. It was like a demon took me over. I growled from the deep belly, occasionally acting as a “Happy Idiot” and waving enthusiastically, then switching back to a sarcastic rage I wasn’t fully aware lived in my body.
I put on one of my favorite lyrical tracks, then a beautiful stillness track, though I still wasn’t fully ready to wind down. I could have growled in Chaos for several more hours, but life called me back.
Tomorrow is another day of reckoning, another chance to be whole, another chance to remember that for all of us, rhythm is our mother tongue, calling us back to who we really are, calling us back to our birthright – which is love – and calling us to action.
July 29, 2020
“And someday when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union — whether it’s years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries — John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.” –President Barack Obama
“All this dancing is bullshit if we aren’t taking it into the streets.” –Gabrielle Roth
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
(Image: cincinnatimagazine.com)
by meghanleborious | Jun 30, 2020 | Notes on Practice
I lost my way into the writing for a moment.
I just didn’t know what to say. Or what I could say that would be relevant at this time. Just writing about my own personal practice seemed so self-centered, given all that’s going on in the world. And who am I to speak on matters of such grave import? Then again, who am I not to?
The only thing I’m an authority on is my own body–though even my body is riddled with the expectations and representations of the societies it exists in–and I hope this humble material can lead me to deeper wisdom, that extends beyond my own small experience.
Nearly every day I bring the speakers outside and do the 5Rhythms dance and movement meditation practice on the grass in the backyard of my parents’ house, where my ten-year-old son, Simon and I are staying temporarily.
Most days I’m amazed that I can dance for over an hour, hard, totally on my own, and stay engaged, often joyful, sometimes fascinated, and sometimes even subsumed. Yesterday after a long wave, I lay down on my back and watched the few scant clouds move across the open sky.
In the morning, I was experiencing almost unbearable anxiety, to the point that I was pinched and dissociative. Whenever things are ok at work, I feel like I have it all figured out and it will be smooth from now on. But occasionally something will blindside me, as happened over the last few days.
I was managing the resulting feelings, but then I let myself drink too much wine, perhaps craving a break from anxiety, which put me over the edge the next day. I struggled to be present with Simon, and found it hard even to soften in a hug with him, which of course made me feel more anxiety, along with its near cousins: shame and guilt.
In the backyard, I stretched my legs briefly as Flowing music started. Then I replayed the same song when I got to my feet, calling my attention down, and bringing energy up from the ground. It took a lot of discipline and patience to even begin to settle in. By the second song, I was moving more freely and pulling in big lungfuls of air with each breath.
As the music moved into Staccato, I recalled a distant memory. It was very hot and part of my dance floor was in full sunlight, so I wore a baseball hat. When I first fell in love with dance, it was in underground clubs and parties in the 1990’s. The flashiest dancers in these venues were guys from the house music scene, with ultra-wide jeans and baseball caps; and this was where I cut my teeth.
I never wore a cap myself, but I picked up some of their gestures in mirroring and competing with them; and sometimes they rise up out of my body’s memory. I totally entertained myself with this, first playing directly with the cap, noting the gestures of my elbows, shoulders, hands and knees, the angularity that rose up, and the way of moving the diagonal planes of my body. Then I took the cap off and continued to play, watching my own shadow for information and entertainment. I thought about how I might teach this idea, or better, how I might use this idea as an example for how to tap into the body’s personal experiences as language for the narratives we create in moving.
The longest part of the wave was Staccato, and I settled in for a slow build on this hot, dry afternoon, visiting many of my favorite tracks, finding varied expression and enjoying increased flexibility and range of movement because of more time to stretch and do yoga lately. In one song, I lifted one leg up, open to the side, and experimented with spinning around like a young tap dancer I’d seen in a video. In another I turned my knees in, bouncing them together and raising my heels to the sides while I leaned forward and rocked my hooked elbows.
Chaos found me more tired than usual. Because of anxiety, I’d only slept a few hours the previous night and it was starting to catch up to me. I sunk low into my hips during a track that straddled Staccato and Chaos, whipping the spine from the hips through the crown of the head. Instead of expanding into the rest of the yard during Chaos, as often happens, I stayed relatively close to my little dance floor, a blue outdoor rug, but still allowed myself to move vigorously, releasing the head and trying to let go of the stories that were plaguing me.
In Lyrical, I moved with relief, grateful for release from the anxiety I started with.
New factors kept triggering anxiety, though. It wasn’t until today when I went for a run in the woods and danced by a river, with the first rain of two weeks blurring the edges of everything and falling in a soft hush, that I could see it as a gift–an opportunity to work with my patterns–even as the anxiety continued to spike with a rush of chemicals releasing in the diaphragm, then abating again.
I saw how I got tight and checked out when very difficult and painful feelings came up, not fully listening to Simon as he shared stories of his day, and unable to clean, organize, or communicate effectively. I saw how I hunched my shoulders, crinkled my forehead, and shortened my breath. I saw how I had used alcohol to help me escape, but only succeeded in making the feelings more painful.
I also saw how intensely I wanted the discomfort to end, but recognized that I could not avoid the process of reckoning that was unfolding, and determined to let it run its course.
On days when I’m not dancing to music in the backyard, I’m dancing alone by the river, without music. Sometimes these waves are brief, as I often feel the pull of responsibilities at home.
Today, I moved on a patch of loose sand in the middle of the path by the river. A roof of leaves mostly sheltered me from the rain, but the drops that filtered through landed on my exposed face and arms. Concentric circles from the raindrops intersected on the surface of the river. Beginning to move in circling motion, the sand churned up under my feet. Again, it took me some time to settle into awareness of the feet. Stories kept sparking and often ran for many seconds before I directed attention back to the feet, circling, and breathing in.
Staccato broke through before I actually noticed it and I explored warrior cries, delivered at different volumes and heights. Chaos came and went many times, even twice dipping me back into Flowing. In its third peak, I danced some kind of demon, my vision totally blurred, and an ardent, warp-speed side-to-side stomping that I’ve never experienced before came through. Then I leaned forward and held my arms wide and straight out, bouncing from foot to foot, my head released, in a low, weighted spin.
Then my field of vision expanded beyond the small area I was focused in. “Yes,” I said quietly, noting the green light of far away trees, the moving river, the white sky. I continued to move, more quietly now, stories still occasionally sparking but less compelling, moving closer to the river and exploring different contours of the path.
Again, it amazes me that even without music, on most days I can dance for long stretches, essentially self-generating. That as much as I’ve loved dancing in big, sweaty, loud crowds, as much as I’ve hung on the words of cherished teachers, in the end, the practice can be stripped to its bones: that a secret to being fully alive is movement, that, as Gabrielle Roth, the founder of the 5Rhythms practice said, “A body in motion heals itself.”
Eventually, movement quieted further, and I decided to do another loop of the trail in walking meditation before running back home. As before, stories kept sparking, especially ideas for how to fix the situation that was causing anxiety. But I kept returning the attention to the feet, the sponginess of my sneakers, and the sticks, rocks, grass, and soft dirt under me, noting, too, as attention shifted, tension in my jaw, water droplets on the river, a tight shoulder, a bird on a nearby branch, and again and again, the stories that kept trying to hijack me.
I still don’t know what to say, or where to begin. But I think sometimes you just have to step in, and let the world lead you.
June 26, 2020, Broad Brook, Connecticut
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
by meghanleborious | May 25, 2020 | Notes on Practice
The hardest part of my experience right now is parenting. 
I don’t feel like I have the skill set for this. Some days my ten-year-old son, Simon, and I ricochet off of each other, caught in a cycle of reactivity. Today, he called me a “jerk” repeatedly, told me I’m “the worst parent in the world,” and told me he hates me. I said, “Sorry you feel that way.” When I asked if he preferred to go hiking or biking today, he screamed and cried at maximum volume, protesting. Sometimes I feel like he only wants to play video games (something I virtually prohibited before this time), and is trying to make life so miserable that I will just leave him to it. It’s true, too, that he is suffering with all the painful changes and uncertainty. I said, “Ok, I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
And that was all just in the morning.
It hasn’t been easy to help him be active, especially since there are no other kids to wrestle or run with. Yesterday, we went to a big field with a kite, and took turns running to get it to fly. We laughed as it zigged and zagged, sprinting to avoid getting dive-bombed.
We also discovered a toad on the back deck, a phenomenon that delighted Simon.
So some days have been better than others.
For the time being, I’m parent, playmate, teacher, athletic coach, and, as he told me yesterday, “You’re my therapist, Mommy.”
Despite some nice moments mixed in with the challenging ones, by afternoon my patience was shot. I left Simon (after much coaxing) in a zoom meeting with his friends and in the care of my parents and went for a run.
I felt strong, my lungs expanded from anger, my leg muscles flushed with blood, preparing to fight or flee. Arriving at the soft trail by the Scantic River, I picked up my pace, trying to let my feet relax completely with each pounding step.
I did two fast loops, then decided to dance a 5Rhythms wave, choosing a sandy spot where I wasn’t visible to anyone. I turned in circles, gravitating to a flat spot. My brain rushed with the events of the past hour and of the day. I scanned my body, noting fire at the bottom of my esophagus, the seat of my anger at the moment. I also noticed my shoulder wasn’t moving much, and invited it into motion.
Gradually, more of my body joined the circling, and thinking started to settle down. I breathed in the anger I was experiencing, then started to breathe in the anger many parents are experiencing at this time, and to breathe out equanimity. I was practically gulping in air at this point. I also started to breathe in the fear that many parents are experiencing, and to breathe out equanimity, again. Then, I started to cry in big, jagged sobs and to wail. I realized I’m afraid that Simon will acquire habits that will lead to an unhappy life, that I’m afraid about the long-term effects of social isolation, and that I feel powerless in a situation that I very much wish to control.
I stayed a long time in Flowing, and when I finally did move into the second rhythm of Staccato, I could feel myself wanting to collapse. “I can’t” my mind kept saying. This time, I really had to rely on practice. I chose directions to move into, emphasized the out-breath, and gave my attention to the hips. Still, there was something in me that wanted to crumble, and something that kept my heart from being totally open. I gave myself permission to not know what to do, but kept trying to stay alive to the woods, to the rushing current, to the blue heron that took to the sky and landed on a branch nearby.
Schedule changes, different approaches, and different perspectives I could implement to improve things came to mind.
The third rhythm of Chaos surprised me in arriving. Today, I was ardent, giving myself to the fire with a great deal of energy. My head came loose and wheeled itself around, though there was still a hint of holding in the sides of my neck. I growled–crying, spitting, sweating. I started to move into the fourth rhythm of Lyrical, then pulled myself back, acknowledging the need for letting go today, and moved a little longer in intentional abandon.
Moving into Lyrical, I said out loud, “I give myself permission to be as light as possible.” The loudness of my breath, feet, and thoughts dissolved. Now even quieter, I could hear active rustling at the heights of the trees, the river gurgling around its obstacles, and birds calling to each other.
Stillness, the fifth rhythm, comes easily in this place, and I closed my eyes, continuing to move softly, breathing in and out with everything around me.
I was called to sitting meditation and settled myself down on the clean sand by the river. Still, even after all this catharsis and sweat, my mind felt unstable. After a period, I let go of meditating, shifting into just being. At that point, my mind became very precise. I noticed a dazzle in the far woods, rippling water, a subtle muscle release in my foot, pressure on my sit bones, tension in my shoulder, a flicker of thought, breath, the light on the water, rippling water again, tension in the jaw.
I was able to follow these shifts of attention with great agility.
Eventually, the sound of approaching hikers shook me from these depths and I set off for home, running back up the hill I ran down and returning to my parents’ house, feeling like I had a secret. The seemingly impossible challenges felt manageable again; and I had new insights about how to handle them.
When I arrived, I jumped straight into the shower, scrubbing myself down with a rough washcloth.
I reflected that I am open to working with so much that is difficult in my experience, but when it comes to parenting, there is something in me that refuses to have a growth mindset, that wants to retract, to refuse to accept that it’s both challenging and workable, and instead to shut down.
My mom came in as soon as I got out of the shower to report some challenges that had arisen while I was gone.
All of the space I had found in the woods seemed to collapse, and weight settled onto my chest again. My resolve crumbled, and I stepped back into the messy work of parenting, praying, for all the world, that I will somehow find a way, that I will stop saying, “I can’t” because there is no other option right now except “I must.”
May 23, 2020, Broad Brook, Connecticut
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
by meghanleborious | May 19, 2020 | Notes on Practice
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about feet.
The late afternoon sun on my closed eyelids lets me see the orange-red blood in the eyelid’s tiny capillaries. Turning away from the sun brings them back to shadow. My eyes still closed, I turn into the dazzling sun and back into shadow again and again, moving with my own breath. Bird song filters down from the tallest tree in the yard. Wind starts as a rustle at the tops of trees, then causes a progressive cooling on the exposed skin of my arms and face, as my feet softly turn, feeling every curve and dip of the ground.
But I begin with the end, with the rhythm of Stillness. There were so many things that led me here, to this quiet reckoning, to this cloudless sky.
***
The day was already getting away from me; and I was tempted to cancel or rush through a video call I had planned with a friend. And then it seemed that every corner of the house was full of sound: the vacuum cleaner, my ten-year-old son, Simon, on his own video call, lawn-mowing outside. I keep moving around trying to find a place I could actually hear and settle down. I’m sure I seemed spastic, and my friend even suggested it might be better to postpone. Finally, I found a quiet corner and settled in.
Speaking with her reconnected me to myself, and I left the call thinking it was time well spent.
Over the past few days, I’ve been engaged in an ongoing discussion with another friend on the subject of feet. She is deeply
immersed in the practice and teaching of yoga, and is also a dharma teacher. She wrote about how the soles of the feet are connected to the different regions of the body, and how the feet are really the beginning of the chakra system. She also shared that there are many images depicting the feet with fanned flower petals underneath them, indicating that the entire body is supported by the “lotus feet.” She wrote, “As the lotus feet ‘bloom’ they encourage similar openings in the nervous system and subtle body.”
I found that I had some things to share from the perspective of the 5Rhythms about the subject of feet.
It is the feet that connect us to our intuition, our instinct. One of my teachers, Kierra Foster-Ba, often says, “We, like any other animal, get a lot of information from our feet,” including vibrations in the ground. In this way, the feet can be seen as a gateway to primal, unconditioned awareness.
Each of the 5Rhythms is associated with a body part; and the rhythm of the feet is Flowing. It is considered the receptive rhythm, where we are letting in, sourcing, and gathering energy and information.
I’ve been investigating my relationship to Flowing anew of late, especially as I’ve been dancing in the woods, gardening, and attending to nature’s cycles like the moon and the seasons since retreating from NYC because of the pandemic.
In 5Rhythms, some talk about “finding the feet” as the measure of embodiment in 5R practice. It is as though to what degree you have “found your feet” indicates your level of attainment. This can be interpreted in a straightforward way–actually paying continuous attention, on purpose, to the physical feeling of the feet on the ground.
Personally, I tend to generalize this a little more, and interpret “finding the feet” as establishing and maintaining profound mindfulness, while using the feet as the primary object of meditation.
The entire dance is built from the ground up, and there are times we return to Flowing, even when we have shifted into the other rhythms that follow in the wave: Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.
***
My first movements into the rhythm of Flowing today seemed twittery, but before long, I resolved to drop my full attention and weight into one foot and then the other, and this opened me into generous, weighted circling. Sometimes my steps were even subsumed and pulled into the larger falling circling of the body.
A different friend shared that in one class she had started to feel bored in Flowing. I could totally relate. For many years, I was so eager to get from the first rhythm of Flowing to the second rhythm of Staccato that I had to force myself to stay in Flowing for longer than felt intuitive. I often felt bored in Flowing. It’s humble edgelessness held little appeal for me, and I was eager for the expression of Staccato and the explosive catharsis of Chaos.
I realized that I had severed my relationship to earthiness, and, in the process, to the ground. It took many years of devoted practice, especially working with the rhythm of Flowing, to begin to reclaim this relationship.
Thanks to my own song choices, I was dropped abruptly from Flowing into the rhythm of Staccato. I occasionally let out a warrior cry, and my body was dynamic, alive, finding every diagonal, bending and flexing, bouncing up and curving down, sticking my butt way out, then pushing my pelvis forward, with my knees and elbows talking loudly.
Though I so needed Chaos today, I had to talk myself into it. I imagined my body was moving on a roller coaster track, and my head was like the last car that hops a bit off the track at the end of the train’s whipping gesture. I had a lot of energy in this part, though it wasn’t until the second chaos song that I actually moved intensely enough to be out of breath. At one point the music paused and I leaned forward and held my hands out behind me then crashed them together, rocketing back as the beat kicked back in. I used up all the space available to me, kicking my heels behind me, cross-back-stepping, and flinging my arms up.
Lately in Lyrical, the top of my chest rises up. Today, I was so happy. I’m so happy for myself, that I got to be this happy. I found a tiny little mound of earth to stand on top of, twitter down the side of, twitter down the other side of, back, front; and then the beat dropped again, and every bit of me coiled and bounced, it was like I was on a trampoline, my arms flying way up, body effortless.
Lately, I sometimes make videos of myself dancing alone, and today, as I watch the video, I cry. I can’t believe how lucky I am, that I get to experience such joy. Lyrical only opened itself to me after many dedicated years of working with the ground, with the feet, and with the rhythm of Flowing. Before then, it felt totally unavailable.
I suspend my leg forward and pause, bounce back, then suspend it backward and pause.
Then, this beautiful song comes through the speakers and I close my eyes, noting the variations of light on my inner eyelids. And that brings me back to the beginning, to the Stillness I opened with, to the flashes of light and birdsong, to the rustling breeze and its effect on my skin.
The last thing I do before breaking down my equipment and going inside to cook dinner is walk on the soft earth, my feet alive and knowing, absorbing the messages the earth needs me to hear.
May 18, Broad Brook, Connecticut
Images: Simon’s feet on grass (photo by Meghan LeBorious), The Auspicious Lotus Feet of Lord Vishnu (vivianlawry.com), Self attending to music (photo by Meghan LeBorious)
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
by meghanleborious | May 7, 2020 | Notes on Practice
I’m making a garden. Today, a local man came with a rototiller and churned the ground up, breaking through a thick layer of grass.
And yesterday I spent the afternoon planting flower seeds.
I haven’t experienced spring outside of a city since I left home for college in the 1990’s; and it has been fascinating. Cold is very slowly transitioning to hot. The trees are unfurling. Active, small creatures like squirrels, chipmunks, and birds romp at the edges of my perception. The field behind my parents’ house–where my ten-year-old son, Simon, and I are hoping to wait out the pandemic–is nearly solid yellow with dandelions. They would normally have been trampled by the high school athletes who use this field to practice, but this year they are abundant. Nearby, the grass and plants at the contours of one of the river’s gurgling feeder streams are emerald green now, translucent with sun energy.
Following my work day, I thought I would do a friend’s zoom class. After playing on the swing in the backyard with Simon I was running late, but decided to set up the speakers and computer outside and join anyway. As it turns out, I got the days mixed up. I knew I didn’t have time to pivot because of a work commitment later in the afternoon, so I decided to go with my setup and dance to a playlist I already had prepared.
Earlier, talking with a friend, I had recalled the gardens of my childhood. At Simon’s age, I had a big garden. My grandfather would help me till the soil and plant in late May, then I tended it myself. The first year or two, I had to haul water in my little wagon some distance every day to water my plants.
I spent hours there. I remember placing a pepper or other vegetable upright in the sun and sitting and staring at it for long periods, what I would now call a form of meditation, though I didn’t have (or need) language for it at the time. I remember eating the butter-and-sugar corn I grew slathered with butter at backyard summer dinners. I remember the dark dirt, the weeds, the sweat, the chicken wire fence, the dangling green beans, the prickly thistles, the crawling around on the damp, uneven soil between the rows.
Knowing my own son at this age, I marvel at my childhood ability to take on this big project and accomplish it without reminders, rewards, or adult interventions of any kind. I’ve been trying to help Simon learn to be a creative self-starter, but have faced challenges in getting him to buy in, perhaps not unusual for his generation. As a child, I had vast stretches of unstructured time, something that led me to learn and create without pressure and often without audience.
I became an urban person in my late teens, immersing myself in a totally-indoor underground dance world, and lost my affiliation with the earth.
My brother lived for many years in Colorado. Before then, I always said I was an “ocean person,” like some people say they are a “dog person” or a “cat person.” But when I went to visit him in Colorado and explored the raw, jagged Rocky Mountains, I decided I was a mountain person, too. I realized it was limiting to make myself be one or the other.
In the same way, in becoming so urban, I became not-earthy, not-rural, not-small-town.
But the truth is that I didn’t have to kick out one affiliation to insist on being another. They can both live in me. And now I’m remembering a nearly-lost self who had a numinous connection to natural phenomena, who followed the cycles of the moon, who read the tarot, who perceived everything as alive, and who studied nature-based religions with keen interest.
Back to the speakers and computer in the backyard, I decided to dance a wave. In 5Rhythms, that’s when we dance through each of the five rhythms in sequence: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. I was tired, and I didn’t really think I would get into it. In fact, I weighed the possibility of doing yoga or going for a run as soon as I pushed through this short wave.
The speaker volume was way up and I started to move in circles and pay attention to my feet in the rhythm of Flowing.
Of the five rhythms, Flowing seems most foreign to my nature. In Flowing, we connect with the earth. We drop our weight and our attention down. There is a real humility to it. And to be honest, I have sometimes found it boring, and have been eager to rush into the fiery expression of Staccato and the explosiveness of Chaos. It’s almost like in sticking with Flowing, I’m just doing my due diligence.
It’s possible this disinterest in Flowing relates to the fact that for so long I disowned my earth-self in favor of a more desirable identity. It took years of bringing my attention to the feet again and again to even begin to find my relationship to Flowing. It took many more years to fall in love with it.
Today, I felt the soft earth under me as I moved, and let it be simple, let it hold me, let it call me.
My Dad appeared on the back steps and asked if I had any ideas for dinner. I gave my input, then returned my attention to the feet, finding increasing engagement.
In Staccato the music spoke to me; and I couldn’t help but be inspired to sink low, to travel, to explore my elbows, to exhale forcefully. A song I absolutely love played and I leapt and bounded, removing my shoes and bouncing directly on the soft grass. And another song I love. And another. This one was a coiling, fast-tempo jazz song in the transition from Staccato into Chaos.
By Chaos, I was untethered, spinning and bouncing back and forth; in a rushing, weighted, articulated spin with sailing head, low and pumping, light and loose. One knee has been sore with so much practice, but dancing on the grass protected it, and I went all out, traversing a wide radius.
In Lyrical I was ebullient, cascading to the ground and into the air, beaming, coursing an arm up and then another, crossing over, rising a kicking leg to the side, falling into a dramatic squat and rapidly uncurling in an upward whirlwind. I added one more Lyrical song since I was nowhere near done with this exploration. I rocked my elbows in a plane around me and let them pull me up into my side angles, nearly kicking up my heels.
It wasn’t until many years of dedicated work with Flowing and with the ground that Lyrical started to reveal itself to me, and since then it’s become a place I love to visit.
In Stillness I was still rushing, alive with light-sugar. The lowering sun peeked through the emerging tree leaves. When the song faded, I continued to move with everything, feeling the humming molecules of the ground, the trees, the small animals, and even of the plastic and metal around me.
I love taking my friend’s class, but I also love dancing alone, and it kind of seemed like a blessing that I’d mixed the days up. I love what individual practice teaches me. I love that it is self-generating, and that I don’t need anything but what’s inside of my own heart. And connecting with the land gives me endless things to dance to–a rich symphony of form, space, and energy.
I startled, remembering I had a work commitment at five, and ran to check the time.
I had another half hour, so I decided to practice yoga in the sunshine. Standing alert, with my feet flat on the warm patio, hands aloft, I spotted a bird of prey, almost invisible it was so high up–seeming to hover in the air, barely moving. Moving through several poses, each time I found myself on my feet and looked up, the far-off bird was still hovering in that one spot. Then, the next time I folded my head down, moved through a sequence, and rose back up, it had disappeared, leaving nothing but endless blue sky.
Simon and I raked the grass clumps out of the newly-tilled plot that will be our garden, hauled them to the edge of the lawn, and dumped them into a raucous pile.
Later, I ran in the woods on a path along the Scantic River. White and grey clouds began to roil and it started to rain. I danced with the river’s currents, seeing into the depth and contours of the river because of the lack of sun glare. I saw the land’s contours above the water line, too, and perceived the continuations of the rivers and streams with all other flowing water.
I found a peaceful spot to meditate, patiently noting each cold rain droplet on my exposed hands and face, grateful to be in the woods, grateful to be sitting on the soft sand of the river bank, grateful to be alive, grateful to the earth.
May 6, 2020, Broad Brook, Connecticut
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
