by meghanleborious | Sep 17, 2017 | Notes on Practice
My close world is torn apart with natural disasters – hurricanes in Texas, and in Florida & the Caribbean, earthquake in Mexico – at the same time, it is a spectacular day in New York. Temperatures in the 70’s, low humidity, blue skies with the kinds of clouds that are easy to see as friendly animals or as elaborate castles. In the Sunday morning Sweat Your Prayers class at the Joffrey Ballet in the West Village, taught today by Jason Goodman, I held both realities.
I have been teaching high school students for the past few years and the beginning of the year makes me feel joyful. Meeting new students, I can’t wait to find out what they can do. I’m twittery, imaging all the great structures we will co-create, thinking about how to set things up for them, reviewing my inspiring speeches and clear explanations. Imagining all of us having fun together at the first dance. Having done this for a few years, I also know how much I will come to love them by the end of the year; and I can feel it already. I’m choked up in advance just thinking about it, even as I write.
At the same time, sadness and fear visit me. People all over are suffering terribly, in particular as a result of the hurricanes and earthquake. I keep feeling wracked by sadness. And I am afraid. As of late, the Christian concept of apocalypse no longer seems as far-fetched as I once believed. As a human community, we really don’t seem to be moving in a good direction.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have let myself have access to joy in the face of this suffering. I would have thought that feeling joy would be an affront to others’ pain. Now, I feel differently, though. I realize that if I am suffering too, I haven’t actually helped anyone. There are just more of us suffering.
Stepping in to the fourth floor dance studio, movement nuzzled me from all sides and I felt free and inspired. I delighted in the clear blue sky pouring in the windows, smiled to greet many friends, and found myself a spot on the floor. There, I moved in big, arcing circles, attenuating my body in long gestures to stretch at the same time, pulling my feet up to warm up my quadriceps along the floor, rolling over my shoulders and over the crown of my head.
I wore wide-legged pants with a tucked-in tank top, which allowed me a full range of motion, and that I exploited with every angle, level and gesture. Lately, I have a good relationship with Staccato, and I sunk deep into my hips, playing with rocking my pelvis and taking big backsteps – at times holding my leg up and rocking my knee forward and back before placing my foot emphatically on the floor, garnering tremendous momentum and force in the process. Jason spoke of the need for Staccato, sometimes for ferocious and sudden action, since staying in Flowing all of the time would, at minimum, mean we might get nothing done; and at maximum, might mean we fail to act to save our own life or the lives of the people we love. Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of a patient warm-up, instead when the situation calls for it, we have to step into Staccato instantly, as warriors, with all of the power and force that is required of us.
We seemed to spend more time in Chaos than in any other rhythm today. Jason spoke directly of the devastating hurricanes and earthquake; and also reflected on the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, which he, like me, personally witnessed. I recalled a class Jason taught in the same room just three days after the election of Donald Trump, when he also kept us in Chaos for song after song after song. I reflected on the words of my yoga teacher, Maria Cutrona, in the days after the election, “As painful as this may be, as hard as it may be to take, this is exactly what we have been practicing for over all of these years. This is it. Right now.”
The ultimate test of our practice is to keep moving even inside a swirling maelstrom of Chaos. To find a way to ride the Chaos so it doesn’t destroy us. As the rhythm of Chaos unfolded, I was often low, finding a growling thread of Staccato, realizing the need for action. Deep in my knees and hips, I held my arms cactus-like and rocked and cracked into my upper spine at great velocity. I joined two friends, including the very woman who brought me to a 5Rhythms class for the first time over ten years ago, and we leapt and twisted and spun, inspiring me into a whole new set of gestures and ways of working with weight and extension, every minute muscle of my feet steering me into unending expression. I moved around the room and joined with several others in sequence, including with a man I hadn’t seen before whose lyrical expression of Chaos softened me into joy.
This school year, I will be teaching mindfulness & meditation to nearly my entire school community, going into many different classrooms for 20 minutes each week. I thought about how I would introduce the work. “Dear Ones, this world is crazy,” I rehearsed in my head, “We have hurricanes, earthquakes, racism. Donald Trump. There is pretty much nothing in the external world around us that we can count on. Even if you are lucky enough to have a safe home, enough money, classrooms where you feel respected and valued. Even if you have all that stuff, at some point, you, too, are going to feel like the world is crazy. Because that’s what the world does. It’s always changing and throwing new stuff at us. Since the external world is so crazy and is constantly shifting and changing, we can’t rely on it for our sense of peace and safety. Our only hope is to develop our internal world, what’s inside, so that we have at least one place of refuge we can count on, that’s always available to us, regardless of our shifting circumstances.”
In the second wave, I grew slightly distracted as a result of rehearsing my speech in my head. I forced myself to return attention to my feet, telling myself my speech would all still be there later on, after it was no longer time to practice; and I moved around the room in Flowing. I met the blue-green eyes of a woman who was close to my own diminutive height and felt flooded with sadness, receiving, feeling the emotions around me. I noted that I had hunger pangs and put my hand to my lower stomach. My energy dipped slightly. Playful regardless, I knelt with my forehead down next to two friends who were back to back, and they inched their feet apart, delighting me by making a little bridge for me to crawl under. I squirmed to the other side of them, then pushed hard on the ball of my right foot, leaping high into the air and curving into emphatic motion like a cartoon wizard casting a lightning spell.
I had another wind during the closing gestures of the class. In Lyrical, I, like many others, swooped throughout the room, joining other dancers in brief partnerships. In Stillness, I keyed into tiny articulations of my coccyx and lower spine, closing my eyes and feeling the movement of energy throughout my body, moving my hands in space as these quiet modulations swept to my edges. Jason gathered us into a big circle where we continued to move in Stillness, ending at last with several deep, collective breaths.
At the end of the class, I chatted for a moment with an effusive, beaming first-time 5Rhythms dancer who I had helped to greet. Then, I spoke with a friend who had seemed interior during the class, and learned that many of her family members live in the southern part of Florida, where they were being pummeled by Hurricane Irma even as we spoke, her eyes pinched in pain, her shoulders raised, her tone incredulous.
September 10, 2017, Brooklyn, NYC
( First image: of St. Thomas after Hurricane Irma from nydailynews.com. Second image: nbcnews.com of Florida during Irma)
by meghanleborious | Aug 26, 2016 | Notes on Practice
“Take a minute to notice what you’re arriving with,” said 5Rhythms teacher Amber Ryan as she started the Sweat Your Prayers class today with a long, attenuated period of tonal music. I found a spot on the floor in the northeast corner of the studio, nearest to the home of the late Gabrielle Roth—the founder of the 5Rhythms practice. As the music unfolded, Amber also encouraged us to set an intention for our dance today, and to offer as many prayers as occurred to us during the dance. Instantly, a flurry of prayers arose, ending with the simplest and most complex of prayers—a wish for self love.
I lay on back, and drew my legs gently in to my torso, noting a sore back, and resolving to move gently to avoid injuring it further. On Friday, before Tammy’s Friday Night Waves class I had made the same resolution. That day, I had carried a heavy backpack all day, assisting with a field trip for my six-year-old son, Simon’s, camp, then traipsed around with him after. On the way home, he crashed his bike into the sidewalk and I had flung myself off my bike to run to his aid. My neck hurt, my back hurt.
Shortly after I began to move in Friday’s class, the pain disappeared completely. In fact, the neck pain was totally gone until yesterday afternoon when I got a $175 parking ticket—at which point the pain returned with a vengeance. The back pain stayed disappeared until a giant wave knocked Simon and me over at the beach, after we had been playing and diving over and through the waves for nearly an hour. Alone, I would just release and let the wave toss me around until I found which way was up, but Simon is an emerging swimmer; and (despite his protestations) I clung to his swim shirt, holding on as the wave overtook us, moving heavily into my back again during this maneuver (though we ended with tumbling smiles).
Today for the Sweat Your Prayers class I shared the elevator to the 5th floor dance studio with a friend. “How are you?” I asked. She said, “Well, I can finally make eye contact,” and explained that she’d been very sad recently. “I did wonder when I saw you on Friday if there might be something going on.” I had danced up to her, usually a joyful encounter, but she kept her eyes down, her head tilted forward. I got the message immediately that she wanted privacy and moved to give her the space she seemed to need.
There is so much information in the way we use our eyes. Early in my dance career, I thought it would be rude to make direct eye contact with other dancers, like it would be an intrusion, and might break the aesthetic trance they were immersed in. Now, it is when I feel like I need to keep to myself that I avert my eyes. Or if for some reason I can’t or don’t want to invite someone in. Or if I am listening carefully to something that is going on inside. I note with interest that the people who partner the most seem also to be the people who make the most eye contact. Lately, I make gentle eye contact with everyone I encounter, even people I pass on the street. Some days, I feel like everyone in New York and I are in on a private joke, our eyes glittering with the juiciness of it.
After considerable time stretching in gentle circles, I attained my feet and began to move slowly through the room, staying out of my edges completely, especially the edges in my back. I set the intention to see everyone, saying silently, “I see you there; and I am grateful for it.” (A meditation adapted from a practice taught by the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hahn.) I looked up from my looping circles, meeting some eyes and not meeting others, but taking the time to notice each person. The point was not eye contact, but seeing, noticing and acknowledging the presences of the people in the room. The slow, thick music continued for some time as each of us found our individual ground, and as we established a ground as a class.
Pain did not disappear so much as fade from the front of my experience. I still felt a bit of tenderness in the back, but as I released into the wave it was a far-off echo. I marveled at this. Once, I was barely able to walk I was so gimped from dancing ferociously on the first day of a three-day workshop. Somehow I hobbled into the studio on day two, unable to imagine how I could possibly move. Miraculously, as soon as the music started, the experience of physical pain completely reversed. I spent the remaining two days alternating between soaring and flying; and the pain never returned. The biographer of Dipa Ma, a highly realized teacher in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition who did not begin meditation practice until after the age of 40, wrote that before learning to meditate, Dipa Ma experienced such intense physical and emotional pain—including a severe heart problem—that she could only drag herself to the monastery temple where she would practice meditation by crawling up the stairs. After learning meditation, she walked upright, free of pain.
This is not to stay that 5Rhythms practice always makes pain disappear, certainly the opposite has happened to me, too; but I am grateful and amazed for the times that pain has suddenly left me, and wonder about the mechanisms of pain’s disappearance.
Another related example occurs to me. I have had the experience on many occasions that I have been on a chilly beach or other inspiring outdoor site practicing sitting meditation. I might meditate for an hour or more in these cases. Immediately after I decide that I am “done” meditating, the cold rushes in, the wind starts to bite, and I can no longer bear to be subject to the elements. What would it be like if, like Dipa Ma, I could sustain whatever was happening during the “official” period of meditation and generalize it to other areas of my life? And, significant to our consideration here, what are the internal and external factors at play when pain totally disappears as soon as I step in to the dance? (In other words, how can I get me some more of that!)
Once the long, slow arriving began to transform, the class picked up like a windstorm. As Amber told us at the end, she led us through four consecutive mini-waves in the two-hour class. (In contrast, most two-hour waves classes feature just two waves, separated by a break between the two.)
I noticed that I often decide to hold myself back in a given rhythm before charging on to the next one, especially with Flowing. Today, I wasn’t always aware of which rhythm we were in. I thought I really needed to work on something in Staccato; and when I finally let myself leave Flowing and move into Staccato, it seemed like I barely registered Staccato as Staccato before we were moving into Chaos.
The big, nasty parking ticket the day before gave me some insight into aspects of Staccato that I need to repair. I was on a beach trip to celebrate my friend’s birthday and she suggested her favorite beach. We saw a line of cars parked on the side of the road. Also, farther down, a red sign that said, “No Standing.” My friend went to ask the people in a car ahead of us if they knew it was a legal place to park. “We’ve never been here before actually. But they can’t tow all of us!” was their jocular response. Though squeamish, I wanted to honor my friend’s birthday wish; and we gathered our things for the long walk to Fort Tilden Beach. Returning a few hours later, though I was happy to find that the car had not been towed, my smile faded seconds later when I found a prison-orange parking ticket crammed under the driver’s side windshield wiper. Two separate violations were checked—totaling $175.
I knew it was a bad idea. I got the message from my body. My friend would not have cared at all if I said, “This is not a good idea. Let’s go to the other beach instead.” Instead, perhaps influenced by an internalized voice of someone who was close to me for a long time, I wanted so much to be NOT controlling that I overdid it. I knew the best course of action, but I swallowed it. The problem was not so much about having the confidence to speak, as it was about having the confidence to own my knowledge and intuition, instead of talking myself out of it for some stupid identity reason. Not just getting the message, but clearing the channel into proper expression—the skillful application of Staccato.
Lately, I have been considering the continuum between following what feels like intuition and fully taking on each rhythm as it comes, even when it seems counter-intuitive. Since today I often didn’t know which rhythm we were in, the only thing I could do was move with what felt right.
Although I have fallen in love with Flowing and with the ground in recent years, sometimes the mandate of finding the ground feels like a heavy responsibility. I know that if I don’t take the time to really find the ground—what is a better way to put this? I know if I don’t take the time to fully arrive in my body and in my senses, and take the time to slow down and open my awareness to how my own body relates with the environment I exist in—that it is not responsible to move on to another rhythm. That would be to risk causing harm. The ground—and I mean ground in this broad sense—is what protects you and the people around you. Until you find the ground, as Jonathan Horan, Gabrielle Roth’s son and the current holder of the 5Rhythms lineage said, “There is no point in moving on.” I’m not sure why, for me, sometimes, I make it into a “should,” rather than just receiving it as a blessing. It’s kind of like being in a conversation and just waiting to get your point in, rather than patiently listening to the other person’s words. Committing to finding the ground first even when I want to charge ahead to Staccato and to Chaos is an example of taking on the rhythms and experimenting with resisting my automatic responses, rather than always going with what feels comfortable. I think the trick is to distinguish between the pull of conditioned responses and the wisdom of intuition—a key distinction that will be different in every new set of circumstances.
Chaos—off and on—as it came, was delightful today. Continuing to stay out of my edges, I was as totally released as I can be at this time. We are often taught that Chaos is a fusion of Flowing and Staccato; and today my version of Chaos was much closer to Flowing, though without any of its weight. As we moved into Lyrical, I noticed not only the friend I had seen in the elevator crying, but many others crying, too. Though I avoided the deep arcing bows into the ground that I so love, I found glorious flight, high onto my toes, twittering and soaring, at once quirky and extended, aloft, majestic.
I stepped into a smiling dancer who is new to me and started to cry myself, like so many in today’s class. The fronts of her shoulders were exceptionally open. I tried on her gesture, and realized how much you have to open the front shoulders to release the heart. I continued to experiment with the generous arm and shoulder gestures that were inspired by this brief dance for the rest of the class. I also noticed that my diaphragm, which is a part of my body where I typically hold stuck energy, was released today. That spot has not fully let in air for a very long time, but today it was open, clean.
There was something of a pause after one of the Stillnesses; and I began to move in circles with a friend. Amber marked the start of this wave, beginning an instruction with, “As the end becomes the beginning again…” Both of us spun, moving more quickly than much of the honey-slow room. Her spine undulated, released in all directions. Collectively, the exchange went up several notches and we both broke into open-mouthed smiles as our spins began to find weight and we stepped in and out, behind and around, still moving in unending circles. As the song shifted toward Staccato, my friend moved to the other side of the room. Smiling, I followed her for one more pass. As Flowing transitioned to Staccato, I stepped into the field of another friend, very close, extremely gently. We found a tiny, timeless pocket of Stillness, breathing so fully it seemed breathless, sharing a minute portal; then we each spun back into the collective field.
Amber invited us to return to the intention that we set at the beginning as the class drew to a close, the room joyful, moving out of a drum-heavy Hindu chant. In the final phase of Stillness, I moved unselfconsciously, silently enacting an energetic Buddhist practice that feels like home for me.
Amber concluded the class with a ritual (one of her great strengths as a teacher). We sat in a large circle, then Amber asked us to notice the person to our left and the person to our right. We then were told to hold our left hand facing up and our right hand facing down, so they lined up with our neighbors’ hands, without actually touching. We sat there, receiving and offering, generating energy and filtering everything through the heart, for a few minutes.
Self love seemed more available. Pain seemed unimportant. The world seemed workable. My heart felt full. The circle dissolved, the class dissolved.
In the hall, I saw the friend I had taken the elevator with before class who shared that she had been terribly sad. She was smiling even as she pulled a clean shirt over her head, shining, apparently pain free, or at least having a break from it.
“Sweat your prayers, dance your pain and move on.” –Gabrielle Roth
August 22, 2016, NYC
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 | Aug 24, 2016 | Notes on Practice
Heat lightning ripped through the grey-purple sky as I was driving to the Friday Night Waves class. Looking down my Brooklyn street to the East River a bolt jagged to the right and down, next to a looming metal crane. Crossing the blue expanse of the Manhattan Bridge, lightning danced in fractured lines on both sides of me. I felt sure the sky would explode with rain at any moment, though the clouds only managed to squeeze out a few frustrated drops.
In the week leading up to the class and in the days following, the entire city wilted. Even bodies usually kept concealed have emerged and the edges of our garments have crept toward their seams. I have been doing errands in a bra and skirt, for example; and I did yoga today in a bathing suit. My parents came to visit and we all had a slumber party in the one air conditioned room of the apartment. Nearly everyone has a similar dominant experience; and the heat is the main topic of conversation everywhere. I love the feeling of shared challenge and the remarkableness of it, but it has definitely been intense.
A few days before the class, I had a dream in which I knew that I was dying. Some of my friends were going on a bike ride in the heat. Though I was tempted to join, I opted to conserve my energy instead and write notes to everyone I love. Lately, I have felt a generalized dissatisfaction, like I should be doing something other than what I am doing, like I am craving something that I can’t quite pinpoint. I had a painful insight that when I get edgy with my six-year-old son, Simon, because he is taking too long to do a task, the root of my edginess is really a fear of failure. Fear that if I waste time, I will fail to create markers of my experience and identity. That I will die anonymous and therefore succumb completely to death—total annihilation. The dream seemed to re-set my priorities, and I experienced a deepening of meditation practice. I remembered, if only briefly, that now is my only hope.
I hadn’t realized that Tammy would be away this week; but I was happy to see Kierra Foster Ba at the teacher’s table in her place. The air conditioners were on, but it was HOT. Seriously hot. Again, like many, I wore less clothing than usual. Stepping in, I bowed to the room and to the practice, then found a spot on the floor to stretch. I was quickly called to movement, casting into curving, arcing gestures. I found myself doing my current version of breakdancing—athletic circling, rising and falling, putting as much weight on my hands as on my feet, moving in unending circles and arcs.
I would have thought that breakdancing would appear in Staccato, as I see it as edgy and expressive, but for me it has only ever appeared in Flowing. I recall an episode that happened not long after I started dancing the 5Rhythms—at a gallery event that turned into an all-night dance party. One of the biggest obstacles I faced in the beginning of my 5Rhythms path was that I was painfully constricted—trying very hard not to be too big, too unruly, too attention-getting—trying to keep a lid on my explosive inner Chaos. Having just fallen in love with 5Rhythms, I danced every bit as gigantic as I felt. And everyone else did, too! I realized that it is possible that dancing every inch of my dance (not to be confused with dancing gigantic just to get everyone’s attention) could give everyone else permission to dance every inch of their dance, too. A moment from the gallery dance party that lives delightfully in my memory was when I did the worm across the entire length of the gallery, jumping to my feet in peals of laughter at the opposite wall, amongst friends, who also delightfully trotted out their favorite moves.
Taking to my feet, I flowed through the room with the intention of seeing everyone in attendance. I thought of a man I met earlier in the day in downtown Brooklyn. He sat on the sidewalk, with a money-request-cup and a sign that listed the important events of his life. “Father died. Grandmother died…” There was also a copy of a newspaper article, “Boy Survives Fall Out of 6th Story Building.” “Are you the boy that fell out the window?” I asked. He looked at me and nodded and his words began to tumble out. I realized how much he wanted to be seen, and thought about how true that is for most of us. Wanting to be seen. Really seen. Not just looked at. Holding my brand new baby niece, I thought about that fundamental human wish again, as she opened her tiny eyes and in just a few moments of concentrating her tiny baby gaze, seemed to see all of me, everything that is important about me, completely.
Flowing lead to Staccato before long. I noted that my right foot had a slight flatness, in comparison to its usual articulation, but it didn’t stop me from jumping into partnership after partnership—including with one lanky friend who always challenges me to stretch upward and into the farthest reaches of my limbs.
My top lip curled ever so slightly in response to an outburst of yelling from one corner of the dance floor. Kierra picked up the microphone right away and said, “This is a spiritual practice. There is no talking.” I am often impressed by Kierra’s non-didactic approach, and on this occasion I was just as impressed by her pointedness.
Chaos in the first wave found me energetic, spinning, loose. Kierra played a track with tribal chaos rhythms mixed with a riff from Buena Vista Social Club; and I responded with enthusiasm and vigor despite the fact that I was already drenched with sweat.
In the context of the current presidential campaign season, my father has been saying, “In public life, there are two kinds of people: those who want to be somebody great, and those who want to do great things.” This quote came to mind as Kierra began to speak in the interlude between the first and the second wave of the class. “This is not a performance,” she said. “This is a spiritual practice. It’s for you. Not for anyone else. I challenge you to move beyond your self-consciousness, to not worry at all about how you look.” I don’t think she was talking about self-consciousness just as shyness (as it often implies) but, rather, self-consciousness in the sense that you are very preoccupied with how others are seeing you, perhaps losing the center and depth of your own experience in the process.
Kierra stepped forward to demonstrate through moving what a 5Rhythms wave looked like for her in that moment. She moved with grace and vigor as she explained to the eight brand new dancers in the room (and to the rest of us) that the gateway to Flowing is the feet; and that Flowing is characterized by unending, circular movement. She began to move more sharply and to forcefully exhale. “Staccato is really the opposite of Flowing. It is directional, angular. It is a good place to practice having good boundaries.”
At this point, Kierra digressed productively, encouraging us to fully take on the 5Rhythms, “especially if you have a strong will, and you always want to do things your way. For example, you might want to be in the beat, but it’s Flowing—so you flow; and see what’s there, in your flow. See what’s there for you.” The suggestion to fully take on the 5Rhythms is, in my experience, incredibly useful advice. In addition to Kierra, I have heard this theme emphasized by 5Rhythms teachers countless times, including Amber Ryan, Peter Fodera, and certainly by Tammy Burstein. There are times that it is skillful to track the minute shifts of energy that take place moment by moment and to follow every fleeting impulse, but more often, part of the discipline of practice—the seeds that eventually yield the harvest—is to take on the 5Rhythms fully, with the intention of being curious and seeing what comes. It is especially in the receptivity or resistance to a given rhythm that we mine for insights—information we would never uncover if we were always to simply follow our immediate, conditioned impulses.
Demonstrating the requisite release of the head in Chaos, Kierra said something I had never heard before: that we have some sort glands both in our foot pads and in our necks that release endorphins, which is one reason circling the head and neck are important in several religious traditions—such as Sufi whirling. This made perfect sense to me, as I have often been flooded with delightful natural chemicals in the throes of Chaos.
The release of my neck has been one of life’s little miracles. When I first began 5Rhythms, my neck was totally locked. At the end of a yoga class, it was agony to lay prone on the floor because it was so pinched. Instructors often asked, “Are you ok like that? Really?” Gradually, thanks to the 5Rhythms, my neck began to free itself. As it becomes more and more free, moving sometimes with alarming intensity in the rhythm of Chaos, so too, does my mind seem to grow more free. Whenever I feel discouraged by lack of progress on my path, the relative freedom of my neck reminds me of how far I have traveled, how ripe I am for catharsis, and how readily it comes.
Continuing with the litany of the rhythms, the rhythm of Lyrical, Kierra said, “Will look different for everyone.” All the rhythms will look different for everyone! But Lyrical in particular, since in Lyrical we let go of the letting go (of Chaos) and our innate patterns begin to emerge.
Kierra shared an example that Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, used to offer at workshops. Gabrielle said she would occasionally be washed over with sadness, even when she was in the throes of joy. Over time, she was able to locate the energy of this particular sadness to her wrist. Finally, after working with the sadness for a long period, she got the memory connected to it. As Kierra put it, “She was very young, pre-verbal even, and she had been told to wave good-bye to her father. She was bereft because she didn’t understand that he was coming back. She thought she was waving good bye to her father forever.”
As she moved on to demonstrate Stillness, Kierra said, “Sometimes when people first come to the 5Rhythms, they see a big, fun dance party. And it is that! It is that. But it is also so much more.” Kierra explained that once you faithfully go through all of the rhythms, eventually you will get to a trance. She recalled something Gabrielle would often say, “The body is begging bowl for spirit.” In that place, according to your beliefs and experiences, you will be moving with something much larger than yourself. For example, for Kierra, she becomes aware that she is moving along with her ancestors. This is very much true for me, too. It is in Stillness that I realize I have an entire spirit entourage, that I am not alone in this existence. I have often heard Kierra talk about being interested in “going deep” in practice, and as I reflect on her comments now I wonder if it is precisely this field she has been pointing toward.
Like nearly everyone in the room, I ended the night in a sweaty puddle on the floor that has held me literally hundreds of times. Kierra concluded the class with one of Gabrielle’s most famous quotes, and one of my personal favorites,
“Do you have the discipline to be a free spirit?”
August 14, 2016, Brooklyn, NYC
Image from derrickniehaus.deviantart.com.
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 | Jul 9, 2016 | Notes on Practice
While everyone in New York is suffering through a heat wave, I have been wearing sweaters and still shivering. This is my seventh day in chilly Ireland, traveling with my six-year-old son, Simon. First, we explored the astonishingly beautiful western region of Connemara. In Connemara, there is water everywhere. Lush vegetation goes all the way to the edges of every puddle, lake and river, giving the impression that everything is extremely full. Rock juts up through the green in impressive, unpeopled, ancient mountains. Rolling fields patchworked in different greens and hemmed by squared stone walls stretch all the way to the ocean’s edge. Textured layerings of green plants cover everything, even overtaking rock walls and sea cliffs—though in an entirely cheerful proliferation, nothing of sinister engulfment or of overwhelming insistence.
On our first full day in Annestown, on the Southeast coast of Ireland where we are staying at the house of a good friend, Simon got completely soaked. I didn’t even bring a change of clothes to the beach because it didn’t cross my mind that he might frolic in the waves on such a foggy, cold day; but he met a new friend and they raced happily in and out of the water. (It should be so easy for all of us! “You are about my size. You are willing to run with me. You are my friend!”) Truthfully, it seems almost that easy here with adults, too.
The next day, Simon and I trekked from late morning until evening in search of a local castle. With some trial and error, we managed to locate a nearby path our friend had mentioned that leads to the ruined palace. As we neared the castle, the path grew narrow and steep, with vegetation enclosing us as we ascended. Having been stung by nettles the day before, Simon moved forward hesitantly. Emerging, we were the only castle visitors. There was a discreet board with information in Irish, but no other signs of tourism. The castle rose above us, overgrown and chipped away, but nonetheless impressive. I put the picnic bag down on a flat, grassy spot, thinking we would explore the interior, then picnic there. Ascending further, I realized there was yet another, higher, even more beautiful grassy spot to picnic that looked for miles over green farmland. We explored the one room that was left of the castle’s interior, looking out through the window opening on each of four sides, then sat down to a picnic of Irish brown bread, sliced turkey and plums.
After our picnic lunch, we spotted a way to climb up a ledge of stones to the castle’s second floor. Perhaps against my better judgement, Simon and I climbed up and took in the views from this even higher perch. I held my breath and kept him away from the edges, still noting that even the roof sported lush turf and abundant greenery. Descending was more challenging; and there was a moment that I gasped with fear, but Simon followed my directions carefully and we made it without injury back to the level of our picnic.
We continued to walk along the path all the way into the next village, and slowly became cognizant of the tiny faery doors that dotted the woods. One was a four-inch tall wooden door carved with celtic scrollwork. Another featured tiny stairs. And yet another—moldings and trim. Most were at a convenient level for faeries and attached to a lower tree trunk. We made offerings of flowers at each door and asked the faeries to help with many special intentions. To my swelling pride, Simon included prayers for the happiness and well-being of the faeries, in addition to many prayers for him, for me, and for friends and family members.
Simon slowed down considerably as he grew tired. At one point, he stopped moving forward and closed his eyes. He began to move his hands slowly, perhaps imitating people he has seen doing tai chi in the parks of New York City. He wanted me to follow him, but soon realized that for this kind of dancing, it was more fun to do it on your own. I, too, moved slowly, my arms gently guiding my my gestures, my breath audible. Wind rustling through the marsh grasses passed through my body. For the first time, I noted that the direction of my gesture might not be the same direction as the energy that moved around me, but the different fields could be in harmony, like the different forces at play in a tide. My shoulders and upper back wanted to unfold and unfurl. (Stillness reveals itself to me in stages.)
Eventually, Simon started moving forward again, and we went to try to find a shop in the village near the end of the path where we heard we could get some ice cream.
Although there are 5Rhythms teachers and practitioners in Ireland, there are no scheduled events during the time of my stay. I am planning to undertake formal, individual practice as soon as Simon starts camp on Monday, though I am not tricked by the pretense that the practice happens only when I declare that it is happening. Instead, I hope I will be open to all the magic that presents—especially when it is as obvious as faery doors.
July 8, 2016, Annestown, Co. Waterford, Ireland
(Note: After this writing I learned about two new instances of police killings of black men in the US, and of the rising tide of rage and mixed feelings in response. I hope this lyrical foray does not offend anyone who is deep in the throes of agony, praying for a new dawn of tolerance and of enlightened policy.)
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 | Jun 27, 2016 | Notes on Practice
For the second week in a row, I unexpectedly attended the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers class. For the second week in a row, the class was guest taught by an accomplished teacher from another country, in this case Hannah Loewenthal from South Africa. And for the second week in a row, I explored new and delightful aspects of partnership.
I took a long time to gather myself on entering; and I went silently through a ritual of bowing into the space. I felt emotional and took tiny steps, moving like water through the many floor-moving bodies that were distributed equally around the studio. I found a spot near the middle of the room and began to move in energetic circles, rolling over the back of my head again and again and letting the gestures cast me in arcs, pausing to tense in key stretches as I was quickly called to action.
Hannah, perhaps noting the quickening of the room, dialed the music back to tonal and encouraged us to take our time in arriving. To find the breath and our relationship to it. Most of us were on our feet by then, and the room seemed to move inside clear gel, slow and graceful, dipping collectively into the Stillness inside Flowing. Hannah coaxed us through a meditation of body parts, beginning with the feet. Interestingly, the only part of her narration I recall is about attention to the spine, which I reveled in, remembering that one partner of many years told me early in my 5Rhythms career that I flow with my spine, not just with my feet. Before long, I stepped into this very partner—someone I rarely meet in Flowing—but on this day it felt like the parts of our spines that sit behind and inside the rib cage were enacted, and palpable energy from that part of the body mingled as we moved. We were gentle, but retained a hint of the precise edges that I love about dancing with him.
I have often been amazed at this partner’s ability to meet me exactly where I am. For a long time, I assumed he could just go anywhere. For example, he seemed to be the only one who I could meet in the sharpest of Staccato fields. Over time, I have come to believe that it only looks like he can go anywhere, when in fact it is because he can see the room so clearly that he knows who is in the same energetic field, and then moves into the dances that call him directly.
With my eyes nearly closed and sunken low into my hips, I luxuriated in the coiling and whipping of my spine. A partner I shared a long dance with recently stepped right beside me. I felt him and opened my eyes, laughing, as the last time we met I felt I had stepped into a clearing and felt like I surprised him. This time, he playfully surprised me—a lovely kind of balance.
In the first wave, I hung back in Flowing Staccato and never fully expressed Staccato before the room was barreling into Chaos, loud with joyful vocalizations, including my own. I loved seeing Hannah move in unbridled Chaos, her long arms sailing up and down around her, her long neck in concert. Somehow early in my 5Rhythms career, I got the impression that raising the arms high up is a no-no, but in the last several years, I have been investigating more and more of the sky and the expansive space above. In fact, Hannah repeatedly invited us to dance with the space around us, even when we were told to take partners.
Indeed, there was an unusual amount of space in the room, owing in part to the fact that many people seemed to be drawn to gather in small, quietly moving groups. At moments, the room looked like a sea-bottom kelp-forest, waving collectively with the energetic currents.
Hannah taught the class in two waves, as is the usual custom in a two-hour class, but did not pause for verbal teaching in the middle of the class. Although the frame was two main waves, many tiny little waves expressed inside the larger structure; and Hannah repeatedly chanted, “The rhythms inside the rhythms.”
In Chaos, I spent long periods dancing with myself. I note that during Chaos I am least likely to partner. I wonder if I can extrapolate that I am very self-sufficient in Chaos, very comfortable and confident in Chaos—at least at this point. Often, for me, trances arise here; and I am inclined toward my own inner world. I am much more likely to meet a partner in any of the other four rhythms.
My dance was delightful throughout. My energy level was constant except when I was swept completely away by effusive expression, which gave rise to uncontainable bursts. I found joy in partnership, and was receptive (on this day) to everyone in the room. I found joy in my own inner experience. I found joy in brand new ways of moving, rolling out completely uncontrived. I found joy in stepping into moving with a brand new partner, and, too, stepping in with an intrepid long-time friend who is always willing to off-road from the basic map and from the many notations and traces we have recorded over the years on our uncharted, unchartable adventures.
Leading us from the Stillness of the first wave into the Flowing of the second, Hannah did something curious. Instead of guiding from the feet first as is nearly always the instruction with Flowing, she invited us to begin with the hands, working our way through the body and into embodied Flowing from there. I recalled Kierra’s aside the week before when she taught the Friday Night Waves class, that in many cultures the hands are considered to be the “messengers of the heart;” and I wondered if the hands might be particularly important in Hannah’s personal practice. As I remarked about the class the week before with Anne Marie, taking class with a teacher I have never encountered before can be very valuable—perhaps just as my grandmother, Muriel Grigely, used to feel about stepping into a different church for the first time.
Hannah invited us to partner; and I found a good friend. Both of us were faster than the music; and we giggled and super-sped up, then slowed down and leaned in toward each other: slowing, moving around. Instructed to turn the partnership into a foursome, two others joined us, though the group remained very porous, with several people from other groups or dancing individually moving partially in the field we created. Without instruction, the group dissolved and my partner and I returned to each other briefly before moving on to other parts of the room.
I noticed a friend I recently shared a sublime dance with standing a bit off to the side. I considered trying to engage him, but thought better of it, wondering if it might not be best to let him have whatever experience he was having. I also felt hesitant because our most recent dance was so beautiful—sometimes I feel shy after sharing an experience like that. I noticed that another dancer did succeed in drawing him out and that he seemed to move cheerfully and fluidly, as their group at moments intersected with ours at the point when we were told to dance in groups of four.
During both waves, in the bridges from Lyrical into Stillness, repetitions bubbled up. In the second wave I found a gestural expression of the disbelief that precedes grief, my hands sobbing, crying, “No, no, no, no, no!” I didn’t connect it to a specific experience. It didn’t make me cry, but I could feel its resonance. In Lyrical, I experimented with an awkward groundedness, then took off and sailed throughout the room with luxurious, expansive gestures, pouring my smiling eyes into whoever’s eyes I could manage to meet, high on the toes and raised into the front chest.
As the final wave of the class began to draw itself to a close, I stepped into a partner’s field who I recently shared a long dance with, slightly hesitant. He smiled, inviting, and we resumed a previous class’s investigation of tiny, crossed over steps, flashed foot soles, elbows held close to the torso, occasionally moving in a way that was as closely contained as could possibly be without touching. I moved in and out of more stretched and extended gestures and big, back-crossing steps, but drew back closely into this minute and quirky investigation again and again, delighted.
We came seamlessly into unselfconscious contact, each planting the outside of one foot to touch, side by side. He leaned into me and I returned the gesture, at once pushing and yielding, then stepped around his planted foot, curving us into an arc. The room fell away, the sound of breath grew stronger. We moved in a little matrix, opening at moments into a kind of ballroom glide. At other moments we balanced, finding small swinging movements inside the balances. I noted that he is closer to my small scale than many men, and found balancing exceptionally dynamic and available, feeling like the animations you see of shifting crystalline forms, alive and clear, seeing and seen.
The process of leaving was overlayed with a conversation with a friend. As we took the elevator from the 5th floor down and stepped onto 6th Avenue, he expressed that sometimes he feels like he has to really make a commitment to be in “his” dance. Otherwise, he would just be partnered all the time, doing someone else’s dance—a sentiment I have heard expressed hundreds of times. He was already hugging me goodbye; and we didn’t have time, but this is what I wanted to say:
“This might be unique to me, but at this moment I don’t feel that I have a “my” dance. And I don’t think there is a lack in that. Just as there is no “me” that is separate and self-existing, there is no “my” dance. My deepest, most emotional, or most idiosyncratic personal expression is not separate from any of the dances I have shared with partners or in community. For me, dancing alone and dancing with others are not opposites, but are shades of difference—all part of the beautiful display comprising the myriad forms of this tiny, precious life.”
June 19, 2016, Brooklyn, NYC
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms®dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
(Images: The tangled rainbows is an image from my own studio. The beautiful sunset photo of the Brooklyn Bridge was taken and shared with me by 5Rhythms teacher Hannah Loewenthal .)
