by meghanleborious | Jan 18, 2015 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I was happy to arrive on time to Jonathan Horan’s sold-out, one day workshop “5Rhythms Fundamentals: Embodied Waves” that took place on Sunday at the Joffrey Ballet Studio in the West Village. I had been away until the night before, and had not set foot in a 5Rhythms room for two entire weeks. During the interlude, I danced (again) at Dance Spree in Northampton, Massachusetts, and also went to several dance events at Kripala Institute, where I observed the New Year. I intended to find a quiet corner of the large yoga retreat center to meditate through the midnight hour, but decided, instead, to attend a lively dance party lead by two teachers. I also went to a class lead by a man who started something called Shake Your Soul; and, although initially resistant, found that I was won over by the end of the class. I thought I would relax, meditate and attend yoga classes, but as so often happens, found I was drawn to dance—whether it is specifically 5Rhythms or not. All of these experiences offered new insight and information for me to experiment with.
I noticed as I entered the room on Sunday that I was slightly nervous. I have entered this same room on the 5th floor of the Joffrey hundreds of times; and I have rarely been nervous. It was hard to identify a cause, but I began to suspect that I was overly concerned with what the teacher, Jonathan, thought of me. I’m not sure what, exactly, I was hoping he would think, but it was an interesting thing to note. I admit that I cared very much what Gabrielle Roth—Jonathan’s mother and the founder of 5Rhythms—thought, and wondered if it might not have carried over.
Martha, an artist and 5Rhythms teacher who is highly regarded in the 5Rhythms community, had created an engaging installation with an active water element that contained references to earth, fire, water, air and ether; and I lingered near it, inspecting its elements as the dance began to move me.
I slipped easily into the first wave, beginning by finding an off-to-the-side spot to unfurl, stretch and undulate. I encountered many friends—people I have danced with for years—and greeted them warmly. I noted that there were several experienced teachers on the floor; and that the room felt deeper, somehow, for their many collective years of practice. Once I felt ready to stand, I rose to my feet in a dramatic rush, lifting first my hips, then back, shoulders, and head, and, finally, raising my hands to the sky and arcing slightly back. From there, I found circular motion easily, connecting joyfully with other dancers. I was also deep in my hips, experimenting with long, low stances; sharp, square edges; and percussive motion. With a good friend, I enjoyed a brief flinging jig, with high spinning steps and air-landed kicks during Lyrical in the opening wave.
Things shifted radically for me after Jonathan’s instructional talk following that first wave. I sat in the circle of participants surrounding Jonathan as he spoke, rapt with attention. In the beginning of the talk, he gazed into the ceiling, seemingly searching for words or waiting for inspiration. I wondered if he could see or hear his now-deceased mother, Gabrielle, and couldn’t resist the temptation to follow his gaze skyward.
Jonathan touched on many significant themes. He talked about the nature of practice—a topic that I love—and how we use the discipline of practice to help us to deepen our capacity for awareness. He also explained that (despite conventional understanding) 5Rhythms is not a dance practice. I remember Gabrielle saying that, too. In a talk she gave not long before she died, she said, “This is just the little black dress I put on for you,” and explained that 5Rhythms is actually a way to describe the very creative process itself, not just what happens in the dance.
I hope I don’t fall into the temptation of getting stuck on the idea that 5Rhythms is dance, but I am so grateful that it is. I do love to dance.
Jonathan went on to explain that 5Rhythms is actually a movement meditation practice. He used repetition, taking the voice of a dancer-seeker, “I taste freedom. I taste freedom!” he said, “Freedom from myself!” He then spoke about noticing if you are “in” or “out”, describing, I think, the quality of awareness.
In class on Friday, Tammy also commented on awareness, saying that one of the goals of practice is to develop awareness to such an extent that we realize we are totally and utterly connected to everyone else. She then invoked one of Gabrielle’s most famous adages: “There is only one of us here.”
My inner talk at this point in the workshop was something like, “I get this. I’m good at this. I’m mostly ‘in’. I know how to open my awareness to whatever comes. My heart gets shattered in this room all the time. This is not going to be very hard for me.”
Jonathan invited us to do a dance of being “out”, and had us take partners in this intentional state of being aware of non-awareness. Although we had a partner, we were supposed to think about something else, look away from them, and otherwise distract ourselves. I found that it was really, really hard to stay dis-engaged. I thought about a painting assignment I once had—to make a “bad” painting. It was hard! The intended badness of it was so engaging that I made a painting I loved, and that planted the seeds for an entire painting series that carried through the following year. It set me free, if only briefly, from the many constraints that I placed on myself in trying to make a “good” painting, and, too, that I placed on myself in trying to be a “good” painter.
Jonathan encouraged us to “be real,” to find our own dance, and to stop performing ourselves. “Do that thing you do, when you are performing,” he said playfully on the microphone, “do that cute thing you do with your hips! Yeah! Do your hipster dance!” He continued; and the bottom dropped out for me. My ego did a triple spin. Every time I tried to move, I felt I was performing. The suspicion I had about wanting to impress Jonathan came drifting back. I felt like every movement I made had some aspect of performing to it. Instead of just noting my inner experience and moving on, in this case I seized up—the ego watching the ego watching the ego. I descended into isolated pain. I did not have the energy I needed to dance with inspiration.
I wondered about the things I could have done differently to avoid this current pain. I should have eaten an adequate breakfast. I was tired because of going non-stop from one physically intense activity to the next at Kripalu; and perhaps I should have paced myself more. I hadn’t hydrated enough, surely. I started to wonder about a possible muscle pull in my right groin that had been tender for two days. I stopped the bold physical experiments—with wide, decisive steps and sweeping, extended arms—afraid I might have seriously pulled the muscle and just wasn’t feeling the damage yet.
Rather than dancing near the front and middle, where there is usually a lot of space and a lot of action, I hovered, instead, near the columns—vague and distracted by the inner discussion I wanted no part of, but was unable to silence.
This reminded me of an experiment Tammy proposed during a Friday night class in 2007 or 2008: that we turn and dance with the emptiness next to us. I happened to be concurrently studying the Buddhist concept of emptiness—that nothing exists inherently in and of itself, including me—and that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. The study of emptiness infuriated me. Wasn’t it enough to know and accept emptiness without having to belabor the point? My ego rubbed and rubbed, blistering me in the process, trying its best to sustain itself. In retrospect, the class that focused on the study of emptiness (in the context of Buddhist Madyamika Prasangika teachings) was by far the most transformative of all the classes I took in a two-year intensive Buddhist studies program. I had no idea whatsoever how to respond to Tammy’s instructions at the time to turn and dance with the empty space next to us; and I found myself confused and irritated.
I think I should explain what I mean by the ego. I mean it not in the Freudian sense exactly, but closer to a Buddhist sense. The self aspect of self that is constantly seeking to prove its existence to itself—projecting its habitual stories, then trying to convince itself and others that its stories are true and eternal. This is the creature that got rubbed so hard in the workshop on Sunday. I can’t tell you exactly what self-story got interrupted, but I’m pretty sure I know it when I feel it.
Jonathan kept asking, are you “in” or “out”? “Are you just going through the motions?” He also said something like, “Can’t you just be real?” At one point, he said, “It’s a choice. In, or out.” This sparked anger. More than anything, I wanted to make the choice to be “in,” in fact I was making that choice, but “in” absolutely wasn’t available to me at that moment. The spark of anger never ignited, thankfully, as another voice in me answered the first, “It might not be a choice in this moment, but in the bigger picture, it is a choice. One that unfolds over time.”
It seemed clear that my ego was having some sort of temper tantrum, and it was downright unpleasant. On some deep-inside level, I think I trusted Jonathan, and was willing to believe that his choices were skillful, even if I couldn’t understand them in the moment. At the end of that wave, the final shape my body took was a twisted curve; and my eyes landed and stayed on the room’s red exit sign, hanging above the studio door.
I left quickly for lunch, hoping to avoid having to interact with anyone. As I sat at a local eatery, a close friend appeared and asked if he could join me. I was happy for his company, though still feeling unhappy and oddly tight. He told me someone asked if he was “having a nice dance,” and he shrugged, saying, “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it nice.” I said, “Yes, sometimes nice or pleasant doesn’t exactly line up with productive. It could be totally not nice and still be productive.” I went on to share, “My dance so far today is very unpleasant, in fact. I think it might be productive, but it is really unpleasant right now. It would be good if it would shift.” I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain the tussle I suspected my ego was embroiled in.
I returned after lunch, once again on time, curious to see how my narrative would evolve through the afternoon. I wondered if I would remain locked in isolation, or if a different quality would come through. This time, I fell right into the luxury of aimlessness, flowing into empty spaces as they opened up, and being coiled and repelled by currents as I moved toward and away from people. Sometimes I would trail someone briefly as I was tugged along in their wake. Even if I made a choice to go a particular way or to dance with a particular dancer, something would inevitably intervene and send me swirling happily in a different direction altogether.
I thought about how I had gone through stretches lasting months when dance was very unpleasant. I have no idea why I kept going to 5Rhythms classes when things got so very, very unpleasant and stayed that way for so long. I would scurry out at the end, unable, even, to sit peacefully with friends. I told myself that it was the nature of practice—that you keep showing up for yourself, again and again and again—without being attached to what will happen as a result. On Sunday, I was grateful that this period of unpleasantness seemed to have passed quickly.
Up until the time of this writing, I wasn’t exactly sure what the theme or even the title of the workshop was; and I actually had to look it up on 5Rhythms.com. I just knew that it was a one-day workshop with Jonathan in New York and was sure it wouldn’t be a waste of time or money. As it turns out, this was the first of a series of one-day “5Rhythms Fundamentals” workshops, each focusing on one of the 5Rhythms. While I didn’t note an emphasis on the rhythm of Flowing per se, in his final remarks at the end of the day, Jonathan said something to the effect that if you haven’t developed your relationship to Flowing—to finding yourself in the feet and knowing the ground beneath you—there is no point in moving on. I was left with the thought that the teachings of the day had to do not just with Flowing and finding the ground, but also to do with clear-cutting the defilements that corrupt that very relationship. No point in building a house on a swamp!
On Monday, I returned to work after two weeks of celebration, rest and time with family. It might or might not be related to my experiences during the workshop, but the week has been characterized by balance. I have been neither fatigued nor manic, neither hungry nor overfull, and neither bored nor overwhelmed.
January 10, 2014
by meghanleborious | Dec 9, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I didn’t think that I would be able to dance last night, but a babysitter came through at the last moment. I was relieved. A week like this should not go un-danced, and I doubted I would be able to make it to another class before next Friday’s. I arrived 15 minutes late and stepped into a room already in the thick of Staccato.
There is a scene in the 2007 film The Great Debaters that I find very moving. The film is a true story about a debate team from an all-black college. Set in 1935, the team surmounts incredible obstacles, wins again and again, and goes on to challenge Harvard’s debate team. In a debate with a white college about whether black students should be admitted to the state’s colleges, the character played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell responds to the opposing team’s position that American society is not yet ready for blacks to attend all-white colleges, and concludes her team’s argument with the impassioned assertion,
“Would you kindly tell me when is that day going to come? Is going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No! The time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always, right now!”
In the last year, I have written extensively about the rhythm of Flowing. Flowing is the least intuitive of the five rhythms for me, and as such has offered me endless teachings. The idea that everything around us in dynamic, constant flux is, in my mind, the first level of Flowing. Next, I connect with the idea that, despite the reality of constant change and movement, there is a ground, and we can find a way to relate to ground that can steady us through the wildest of circumstances. On another level, I have become empowered to watch for the empty spaces that open up even in a crowded room and move into them, rather than wait opaquely for space to open its formal doors and declare me worthy first.
I have, historically, held myself in Flowing as long as possible, even after I feel the pull to move into Staccato. I do this mostly because I feel I have a responsibility to the people around me. If I really find my ground—know my feet on the earth and know my place on it—it is unlikely that I will hurt anyone, physically, emotionally or energetically.
Sometimes, however, there is nothing to do but take a great, bold stride right into the heart of Staccato. Sometimes you are called out on the spot to speak your truth with full conviction; and if you miss it, you may never get another chance. Maybe (god I hope so) just maybe, if you have danced and danced until the bottoms of your feet know their place no matter what is happening, when the time comes for Staccato, you will know how to step into it with the full force of passion whether you feel like you are ready for it or not.
I am telling all of this to myself, of course, because no doubt it is old news to all of you.
Stepping right into Staccato last night (since I had no choice) I found a low, powerful stance, and began to move around the room, paying attention to my feet at first, then shifting awareness to my hips, knees and shoulders.
For the last two years I have been teaching 10th grade. On Thursday, I facilitated a discussion about the decision not to indict the (white) cop who killed Eric Garner (a black man) with an illegal choke hold. One often-reserved 16-year-old shared, “When I’m walking, if I see a police officer, I take my hands out of my pockets and I put my hood down right away.” The refrain about being stopped, questioned and suspected went on and on as the students shared their thoughts. I learned that many of my students make sure they are home before dark because they are afraid the police might hassle them, find a reason to arrest, or even shoot to kill.
During Tammy’s class, I was distracted because I kept thinking about the discussion, and how I might further it in the coming week. It occurred to me that instead of thinking about the writing assignment I sent him home with, and thinking about how to bring the full manifestation of his unique, spectacular brilliance to the world, my student was forced to waste his emotional energy wondering if he would be unfairly targeted by the police and thinking about strategies to avoid being killed or arrested.
I exploded into Chaos the moment the music suggested it. If I had been born in another century, I would have been pronounced possessed. Chaos, rather than arriving as a tender release, retained its edges and its uncontainable power. I realized that I, like many, carry rage that has been triggered once again by the facts of the Eric Garner case.
I shared notable dances with two close friends, but when Stillness arose at the end of each wave, I found myself still distracted, trying to plan or understand or process the events of recent days.
December 6, 2014, NYC
by meghanleborious | Dec 4, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Tammy’s “Faint of Heart” Heartbeat workshop took place over three days at the Martha Graham Dance Studio in the West Village. I arrived preoccupied, as I’d been mentally tangling with a sticky interpersonal issue throughout the afternoon. After organizing my things in the female dancers’ locker area, I stepped into the big, open room, and instantly forgot my pressing dilemma. Once inside, I crossed another threshold by stepping up onto the welcoming sprung floor. People were more or less evenly distributed throughout the space, prone with closed or averted eyes, moving slowly. Instead of finding space on the floor to stretch and unfurl as is often my inclination, my spine moved quickly into Flowing—curling and undulating the rest of me. I took tiny steps, in deference to the many quiet bodies around me, noticing the movement in my released spine as it rose up from subtle connections of all the parts of my feet with the floor.
5Rhythms is articulated through a series of “maps” that Gabrielle Roth, the creator of the 5Rhythms practice, laid out. The first map is the Waves map, which is the foundational practice, and is concerned with the investigation of each of the 5Rhythms—Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The Heartbeat map comes next; and is a way to investigate emotional experience. This was my third Heartbeat workshop, and my second Heartbeat workshop with Tammy.
I wasn’t able to attend the last day of the workshop because I attended, instead, a wake for my sister, Courtney’s, best friend, Lisa. She and Courtney were close friends since childhood; and Courtney stayed close to her as she moved painfully through the process of dying. Lisa was 38 years old, and left a seven-year-old son behind.
I was at Courtney’s house just moments after she got the news that Lisa had passed. She had called to ask my opinion about whether she should go to Lisa’s immediately after receiving an alarming text from Lisa’s fiancé. She also wanted to alert me that I might need to pick up Simon (my son) who was sleeping over at her house that night. I decided to go to her in either case, and was there within five minutes. During that time, she received the call. When I walked in, she was coiled sideways on a barrel shaped chair, rocking, sobbing quietly, keening at moments, and clutching the phone while she talked with another close friend who wailed audibly.
That first night, I moved with great freedom. It is absolutely amazing to me that I can spend countless hours dancing and still, again and again, find new ways to move. My spine was very released and I found a lot of my gestures ending with looking up, often arcing back and raising my hands above my head.
Tammy led us through an exercise called a “body parts meditation.” Next, she told us to take a partner and to take turns with one person doing the body parts meditation while the other witnessed them. After each took a turn witnessing, the mover then told the other what she felt during the exercise, and the witness described what she saw. I went first. My partner was a dancer who I have developed a relationship with over many years. I closed my eyes for most of the exercise and moved with inspired focus. At the end, I stood facing my friend. I said, “I was really into moving my spine—like twisting and curving and undulating. I was thinking about how unbelievable it is, all the infinite ways of articulating the spine.” I also said, “There is a spot in my neck that I can’t really get into. I noticed that it correlates with my sore right shoulder and inflexible right shoulder blade.”
She said, “First, I want to say that I love your dance.” It made me feel happy to hear that, celebrated, in a way. “I’m always happy when you are in the room. You really did seem to be moving from the spine, from the heart. It is like your entire rhythm is heartbeat, like it’s inside your bones. It gets a little heavy at times, and then light again, but it is always from the heart.” I loved her poetic words. It was magic to be seen so tenderly. After her dance, I said, “There is something frontal that your arms do, sort of straightforward. Maybe it is offering? Your elbows are very flexible and willing to go along with whatever your shoulders decide is happening. There is also a kind of integration to the way you move, and you are very planar and diagonal, somehow.”
We had another group talk at the end of the night, and it seemed people had endless comments. Although many were insightful, I was nervous that we went 20 minutes over. I gathered my things and went into the blustery night without even pausing to change out of my cold, sweaty clothes so I wouldn’t arrive home too late.
On Saturday, we started fresh. For me, it was another beautiful wave—characterized by a fluid spine, creative engagement and new discoveries. I began with dramatic balancing stretches and found my way quickly into unbridled movement. A plaintive, tonal opening song by FC/Kahuna included the lyric, “Don’t think about…all those things you…fear. Just be glad to be here.” I sobbed raggedly as I moved, grounded firmly, yet drawing everything up, toward heaven, my eyes half closed, finding inexplicable movements as the music moved into Stillness. Grief—both for Lisa and for other lost friends—found its shapes with my body.
After Saturday’s first wave, we gathered together to talk and Tammy opened the floor. After a couple of comments, she encouraged us to try to stay involved with what we were actually feeling physically—at least for now—and to avoid analyzing the feelings or considering the many metaphors that arise. She explained that the work we do in the territory described by the Heartbeat map is specifically about the infinite aspects of how we feel. This proved to be too much for us, collectively. Another hand went up and shared a story about childhood, and another, a personal insight.
Today, Lisa’s minister, Pastor Bessy, lead the service at the funeral home. She emphasized again and again, the many accomplishments of Lisa’s short life, and the many people she had loved well. My sister and another friend stood at the podium to share their own experiences. Courtney’s words were very moving. She was humble; and she grounded her words in lived experience. She quoted from letters she had received from Lisa; and she included many of the people in attendance in her generous reflections.
Next, Tammy assigned an exercise that involved firmly clasping a partner’s arm, then reflecting on what arose. My first partner had piercing blue eyes, and I moved slightly forward as she touched my arm. At once, I felt like laughing. With the second partner for the clasping exercise, when I stood in front of her and looked into her eyes, I felt such a surge of tenderness that I almost began to cry. When she clasped my arm, I felt solidly grounded and did not react aversively at all, nor did I dig in or resist the movement.
Later, again seated and discussing our felt experiences as a group, my second partner shared her thoughts. She first said that when she came to face me, she felt I was someone she could trust, partly because I am short (yes, short!). She went on to say that with her first partner, she had a key insight that when she was clasped, her neck went into a sharp sideways jolt. She felt like she was always supposed to be moving forward and accomplishing things, and this was her learned way of resisting. She shared that she’d had chronic neck pain for years and hadn’t realized that this action was the root of the neck pain. When she came to be partnered with me, I went first. She felt like my response to being clasped was to surrender forward, like an undulating wave. She decided to try on her perception of my approach, and again had a key insight.
These words, too, made my impressionable ears happy. I reflected on the fact that upon entering Friday, I was embroiled in my own thoughts about a difficult interpersonal situation, but that I let it go. And not just for the moment, and not that I am just going to walk away. Rather, that I will act as skillfully as can, and will employ all the passion and vision that I possess, but that, on some level, I have surrendered. I cannot control the situation, and whether I like it or not, it will unfold as it unfolds. No need to be preoccupied, since it won’t change the outcome. After my partner spoke, I experienced this little moment of gratitude. It seemed, at least for that moment, that after eight years of devoted practice, I was finally beginning to see a tiny bit of progress. I don’t think anyone in my life ten years ago would have observed an epic, graceful forward surrender, for example. Quite the contrary. Maybe there is hope for me after all!
The thing about Lisa dying—my private sadness—is that I wish I had loved her better. Things haven’t always been easy with my sister, and although I was occasionally invited to be part of their close circle, I chose instead to protect myself and to remain apart.
On Saturday at the workshop we worked extensively with fear. At the end of the day, I shared that I wouldn’t be able to attend Sunday’s session, and thanked Tammy and my fellow dancers in a breathy rush for their many beautiful offerings—my palms pressed together like a prayer as I spoke. I chose to offer my own insight (not limiting my comments to how I was feeling), that it is a very worthwhile project, working with fear. “Tomorrow I have to attend a funeral,” I said, “Not only does fear hold us back from fully living. But fear also holds us back from fully loving the people we love, and we really need to realize that they won’t be here forever. And neither will we.”
Tammy designed an exercise that involved encountering another dancer as “fear” with different variables. A dancer who was new to me touched me while my back was turned, caressing me at length. I was furious. I even thought about sharing publicly that if we don’t already have a relationship that includes touch, I would appreciate if people would make eye contact and see if I am really receptive to being touched before they touch me.
I danced with a very close friend at length—a dance of fear and reticence and the sharp edges that fear engenders, each of us with, at once, our hearts at stake. This dance continued in three major movements during the course of the day, finding us together in conclusion, linked in wordless honesty.
After so much strenuous dancing and so much sobbing, I needed to spend lunch reflecting and writing. The workshop producers had laid out tea and snacks for us, and I gratefully helped myself to an apple, some chips and a thick rectangle of dark chocolate before venturing outside.
Outside, I plodded along, dazed. After several blocks of aimless walking, hoping to find a comfortable place for tea, I settled on a deli and planned to sit in the cold on an outdoor bench across the street. Inside, I encountered the same dancer who made me angry by caressing my back. I found her manner off-putting; and I squirmed, wanting to be alone during lunch and hoping she would not ask to join me.
After lunch, we danced yet another beautiful wave. Tammy was extremely bouncy in Lyrical as she stepped away from the music-generating computer and moved around the room; and I cheered inside to see her so apparently happy.
Tammy asked us to take a partner, which, as always, means to turn to the person closest to you without thinking about it. My partner happened to be the very same person I saw in the deli, the very same person I was angry at for caressing my back when I didn’t want to be touched. Of course. How could it be otherwise? We were instructed to face each other. Then, she explained that one person would keep asking the other, “What do you fear?” I answered first, while my partner asked the question. I only remember a few of my responses, but without any warning, my answers veered into past life experiences. I took a sharp in-breath, alarmed by the sudden intensity, and let loose a shuddering sob. When it was her turn to answer the question, “What do you fear?” I realized that she and I had a lot in common, that she suffers, and that she is just trying to be happy, like everyone else in the world. By the end of the exercise, my irritation with her had dissolved completely.
Next, we used the same format for the question, “What makes you angry?” Remarkably, I had a hard time calling up sources of anger and kept finding myself silent and shrugging. When I do experience anger, it is so red-hot, so urgent, so dense, so intense…yet I couldn’t recall much at all. “When people try to team with me against other people,” I said. “When I get a parking ticket.” “When someone tries to round me off for their own understanding,” I continued. “When I burn the food.”
Shortly, I found myself in a dance exploring the gestures of Yes and the gestures of No with a friend, T. T. and I have totally different ways of relating to the beat in a given song, but in the Yes/No dance we were more in sync than we ever have been before.
I encountered T. again later but during the same wave. I had told her about Lisa during the lunch break; and when she looked into my eyes I felt totally seen, then felt a rush of sorrow. We fell into an emotional dance and gently held hands and spun each other as we moved through the wave of emotion. I passed through another episode of sobbing, finding myself cleaner and more empty after every round.
The thing is that if you are blessed to love a lot of people, and you manage to stay alive for a certain number of years, then there is no doubt that you will experience a lot of grief. When I experience grief again, it charges up all the burning embers of grief that lay scattered through my psyche. I was crying not only for Lisa, but for all of the friends I’ve lost.
I had no idea how much I loved my friend, Howard, for example, until I lost him. On a white day in early November, I was teaching then-infant Simon how to dance to the flights of soaring and arcing flocks of city pigeons when I got a call telling me that Howard had died. I was instantly ravaged with grief. Perhaps it was a dream, but two days after Howard died, he came to Tammy’s daytime Thursday class. Not knowing what else to do, I offered to loan him my body, so he could move and physically process this most difficult of experiences. He was grief-stricken, and accepted my offer. (That was the first time that I danced the grief of a spirit.)
This reverberation often angers the people for whom the grief is most immediate, in this case my sister, another close friend of Lisa’s, and Lisa’s closest family. For them, there is no once-removed, it is just the full intensity of final and irreversible loss.
Later in the afternoon, Tammy instructed us to make a big circle and we took turns dancing in the middle. I did not feel moved initially, but after the second Chaos song, I wanted to be in the middle. Several people beat me to it, however, and I hung back. I jumped as soon as a person left the middle and didn’t realize for several seconds that another friend had already entered the circle, too. I bowed and started to back away to give her the space, and in the process we began to interact. Tammy instructed us to go with it, and to turn it into a couple’s dance. My friend and I became emphatic, dancing Yes/No according to our instructions, dramatically recoiling to the floor and sailing around one another in circles. I literally lost my balance and found myself flat on my back. For a couple of seconds I surrendered, throwing my hands up and smiling in a snow angel pose before I bounded back up onto my feet and back into the dance. Many other couples took their turns; and I was awed by the creativity and specificity of the many displays.
By the end of the day I felt wrung-out and fully-open. I found myself in the third phase of a dance that went on all day with the first friend I mentioned, moving un-self-consciously and with patient reverence as the dance paused momentarily at day’s end.
I left this writing to attend to other urgencies, thinking I was in the middle of the story and that I would return to the writing as soon as possible. I realize now as I re-read it that I reached the end quite suddenly, without realizing it. Thank God I held nothing back in the telling, and that my heart danced me completely. I can only hope that I may say the same for my life.
November 10, 2014, NYC
