Musings + Art + Happenings from our Tribal Individuals
The 5Rhythms practice | A lens for life
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MOVING WITH GRIEF by Julia Mercurio, Hungary
Last year, on a very hot summer day, I received a message from my friends when I had just woken up from a late afternoon nap. My previous partner had violently ended her own life.
What followed for me was a sickening emotional ride, which I didn’t know until quite recently was actually grieving. Never had I grieved before in this way. So deeply touched. Life was suddenly always shadowed by this entity that hadn’t been visible to me before. This entity was death. In the beginning, I felt a strong sense of aliveness and presence. I was not dead! But then the waves of emotional pain started to paralyze me and the fear of my own death started creeping in.
I dragged myself to a 5Rhythms class because I knew that movement would do me good. But I could hardly move as the emotional pain blocked my fluidity. The few classes that followed were similar. I felt heavy and broken. Ultra vulnerable. Embarrassed that I couldn't feel joy. Every move was accompanied by the feeling of hopelessness and sadness. Lying down to cry felt much more desirable than forcing myself to move. Even Chaos, beloved Chaos that had always been so easy to enter and felt so liberating and energizing, could not liberate me from feeling misplaced on the dancefloor. Grief had completely swallowed me.
I withdrew from dancing. Listening to my intuition, I gave myself time and permission to feel and do things that felt good. De-cluttering the apartment, crying, doing nothing for days …. I entered my own healing cocoon, with its own laws of time. Then, another friend of mine passed away suddenly. My trust in the essential goodness of life crumbled...READ MORE
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ONCE UPON A TIME by Eliza Bouwens, United Kingdom
ONCE UPON A TIME on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, excited children feet and curious parent toes connected together in one big circle. As the Fairy Tale dragon came through everyone’s hands, we all shared our name and favourite Fairy Tale.
Then the teacher brought in a mysterious book into the middle of the circle. … She pulled on the ribbon and the book jumped open. … A giant beanstalk was reaching to the sky!
We rolled ourselves up on the ground like beans and took our time to grow tall, feeling our roots underneath our feet spreading into the ground and stretching out our branches.
Suddenly the teacher’s head disappeared behind a new book. … She opened the book for us all to see, breathing through the dragon’s fire breath. We all turned into fire- breathing dragons and powerful knights.
Then a colourful book appeared with a pumpkin popping out. … Which Fairy Tale are we stepping into now? We got our imaginary broomsticks out and our dusting and polishing cloths. … All those fire- breathing dragons and fighting knights had made so much mess. … We had burned...READ MORE
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LOCKDOWN ~ SEEKING SPACE by Xoli Fuyani, South Africa
Lockdown. One of my favourite Rhythms is Lyrical. As I grew deeper in my dance, I came to realise that my love of Lyrical was not mainly about the dance but about a need for space and freedom to freely move. As a black South African growing up in a township, the need for space is a big issue: not having enough space for housing, children not having recreational spaces to play, and people living on top of each other.
The first sight you see when leaving Cape Town International Airport after arriving in Cape Town is the rows of shacks – “informal settlements’ – and bucket toilets. This is what greets travelers along the N2 stretch of highway into the Cape Town city centre. And this is the big reality of black people living in the townships. People are constantly fighting for space and decent housing.
At the end of February 2018, the backyard dwellers in my community, Gugulethu (translation: ‘Our Pride’) lost faith in seeking space and lost the plot. What followed was a lockdown and violent protests over a lack of housing, leading to the torching of government buildings and vehicles.
The day of the lockdown, I was scheduled to teach my weekly class in the nearby suburb of Hout Bay. When I heard I couldn’t leave home, I immediately felt a deep sense of sadness. The environment was strictly controlled, informal spaces were filled with temporary shack structures and violent activities emerged and flourished as a result of the desperation of not being heard by government officials and lacking the outlets or tools to deal with anger...READ MORE
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VIDEO
WAVES IN HIGH PLACES by Torie Partridge (USA), Louise Hall (Sweden), Lucy Howgego (England), Maha Sarraf (Uganda)
A few of our latest additions to the 5Rhythms Sweat SpaceHolder program descended upon Utah, USA last week and, of course, ascended their way to the 11,000 ft Top Of Hidden Peak Snowbird to demonstrate their 5Rhythms Wave.
#WavesInHighPlaces #DanceAnywhere #DanceEverywhere
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SONG BEHIND THESE EYES
by Morag Donelly, United Kingdom
The Phoenix stole my gaze
And propelled my vision skywards, darted and blazed and took my eyes away
So with no sight I laid, as my vision was changed
And my eyes saw things I would not yet see, soaring on the fiery wing
While my body built a fire being to teach myself internal seeing
and become all elements undefined by this body knowing, this human time
I learnt the ways of land and Air and in-between,
The under stone to behind the cloud to the rippled rhythms of the glassy waters
In this under the surface safety – asleep - dreams came to me of strange things and places I have never been
And as I grew the wild world grew too
That at the edge of everything,
Winds that carry are charged and singe
The body braces and is engulfed
To know and to become
And at once the stillness re-aligned...READ MORE
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Dear Dancing Friends of our Beloved Gabrielle,
Robert and I are cooking up a new project and we would love for you to join us in creating it.
I will be editing and RAVEN will be publishing a book that will collect personal stories from people like you who have had a unique and powerful experience with Gabrielle -- one that was memorable and thought-provoking, amusing or delightful, or perhaps even soul-piercing and life-changing.
I am looking for stories that capture Gabrielle’s unique, wild, and colorful style of speech, intimacy and interaction, as well as her edgy humor and outrageous sparks of spontaneous wisdom.
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Community is the next Buddha
- Thich Nhat Hahn
The 5Rhythms community is a 21st century collective unbound by history, culture, race, religion, gender or politics. We are bound by the beat, following our feet on a dancing path to freedom. We are beat-driven, service-oriented, heart-based individuals who come together to embrace our tribal longings.
The measure of a community is its respect for the wisdom of its elders, the innocence of its children, the passion of its artists, and the hope of its healers.
We are committed to inspiring and serving these roots and wings of community.
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