Body Joy – Bella Dreizler

As the sun dipped on the shortest day of the year I taped an empty sheet of white to my wall and inquired into The State of the Union. I divided the paper in five sections: Body, Heart, Mind, Soul, Spirit. I cracked open my laptop and clicked on a slow flow song and reached in there, curious about the state of my body. Muscles hug onto my bones, strong and limber, the effect of a balanced yoga practice, despite persistent left knee pain. Skin sags in new places but it is serving me better, the trouble of the past few years receding. A few extra pounds stare at me in the mirror and try to mess with my self-esteem. I feel the grace of my weight moving fluidly.

My heart? I put on a pulsing rhythm and feel softer, quieter, more settled at the core than ever. More intensity around particular emotions: blessed, restless, tender, wronged, dynamic, unsure, liberated, resentful. And this is a good thing…to feel with potency. Connection within me, with you, with us more transparently simple, yet fraught with the challenge of a stronger witness. Who judges some of the time. I rock to the beat of my own gentle heart.

I click on a fast track and let my body go. I make the climb upstairs to a mind so engaged in 2011, from writing the book to deepening in the yoga to continuing bravely on the teaching path. Long time sitting meditation practice unchanged: no breakthroughs, just day after day of the same old head-trips. They are so tiresome. But my discipline, my dedication never wavers. I shake into emptiness.

I find a light beat so I can feel it all at once and the state of the union feels mostly clear and strong. Sometimes the heart out of sync when the head falls into confusion but often only a few breaths to bring me back to alignment and I see such strong expression of my soul’s purpose. Why I am here in this moment in time is never a question… I am driven to move, to ignite movement in others and to write. In so many ways dreams are manifesting, it feels like a miracle but I know it is the outcome of practice and luck.

The music stills and spirit calls me out on this notion of practice, tells me I am sitting on spirit’s edge when I practice and that my attachment to discipline gets in the way of direct experience and that I need to be outdoors more, that the call of the wild is dim within these four walls. I listen deeply.

And so to this end, I leave in a few days for a week in the desert: hiking, stars, rock climbing, hot water…food for the spirit. I see the threads of the 2011 state of the union shaping 2012. I’ll be home from the desert for two days then fly to Manhattan for time with a global band of 5Rhythms teachers feeding each other on inspired tidbits under the guidance of Gabrielle and Jonathon. Inspiration to keep the call of the teaching path strong as we embark into winter: Thursdays start June 12 and weekly Sunday Sweats start June 15. January Sunday teachers: Bella, Claire Alexander and Juliette Kunin. Let this journey begin. The drumming was so awesome on Friday night, I am working on integrating that in some more. Stay tuned. I am purposefully strengthening the writing thread from January to May 2012 with Lori Salzman: a bay area committed series that pairs my dancing with my writing. I have poured the majority of my writing energy into this weekly essay for six years now. This year the book Letting Go took me on a side journey. I want to allow this writing workshop to shake me out of habits and see where the writing might take me. Stay tuned. And this other soul’s purpose? To ignite movement in others? 2011 continued to hone me and I felt the closest when I was teaching yoga in connection with 5Rhythms: at Harbin, in Marin, in Olympia. It feels like so many threads of my life have been weaving to create these moments and now I will be in Costa Rica February 18-25 holding the Yin Yoga piece for Medicine Dance with Jonathon Horan. I don’t know where I am going with all this…stay tuned.

I invite you to take a few moments of reflection for yourself to acknowledge another year ending. Tape that paper on the wall. Get up and move it. Feel where you have been and cultivate a sense of wonder about where that might be leading. Wiggle inside the cocoon that binds us in the inevitable parade of have tos. Yield to living in real time…blessings of the season….bella

Five years ago we held the first Winter Solstice Celebration dance over at Clunie. It was a Thursday night and some drummers came to play along with the CDs. I loved that energy and so did many others. For a while, I turned off the recorded music and we were held by the live percussion alone. For me, moving to live drumming is the ultimate support. There is something about it that reaches deeply and as our culture turns more and more toward the technology fix, it is a relief to feel the organic, vibrancy of the original beat, the call of the wild.

As fate would have it, I recently connected with that same drummer from years ago. And he has been on his own journey toward dance, totally intrigued with what it takes to play along with recorded music. Last week I was at an event in the bay area that was just what I envision for this Friday night. Skilled live drummers playing under and behind the recorded music and then from time to time, coming out front as the CD fades out, a three way following and leading experience: drummers, DJ, dancers.

This Friday night, let’s create that energy together in Sacramento for the last Sweat Your Prayers of 2011. Dance in the dawn of the solstice, the promise of lengthening days, the possibility of warmth, of light. David Whyte writes:

“I awoke this morning in the gold light
turning this way and that
thinking for a moment
it was one day like any other.
But the veil had gone
from my darkened heart
and I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight that filled my room…”

Please note that the live drumming is by invitation only! And be there for the debut of Dance Delicious 2011, this year’s wave compilation, a gift for you from me.

Thursdays start up again January 12, deep discount available on the Winter Series until December 19; see sidebar for link. You can sign up for the series or drop in any night for $20.

Let’s dance in the gold light this week…
love, bella

Want a great incisive and humorous read? Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth gives you an intellectual foundation for 5Rhyhms practice and covers the fascinating world of gender archetypes.  In the global 5Rhythms scene the phrase “Sweat Your Prayers” has taken on a meaning of its own: a Sunday morning practice held with minimal guidance.  For many dancers it’s a place to show up and independently practice what they have learned in a weekly instructional class. 

This is done in many other meditation realms.  Sometimes I go to a weekly sitting meditation with other “sitters”.  There is no instruction, just someone holding the space, ringing the bell at start and finish.  The support I feel from the beautiful being holding the space and the ever changing community of meditators who show up with me is invaluable. 

Instruction gets us in the door of a practice, helps us keep breaching new territory, aids us in breaking out of habitual snares.  The wisdom of a teacher is irreplaceable. But “homework” is the place where we learn to kick our own butts, stay present without being flagged down, feel the satisfaction of breaking new ground on our own.

We have two more Sweat Your Prayers in 2011 in Sacramento.  This week is Black Sunday.  Rilke says:

“…the darkness pulls in everything
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them!
powers and people
and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.
I have faith in nights.”

Consider this a celebration of the darkness that has fallen upon us, the steadily waning light, the comfort of drawing inward.  Please dress all in black if you can and feel how easily darkness gathers us as we dance our way into a “faith in nights”.  Feel the support of community all around you and let the blessing of this brief respite of seasonal stillness be ours.

The last Sweat of 2011 is next week: Solstice Sweat on Friday night.  Please dress all in white to celebrate the turn of the season and the promise of lengthening daylight.  We’ll start by moving in complete dark and emerge from the shadows, dancing into luminescence as the night goes on.  My annual gift offering of a CD music wave will be available: Dance Delicious 2011.

 Then Sweat Your Prayers takes a break until January 15, 2012.  If you haven’t heard, the big news is that Sacramento will be having weekly Sunday Sweats in 2012.  This is such a great opportunity to dive in more deeply, share the beauty of this practice with a widening circle and have a stronger touchstone for community.  I will be holding two a month and an incredible array of visiting 5Rhythms teachers will be doing the rest.  I am so grateful to expose the community to new and amazing teachers and so excited about dancing in my own town!  You can always check the calendar to see who is facilitating on any given Sunday. January is already posted.

The very last instructional class of 2011 is this Thursday and we will dance our way into the embodied presence of giving and receiving….give yourself the gift of attendance and who knows what you may receive.  The Winter series begins January 12, deadline for early bird enrollment price is December 19.  Integrating drop ins worked so well in the fall and will continue for $20/session through the winter.

It is possible a great presence is moving near us, I can feel it…love, bella

“All through my life I’ve experienced a sense of wonder that has to do with something that’s out there but also touches a place within me.  It feels as if I’m part of something bigger.”

Jacob Needleman from December Sun interview entitled Beyond Belief: On God Without Religion

We have all experienced wondrous moments in nature.  I have strong early memories of being awash in palpable emotion at the Malibu coast, breathless at the foot of Half Dome, overwhelmed at physical contact with an old redwood.  These moments clarify that we are part of something huge, ineffable, sacred. But what about right now?  I’m a little tired, cranky, the fog hasn’t lifted for even one moment today and besides that I’m hungry and there are no groceries here.

Is it possible to cultivate a sense of wonder?  How about that oh-my-God feeling in mundane moments?  How about when things get really hard?  I don’t know but the invitation this week is to use our practice to open to Albert Einstein’s second possibility:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

5Rhythms is such a great vehicle for exploring this field.  To hear more about the practice, listen to these two podcast interviews (Part 1 & Part 2) of Kathy Altman and Lori Saltzman, two of my favorite teachers.  While you are at it, donate to Conversations, which makes these great interviews available at no charge.

Cultivating a sense of wonder via the rhythms?  We might lay the groundwork in the first two rhythms: expand our awareness field, connect to the earth and the incredibly fluid movement of our miracle bodies.  Then add in a dose of heart, focusing on the astonishing privilege of connecting to the sacred other.  I think of these first two rhythms, flow and staccato, as the workhorses.  If we can sustain our practice from here, then we drop into chaos, ripe to experience the universal human capacity to let go, beyond any personal story of loss, the big place we all know of surrendering to all that is so crazy random and unpredictable in life.  And from here, if we stay tuned, we may be delivered to the Big Joy.  Not the I’m-having-a-good-day-joy, but the human capacity for light, for happiness, for bliss.  And finally, if we persevere, we may drop into the stillness of the Big Love, not the he-loves-me, she-loves-me Love, but the universal full heartedness we have all experienced, the all encompassing compassion for all beings, Love as a vibration in the universe.

“Deep feelings are outside of time and beyond our daily concerns.  They connect us with a sense of joyous obligation without any reference to religious rules or customs.  Real love, deep joy and genuine grief all have this transcendent quality….Without the experience of deep feeling, you’re likely to suffer from a fundamental sense of meaningless.”   J.N.

Meaningless…that would be the opposite of wonder.  Let’s dance into this space together and see what’s possible.  Only two Thursdays left before we break.  Drop in!

Love, bella

What does it take to sustain a practice?  How do we cultivate not just getting our little bootie in the door (a great first step!), but actually staying present during an entire class time?  If we can’t do it for the short duration, what bearing does that have on the rest of our 24/7?

Here is a truth.  Sometimes my body is out there on the yoga mat or the dance floor. I have eagerly anticipated arriving with every intention to fully be there, but I have simply not shown up yet.  My mind is a million miles away or my heart is tied up in some knot…or both.  I have an ache in my knee that is making every move impossible, I really should be getting some work done, why did I think I even wanted to do this? 

Sound familiar?  Sometimes it’s totally my reality and, from my vantage point as witness to many of our practices, it is yours too.  Check this out for yourself: if we can name what we are doing in these avoidance moments we might take our practice to a whole new level.   Bernie Clark, in this summer’s Vancouver training, detailed four classic aversion responses.  These come up quickly in edgy yin poses and then there are five long quiet minutes to watch the way we avoid staying present. See if you recognize your classic strategy here; better yet, bring the list into class (or life) and really check it out.

    Change it: on my yoga mat this manifests as fidgeting, constantly adjusting in a pose and never quite surrendering to stillness.  In my dance, I just keep trying new anchors for my meditation, never settling and sticking to one.  Or maybe I get real thirsty all of a sudden or go to the bathroom and then talk to someone in the lobby.  When I am at home I do the same things or I keep changing the music until I find a “better” song.

    Stop it: this is a bit of an arrogant, belligerent response.  “I’m outta here.”  At home I just stop the practice or the pose or the rhythm, in class my body stays but the rest of me exits the building. 

     Give up: if stopping is yang, giving up is his yin sister.  “I just can’t do it.”  See above options.

 Accept it:  and finally, the response to aversion we are all practicing for.  No need to change, no ending in a huff, no giving up on ourselves or the practice, simply staying put, being with whatever shows up, riding the roller coaster of meditation without getting off until the official end of the ride.  No matter what. 

We are often being pulled in one direction or another by things we want or like or things we don’t want or like.  We want praise, we don’t want blame. We like pleasure, we don’t like pain.  We want to win, we don’t want to lose.  The list is endless. We can get jerked around by our biases all friggin’ day  if we are not mindful .   When we practice with an intention of witnessing, recognizing and acknowledging our feelings and thoughts and responses we arrive in a new place of choice, a sacred place that is beyond the whimsy of the ego.

One more thing.  All this practice certainly takes the yang of discipline. Aack…the “D” word.  But it is all worth nothing, indeed can be harmful, without the overriding attitude of compassion.  Compassion for ourselves as we just keep waking up, compassion for each other as we walk the path together, compassion for the essential human condition which is ours.  Aren’t we lucky?

Love, bella

I think there are about as many reasons people are drawn to the dance floor as there are participants. Here are my six top shelf motives in no particular order. I would love for you to email me about where you see yourself and if you have some other motive, I would love to hear about it:

1. “I come because I love 5Rhythms.” Smitten with the practice itself and just wanting an opportunity to do the work and deepen their experience.

2. “I come because I love the music and I love to dance.” Will only come if the music is generally to their liking and it is not so much about learning a practice, just want to dance to good music.

3. “I come because I love the space it is being held in.” Really sensitive to their surroundings and this manifests in their reluctance to come if the space does not suit them.

4. “I come for the exercise.” Will come no matter what, akin to going to the gym and getting a good cardio session. Sometimes when the music is slow, they’re out there keeping their heart rate up any way they can.

5. “I come because I connect with the teacher’s style.” There are people who love the practice and the space and maybe even the music, but won’t attend if they don’t appreciate the way the instruction is offered up.

6. “I come because I love the community.” And there are those whose main purpose in coming is to connect with the other people who come; everything else – the music, the practice, the space, the teacher – is secondary.

Several years ago I honestly believed that once I had this figured out I could actually teach in a way that would please everybody. Happy to report that I am way over that. Now I just show up, offer what I have to offer in the most authentic way possible and trust that the people who show up are the students that are meant to be there. Kind of a “if you build it they will come” attitude.

No matter what your reason, there are two opportunities to dance this week. Drop in on Thursday night or Sunday morning and feel the beauty of this communal practice. Even though it is way past the equinox, I feel autumn only now and am deeply sensitive to how the seasons are reflected in the rhythms: the still dormancy of winter, roots reaching down in the spring flow, the burst of expression in a staccato summer and then the shed, the letting go in the chaos of fall that I am feeling so intensely right now.

Hear an interview of two of my favorite 5Rhythms instructors today November 8 by Michael Stone on Conversations on KVMR:

Kathy Altman & Lori Saltzman: Finding Wholeness:
5 Rhythms Moving Meditation and Ecstatic Dance of Gabrielle Roth
A two-hour special from noon to 2pm

LIVE: KVMR provides Mp3Pro Streaming Audio.
Click Here

Closing with Rilke:

“The summer was so vast
Put your shadows on the sundials
And in the fields let the wind loose…..
restlessly walk in the park among the blown leaves.”

Love, bella

I woke up this morning with all my arrows pointed in the direction of Yosemite. I have a long-standing spirit connection with this motherland and it has been way too long since I have felt her grace. So in a moment of spontaneous whimsy, I called and got a tent cabin at Curry Village and my son and I are taking off after my Tuesday yoga class for two nights. I’ll be breezing back into Coloma Center just in time for 5Rhythms on Thursday.

In case you haven’t heard, we’ll be having weekly Sweat Your Prayers on Sundays in 2012. I’m feeling a lot of energy in the creation of this opportunity. I am only doing two of the Sweats a month and I’m coordinating a calendar filled with 5Rhythms teachers from in and out of town to hold this precious space the rest of the Sundays. I am excited about all of us experiencing something new and will be dancing any Sunday I am here.

In support of this, I’m scheduling Introduction to 5Rhythms at venues where there are people that have not moved with us yet. I love teaching this foundational experience because it puts me right back into beginner’s mind every time I offer it. And I love that rookie place.

In honor of the juicy fledgling state of being, this Thursday we’ll all fall into the joy of beginner’s mind, drop everything we think we know about this practice, come as if for the first time. A five song instructional set in the most basic medicine of the practice is all we need to support a long follow up wave focused on moving alone, moving in pairs or moving with a group.

And in case you want to try on beginner’s mind around yoga and can never come during the weekdays I teach, I am filling in this weekend at Yoga Shala. Sunday at 4:30pm is Yin Yoga focused on how to bring the autonomic nervous system into balance with focused breath and postures that open us right at our edges.

Shouting out from the top of Vernal Falls soon…

love, bella

Holding space for a 5Rhythms class so the work itself is the teaching, in some ways, is a tricky process of creating a container for leading and following. Choosing music is part of that process and I love watching my own strategy around this. For instance, the theme for the sweat this Friday night is Halloween. There is simply no way to know who will be there or what they might need. I also do not know how the individuals present will gel into a group, the flavor yet unknown, and what the full gathering will need.

So I start by guessing and pulling 50-100 songs that I can draw from to create a wave in the moment. Then I just trust and stay present. Sometimes I don’t even find what I need on that list and go into a 12,000 song library to search in the moment. At times I’ll follow the energy, curious where it is travelling, flowing right along with it. At other times I’ll be leading the force in a way that feels right, or seems needed, or is challenging, or is easy or light. When I lead, that creates a new energy that begs to be followed; when I am following, a particular direction we could go becomes apparent. It is a constant dance.

And this is how it is in life and for many of us, our habitual way of being is obvious: some of us follow, some of us lead. Sometimes it is relationship dependent—certain people elicit certain roles. Sometimes certain group settings persistently move us to one or the other end of the spectrum. Sometimes it is useful to watch our habits, challenge the tight hold they can have on us, see if it’s possible to occasionally allow different behavior to emerge. In the case of leading and following, new ways of being are a gift for everyone since it allows others to open in new ways as well.

So for me it will be a deep practice of leading and following for three days in a row. On Thursday, I’ll track and guide during a simple 5Rhythms practice of grounding and centering, heartening and focusing, emptying and stilling. On Friday’s Halloween Sweat, I’ll keep scanning the room and those 100 songs creating a journey to support a costumed silent dance meditation, with an ending ritual that emerges organically from the process of leading and following. (Pictures on arrival in the lobby and then group shots at the end.) And on Saturday’s Letting Go it’s another wait and see. Who will show up at Yoga Solution and what do we need to learn about letting go? Tight shoulders? Stiff backs? Unyielding hips? Painful feet? I’ll follow and lead so we can flow through three hours of release with rollers and balls and the matching comfort of the perfect yin pose.

Love, bella

“There is this little girl,
sweet in me…”
(from the poem Destined)

I was at the Yuba River all day and into the night on Saturday, immersed in destiny, baptized by the cascading water, awash in all the threads that create the stories of our lifetimes: tales from childhood, relationship themes, adolescent dramas, work & community choices, birth & death scenes. The stories that lend shape to the whole, that create patterns we flow with or swim upstream against or nimbly glide cross current. The images from this poem came right out of this reflection.

When we choose a costume for Halloween, somehow, somewhere, there is a bit of this reflection at play, whether we are conscious about it or not. And so here is the invitation for the Halloween Sweat on October 28th. Come dressed as that piece of you that has a part in your destiny story, maybe an element that doesn’t find expression very much, maybe a persona that is loud and clear. Surprise yourself, surprise us.

There will be an official photographer on hand to snap your photo in the lobby before you enter the space for the dance, a moving and silent meditation with a swirling room full of characters. There will be a single wave that begins in stillness at 6:00 and leaves us time for ritual theater at the end, a moment to let these characters truly be seen and even speak if they wish. The photographer will be creating memories of this ending with group photos. Know they will be made public on Facebook!

There is no 5Rhythms class this Thursday since the mayor, Kevin Johnson is using the space for a meeting…daydreaming this image of showing up anyway, setting up the speakers as usual and inducting the political characters into the dance…they would already be in costume!

Love, bella

When I finished writing Letting Go in June, I felt the toll it had taken on my body. Luckily the computer hours were balanced by the intensity of a home yin practice, but all other movement had taken a way back seat. I was dancing just enough to prep classes and taking a weekly Iyengar class. My outside walking time got pushed to the side, my body felt weak, my endurance felt low. After a lifetime dedicated to the discipline of self-care, in some ways it actually felt mentally healthy to let go. But it was a weird disconnect and so not my usual state and there were a lot of ways it just did not feel good.

So in June I was actively listening for what was calling to me, what was I really drawn toward. An active yoga practice called out, something to balance the yin. I set myself a goal of daily sun salutations for twenty minutes. Now I’d like to report that I never waivered but that’s just not true. But I did it enough to start feeling the change in my body, the strength returning, the breath going deeper.

So it was amazing to watch synchronicity strike in August with the change at Deep. The new studio, Yoga Shala, had a big focus on vinyassa flow, a practice I had never done, essentially a take off on constantly moving sun salutations. I had to take my Iyengar precision practice to a new place, land poses with accuracy quickly, build the power in my core, legs, arms, breath. Sweat big time. And for me, taking on something new, learning a whole new language that has to translate to movement is such a big turn on. I can’t wait for class three or four days a week and it is a joy to watch my body in evolution. Plus, I am back to Thursday morning 5Rhythms in Mill Valley and loving it.

One great off shoot of all this is that I am experiencing first hand what this new population of yogis is up to and am thrilled to be offering the balance that they (and the dancers) need for their active practice. In fact, there are now four yin classes a week at Yoga Shala and they are well attended and appreciated.

If you have yet to experience the quiet beauty of this practice, I invite you to check it out. A great introduction is coming up October 29 at Yoga Solution and I’ll offer it again January 28 at Yoga Shala. Injuries & stiffness sometimes keep us away from the very movement medicine we need. Discover, open and soften your restrictions with gentle yin yoga, balls and rollers. Come away feeling like you’ve had the best massage ever and knowing how to re-create that for yourself. Call 383-7933 to enroll.

So much happening the rest of 2011 and lots on the horizon in 2012; pick up a descriptive flier at any event….stay tuned here…

Love, bella