fundamentally altered…
The year was 2002 when I stumbled onto that first 5Rhythms dance floor. I was in Huxley at Esalen, absolutely clueless the practice was born in that very same room. It was only a single potent hour of dance, one simple wave, but I emerged fundamentally altered. I sat stunned on the deck overlooking the sea as it interfaced with sky. The clear line of the horizon appeared to be pointing in a whole new direction.
I recognized that the folks moving with me in Huxley were my people, where had they been all my life? And this notion of meditating while dancing? This was like a no-brainer, so clearly my practice. Crystal clear. Such immediate and obvious kinship. And right off I knew there was an unknown but logical way this practice related to my work in the world. I had no idea how that was supposed to look or feel or actually manifest. Just this deep gut intelligence that somehow a true weaving existed.
When I returned to Sacramento, lucky for me, there was a Tuesday night class to attend. I didn’t even understand how fortuitous that was. My week began to emotionally organize itself around Tuesday. My body, heart and mind continued to treat patients at Dreizler Physical Therapy and, on a subterranean level, my soul and spirit began to integrate the rhythms into every facet of my being.
Over the course of five years I took every conceivable opportunity to dance the 5Rhythms maps, relentlessly diving into my life history, heart landscape, ego characters. I was peeling my mid-life onion down to the core. Prior to this immersion, fleshing out the healing journey was my driving passion. Even as (and because) I lived with my own chronic pain. I had the same challenges as my patients, trouble that travelled from an original low back injury to my neck then to my shoulder. My personal dedication to healing was always fueled by the gift of learning through working with my own body.
When I began to dance with such intensity my body struggled with this new high-level demand. The physical wear and tear affected my hip and then my foot. There were four months of dancing without taking weight on my right foot. Sigh. This forced me to re-conceptualize the very roots of physical therapy treatment. My working mantra---the current anchor of loose, long and strong---was born those first five years. And when I opened my eyes and looked at my fellow movers, when I heard their body tales of woe, when I began to treat them in my practice---well this was how that mysterious weaving began to actually manifest.
I taught my first workshop integrating 5Rhythms with self-care in Austin Texas 2008. And this offering has been on the regular in many geographies and just as many evolutions through these many years. This year I turn 75. My body is so different than when I began this dance practice a quarter century ago. In the first ten years of practice there were ways my physical condition actually deteriorated. In retrospect, I can almost convince myself that was necessary. Perhaps before I could excavate what my body needed my heart had to expand, my mind needed to get out of the way. My soul was searching for its proper footing and I was building trust in spirit. Eventually it all came together.
Do I live a pain free life? No. I am just like you. Niggling things make mischief. Occasionally they cause a ruckus. But those deeply painful dark days that clouded the years 30-60 gifted me with so much of what I need to know. It feels like the dues have been paid and I am grateful to be moving with the uber-freedom and joy I experience out on that dance floor. Indeed, out in the world.
I want that for you. Without having to go through the meandering road I had to travel. I suppose if you are a dancer I yearn that for you in such a particular way. Because I know how much the dance practice means to you and I know how frustrating it is when you can’t move like you would like to and I know it can absolutely be better than that. And I know you can dance with freedom until you die if that is your desire.
Please join me and Majica for a tender weekend journey. You will come away with just what you need to make this dream into a reality. In this current evolution of Tending we’ll place special focus on your nervous system. The way it physically and energetically can be tapped to enhance healing. Because I am intimate with this weaving of self-care and the rhythms, I know how melted and inspired you will feel by Sunday afternoon. Because inspired and melted is how I feel and melted and inspired is what I hear from participants. Over and over. Come move. Come breathe. Come change.
❤️Bella