peeling layer after layer…
Each month Spotlight, a monthly publication of 5Rhythms Global, introduces teachers to dancers around the world. While in West Virginia I connected with Jenelle, a southern California teacher who creates this feature. She asked if I might contribute an essay for the July issue on the theme of gratitude. Well, you know me…I love to write…so I said yes, of course.
Many people dancing in local communities don’t realize how deeply entrenched they are in a global practice. If you’re interested in this practice, the global website is great to explore. Sometimes when you travel, you can enjoy a local class. Ironically, the Covid Zoom phenomena deepened my connection to this vast teaching community. I have regular meetings—administrative, soul sharing, dancing—with other teachers from all over the planet. It is such brilliant support for holding it on the ground here in Sacramento.
This is the essay I submitted for July’s Spotlight:
At age fifty, the rhythms shook me into a mid-life earthquake. From this vantage point, with a quarter century of perspective, I can appreciate the insidious, relentless, magical peel of layer after layer. Layers that held me in check, hid and confused me. Layers that obscured my luminous essence. Layers that kept me from fully offering myself to life. Personally, professionally, spiritually. Every year more is revealed. Dance as endless cleanse.
So many changes ensued, this among many: a shape-shift of the calling that has been my profession for more than fifty years now. Twenty-five years ago Dreizler Physical Therapy was a big deal clinic: thousands of patients, 16 employees. Blah blah blah. 5Rhythms ousted me from that tight box. Now I see two patients a day in a light-filled studio over my garage. My connection to patients, hands on skills, my ability to witness and coach—this holy medicine work—- has so deepened, become more sacred than I could ever have imagined.
Not only did 5Rhythms spill into my work, work spilled all over my practice. In so many ways. But just this for today: stay with this practice and inevitably face your wounds. Your body just does not lie. I have infinite passion for treating dancers with physical injuries and catalyzing the insight that unravels as we journey together.
My specialty is myofascial release and deep core engagement (love me my psoas!). The triangle fusion—physical therapy, 5Rhythms, yoga—has been my destiny revealed through the rhythms, my soul fully expressed. Putting my post-Covid toe back in this water with Rhythm & Release, a two hour breathing and moving journey into the dual joys of healing self-care and expressive movement. One small example of the myriad reverberations of this practice in my life and this world so in need of healing. So very grateful.
Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Indeed, this has been the journey. Thankful for the intersection of this practice with my life. Appreciation manifesting in so many ways. Always forefront in my heart: kindness in the way I return what has been gifted.
Let’s move together soon…how about tonight?
❤️Bella