About the work

Spirituality and the 5Rhythms?
We have come to the understanding that, if its allowed... life takes care of life. By aligning with the natural flow of life and go beyond striving, effort and desire, we naturally will find abundance and harmony in life.

Our journeys and Life-lines in which we meet parents, teachers, maybe gurus, therapists and coaches; we learn how to get what we think we want, seemingly through effort. The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain generate transient and impermanent experiences of gratification, which of course is unavoidable followed by disappointment. The whole drama of seeking, we know so well...

The 5Rhythms have become available to many through many new teachers

When we started, it was the 5Rhythms basically the only meditative dance-practice, but in the last 15 years, dance and movement in general have become enormously widespread, used and taught in so many forms and variations that almost every single day you can go to something similar, more or less, reminiscent of 5Rhythms.

Annette and I have had countless reflections, conversations and discussions about how we, as representatives of the 5Rhythms, can represent and communicate in ways that are relevant to our times. We would like to put our finger on what, at the same time, differentiates the 5Rhythms from other comparable initiatives and at the same time preserves The Gabrielle Roths 5Rhythms’ integrity and essential/original focus, philosophy and intention.... What I would call 5Rhythms cosmology!

We have noticed that many equate dance with the 5Rhythms
In all the years I was lucky enough to be close to the creator and creative source of 5Rhythms; Gabrielle Roth. Often she could talk for a long time in a way that made me completely quiet. Just listen and be intensely present and desire nothing else. I was always irritated by people who asked questions that I perceived as disturbing and thought. "Can't you hear Gabrielle is talking? So be quiet...Listen". From time to time she asked Sanga and Robert to drum where she guided, but often she also guided without music.

As more and more 5R teachers came along, I have heard her several times wonder how 5R has developed into what I heard her call... a Techno hell... where the DJ role has become so huge that the spiritual mystical essence and cosmology have been drowned... and in some cases have become completely invisible in dance, in practice and in communication.

I believe that 5Rhythms is so much more than dance. Admittedly, dance is a huge part of this practice, but from my perspective, dance is not a goal, only a means used in 5Rhythms. A means, a method and a catalyst to convey something much bigger... Something behind and deeper, than we can convey with bodily expression, dance, meditative practice and words alone.

Annette and I have also worked a great deal in healthcare and research with, among other things, cancer, mental disorders and personality disorders such as self-harm and eating disorders, where the healing therapeutic effect and the ability of this method to transform have had the main focus... beautiful work and wonderful purpose, but there is a but... 5Rhythms can have a therapeutic effect, but is not therapy…

So 5Rhythms is neither dance nor therapy?
The mystical and the spiritual are beyond therapy. Beyond the idea of changing oneself. Beyond individuality and intention. Beyond meditation, mindfulness and practice. Beyond concepts, words and intellectual understanding... unmanageable and incomprehensible...

To be open for space itself where nothing can or should be understood, described or communicated. In the course of time, I have heard many 5R dancers come to me and ask for help because they have been overwhelmed by this unlimited free space where everything and nothing dissolves. Where time seems to stand still and where an intelligence other than the self, the ego, individuality and personal will, completely takes over and leaves a feeling of own control, lies far beyond the reach of the individual.

Its not easy… probably impossible to describe the spiritual aspect, but I can write a few examples of what I have heard from participants over time.

• A sense of ego dissolution, transcendence of time and space.
   
• An overriding feeling of vibrating and quivering life in everything in and around.
   
• An intense sense of total conscious presence with a subtle perception of something greater, almost sacred.
   
• Direct access to intuitive knowledge characterized as ineffable.
   
• Significant experience of higher levels of peace, harmony, joy and happiness.
   
• Feeling of connectedness and cohesion with others.
   
• Childhood memories and personal revelations that are suddenly seen in a new and transformative light with lasting effects of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effects.
   
• Profound deep emotional- and heart meetings with other participants

All of which is in strong contrast to conventional psychology, therapy and pharmacology with focus on the individual and cognition, which only seeks to normalize, fight or dampen mood, conditions and symptoms.

I myself have had a few of such openings described as above where I was thrown into crises.
I have also had a few times in my life where universal totality and divine unity have revealed themselves, where I... by the way, to Annette's great surprise and partial concern... could do nothing but sit in Bliss and stare blankly into the air, on a sofa for several weeks.

Gabrielle has been one of the biggest catalysts for me and I am forever grateful to her. In my current work with the 5Rhythms, I want to keep my eyes on this mystical perspective that Gabrielle so desperately tried to convey.

"There is only one of us here..."

"What on the other side of everything you know?"

"You are nothing - and you are everything,
All in-between is a lie"

Or once in NYC where I saw her shout with partly ironic distance and partly desperate cry in her voice...

“Not my will, but yours God
Take me use me” …
Be the dance and let the rest dissolve…

After a few years, when I very disciplined... in the holy name of science, refrained from describing and working directly with the mysterious, it can no longer be held back and I will offer workshops and classes with this focus and give attention to the spiritual and mystical aspects of the 5Rhythms.

 

FOR FLYERS ETC

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

TRANCE & TRANSFORMATION

The Mystical & Spiritual aspects of the 5Rhythms

We have come to the understanding that whatever we as humans can meet, feel, think, sense or experience can change through surrendering to movement.

Rooted ín the 5Rhythms Wavesmap this workshop is an investigation where we are invited to hold and create space for eachother that is safe to feel, express and move what arises.

The Mystical field between awareness and attention

Right here... always and everywhere... unlimited space, subtle vibriating aliveness and total surrender to the universal spaciousness and stillness that our souls long so deeply for.

To get out of the way and let life unfold is allmost impossible for the human mind, but in our many years of experience with the 5Rhythms, we have come to see that the very surrender to humble uncensored dance, movement and practice can open for the possibility that the essence of being and who we truly are lies in shifting the perspective from the dancer to the dance.

Through willingness to see beyond our separate individual and give space rather than take space, we see there is absolutely nothing we can do to achieve what we long for... but if we are really really open;... It may happen!

 
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