5rhythms

What's my favorite rhythm?
The one that's dancing me
The one that back flips into flowing off a six inch ego
and wades in the deep end of the floor
The one that ressurects old ghosts for cross examinations
and gives them a proper burial between beats
the one that scalps sins and crucifies lies
and exhumes poems for a positive ID
The one that seizes sinews
and throws the first stone at every glass house
The one that doesn't have a door
a key or combination but stays wide open
The one that
the one that
the one that dances me.

The different energies that define us... keeping all of them well fed, nurtured, unsuppressed.

Here's an experiment I've got brewing in the back of my mind...

First off, Gabrielle Roth developed a philosophy of dance called 5 rhythms. The rhythms are, in order... flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5Rhythms

 If you think about the progression of things like putting together a performance, or having sex, or falling in love, or having a baby, working out, playing music, raising a family, storms, wars, nature- things of this sort - it becomes pretty clear why this order makes sense. it's almost intuitive. 

What if we strove to live every day according to the 5 rhythms? If these are the different energies that comprise our being, then what if we sought to live each day according to this progression, to make sure that every day we experienced at least one of these rhythms? This sounds deliciously fulfilling.

I've noticed that once I've been doing yoga for a long while, I start to crave sports, hardcore workouts, and other things that are not of the peaceful sort. InSaNnNNiTy.

Or when I've been living life anxiously - when I've been ancy, restless, unpeaceful in general, I crave exactly the opposite. peace.

If we know that these are the energies, the stuff of which we are made, then making sure that each day we allow ourselves to experience each of them - to go with the flow, to move, live, breath rigidly, to go a little CraZzZzZYyY, to meditate, to be silent - then would we not be feeding a side of ourselves that goes unnourished all too often? If health and wellness and fitness are all about maintaining a state of equilibrium, then shouldn't we feed our spirit as well?

Now why are the 5rhythms important to know and respect? Maybe because they shed such effervescent light on the natural progression of so many of the uncontrollable forces, relationships, things, stuff we come into contact with... and because so many people give up, give in, or opt out once the chaos sets in. We think that our lives shouldn't be filled with chaos, that that is not something that we need, desire, should have, should want. But if you can't experience or appreciate chaos then you may never be able to get to the stillness, that glorious, beautiful, peaceful, heavenly nirvana that you feel after you've been through the fire with someone, something, or some experience....

Maybe I am reading too deeply into something that is simply of the "you have to go through the storm to get to the sun" sort? But maybe it's also important to read deeply into things that we take for granted to know why we take them for granted, why we love them, why they make sense. After all, we've got a whole life to fill up, why not start by making our own sense, by paying attention to the way that life progresses and the commonalities that mundane expressions of life and living share with each other....

Everbody has a different metaphor for life. I've got friends who claim that music is their metaphor, that technology is their metaphor, nature, science, writing, gaming....  And they all work. Why?
I like doing handstands - finding different surfaces, positions, doing them for different lengths of time, engaging/disengaging different muscles, switching from one hand to another, wearing different clothes, hairstyles, doing them after i consume various foods or drinks, after i've stretched, after i've worked out- you know, switchin' it up a bit.. - because they are rad, but also because they remind me how important it is stay in tune with your body, with your own internal equilibrium, with the world's equilibrium, with humanity's equilibrium, that there is an equilibrium to be conscious of. So handstands, movement, dancing - this is my metaphor for life simply because I've spent a good amount of time consciously engaging my body in such things.

not to wax poetic, but to the dancer life is a dance. and to the musician life is a song. and to the computer expert life is a computer. and to the botanist life is a flower garden. and it's all so true.

It's wonderful hearing about how other people talk about the things that they love because you can sense similarities. And it's respectable when someone has invested so much time, energy, consciousness, and love into something whether it be music, technology, sports, etc.etc.etc. that they become aware and attune to its own innate dynamic, that it becomes capable of being metaphorized.

mmm. I want to become an expert in you. I want to experience you on new surfaces, in new positions, for different lengths of time, (lololol) where you're comfortable, where you're uncomfortable. I want to discover what makes you agitated, excited, blissful, grieve, joyful, what makes your soul dance, what makes your heart sing. I want you to do the things that you love and I want to discover why you love them and I want to love them too because I have loved as deeply as you. I want you to become a metaphor for me. I want to be able to rock out to your rhythm in unsuppressed jubilation. I want to create sacred space in which this all becomes conceivable, a space a of love, empathy, and infinite joy.

The 5 rhythms are a map to everywhere we want to go, on all planes of consciousness - inner and outer, forward and back, physical, emotional, intellectual. They are the marker on the way back to a real self, a vulnerable, wild passionate, instinctive self.