FRANK LIPMAN: The 5Rhythms Ecstatic Dance System you created is sometimes called “American Zen.” Why?
Gabrielle Roth: The 5Rhythms are a contemporary Zen shamanic practice. Zen, in that they are a map to an inner journey for seekers of wisdom and freedom, the wisdom to know who we are and the freedom to get over ourselves. Shamanic, in that they address the Great Divide, the divorce of spirit from flesh that has created the loss of soul, which haunts us. We’ve rendered the soul homeless, it can’t breathe, exist, or move disconnected from the body. The body is the womb of the soul, a begging bowl for spirit, like Aretha when she sings.
In America there are a lot of stressed out, anxious head-trippers, who find it very difficult to sit on all their nervous energy. The 5Rhythms are a moving meditation. Our intent is to become aware of what’s really going on inside ourselves, and to move through it to the place where we can truly inhabit our stillness. The fastest way to still the mind is to move the body. All the profound spiritual teachings in this world don’t mean (anything) if they’re not embodied.
Feeling totally high and connected to the divine mystery while sitting on a meditation pillow is fine, but how do we put the rubber to the road? As Charlie Parker said, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn. So I take refuge in the 5Rhythms practice to keep my horn in tune.”
FL: In your classes you focus a lot on the breath. Why?
GR: Many of us hold our breath. Breath is a catalyst. When you let it in, feelings move, thoughts move, muscles move. With or without our permission, we are being revealed, and we don’t trust that we’re lovable, amazing and fascinating creatures underneath it all.
The body can’t lie, so when we’re thinking one thing, feeling another and doing a third, it’s very noticeable. Hiding and denying takes all our energy. When we’re holding big parts of ourselves back, it’s hard to be loose and natural. And when we’re holding something as big as the breath back, it’s impossible to be free.
There is no dogma in the dance. It will never betray you. All you have to do is dance till there’s nothing left of you but breath. Whatever is going on inside of you, resistance, anger, anxiety, self-consciousness, use it as fuel for your dance. Do an angry dance. Do a resistant dance. In other words, it’s all energy, and the nature of energy is movement. A healthy person integrates all their experiences into their flow. A healthy person is bigger than their body. Spirit moves through them unobstructed, and in their presence all you can feel is something whole and holy.
When I was five, I tripped over a body in the Golden Gate Park. It was the body of an old man in a dirty blue suit. Terrified but fascinated, I touched him. My little hand reached into his stone stillness. Of course I couldn’t know it at the time, but I had stumbled upon my first great teacher. A dead guy. He would come back to haunt me on ten thousand dance floors, where I would learn that the difference between life and death is breath, and however we might fool ourselves, we are only as deep as we breathe.
FL: Are there any changes you’ve made in your life that have positively affected your health and well being?
GR: Well, change is the operative word here. I’m totally committed to it. I was a high-strung skinny kid, a testy and finicky eater. Let’s put it this way, food was not my refuge. As I turned thirty, I met a Chinese doctor who said, ‘It’s a good thing to eat from the entire food chain.’ Apparently, I didn’t hear him, because I proceeded to pass through every major food craze from raw foods, to macrobiotics, to protein, and each one of them practically killed me. One day I woke up: Get over yourself, Gabrielle, you’re dissing the food chain.
Recently, I ate lunch with three different friends, each of whom had discovered a new system of eating that was THE system. One had to do with blood, the other with time of day, the third was totally obsessed with fat. I love all three of these people, and I see myself in each of them, my need to seek out the ultimate food trip that will carry me through to complete aliveness and health. But I’ve given up the search and gone back to the advice of that gentle Buddha-like Chinese doctor. At the end of the day, I guess we have to fall back on Socrates: “Know thyself, and eat accordingly.” And as you say, Frank, keep it organic.
FL: How can women over 35 stay centered in our youth obsessed culture?
GR: I’ve stayed centered by continually having a place to release all of my sorrows, resentments, fears, failures, whatever I was holding onto, back into the dance. Movement allows me to constantly reinvent myself, and in the process I learn to not only let go, but to let go of letting go. Someday, I might even learn how to let it all be.
There’s no reason to obsess, we all have a teenager inside of us, regardless of whether we’re six or sixty. Think of all the times you’ve met a four-year-old and sensed the elder in them, and know that even more often, friends—even strangers—sense that luscious, juicy teeny-bopper in you. We’re complex. Think layering. What we miss is the wildness and the freedom that we associate with youth. To keep that part of us alive, we need to give it space to move and breathe. The dance floor is a very safe space for that to happen.
Life is too fascinating to get fixed in any one direction, especially facing backwards when all you can see is your sagging butt.
FL: What are your thoughts on being over 50?
GR: I now have four pairs of glasses. One to see the far distant future, one to see what’s right in front of me, one that allows me to see in both directions at the same time, and one in case the sun is too bright while I try to do any of the above. So I would say that my vision has changed radically over the years. And what is the teaching? The teaching has something to do with letting go of looking and falling deeper into seeing. Looking happens with the eyes, but seeing happens with the entire being. My over-50 eyes rely on my hands and knees and the soles of my feet to support them in their seeing. In other words, as we age, it becomes even more vital to become instinctive and intuitive. The ultimate task for each of us is to wake up. And, if we each were to take that task to heart, we might stop destroying the very planet that unquestioningly nurtures our existence. As Gandhi said, “Embody the change you wish to see in the world.” I say, the world is the dance, so get on up and find your groove.
FL: Dancing is a huge part of many cultures. Why do you think the Western world has moved so far away from it?
GR: Our ancestors danced till they disappeared in the dance, till they felt the full force of spirit unleashing their souls. This was their religion, and it was ecstatic and personal and tribal and it moved through time like a snake. Until it found itself in the wrong garden. It would seem that the early western patriarchs weren’t too excited about people receiving a direct pipeline into the divine mystery. So the tradition of dancing to ecstasy was burned at the stake, and the body became the enemy. It cost us our souls. And in the process we also lost respect for all things feminine, which previously had been our metaphor for all things of the earth. So in other words, we lost our roots. We lost our earthiness, our sensuality, and our innate sense of sacredness. I’m not sure what we got in return.
Gabrielle Roth will hold the “Cycles” Ecstatic Dance Workshop, April 6-9 at The Studio Maui, Haiku Marketplace, Haiku. Note: The “Heart Beat” workshop with Jonathan Horan (March 25-26) is a prerequisite to “Cycles” For information see www.thestudiomaui.com or call 575-9390.