Who's in the dance?

A writer friend recently came to one of my classes and later published an article about her first 5Rhythms experience in the local paper. I was struck by one of the things she wrote:

".....I notice, unhappily, that the other dancers are utterly hip, cool, natural athletes, and as we move around the room and are instructed to glance briefly into each other's eyes I wonder what in the world I'm doing here...there's nothing about this that doesn't sound suddenly equal parts terrifying and important."

It occurred to me that I truly have no idea who is on the dance floor with me on any given night, whether I think I know them or not, from mere observation. I had absolutely no sense that this friend was anything but a free spirit enjoying the dance with delight and abandon! It shouldn't have been a great surprise to learn that her internal dialogue is so similar to mine, yet even now, as a teacher I tend to think I'm the only one in the room that has insecurities, fears, inhibitions, judgments, and self-criticism.

The truth is, none of us have any idea who's in the room. The young man with whom we're sharing an energetic staccato dance may have just had to put his dog to sleep that very morning. The woman we approach in stillness, looking quiet and even somber, may have earlier received a call from her agent saying the six-figure movie deal went through. One  person is vaguely annoyed and still upset over a trivial argument he had with his lover, while someone else is just feeling completely alive and having the time of her life. Another dancer is waiting on mammogram results, and someone else's elderly parent has Alzheimer's and no longer knows who they are.

There are ten million stories in the naked city. We are all mysterious whirlings of energy and the person we had an amazing connection with last week may be unknown to us now.

Gabrielle offered my wife and me a blessing during our wedding ceremony; she advised us to awaken each morning in "The Zero Zone", that place where you recognize that you really don't know that other being lying next to you, that she or he is a mystery, and the relationship is new every moment, every day.  And eventually it becomes clear that we're actually a mystery to ourselves as well.

A poem by Hafiz:

                                                    Admit something.
                               Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me"
                                      Of course you do not do this out loud
                                    otherwise someone would call the cops.

                                                       Still, though,
                                                     think about this,
                                         this great pull in us to connect

                  Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
                                                 that is always saying,
                                          with that sweet moon language,
                                       what every other eye in the world
                                                      is dying to hear?

All of us enter the dance--of life, of a class--yearning to be seen, to connect, and to be loved. When we truly grasp how universal these feelings are, it becomes our sacred assignment to become the lover, that person who, with that sweet moon language, is actually doing the loving and seeing and connecting. Somebody has to.

As more and more of us take on that stance, our worlds begin to open up and we slowly recognize that as a tribe, we have fallen in love. We dive into the 5Rhythms practice as a vehicle for coming together in a unified field, the space of shared ground, that infinite dark mysterious void that is our true nature, which brings with it the recognition that our dance together is both community worship and sacred rite.

          Eliezer has been dancing the rhythms on and off for over 30 years, and was a member of the original
             Mirrors Theater Troupe in New York City with Gabrielle in the early 80's. He is the author of several
             books, including The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist's Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex,
             Psychedelics and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiemnts.