Gabrielle Roth’s Medicine Mandala
The 5Rhythms® work is divided into different stages, all of which form the foundation for our own personal practice. They build upon one another, mirroring the way we ourselves unfold. Each stage of the work carries its own essential teaching:
- Waves – Being/Body
- Heartbeat – Loving/Heart
- Cycles – Knowing/Mind
- Mirrors – Seeing/Soul
- The Silver Desert – Healing/Spirit
WAVES
Our dance journey begins with WAVES: the foundation and groundwork of the work. There is a spiritual force that animates our dance and strips us down to our naked soul, allowing us to be the dancer rather than merely to dance. This force is released through the 5Rhythms in an energetic language that reveals us to ourselves in action, whether alone, in pairs, or as a community (Tribe).
FLOWING – STACCATO – CHAOS – LYRICAL – STILLNESS
The focus: The body as a flowing entity
The result: Discovering the feet and the flow of breath
HEARTBEAT®
We discover our feelings as energy, as power, as part of our humanity. Old feelings lodged in our bodies, trapped in our chests, begin to release. We become familiar with them, neither clinging to them nor pushing them away.
FEAR – ANGER – GRIEF – JOY – COMPASSION
The focus: The spontaneous heart
The result: We feel when we open or close, and what it all has to do with love, and how much everyone needs and wants it.
CYCLES®
Cycles is a close, personal look at our own life: our birth, our approaching death, and everything in between. We forge connections, reweave the threads, and let go of old wounds and humiliations. We honor the people and events that have shaped us and left us gifts, and we reinvent ourselves, becoming who we truly want to be.
BIRTH – CHILDHOOD – ADOLESCENCE – ADULTHOOD – DEATH
The focus: Letting go of the past and initiation into manhood/womanhood
The result: Looking at our own story without being defined by it
MIRRORS®
The Mirrors series (Tribal Mirrors, Mirrors, Naked Soul) helps us recognize what Gabrielle Roth called the “ego characters,” and that we all play a whole ensemble of these endlessly recurring roles. We can learn to identify them one by one, to name them, embody them, exaggerate them, and then – practice no longer identifying with them. Even when we come under pressure, we can move toward greater authenticity, the soulful, connection with one another, life, and freedom.
BEING – LOVING – KNOWING – SEEING – HEALING
SILVER DESERT
BODY – HEART – MIND – SOUL – SPIRIT
