I’m just now beginning to unravel the events of two weeks ago, when Michael, my littlest, was in a car accident.  Trying to avoid a deer, he ended up wedged between one tree while the car wrapped around another tree.

This story starts earlier than the 2:30am car accident.  At 1:30, I was home getting ready for bed when I found myself putting on shoes, grabbing my keys and walking out of the house to “go get Michael.”  Michael was 30 minutes away in Madison finishing up a shift.  The thing is, he was sober, had driven himself, had his car there.

As I walked out of the house, I stopped myself by thinking:  This doesn’t make sense, I’m tired, Michael has his car.  He will probably say, “Oh Mom, what are you doing?  I’m going to drive my car home.  You are so ridiculous.”  I let reason prevail and went back inside to wait for him to get home.

Then, at 2:30am I woke up, having drifted off.  I started walking to the kitchen to make Michael a snack.  I looked at my phone to see his location.  Michael was on our road, about a mile from home, but he was not moving…

I grab shoes and shorts, run to the car, fly towards his location.  On the way, I get a call from my ex-husband, Patrick.  “Michael has been in an accident.  He is ok, has a concussion.  He is confused.  He is in the ambulance heading for the ER.”  I turn around and drive to the ER. 

Michael says, “Hey guys,” when he sees me and his Dad.  Then, “Where am I?” 

We say together,  “you were in a car accident.” 

Michael says, “Is the car totaled?” 

“Yes, for sure.”  Patrick answers. 

I’m looking over Michael, he’s bleeding, missing hair, his clothes were cut off, he has two IV’s, one in each arm.  He says, “Do you have a picture of it?” 

“Yes,” says his dad while pulling up the picture on his phone. 

“Damn I’m good, R.I.P. Papa’s car.”

In the next breath Michael says, “Hey guys.”  Then, “Where am I?”  I repeat all the same answers while his Dad pulls up the picture a second time.

Without stopping, Michael repeats the same questions with us giving him the same answers for five and a half hours while he lay in a neck brace, waiting to see what kind of damage there was to his body and his brain. We repeat the answers over and over.  He’s forgotten what’s happened over the last 6 months.  We figured about 75 times we showed him the picture of the car.  When we needed to step out for X-rays, I told Patrick, “I need to cry, I’m going to the restroom.  I will be right back.”  So many people are uncomfortable with this natural way of letting go, and it’s annoying for me to be interrupted.  I didn’t need to take care of someone else at that moment.  So to the bathroom I went, let the tears fall, wipe them away, then walked back to Michael for more of the same answers.

From all the dancing, I know how to surrender, I’ve practiced a lot of chaos, I know when “it’s” coming, there’s not a lot of drama, it’s natural, it releases.   Now, my ex-husband is getting choked up.  He can no longer repeat (like we are saying it for the first time) the answers to Michael’s questions.  So, I sooth Michael the only way possible by answering and answering and answering without a stop in the conversation.

Even in the hospital, I’m in my body.  I’m here showing him these pictures again and again.  I’m calm.  I’m teaching him to relax his body when something hurts, to move toward the sensation of pain with the needles, and bruises.  He does, he becomes limp and trusts the nurses and doctors.

Many hours later, the x-rays come back, there are no broken bones!  Another hour later, the CAT scans show no issues in his entire body or brain.  They had scanned him from head to toe.  He only needed stitches on his pinky finger.  (Seriously, check out that picture again…). Michael’s memory started to came back online once we got in the car to come home from the hospital, he’s stumbled a few times, and repeated a few questions but seems to be getting back to normal, he will be seen by a neurologist Tuesday, (he’s hoping to get cleared to work again and hit the gym.) Although it will be some time before he can play sports again.

Now, more than ever we need to stay in our body, follow our innate wisdom and let go of the mind’s “fake news.” Fake news comes from habit (which is embedded from trauma and conditioning which includes enculturation, the parts of us that rationalize).  Intuition – the truth faster than the speed of light – that’s what the body knows.

I believe all that happens in this life is a dharma gate, a learning, a lesson, a blessing, a grace, a gift.  You can curse karma or say, “this is great” and ride that pony all the way into the next gateway of awakening. 

Now I know, “this is great,” might not be the first thing that comes to mind when trauma lands like a wrecking ball.  To feel the knock before it becomes a wrecking ball, we need to be in and act from our body.  There’s a peaceful presence that grabbed my keys and shoes and was walking to the door that night.  Maybe I need to practice more? J  I’m gonna.

This is who we need to be now, plugged into our innate wisdom.  I believe this is how we can save ourselves and this planet.  Mark my words:  I won’t stop. I can feel it in my blood, my bones, and in my feet.  There’s a lot of distractions out there.  Don’t let them take you away from the truth.  It’s as plain as the breath you are taking right now, and the feeling of the movement of your eyes across these words.  The path is right here in front of us.  We just need to practice walking (dancing) it.  We need a lot of practice.  Take it from me, we need a lot of practice.

My daughter, Rachael, has created a GoFundMe for Michael: Here’s the link. He was working to pay his Dad back for his car . . . and now

https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-safe-car-for-michael?utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1&utm_medium=sms&utm_source=customer

From the Washington Post’s Health section, this article references several studies showing that dance can reduce anxiety and chronic pain, improve quality of life for people with dementia, and decrease symptoms of schizophrenia. Check it out.

Anxious, lonely or angry? Try dancing.

A small but growing body of research suggests that such movement
may provide more mood benefits than other types of cardio exercise

The Washington Post, May 20, 2022

This week I’m at the beach with my mom. I'm seeing the ocean for the first time in almost 3 years and spending time with Mom and family. Mom is 85 and spending time with her has become really important to me lately.

As I have healed, grown and gotten more close to what life is, I find it both sweeter and more bitter. The awareness of sharing a card game with Mom merged with the awareness this may be one of the last card games, brings the moment more potently into focus. She's getting close to the end. She's reading the Bible cover to cover; she needs to be close to God as she's aware her transition is coming. She's afraid, and reading the Bible soothes her. Following the rules makes her feel safe. It's her road to understanding the great unknown of mortality.

And even still, there are challenges. My mom is not so interested in global warming (it's at the top for me), and she doesn't like my niece's tatoos. My mom and I talk. I try to listen, to understand her. And I see her stretching to understand me and others: she hasn't said anything about my neice's tatoos on this trip, she's taken my suggestion to try watching a different TV news station, and she's recycling for the first time. My mom and her courage to stay in relationship, in the moment is inspiring.

As this season of family time approaches, I remember how this movement practice brings me back to love, back to the ability to stay in relationship with our differences. In short, it's helped me not to lose my shit over small and big. From deeply embedded trauma, to politics, to injustices, the practice gives me a place to express, release, reconnect, and remember what is really important.

May we all find gratitude for those things that matter most in life, and may we have the courage to continue showing up and moving.

Last month, I was a guest on the Four Gardens podcast hosted by Bethesda 5Rhythms dancer Jake Ifshin. I talked with Jake about the 5Rhythms practice and my own healing journey. Thank you Jake for having me on your show! Click the link below to listen.

Surrendering to your true self through the moving meditation of 5Rhythms

In addition to taking a sabbatical this August, I’m also saying goodbye to my daughter Lilliah Rachael.  She leaves in 7 days for college.  She’s lived with me pretty much full time since she was 11.  So many emotions have moved through me as college approaches: sadness, anger, joy…

Did I teach her enough?  Did I show her enough?  Does she know to trust herself, to help others...  Will she be ok?  It’s painful letting go, and it feels good.  I have helped her be independent.  Throughout her teens, we have been very close.  She would tell me almost everything.  I only asked questions about her choices, and helped her figure out her own way as much as I could.  I knew this life was hers, and I tried to guide her with presence and attention. 
 
This week she asked me, “What about Moonlight, Mom?”  Moonlight is her cat of 15 years.  Moonlight has slept literally on her chest all these years, watching her fall asleep, cuddling with her.  I tell her, “When you are away Moonlight cries one night, then becomes part of the family, she goes to the basement, lays in the living room window and gets on the top of the fridge.”  She laughs.  “Will I be ok, she asks?”  “Well,” I say, “you are very social and you create a family wherever you go.  Remember when you went to the beach with your friends? Could you have stayed or did you miss home?”  “I could have stayed,” she says.  “You will have a family there, get to know them.”

Rachael has been stressed about move-in day.  Her dad doesn’t want to move her into the dorm with me.  I want to see her off on her new adventure, and I also see her dilemma: stuck in the middle between her parents.  I say, “Just go with your dad and your stepmom.  I have had you full time, and I will be here when you come home.”  We are humans, we are all doing the best we can.  I know I am, I know he is.  I will say goodbye at home.
 
I am so looking forward to dancing with you again, even through Zoom, and I am super looking forward to our workshop in September, Surrender . . . an appropriate topic for me, huh?  Life is happening, maybe we really don’t like the song right now, or parts of it, but it’s playing nonetheless.  We can choose to sit down, lay down, shuffle, jump, or roll...  How are you moving to the music of your life right now? 

Since our last dance in Bethesda, I have traveled into the depths of grief, honoring my cherished relationship with my Father.  Jim Kite passed away Sunday.  We buried him Wednesday. 
 
I had been dancing for five straight days in a workshop that ended on the day Dad died.  This workshop was the deepest soul journey I have taken.  I had so many visits from Dad during my dances, and so much grief shuddering through my body.  Finally, on Sunday morning I was empty.  Not a tear came through; only pure presence and love.  Not the kind of love we know here on Earth, but an all-encompassing love – emanating through all of existence, a quietness vibrating. 
 
During our lunch break Sunday, I called my sister to check-in.  She told me to book a flight, that Dad wasn’t doing well.  As I waited in the airport, sitting on the floor, I got the call that Dad had passed away.  My dad gone. 
 
Since then I have been stunned, disoriented, and exhausted, all the while carried by a grace-filled current…
 
My dad was a legend to other people, but for me he was just my dad.  He loved to dance, he loved life, he lived in the moment, he was present here, and he read people behind their words.  He loved me, played with me, taught me, and loved me more.  Every time I saw dad, I could see the deep love in his eyes for me.  I recognized that same love when he looked at others.
 
I feel beyond grateful for my Dad, beyond grateful for my practice, and grateful to be able to land back home in my body Friday evening with you, in Bethesda.  We will dance with our lineage together this Friday.

My father, Jim Kite

TRIBE is a 5Rhythms dance camp and tribal gathering taking place at Camp Ramblewood, Maryland in September 2019. Click here to learn more or register for the event.

I always felt moved by the concept of a Reunion.  I grew up in the South, where families would come together once a year.  They would gather at some campground -- distant cousins, aunts, uncles. They would connect through banana pudding and volleyball, eat at picnic tables and on blankets.  I didn’t come from a big family though, and we didn’t have reunions. Of the family I did have, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend time with them. I didn’t feel connected to them.  Most encounters left me wondering, “where did I come from?” These people spoke a different language. 

I created TRIBE to
celebrate our connection,
strengthen our bonds,
and deepen our practice.

When I landed on my first 5Rhythms dance floor I found a community where I could relate - the connection to myself and to these others was palpable.  I found other people dealing with the same challenges I faced in my own life and they had this willingness to feel and move with them. I found a family -- a Tribe -- who spoke my language.  Over the years, I have grown to appreciate this Tribe more and more, and have found that it can hold me both on and off the dance floor.

In the spirit of reunion, I created TRIBE to celebrate our connection, strengthen our bonds, and deepen our practice.  TRIBE is a place where teachers get to practice alongside other teachers and students. Here we all come together as peers and move together.  We share our dance, make new connections, celebrate old friends and connect in real ways.

Here we all come together
as peers and move together. 

Join us -- Jonathan, Shanti, Emmanuelle, Peter, Ray, and me -- at Camp Ramblewood, Maryland this September.  Ramblewood is a rural camp and retreat center in northeast Maryland, less than a 3-hour drive from New York City and less than 2 hours from Washington DC.  Ramblewood features a large indoor dance hall with sprung floor, swimming pool, pond with canoes, and miles of hiking trails. There are both private and dormitory style cabins -- all with Tempur-Pedic mattresses.  The Ramblewood dining hall and kitchen serve healthy, balanced meals and can accommodate any dietary restrictions.  

I hope to see you for this MOVING reunion.

Love gave me another bout with anxiety, with suffering today...  So I drove through snow — a lot of snow — to get to the studio to dance. On the ride over I was alert, excited, scared and wondering if I would make it. I slid around a couple turns (tingling in my hands, breath shallow from fear). 

I get to the dance floor.  I rise, I fall, I stretch, I put the feeling into my limbs, my breath, I cry . . . then the joy of trust.  Not like trust you have in someone, but that deep trust in life, in god, in the journey and I laughed.  Pleasure seeping through me in all directions.

I get back in the old truck.  On my journey “home,” I slide, I go off the road (7inches of snow, I can’t see it) this time I giggle with glee.  It’s beautiful, it’s quiet, I can feel how to move, which way to go, living a life of awe again.

The practice is a huge part of knowing what I love, how I feel, and allowing life to be experienced through me. Life going through me like this is being with and of God.  God for me is a verb: infinite love, purest bliss, a movement, anything or anyone in this physical world that helps me get close to this place . . . a simple . . .  yes please.

The dance delivers every time.

This article was first published in the 5Rhythms Teacher Spotlight for December 2018.

“We can’t bring Dad home for Thanksgiving,” Mom texts. It’s the first year Dad won’t be home for Thanksgiving. My Dad has Alzheimer’s. I moved him into the locked unit a year and a half ago. Mom just couldn’t. This year, the thought of bringing him home was just too much for Mom – sometimes he can get angry and try to hit people. So, when my family gathered around the table for our Thanksgiving meal, Dad wasn’t in his chair. 

After our meal, I go by “the home” to see Dad. He’s asleep, sprawled out haphazardly across the bed, his legs half hanging over the edge, his hat fallen off. I lay down beside Dad. He opens his eyes as soon as I’m there. He recognizes me, tears fill his eyes . . . He says nothing, just keeps looking in my eyes -- his tears keep running. We cry together for a long while. There is nothing to say. He takes my hand and places it on his heart. A shared love, a shared loss, the fatality, the finality of life crossing between our eyes. The vulnerability of being a human – a daughter, a father. The ways we consoled ourselves that this separation really wasn’t coming, gone now. All that’s left is this movement between us, love.

My Dad knew how to have fun . . . he trusted his body. He once flew his ultralight into an electric line, jumping out just before it hit. When I asked him what it felt like he said, “Well, I knew I had to jump before I hit or I’d be gone. I just tucked and landed as softly as I could, then rolled on down the hill.” As soon as he got to his feet, he went home, got his golf clubs and went to join his friends for a game. He didn’t stop living. He trusted his body when fear came. 

In the wave, I’ve found a way to embody what my father was showing me by how he lived. I heard it coming through the music the first time, felt it go into my cells. I practiced breathing and moving it into my being. There is no protection from what life has needed to show me, will show me. I do my best to feel, love, and experience all of it. This practice gives me a way to get closer to life . . . and to death. Embodiment gives me a way to stay in curiosity, enthusiasm, great awe and the agility to move softly with change. This I relearn every time I step on the floor. 

My Dad will go sooner or later. What will it feel like, to be on the planet without him? Will I experience life in a different way? Will it physically hurt? Curiosity endures with deep trust – in the body – in the dance. This is my practice, what I am learning and what I teach: that there is grace in the present moment, that the physical world is a gift and the body a vehicle for my heart to express love, that when the time comes I will know what to say and what to do. 

On Thanksgiving evening in the “the home,” Dad gets out of bed. We walk down to the dining room. I get him his favorite drink – Dr. Pepper. We talk for a bit while he sips his soda and eats crackers. Then, when the time comes, I show him a puzzle some of the other residents are working. I say “Goodbye, Dad” and then point to the puzzle piece. “Where does this go?” While he studies the puzzle, I walk out of the room. I’m on my journey, and Dad on his. All of us are. We trust, breathe, feel, love, and . . . we keep moving.

This article was first published in the Summer 2018 Edition of Pathways Magazine.

Ten years ago, I walked into a tattered warehouse with three girlfriends for a three-hour Friday night dance called 5Rhythms®.  The building was immense and dark.  Slow, sensuous music filled the space as eighty-some people moved in different ways on the dance floor.  I felt bewildered, a little frozen and...  curious, excited.  Doubts filled my head: “What am I going to do for three hours here?  I don’t know any of these people.  What are they doing anyway?  There’s no bar.  There’s no one standing and watching.  No one talking.  This is just weird.”  I signed myself in and paid at the door while the music continued to play.  The people swayed and moved slowly through the room, as if following some invisible thread only they could see.  The teacher invited them to breathe, feel their body sway, and keep their feet in motion.   Even though my mind felt paralyzed, my body willingly advanced to the floor...  

I had always wanted to dance, not ballet or choreography, but to really “get my groove on.”  As a child, I danced in my room and I danced outside -- never with anyone.  It was a secret, my secret. I longed to dance.  When I was older, I danced in bars but I didn’t like the sticky floor, the feel of men watching me as if I were dancing for them.  I always thought I had some kind of hidden disorder because I wanted so badly to move to music without a man leading me.  Only people who went to bars and were drunk, or maybe wanted to be picked up, danced so freely.  Dancing by myself, this uninhibited, in the rural Southern town I grew up in just wasn’t permitted.

So, I didn’t allow myself to dance.  I had shut that down.  Until that night in that warehouse.  After forty years of restraining my impulse to move to music in public.  I did as the teacher asked...  I breathed in and out.  I moved my feet.  I slowly began feeling more steady, and I started to realize there wasn’t anything to “do” -- that I could just be in my body and let it move.  The teacher said, “take a partner.”  I was like “What?  With someone who hasn’t asked me to dance? With just anybody?”  But everyone else just turned and started dancing with another person.  I felt some panic bubbling up inside.  At first there was no one there with me, no one picked me as their partner.  Then, as I turned around I noticed a woman had been dancing with me, and I moved with her a bit, but before I could get too cerebral, the teacher said, “Switch, take another partner.”  I did, and then I switched again and again. It all started moving fast, I was dancing with myself, with others, I was encouraged to breath, to feel my body, and to follow how my body wanted to move.

As the music picked up pace, my body was moving so fast my mind couldn’t stop me.  I just kept moving, freeing my body into this open, unrestricted place of being.  I hadn’t experienced this sense of peace before.  I knew I ached to dance, but I didn’t know what it could do for me.  It was like a tranquility was circulating through me, taking away all the hurts, all the sorrows from my life and mixing them in with this lavish, lovely, juicy, gyrating, quivering movement.   I was hooked -- to the room of people, to the freedom in my body, to the moments of connection.  No attachment to partners, just my groove, and sharing it, how I wanted to, when I wanted to.  The years of fear and restraint were falling away.  I was feeling me -- the little girl who wanted to dance, and dance, and dance.  

That night, after 3 hours of dancing 5Rhythms, I released more pent up stress, more emotional baggage than I had released in years of talk therapy.  I knew something epic had happened, and I wanted more.  I said to my three friends the next day, “I’m going to become a teacher of this work.”  I didn’t know then that the journey to becoming a 5Rhythms teacher would be a monumental dive into my life story, my family history, and my psychology... and that it would take 6 long years and a lot of traveling.  I didn’t know that it would spiral me deeper than I ever thought possible into the truth of the being that lives in my body. 

The 5Rhythms is a philosophy, a perspective, a way of practicing being in this world, connected to body, to heart and to mind all at the same time.  Gabrielle Roth, who created the 5Rhythms, noticed most of us were walking around as “talking heads” not connected to our heart, our body, or our soul.  She identified a way of moving through the Rhythms as entering a space of being unified, a place of pure presence. 

The 5Rhythms consist of 5 different ways of being in the world: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.  Together they form “a wave.”  More than just a framework for dance, the Rhythms describe a natural pattern that can be found in everything from relationships, to jobs, to artistic endeavors, to business ventures, to the course of one day in a life.  Perhaps the easiest way to describe the Rhythms is by analogy to a literal ocean wave.  As a wave approaches the sea shore, it slowly begins to form (flowing), then builds to a sharp well-defined shape (staccato), then breaks (chaos), then rolls toward the shore expanding, frothing and bubbling (lyrical), and finally dissolves completely (stillness) only to return to the sea and start again.  This energy pattern lends itself naturally to movement.

Flowing -  the fluid, continuous, grounded glide of our own movements, the letting in, the drinking in of our own experience; energy gathers.

Staccato -  the percussive, pulsing beat that shapes us a thousand different ways and allows us to let out our true expression; energy builds.

Chaos -  the rhythm of letting go, releasing into the catalytic wildness of our dance that can never be planned or repeated; energy releases.

Lyrical -  the rhythm of trance, of letting go of letting go, where the weight of self-consciousness dissolves, and we lighten up and disappear into our own uniqueness; energy expands.

Stillness -  the quiet emptiness, where gentle movements rise and fall, start and end, in a field of body silence, of never ending space; the rhythm of letting be; energy dissolves

Gabrielle Roth identified this energy pattern while working as a dance instructor with Fritz Perls’ Gestalt clients at Esalen and over the course of years mapped these patterns to the body, emotions, and human life cycle.  She called these maps Waves, Heartbeat, and Cycles, respectively.  These maps provide us with a tool for exploring ourselves -- not just how we move our physical body, but how we move and feel the energy of emotions, and how we move through life -- healing from our childhood, teenage years, or even literally yesterday.  This all happens without a lot of discussion and despair.  Easefully we let go and become whole as we surrender to the dance, to the rhythms on the floor, and the rhythms in our life. 

Practicing the 5Rhythms helps us create a larger container for our lives.  We can hold, be with, and digest more of what life is showing us through our work, our love life, our parenting of children.  We begin to accept the truth of who we are and stop trying to squish ourselves into a shape that is unnatural.  We allow ourselves to dance who we are, not who we think we should be, who our parents think we should be, or even who the culture thinks we should be.  We let ourselves be, let ourselves move through the feelings that arise and fall in relating to this world.  We expand and contract with more ease.  We create, play, and mingle with the energy around us.  We show up, not just on the dance floor but in life, more aware, more response-able, more willing to see our truth and express it.  From here we are more able to see how to help others.  As we heal ourselves, we heal everyone around us.  We become transformers, letting go of victimhood.

As we continue to practice, glimpsing our truth again and again, we realize there is no use in maintaining a false ego.  This seemingly safe facade falls away and we are left bare, free and full of enthusiasm for the life that courses through us.  We are unafraid to become intimate with our life force, which leads to greater intimacy with others.  We learn to move with the truth, so that our words, our feelings and our actions align.  This begins on the dance floor where it is easier for our feelings and physical action to align, but the practice ripples out beyond the dance floor into all aspects of our lives.  The more we practice, the more our words fall into this alignment.  When we speak words that aren’t connected to our feelings and our bodies, we know it. . . our body tells us.  Through the Rhythms we are learning to listen to the wisdom of the body, to hear it, and to trust it more than our ego, our mind, and our stories from the past.  The body willingly drops stories when given the nourishment of the Wave.  There’s a potency of listening that is demonstrated by the body’s movement and breath.  We not only witness our healing, we physically demonstrate it. 

I invite you to join me in this practice and find your truth through your own movement and breath.  I truly believe that every person can benefit from the 5Rhythms.  If you are breathing, if you are moving, you are capable of doing this work.  It’s the practice of being alive, it’s not about being a professional dancer or having a particular body type.  It’s about opening up to your life’s purpose, your creativity, your intuition, your impulses.  Everyone can and needs to unwind their body, they mind . . . this is a powerful way through.   It’s about energy, not about how you look on the dance floor, or how well you can move.  It’s about what you feel, how you heal, and accepting what life has brought you.  All of my classes and workshops are suitable to beginners.  Look me up on the web (AnnKite.com) and join me for a dance.