Email
PrintThe Dance of Life is Calling You
Judith Elia
5Rhythms®
I was introduced to 5Rhythms® almost two years ago at Findhorn, an intentional Community in Northern Scotland famous for over forty years of simple living in harmony with Nature. At Findhorn, sacred dance is an essential part of the daily schedule. Every evening there is some kind of Dance offering including Celtic Circle Dances, The Dances of Universal Peace, and other forms of meditative group movements. Moving in harmony with the rhythm of the music we feel more alive, awaken new energies and become attuned to an essential harmony within us.
A week after I returned from Findhorn I discovered that a teacher by the name of Amber Ryan was coming here to teach 5Rhythms® in St. Augustine. I was both surprised and grateful. It has been almost two years and I continue to be deeply inspired by Amber as a teacher and the 5Rhythms® as a spiritual practice.
It has been said wherever 5Rhythms® are practiced a community is born-- to dance, to sweat, to change, and to support each other. We are doing just that right here and right now thanks to our teacher Amber Ryan and the leadership of a devoted core group of dancers and Lovers of Life. Come and join us! No experience is necessary. Everyone is welcome.
5Rhythms® communities are flourishing from Croatia to Korea, from Maui to Manhattan, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, and from Asheville to St. Augustine! Teachers on this path are required to be original, honest, spontaneous mirrors of these integrated spiritual teachings and study and practice for many years. This healing practice originated at Esalen Institute many years ago with Gabrielle Roth. Amber Ryan discovered 5Rhythms® in 1999 when a repetitive injury changed her path as a professional dancer. Since then she has practiced with Gabrielle Roth in New York City for over ten years, completed teacher’s training and assisted Jonathan Horan in leading workshops across the globe. She now teaches classes and workshops internationally.
Gabrielle Roth writes in her book Sweat Your Prayers, “To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past, anointing all your parts in a baptism of fire.” In over four decades of healing through movement she has witnessed this essential truth; when you put the psyche in motion, it heals itself. Students often go through moments of spontaneous healing and insight that seem to be awakened through the movement and released through the inner wisdom of the Dancer.
Amber Ryan will be our Teacher in Residence through the summer months and is available for private consultations and weekly classes on Tuesday evenings beginning July 26th. She will also offer an original workshop for the first time called ‘Breath of the One’, August 26th -29th. In this 5Rhythms® exploration we will move from surface to essence, from our individual stories towards an awareness of our unique offering in the tribe. Together, we will cultivate an inner and outer listening which invites us to a place beyond words where instinct and intuition reign. The 5Rhythms® tribal work is where we learn to be good leaders and where we learn to be led, where we gather the tools that invite us into the teachings of unity and arrive into the breath-full, blissful, meditative beat of the One. In the workshop, ‘Breath of the One’, we become a harmonious part of the whole, a courageous interconnected offering, where we seamlessly shift between intuitive guide and sacred tribe.
For more information go to www.5rhythms.com www.AmberRyan.com www.facebook.com/5RhythmsFlorida
Judith Elia is a Florida Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an ordained Unity Minister. She has organized conferences and events internationally for World Peace, Holistic Medicine, and the Spiritual Unity of the World’s Religions. She has been a Dancin’ Fool all her life and has a passion for music and meditative movement.
