Explains how to draw on the power of intuition to transform one's life, drawing on personal experience and insightful guidance to illuminate the path to understanding and intuitive wisdom and to provide readers with the tools to lead a more fulfilling life. 15,000 first printing.
Gabrielle Roth was a musician, author, music director, dancer, philosopher and recording artist in the world music and trance dance genres, with a special interest in shamanism.
Very rarely, as in never, do I struggle with words. I am a teacher. I love words and using them to describe concepts and ideologies. It is cathartic to parse out and write or talk about the texture of my feelings, thoughts, or ideas.
But this book. This book is so beautiful, so full of life and death and truth. It was like coming home and at the same time finding a treasure that I never knew existed in the very same place. This book is words about movement, stories about intuition, and healings, but not about words at all.
I won't say, "OMG! Everyone must read this book!" because the message and the love and the inspiration in this book will be here when you are ready to read it. Last week I had no clue who Gabrielle Roth was. None.
Today, I set down this book my heart bruised that I never got to meet this woman, and yet so grateful for her words. So very grateful.
THE ‘SWEAT YOUR PRAYERS’ LEADER RECOMMENDS INTUITION, ETC.
Workshop leader Gabrielle Roth wrote in the Prologue to this 2004 book, “can you live your life on this mysterious, magical wavelength all the time[?]… Well, you can; it’s just a matter of liberating your soul to follow its true path, using intuition---that holy spark of divine wisdom---as its guide. Once you awaken your intuition and get in the habit of listening to and acting on it, every decision in your life, be it what to order and acting on it, every decision in your life… will become reflexive and reflective of your inner truth.” (Pg. 2-3)
She states, “I don’t think life has any particular meaning beyond our experience of it, and the afterlife is like an afterthought---it comes a bit late. The time to get into your groove is right now. And the way to do it is to get comfortable in the mystery, calm in the dark, centered in the chaos, connected to the unified field, and committed to fulfilling your destiny… Like a spiderweb, this book is not linear or prescriptive. All its points are interconnected in a very delicate way. Strands of wisdom collected over years of dancing with a tribe of seekers have coalesced into a mystical matrix for you to traverse in your own quest for a soulful experience.” (Pg. 5-6)
She observes, “Our bodies… are the root of our true selves, the home of our souls. Our desire to constantly change and control our bodies indicates a deep distrust of our souls. We try the latest diets, the latest treatments, the latest implants in a desperate effort to hold back the tides of change, to fix our bodies in an eternally pubescent state. But in denying our bodies’ natural processes we deny their Earthy, sensual source of wisdom… a spontaneous, instinctive wisdom that illuminates the present moment. Being aware of this wisdom … keeps us .. in tune with the vibrations of the universe.” (Pg. 16)
She suggests, “The fastest, cleanest, most joyful way to break out of your own box is by dancing… I’m talking about dancing so deep, so hard, so full of the beat that you are nothing but the dance and the beat and the sweat and the heat… Dance is movement, is action, and like all action, it reveals us to ourselves in the doing… Suddenly, Spirit whacks you, takes over your body and all kinds of moves break out… Now the dance is ‘doing’ you. You are BEING the dance, following your instincts into your groove. There is a spiritual force driving your dance, that strips you to your naked soul.” (Pg. 36-37)
She says, “That true, soulful me will always be in the dark. That’s why we need to free ourselves from the didactic model where light is good and dark is evil, for it cuts us off from the mystery of our inner and unseen world, a world that is much vaster than the unseen world… When it’s connected to the dark within, its very nature is to seek the light.” (Pg. 59)
She observes, “Readings have taught me to slow dance with chaos, even when it’s coming at me from the outside… Chaos is bi-directional---it can happen inside, it can happen outside. For me the teaching is that there is a path through chaos and that path is my intention.” (Pg. 74-75)
She recalls, “True confession: years ago I was a nicotine junkie. After a few unsuccessful attempts to quit, I decided to take a more original approach. Instead of suffering butt envy while hanging with an unreformed smoker, I would shift over to the bigger picture and see my friend as the part of me that was smoking. Thereby I could sit back and enjoy the buzz without the bad breath. I was smoking in spirit but not in body.” (Pg. 94)
She notes, “Osho says, ‘Only a whole man is a holy man.’ And to become whole again we have to find the holes in our wholeness. These are gray holes, areas of uncertainty where we aren’t sure who we are or whom we are with or what our place it---unfortunately for our ego, which likes things fixed and secure. The answers to these questions change from one moment to the next… In a world of constant change, we have to rely on our souls, which can spontaneously and effortlessly answer al three questions at once.” (Pg. 109)
She says, “As Osho says, ‘Only when there are many pools of peace, silence, understanding, will war disappear.’ This is my attraction to yoga. It may sound self-indulgent: war is raging, and you are doing yoga. But cultivating a practice that opens you up to the direct experience of war and peace in your body is an honorable and even necessary way to go. The way yoga works is to create a harmonious whole by creating harmony within each individual part. In theory, this sounds great, but in practice it takes a strong commitment to reach that place of sweet surrender.” (Pg. 117)
She explains, “There are fleeting moments on the dance floor when I am certain that the whole panorama of life on our planet is being displayed before my eyes… All around me, filling me, are proofs that the human spirit holds all of history, that we embody it in our muscles and bones, passing it along in our genes, its mystical currents flowing in our blood. Here we discover al that has occurred since the beginning of time, the explosion of form out of formlessness. Everything is all-so-clearly revealed in the chaos of the dance.” (Pg. 132-133)
She observes, “It’s hard to grasp the thread of your destiny when your ego… has you tied in knots… Never forget that our souls have a voice in all of this and will do their best to carry us beyond the shadow world of our ego. There are moments, however, when the ego releases its hold and we fall into our feet and land on earth. We are grounded; but unlike a lightning rod, which draws energy from the atmosphere and channels it down into the earth, we draw energy up, through out roots, or feet, our bodies, and our minds. We become radiant like Moses on the mount. This is a moment of epiphany, of inspiration.” (Pg. 159)
She concludes, “We spend much of our lives creating containers---forms, vocations belief systems, ambitions, and explanations for why we are here---but they are only containers. When those containers are crushed, which they inevitably will be, we discover something that endures beyond them---the human heart, the soul, the Mystery, the instinct to embrace our Source unconditionally. And so it is ultimately here, exulting in the bond and inspiration of life itself, that we intuit our own spiritual path and find our destiny.” (Pg, 172)
This book will be of keen interest to those who enjoy Roth’s workshops and music.
The 5 sections of this book correspond to Roth's 5Rhythms (flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness). I enjoyed reading these autobiographical pieces which flow together and tell of a life well-lived. I've been dancing the 5Rhythms since 2011 (6 years).
Loved this book. Far exceeded expectations, I loved the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. It tells the story of the emergence of 5R and how it evolved through a process of trusting one’s intuition and flowing with life. How magic can happen by trusting out authentic voice, heart and intuition. Listening to the little queues of life and embodying the one shame that we are. It is far more than just an explanation of Gabrielle Roth dance life. It tells the story of what it is to live a life from the heart, deal with death and life and the void
Gabrielle cuenta cómo la intuición tiene un papel fundamental en su vida y en su toma de decisiones. Nos invita a conectar con la profundidad de nuestro ser, a estar atentos a la escucha de nuestra voz interna y nuestro movimiento.