Last week I was in Berlin to participate in a Mirrors workshop with Jonathan Horan. Where Waves is about embodiment, Heartbeat about expressing the feelings of our heart, Cycles about how we entered this life, grew up, became adults and practice how to close our life cycle, Mirrors is about the theatre of our ego characters. For the ego itself it’s quite an embarrassing workshop, for who we truly are it’s a perfect time to shine…

Those of you who regularly attend 5Rhythms workshops might recognize that before the actual workshop happens the workshop already started…. No exception to the rule this time…

I took the train to Berlin. I love these smooth running ICE trains, long distances of time moving in this soft rhythm of the railway … there I was, just sitting, waiting, reading, following this rhythm… my suitcase with me, full of dancing clothes, healthy food, vitamins and minerals to support my body energy and props to support the theatre of my ego characters….

At one moment I needed to go to the toilet. The bathroom was a spacy one, especially adapted for wheel chair users so that they would be able to easily move in and out. The bathroom had a door, not a flat one, but round; describing a part of a circle while opening and closing. The bathroom was an enormous space and the door was as huge: when I opened it by touching a green button saying OPEN it was like curtains opening, showing the stage. I went in, pushed the red button saying CLOSE, sat down and peed.

In the midst of my peeing the door opened…. That immense round door, like curtains sliding, showing the stage. I saw a small startled woman, totally embarrassed by seeing me peeing… She panicked, tried to do something, not knowing what to do, then trying to close the door again, but on the outside there was only the OPEN button, one could only CLOSE from the inside. In the next moment she turned her back towards me, making an attempt to be the whole door … It was so funny to see that small body trying to be that huge door, her chaotic dance, hands up in the air, trying to make herself high and wide at the same time, trying to prevent others from looking past her. I was on stage, she was on stage, both naked and vulnerable in our own way. It was so funny she was totally embarrassed, in stead of me. That was very kind of her….

In German she explained there was a third button to push; after closing I should also have pushed the button LOCK to really shut the door… I took a break, stood up, locked the door and ended my peeing having so much fun … I really tried to feel some embarrassement in my body, but it was not there… it was so amusing, I couldn’t stop laughing … letting go of ego… what a special preparation for this Mirrors workshop… ready to go….