Messages From The Universe: Tango (possibly a part 1)

I've wanted to try tango for quite a long time, and this only intensified when one of my closest friends started taking tango... and then quitting her job and ended up teaching tango.  Several years later, she's performing in addition to teaching. At the beginning of the month, she made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  And so, I am now taking tango lessons. And as of my second lesson, the studio has a guest teacher teaching the lead part who is an international tango star.

I don't particularly believe things happen for a reason, but I do like to acknowledge and respect serendipitous messages and lessons from The Universe as they present themselves.  Tango seems to be presenting me with a number of relevant and timely considerations, and I thought it would be good for me to capture them for myself, and in the event that anyone else may benefit, do it here.  With those thoughts as an introduction, let us proceed.

* * *

The first lesson was mostly me saying 'hello, I'm very new!'  Beginner's mind.  Finding, again, that sense of being a stranger in a new community and being accepted and encouraged with, literally, open arms.  In time, I think I might have more to say about this - there are a lot of things codified in tango culture, especially in the invitation and acceptance of a dance that I have yet to learn.  But for now, it was a good reminder that there will always be people willing to not only allow me to be part of a community, but will help me find my way.  Mr. Rogers always said, "look for the helpers" - they are there.

Sure, there are a few leads that I give me the sense that they might rather dance with someone else, but they were new once too. So, eh. We are all terrible in the beginning when we're learning (and we're always learning), and I learn fast.  I have both the benefit and disadvantage of coming in with significant movement experience.  I learn fast, but I have some things to unlearn that others don't (thank you, ballet, for the duck feet, and precisely intentional mechanical steps rather than allowing the movement to flow... but I am a fast learner, so we're getting there!).

* * *

In no particular order except that I must take another step, another  lesson is about connection.  For those of you who don't know, connection, integrity, and order are my top three personal values.  Me writing about this is me making sense of, and establishing order to, my experience, to be meta-analytical for a moment...  Tango is about connecting.

Connection to the floor through the feet - a grounding, if you will - is at the priority level of being a safety issue, it helps you keep a sense of what's around you, if you extend your leg to step, and bump into another foot or a wall or etc, you replace your feet to avoid collision.  In this way, connection is an antenna of what's around you and grounds you.  It is the first connection we must make to stand on our own two feet - find the floor, the ground beneath you.

There is connection through your core, and tied to your intuition.  As a follow for an improvised dance, the cues from the lead can be as subtle as a slight weight change. You can learn the choreography, but to recognize it in the moment of improvisation requires an almost intuitive recognition of the cues. This I recognize as connection to self.  I may have more to say about connection to self when I start figuring out the lead pieces as well - much like you learn a whole new level of information when you teach something, as a dancer, you learn a whole new level when you move between following and leading.  People who can do both are stronger in each role than those who can only perform one role.

There is connection to your partner.  I am finding it very interesting to see how different my movement is from lead to lead.  There are leads for whom I must be exactly right for them to feel like they can move without needing to "correct" me, and then only somewhat tentatively. They can be hard to read, but are often also kind, and I think they offer their corrections in the spirit of trying to help me figure this dance out.  There are leads who are so focused on doing the movement that I'm not sure *we* are connecting at all, but the movement flows out in such a way that it shows that even if we barely speak, the required connection is made through the intent of specific movement.  I am torn between the two - there is kind human connection, but the movement doesn't flow as easily from one, and there is the almost mechanical execution of the second that lacks in human warmth what it makes up for in technical accuracy.  But it also feels less safe to err because error is poorly tolerated in machinery.  AND but because the intent is clear, it is easier not to err.  I may actually prefer the technical and mechanical latter as I get the macro details down, to the leads who are trying to micromanage the tension in my shoulders in practice arms.  But regardless - I learn things from each despite my preference for one or the other.

There is also connection to the spirit of tango, and the heart of the dance itself. I have been told tango is a dance of the present, and the present is connected to the past.  The lead, in particular is moving into the present from their past.  The follower must lean into and know the past that the lead is moving from in order to intuitively experience the present.  That said, the dance is not about the past.  It is about being fully present in the NOW.  To fully experience the now, you must know the past, no one comes to the present as a tabula rasa, and it doesn't need to be an acceptance or rejection or understanding of the past, just the knowledge of the past.  Whether that past is having known your partner for years, or whether that past is the split second of past that informs you of the intention of movement in any direction - it is past and eventually will inform the pattern of movement that leads us into the future, but the Now is the moment in which you exist.

* * *

There is a lesson about improvisation, intuition, and the Now.  I've spoken a bit about these three already, but there is a specific lesson around planning, prioritizing, and practicing.  I am a person who likes to be prepared. I like to have a sense of what needs to happen as well as what is going to happen.  I have observed the things we do to practice without partners in class and brought them home and done them in my living room.  We practice particular forms in class.  And then when they say, ok, now practice what you learned today, I have a new small vocabulary of movement to work from.  Tango is entirely improvised in the milonga, and in many performances as well.  While I'm building a vocabulary now, and I suspect my partners are thinking it might just be best to walk me backwards in circles until I can 'walk' (which is a Thing in and of itself in tango), when it comes to Now and 'dancing from/into the past', all of the planning, preparation, anticipation, and practice must integrate seamlessly into what happens in *this* moment.   Whether it is all jettisoned as you launch into the improvisation, whether it all builds upon itself in order to release you to the liberation and total freedom of intuition, the Now consists of taking the step that is asked of you by the tango.

Likewise, in daily life, you can plan, prepare, anticipate, and practice right up to the meeting, the event, the encounter, and then, in the Now, you must take the step that is asked of you by the Now.  Not to say that you can't make missteps in the Now, because you certainly can, and not to say that all that planning, preparing, anticipation, and practice won't help you to be able to better shift in the moment to where Now takes you because it certainly may.  But there will also be times when Now will tell you that the only correct step is one that you could not have planned, prepared, anticipated, or practiced for.

* * * 

The final lesson that has struck me to date is "attitude".  "There is a saying!  Dance me! I learned to dance with old women at the milonga ["and old men!" chimes in the woman teaching the follow parts].  I would ask them to dance and they would say dance me, or I will leave you in the middle of the dance floor.  [Leads], when you ask a [follow] to dance, ask because you want to dance with them.  [Follows], when you accept, you must be 100% in.  You commit to the dance.  And you accept with attitude and ownership."  There was more to that particular instruction, but the gist was - there is no giggling coyness on the part of either party. It is direct.  

In tango, the follow has the option to say no, with no repercussion including getting questioned or insulted on the decision. Lead, no means no, and that's that - move on, find a different partner, do not ask why, do not plead, do not insult, just move on. You will never know why the follow said no and it's not necessary for you to know either.  And follow, if you say yes, you commit.  Your actions must also be direct, take the lead's hand and find your dance position with confidence.  Dance me.  You want to dance?  Bring it. Prove it. Show me.  Dance me.  

There are studies that show people do not respond to competence, they respond to confidence.  If you seem tentative, exploratory, or anything less than committed, they read that as a lack of confidence and make assumptions about competence tied to that.  The origins of the verb "to con" was originally confidence.  A con man was a 'confidence man' - someone who, through being able to gain people's confidence, would then swindle them.  I think this ties back to what I said above too, about how a physical connection can be established through the mechanistic confidence of intent and how in order to navigate the "macro" skills of knowing where and when to step it becomes more clear when the lead moves with confidence even if they have not established all levels of "perfect" connection.  And issuing an invite, responding to the invite, then leading, and following, all require confidence, attitude, for the full expression of the dance.

Dance me.

* * *

So, those are some initial thoughts, three classes in. It is hard to believe that Tuesday will mark four classes.  Someone my first class suggested that I mark the date of my first class in my calendar, or in my diary (for the record, it was 8/2/16), or somewhere because then I could look back and say, "that is the very day it all started."  Perhaps I will say that.  Perhaps I will recognize the past that led me to that particular expression of Now as I dance from the past in the present.  I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that this is a momentary flash in the pan, the Universe offering me lessons that once learned, I'll move on from.  But for now, I recognize and acknowledge these serendipitous opportunities to learn, and thank the Universe and the Eternal Now for presenting them in such a lovely format.

Storms

Tonight is the first big Storm of the season. I love them for being big and furious and windy and rainy, but sometimes that love is in retrospect as in the moment I'm hearing what's landing on my roof and realizing that we are surrounded by trees many many times the height of our house.  It is occasionally of small comfort that the house and trees have lived together for the last 50ish years without incident, but having had a tree miss a house I was living in when I was young, but taking out the deck not five feet away left an impression! Though being me, I slept through the event...

Sipping a glass of whiskey and seltzer on the rocks, thinking it's probably time to do my refresher reading before we meet tomorrow. I have a tendency to read through things and by the time we're supposed to discuss, I've read so many other things in the meantime, I can't remember if the thing that comes to mind to discuss is from the reading our something else any more.

The other night I actually got out my incenses and burned a bunch of it. There's something about sitting and watching the incense smoke drift and curl and flicker in candle light. Easy to trance out on. Sometimes in those moments it becomes clear what is the work that must be done. In addition to some thank you offerings, I took care of some other stuff too. Am thinking what I did might be useful to repeat a few more times as well, though it's more involved than what I usually do.

The rain is coming down so hard it's steamy in here. Perhaps because the heat's on downstairs. And they're calling to me from down there, so perhaps I will take temporary leave from the immediacy of this storm and rejoin it later. Reading can wait, sort of like the henna I was going to do tonight... But mud and no power can be a problem and the lights have been flickering too.

Lost

Not really, but it's easy for me to get sidetracked away from the 'Saganist' side of my sense of awe of The Universe to the use of mythology to explore and better understand human experience.

I just came across this quote:

“The brain is a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. It is as if the Milky Way is engaging in a cosmic dance. The cortex is an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never a lasting one; with a shifting harmony of entrancing subpatterns.” --Charles Sherrington

For the last month? Two months?  I've been wandering around the internet late at night looking for, and even sometimes finding, information that resonates with me on Hekate.  More recently that has shifted to Athena as I have come to find that I, for the time being, have come to a sense of comfort with Hekate, and am finding that the qualities presented by Athena are areas in my life where I have need to focus some attention (strategy? civility? patterned technology? independent woman functioning in a strongly masculine sphere of influence?  Oh. Hell. Yes).

I don't actually "believe in" embodied gods/goddesses, but I find their attributes and affinities (codified social "energy"?) useful in identifying situational frameworks that enable (or are disabling and require modification, in some cases) functional behavior patterns.  Sometimes that starts slipping away from me, towards how to placate or ensure favor from something and that is simply not the relationship that I find fruitful or "awesome", in the awe-inspired sense, of my relationship to The Universe.

I am an animist, of a sort, in that every single thing that exists, exists as a unique expression of The Universe expressing itself through creativity and as such is imbued with a transitory, shifting life cycle state of being. Things are expressions of their Platonic ideal. Through this creative expression, spaces can have a genius loci, less in the literal sense of the word, but in that sense of character of a space.

Where am I going here.  I guess I'm just finding a pausing point to catch my breath, find my compass, reground to what I find literally awesome about The Universe, and what I find "merely" helpful in identifying and understanding situational anthropomorphic relationships and frameworks for best practices attributes and jumpstarting creative troubleshooting by accessing pattern libraries.  And to pause and be amazed at the complexity and the beauty in the natural world where I can crudely approximate the beauty and creativity of The Universe by weaving a recycled clothing rug for the bottom of my stairs or a silk and wool table runner, while my cortex contemplating all this has "millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern...; with a shifting harmony of entrancing subpatterns.”

So many threads to follow here and yet, a different weaving/work project calls.

More About The Ocean and Various Bits Of Homework

Food wasn't settling with me earlier and I'm not quite ready (and/or way past ready) for bed.

I'm having all the feels about the ocean and all the thoughts swirling around in my head.  The ocean, the edge of the world.  We drove through Olympia to get there.  The land south, but mostly west, of Olympia is so beautiful.  I remember my first week at Evergreen, first week away from my parents.  I didn't really know my roommates, maybe it was the first weekend?  Maybe it was the weekend before classes started?  I was feeling really overwhelmed and someone had mentioned that the ocean was only about an hour away.

I've always turned to driving when I need to get some space to think.  I used to intentionally drive around trying to get myself "lost", then come around to something that looked familiar and head home.  I don't get that sort if luxury with time any more.  I followed all the signs out to Ocean Shores.  When I got there, that first week of college, I saw horses, and thought that'd be fun, so I went for a ride on the beach.  The horse dragged it's feet going away from the temporary stall, as horses are wont to do.  It was a half hour ride.  It was just me, the horse, and the guy on his horse guiding.  We did a little trotting, a little cantering.  When we turned back, the horse was like, hell yeah, heading home and set off fast down the beach.  I didn't even care. I may have lost a stirrup at one point, but I think I got it back.

After that, we discovered Moclips up the beach a ways, the following year.  There were midnight trips to the beach just because we could, and it's amazing to be standing on the beach late at night.  I can't remember the last time I wore shoes on the ocean beaches.  Possibly only that first trip.  Even on trips in the middle of winter, no shoes.  The water is so cold that the feet numb up pretty quick, and then it doesn't matter.  I couldn't do that on the Salish Sea beaches, most of them -- barnacles, rocks, human detritus... I suppose eventually I might meet a piece of razor clam shell or broken glass out on the Pacific, or perhaps we'll get to a part of the beach that isn't sandy, and then I'll wear shoes... I guess.

Wading out into the water, salt water... Poseidon starts out at my ankles, splashes up my calves, edging ever up my legs.  He's cheeky, that one.  But only ever bodies of salt water that connect to the ocean.  I don't think I've ever met up with him in ponds and lakes.  Perhaps I've just never met a big enough lake...

Poseidon turned up for my warding and safety Shield exercise.  As did Athena.  There were, of course, some of the other usual suspects, but... I guess those two surprised me, and sort of didn't on retrospection.  Maybe it was in class, someone noted, 'pay attention to who shows up, those may be good candidates for building out other area of that relationship.'  Indeed... Athena has immediate resonance for many reasons, and circled through in multiple ways over time.  Poseidon, he's been a fairly playful tease, but... Dunno.  Especially given the relationship between him and Athena and it would seem women generally -- like a number of the other Olympians, not especially respectful of us, but perhaps there is something that requires further exploration nonetheless. We shall see.

Have always sort of thought of practices for these two having been sort of more official state type business than solitary, more personal practices.  Have not looked up Poseidon yet, but Athena (so far) seems largely spoken of in terms of the past.  Just means I have not looked far enough yet.

So I have started the shield.  I'm weaving it together night over night.  I am already glad of it, I have been too open to the world and it has been draining.

So many more thoughts swirling in my head.  So tired.  And as M1 says, "tomorrow morning -- it's A  Thing."  And a thing coming quickly at that.  And another full crazy week, with so much to do. Will try to take note here of what more comes of these thoughts.  But for now, I go feed stinky old lady cat and do my day end stuff.  And maybe I'll check my calendar and see if I could get away with sleeping in just a bit in the morning...

Ocean

After the swim meet, we drove out to the ocean.  Hello, my old friend!

The Universe Speaks to Each of Us

Somewhere once I read something about spirituality, particularly animistic practices, being location-based.  This old tree is made of the essence of something alive, that pile of stones is made of the bones and atoms of the Universe, the shower curtain, if you care to think of it in this way, is made of star dust. The energy, created by atoms swirling around each other, is different in the desert, in the forest, at the top of a mountain, down by the edge of the ocean, inside vs. outside.  The ‘characters’ one finds in each place may share some similarities, may be ‘the same’, may not be.

I was sort of worried that recently I’ve been anthropomorphizing Hekate (crossroads, liminal space, thresholds) and Tara (deep compassion) too much lately, given my stated non-belief in “deity”, but the naming itself is part of what gives boundaries & defines thresholds (yes, even around you, Hekate) and helps us understand our own traverse through space/location (physical, psyche, or otherwise) and experience.  One of the things we discussed during my undergraduate years was what is “Truth” — facts can be strung together to create untruths, and a piece of wholly fabricated, fantastical fiction can contain truths more elegantly expressed than anything “real”.  This is as true for spirituality as it is for more mundane matters.  The Universe speaks to each of us in our own way, and one of the things that I really like about my favorite peoples’ stated and practiced position is that they/we [hold space for] and [practice radical diversity from] and [acceptance of] one another (within defined ethical boundaries).

We all have our own personal practices and beliefs, that we all bring something unique to the table to share that the rest of us can learn from, enjoy vicariously if we can't/don't access The Universe, God/dess/es, Kami, Devas, Loas (and respectfully All The Rest) in the same ways our fellow travelers can/do is a powerful reminder that we are strengthened through our diversity. In building out strong groups of people, one looks to balance one's weakness (not quite the word I'm looking for) with others' complementary strengths – why should spiritual practice be any different?