Tango Can Save The World

               At a milonga, a place where tango is danced, it is not polite to pass another couple while dancing. This is an important custom to observe because conforming to it teaches us a lot about how we should conduct our lives.

               As we move around the room together, as a couple in a crowd, synchronicity becomes a challenge. A pair of dancers in front of us slows down for whatever reason, to embellish or as a response to traffic before them. This is a moment for us to work on a different set of skills: moving to the music without advancing forward.

               When we do this, we become like birds in flight or fish in a school. Collectively, we achieve natural synchronicity. This is one of the greatest benefits of tango: it helps us to realize that we are part of a group and that we must move together and not alone.

               Now, turn off the music and apply this concept to ordinary living, where the general cacophony of sounds is the music to which we must dance. An obstacle is placed before us, be it an orphaned animal or a person in need of assistance; this is our chance to hone a different set of life skills, to prove who we are: callous participants bypassing the couple in front of us, or compassionate human beings who stop and care for someone, or something, that needs our attention.

               In the 21^st Century, we are overwhelmed by calls for help because we have access to so much information. It is easy to become inured to everything…but don’t let that happen. If you just work on the obstacles you encounter, each and every day, the rest of the problems will take care of themselves.

             

For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.

The Dark Truth about Valentine and Tango

               Valentine’s Day is a happy day born out of a dark circumstance. Somewhere in antiquity, a man gave his life for a woman. It was a noble act but not a singular one. Many men, all around the world, have done the same. This day is a celebration of the intense, driving passion of those men.
               It is a day when every woman wishes to be the object of desire of such a man.

               There is a dark side to our hearts that some people fear. In the sunlight, we tend to have a genial opinion of ourselves. When the sun goes down, however, something stirs in our id. It grows inside of us when we sleep and is an integral theme woven into our dreams. We become aware of it when the lights dim and we feel it trying to take of control our bodies.

               We don’t generally think of this thing favorably, yet it is a part of our psyche that has to be freed from its confines in our minds. It does not ask permission. It’s as big as the stars in the sky and it is hot and cold at the same time. It’s mysterious and volatile, like a swift current in the river or a strong undertow in the tide.

                Some of us try to hide it but it is an expert in revealing itself to the world. 

                Once it's awake, it will head for an exit unless we lock that door. Each time it finds an outlet blocked, it gets faster at finding the next one. Maniacally, it always goes back to the other gates, hoping to find a weak spot.

               If a person succeeds in containing this beast, he/she becomes agitated. This anxious state is caused by the ethereal creature racing around inside them at increasingly faster speeds, continually probing defenses and looking for new ways to escape.

               This is what hell is: a person determined to harness this inner-voice that one day becomes a monster. Stubbornly, because of a flaw in their DNA, they try to suppress it, regardless of the physical toll it extracts until it becomes an indescribable torment.

               Eventually, it metastasizes into a cancer that cannot be let out as it darts around the host’s body, wearing holes in the paths it makes through the stomach, the groin, the nervous system and the brain.

               This unrelenting dog has a name and it is called Passion. Like a dog, it needs to be exercised regularly or it will chew up the furniture when you are not home.

               It needs acknowledgement, proof that it is alive. It wants to be seen, heard, felt, experienced, by another being. It is not satisfied with an existence as an unexpressed idea, it has to make love, it has to move to the music....it has to dance!

               When we dance tango, we give this creature a chance to run free. It is not our enemy, it is a part of us and it helps us to be better dancers, to move not just to the rhythm but to the melody, as well.

               If we keep dancing, we eventually find a balance between the light and the dark sides of ourselves. When we achieve equilibrium, then we finally know peace.

               Happy Valentine’s Day, baby, now go find yourself some peace:-)



For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.

Herodotus and Tango

                I often wonder what the first historian, Herodotus, would have thought about the Tango. His chronicles of ancient cultures often describe customs that we would consider bizarre today. Whatever our perception, these rituals were social mechanisms that helped people cope with the realities of being human while living and working together in a community. 

                These traditions offered each society a different way to deal with things like sexuality, puberty, old age, marriage, etc.

                He tells us about the Lydian girls who earn their own dowry through prostitution, how elderly Scythians commit suicide at a feast and are then eaten by the rest of the tribe, how Egyptian wives shopped while their husbands stayed at home weaving baskets.

               Herodotus is the person responsible for letting us know that the Persians invented democracy.

               If he had gone to Buenos Aires, I’m certain he would have written about this dance of the Argentineans known to us as Tango.

               In today’s fast-paced cyber-world, two people touching can be an awkward situation. Tango is popular today because it satiates a hunger in modern societies, an urge to socialize in a way that is both recreational and provides an opportunity to make physical contact with another person in a way that is meaningful. 

               One might argue that other dances also fill the same void but I would say that is not so. 

               The tango connection is crucial to this dance, as is spontaneous choreography. In other dances: salsa, swing, etc., partners frequently disengage from the embrace. These other dances are also heavily reliant on patterns which, I believe, stifles creativity, a necessary nutrient for mental health.

               For some of us, there comes a time in our lives when we are so scarred from life’s battles that we need a place to retreat and to heal. Tango is such a refuge.

               In a world where medicine tries to cure every ill with a pill, our bodies seek out another, more natural remedy. Instinctively, we seem to know that a myriad of prescriptions is not the answers to what ails us.

                I have to wonder if this is not the first revival of tango in the annals of history. 

                Maybe one day, we will find a clay vase filled with descriptions of people who danced to the rhythm and the melody as one body; people who needed to escape the monumental demands of a culture building a pyramid or a Great Wall or whatever; people who found healing by sharing their passion with another, through a dance called the Tango.

Tango and Cowgirls

        

               So far, the Carrie Field/Mike Malixi tango workshop in Durango has been a success! With over forty people in attendance for the first night, this high-desert, Rocky Mountain community proves once more the independent nature of the people of the American West.

               Tango grows in multicultural communities. Durango, apparently, is rich soil with a population comprised of large numbers of Asian and European immigrants.

               It is not just our demographics, however, that provides a fertile environment for this Argentine cultural import; it is the presence of our cowgirls. That’s right, I said ‘COWGIRLS’.

               Durango is populated by a breed of incredibly independent women who are the new pioneers of the American West.

               They are accomplished professionals who can argue the merits of riding a BMW as opposed to a Harley-Davidson, just as well as discussing the finer points of homeopathic orthodontics. These ladies are as likely to be fly-fishing river guides on the San Juan River as they are to be Air Rescue EMTs and flight mechanics.

               Durango is a hard place to make a living but those that do are a rare breed. They are the world’s most interesting women and we are glad to have them here, in Durango, the place where the West was won!

               

Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/353689751341313/

check out our webpage: http://www.tangodurango.com/

Be a Happy Girl and get your ass to Durango:

Polar Vortex Spirit Animal Orgies

               I met my spirit animal last night in a dream. I guess that is what I am doing here in Wisconsin, coming far enough north to meet the polar vortex so I can feel its spirit when I sleep.

               It was a strange dream, as most are, but it was also a dream within a dream.

               The surface dream had me outdoors running with a crowd of people through woods and open fields in the hills. I came to realize that some of the people were agitated and getting worked up to do violence.

               Then I fell into my sub-surface dream where I was in a small village of wooden cabins. Staring out the window, I saw a large polar bear come into the tiny cluster of shacks. I remember feeling afraid because the animal was very large and it could easily eat me.

               It walked away but I was now aware that being outdoors was not safe as long as this animal was around. I walked outside anyway and it returned.

               I was very fearful because I was certain I could not make it back to the safety of the cabin once the bear attacked me. I sensed that it was aware of my presence but it chose to ignore me, or maybe it just decided to coexist with me.

               It was gone and a grey haired woman with a bowl-shaped hair cut stood on the unpainted porch of an adjacent building. It was a souvenir shop.

               I told her about the bear and she said it was The Spirit Bear and it was everywhere, all the time.

               A young woman, whom I somehow knew was the old woman, took my ethereal form into another room and showed me my spiritual chart on a green chalkboard. She said there was a spike in my chart.

               The diagram looked like petals of a flower drawn by a child. From the right side of a crude circle were two lines arcing to the right. There was a dotted line in the middle like it was a highway.

               She took a reading and determined the length of my life. I can remember feeling relieved to find it would not be short as she led me back to the other room where the old lady was giving instructions to my physical form. She was inviting me to a gathering later in the evening.

               Then I was back in the fields with the crowd. I came to realize it was a religious retreat. Half of us were mesmerized by the gaze of a man passing by on a train. A horn sounded and those of us who were hypnotized raised our arms straight up in the air.

               We started walking towards the other half of our group, the people who had become agitated. As we interspersed with the others, we put our arms around them.

               I was excited to see who I was chosen to hug. It was a woman in her thirties with short brown hair. She was talking nonstop about the history of the Indians in this area. I was delighted because history is my favorite subject.

               I was certain I knew more than she but I enjoyed hearing her talk as I began leading her by the hand to a special spot in the woods, down by a creek. It was a place I knew she would love because Indians had camped there and there were many artifacts to be found.

               Along the way, we met my girlfriend. I gave her a hug and we kissed. She had another woman with her and had instructions for more rituals to be completed before we went to tonight’s event.

               We each swallowed two pills and washed them down with water from tiny bottles. Then we took out our wallets to have our credit cards blessed but I couldn’t find mine.

               The brown-haired woman with me was now a young girl with wild jet-black hair and she was asking if I knew anything about Africa. She became a young man and he asked me if I knew where Gaanz was and then if I knew the Swahili word for instant mashed potatoes.

               Then I was walking up a hill with my girlfriend towards a large building that was some sort of resort hotel. Inside was a multiracial gathering of about forty couples. The hosts alluded to a surprise that was coming but first we all had to watch an instructional video on a large screen TV.

               The video began with porn and then morphed into commercials for soda and soap products. A Facebook post popped into my mind and I found myself agreeing with it. It was posted by a tango instructor and it cautioned young people about porn, likening it to unrealistic expectations as to when the plumber will arrive.

               I went and sat down, bored by the presentation and wise to the true intent of the meeting: using sex to sell us time-sharing or some other ruse to get our money.

               My girlfriend and I got in our car and drove away. She was driving. I told her we could join the swingers if she wanted but she just grumbled something that I took for, “maybe if I was younger.”

               I tried to get a clarification on what she said but that just darkened her mood. I tried to change the subject but accidently chose a related topic and dug the hole deeper. It was going to be a long ride so I woke up.

For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.