My recent experiences jarred my reality to the point where I have needed time to just adjust to a different perspective concerning – which is the dream? What I knew before SFTX (San Francisco Tango Exchange) is that I had swallowed the RED PILL.  What I did not know at the time were the outcomes and ramifications of my ingestion, which began to uncloak themselves during SFTX.  Though I intended to blog sooner, I needed to assimilate and calibrate – I am still in process.

On a sunny and cool Thursday afternoon in the heart of San Francisco, Alice (a vibrant Australian tanguera) and I witnessed the unfurling of our interconnectedness.     As we enjoyed our distinctively non-American coffee drinks (they were strong) at a European bistro, we expressed our enchantment at how our synchronicities spanned 2 1/2 years.

Our first visible layer of connection started in August 2008.  Alice called me to inquire about Tango privates.  She was in Boulder visiting her daughter and wanted instruction.  She chose me from a list of Tango instructors listed on Tango Colorado’s website, and confessed that my website’s name, Tango For Life, called to her with a knowing that I could teach her.

We worked together for about 12 hours in less than 2 weeks in a remodeled basement made into a Tango studio complete with a sprung oak floor, two walls of mirrors, a bathroom, and a spare bedroom for visiting instructors or tangueros/as.  At the end of our time together, Alice proclaimed triumph and amazement at her Tango transformation through our work.  Later upon dancing in Australia, she detailed the delight dancers displayed at her new-found dance skills.  I revealed to her my joy at being a facilitator of her process, and underlying fulfillment in how well we worked together.

We kept in touch via e-mail.  Then on May 11th this year, Alice informed me she would be traveling through Colorado and would like to take another round of privates.  After a few e-mail exchanges and phone calls, Alice synchronized her schedule to meet me in San Francisco on her way back to Australia while I was at SFTX.  I was not sure of my schedule to Salt Lake City or San Francisco until a week before I left, but Alice needed to book her ticket so she did and hoped we would meet.

Alice wanted to meet enough that she made sure we could meet in a far off city, if even for a couple of hours of instruction .  Showing up is one of the traits I treasure the most, and I respond to people showing up.  Alice called me four hours after I arrived at Berkley, not knowing if I had even left Colorado.  What she also did not know is that I had planned on meeting her before the Cellspace milonga that night.  I had to go out of my comfort zone to get to her hotel in SF from Berkley using public transportation.

Two things propelled me to go out of my comfort zone – one is that Alice showed up, and two, I felt drawn.  It seemed events were lining up to meet with her, as I began to follow dreamtime space.  Only rare occasions has life compelled me to follow and allow myself to be guided by dipping briefly into dreamtime space.  In dreamtime space I just let my environment be a metaphor of what and how I am creating my experience.

What does dreamtime space look like?  As an example:  as I now write, I am sitting on my California king bed in my RV with my kitty snuggled up on my right, laptop upon my lap, the Fantastic Fan drawing outside air through the RV interior, and I am still a little hot.  Three lights are on, 2 high spectrum florescent, 1 normal florescent.  Allowing myself to drop into dreamtime space, I acknowledge I have a loyal companion at all times for me (cat), the lighting is low and surreal where I am in a bit of a limbo with my own sight of which is dream, and being a little hot I am a bit stale in my life, needing a fresh breeze of movement, and the fan’s incessant background noise reminds me of the noise I create that blocks deep listening.

So which is dream?  Even though I am making meaning and metaphor out of my environment, perhaps this meaning (dream) is more accurate than what appears in life (reality) thereby making reality actually the dream.  Some would say this is so – that what I see “reality” is the dream- for what I see is just what I have created, not reality.  And what is more real is the fact that I as source can dream and create experiences and events very different than what is appearing now.  Some would say EVERYTHING I have experienced, including all events and people are just my creation – the dream, different than the origin of the creation – I as source – reality .

Which is the dream?