Since I returned from SFTX (San Francisco Tango Exchange) where I became unplugged from the Tango Matrix, my experience of Tango has altered.  I can sum up my experiences as “living between the Tango beats.”  Years ago I became aware of how much exists between the beats in Tango music.  Now I sense that I just entered the space between the beats of Life.  Here is some of what has altered.

Tango Transformation is Life Transformation

I used to dance mostly two Tandas with a woman, now usually one.  I have chosen to dance with women that I have not danced with in a long time.  I do not enjoy some woman as much as I used to.  I am more conscious of the unconscious behaviors of people working to get dances, relate, learn and love.  I love Tango music even more.  I am more aware as an observer of my own dancing.  I do not compromise my posture and balance for any woman anymore.

I do not enjoy some things I used to enjoy in my Tango vocabulary or musicality choices.  I am much less interested in dancing, yet am dancing more.  I am dancing with more less skilled dancers, and aware how some of the skilled dancers just don’t interest me as much for they don’t follow as I thought.  I have noticed how many follows are not truly following, but just recognizing patterns and performing them.  However, the less skilled follows actually follow more for they do not know what to expect so they are listening.

And as in Tango, as in Life – as I have become unplugged, I am exploring how I want to make my way in the world.  My view has been altered, and therefore I need to walk a different path.  Here is a story that exemplifies some of my more common experiences these days.

On my way down to Denver on last Tuesday, I called a friend to say hi.  He asked me where I was, and upon telling him I was 30 minutes from a destination in Lakewood, he replied that he was a quarter mile away from my destination, waiting for people to join him for lunch.  He invited me to join him.  I happened to be on my way to a business appointment, but decided to be 45 minutes early to work on Tango DJ’ing.  So I conveniently had the extra time and joined him.

What wonderful timing – synchronicity at work.  This man happens to be finishing a book, which imparts life wisdom and great how-to’s on safety from a collection of stories during his important work in government agencies – VERY important work.  Because of his work, we are all safer when we fly in airplanes.  I admire this friend in no small way.  Not only is he brilliant, artistic, creative, funny and a good man, he MAKES A DIFFERENCE in peoples’ lives.

I used to want to make a big difference.  I volunteered a good amount of time in noble pursuits such as initiating men into manhood through the Mankind Project, or staffing for LGAT’s (large group awareness trainings) such as Landmark Education Corp. or fun pursuits such as leading trips for a large ski club in Madison, Wisconsin – Hoofers.

I guess I made a difference here and there.  As a therapist I know I made a difference.  However, I let my clients go for most of them did not do their homework.  They really did not take action to make their lives better, but just wanted me to make things better for them.  Why did I bother?  5-10% of my clients actually did their homework.  Perhaps everything I did was just for the 5-10%.

Why am I even writing on this subject of making a difference?  In the Tango Matrix I am staring at foundational beliefs of how I think the Universe works.  I call this an ontological cosmology.  So I am experiencing a clash of cosmologies where I have a choice of different cosmologies, but the choice I want to make is radical.  Really radical.  I will make different life choices depending on the cosmology I choose.

Ulysses left me with these words, “Breath more between the beats.  Follow your desire.  Allow your calling to call. You will collide with treasures waiting for you at one of your next turns…”

Unplugging from the Tango Matrix, one sees behind the curtain of just a dance...

Metaphorical wires connecting me to the Tango Matrix appeared as I began to wake from a long sleep.  I experienced more joy than I had in quite awhile.  My recent adventures in San Francisco with Alice, my energetic Australian friend, transcended mere walking, eating and Tango training.  An obvious bond had sprung up, relating a knowingness that we seemed destined to meet.  Synchronicities abounded as I became unplugged.

On Wednesday afternoon, Alice and I met up at the Donatello hotel, and as my last name is Donatiu, the serendipity was not lost on me nor Alice.  I called my father to let him know the name of the hotel as I sat in the lobby waiting for Alice to come down- he enjoyed hearing of the coincidence.  Alice had usually chosen the Donatello hotel when she traveled through San Francisco.

Which is the dream?  Was it mere coincidence that her hotel’s name was the closest hotel in San Francisco that one can get to my last name?  Or was her hotel choice a harbinger of our meeting and magical times to come?  Alice and I worked on her Tango foundation for 90 minutes, had Thai food and got a cab with a crazy non-stop talking driver to Cellspace for the milonga that night.  The next day conjured magic.

Thursday began with 90 minutes of Tango training, sushi for lunch, a walk around the city – mostly Union square, and then some special work on what I call Urban Tango Training.  As we ascended very steep hills I taught her solid fundamental technique on how to fully load the weighted hip while relaxing the free leg and hip – full weight transfers from free leg to free leg.  When weight transfers are done correctly up and down steep hills, one is not tired but actually more energized, relaxed and easily able to ascend and descend while feeling pleasure in the hips, legs, ankles and feet.

We both acknowledged that we wanted really good coffee, and quickly found just the right European bistro.  Over the delicious coffee drinks, we realized we had both participated in Pulpo’s week in 2005 in Buenos Aires.  She related that she watched me dance and wanted to someday take lessons with me.  Upon first meeting me in Boulder for privates, she mentioned to her daughter who drove her to the studio that I looked like a guy from Pulpo’s week – then she did not think it was me and never mentioned anything again until at the bistro.

Back at another 90 minutes of training, and then we went off in search of a restaurant to celebrate Alice’s new Tango transformation and understandings.  We wanted just the right restaurant, and knew we were both willing to wait, for the right place anticipated us.  After 25 minutes of walking and checking out over 17 restaurants, we saw in the distance what we both though would be the right establishment.  And sure enough, we walked into a high end grill/ steakhouse with an Argentinean flair – Italian architecture, great meat and Italian items on the menu, and black and white photos on the wall commemorating snapshots of almost a century of history this restaurant witnessed.  The meal entranced me with just the right spices, tastes, smells, texture, sweet and savory flavors, and fulfillment.  Happy man!

Alice and I said our goodbye’s, and I headed back to SFTX.  The rest of SFTX got more interesting, for as I disconnected from the Tango Matrix, reality and dream co-mingled, meaning I noticed more connections and synchronicities.  In addition, I felt more gratitude and connection to my Self and others.  This disconnect from the Tango Matrix brought me closer to living in dreamtime space.

And then events occurred that I hoped for one day, but did not expect…

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?

I have snatched cubic centimeter of chances.  One of these special portals to vast life change appeared at night in Madison, WI as a friend mentioned some small psychotherapy learning program.  I felt something inside compel me to ask its name and location.  Shortly thereafter, I called this program in Boulder, CO, applied to it and set up a visit.  A couple weeks later I visited the school.  Three months later I moved, engaged in full time classes in a 2 year Masters program in Jungian, Archetypal and Transpersonal psychotherapy from this learning center named Avalon Institute.  Obviously my life executed a profoundly different beneficial trajectory ushered from the cubic centimeter of chance I seized.

As a psychotherapist, life coach, seminar facilitator and attendee at many personal growth seminars, I had the privilege to witness 1000’s of people endeavor and work at consciously evolving themselves.  During this time, I also witnessed dozens of individuals pass up potential cubic centimeter of chances.  The same occurs in Tango, as in the course of my Tango travels I have glimpsed possible portals to vast life change present themselves to individuals.

Yet, what fascinates me is how many people in Tango do not see nor seize their cubic centimeter of chance.  In effect, they take the blue pill of the Tango Matrix by leaving Tango or allowing Tango to be just a dance.

The Blue Pill offers bliss in ignorance, but also potentially leads to unexplainable dissatisfaction in Tango & Life

For years a phenomena in Tango has yanked me to disturbing confirmations, time and again.  I refer to this phenomena of when Tango enthusiasts grow dissatisfied with Tango and eventually quit.  I recently read a defunct blog where the tanguera describes in many of her last entries a growing dissatisfaction and fears with Tango.  Did she wonder if a lot more exists in Tango, and Tango is truly a metaphor of life?  I wonder how often how one deals with their dissatisfactions in Tango is akin to dealing with their dissatisfactions in life?  How often is giving up on Tango taking the blue pill?

I e-mailed a draft of this entry and the last to Ulysses.  He responded with these gripping words:

For many of your readers, your entries, particularly the cubic centimeter of chance and the blue pill, WILL BE THEIR cubic centimeter of chance, their portal!  They will feel a tug, hear a murmur, see a shimmer, taste a morsel, smell a whiff or sense that these words promise a  deeper truth of a portal.

But sadly most will dismiss this tug, murmur, shimmer, morsel, whiff and promise as whimsical, wistful or wishful.  They will miss their cubic centimeter of chance, perhaps the last one to tender itself  in their Tango world.  And they may even swallow the blue pill, forever cut off from the power Tango holds.

Notwithstanding, a few will seize their cubic centimeter of chance – their red pill awaits...

I am alert for a cubic centimeter of chance to come my way as I flirt with swallowing the red pill to access the Tango Matrix.  Don Juan in Carlos Castenada’s book, Journey to Ixtlan, explains the cubic centimeter of chance:

“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time.  The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess to pick it up…  Usually we are too busy, or too preoccupied, or just too stupid and lazy to realize that that is our cubic centimeter of luck.  A warrior, on the other hand, is always alert and tight and has the spring, the gumption necessary to grab it.”

CUBIC CENTIMETER OF CHANCE --- Will you see and grab your chance before it quickly passes, forever gone?

In my own words a cubic centimeter of chance is a portal to vast life change that opens but for a short time – a few seconds to perhaps a few days.  Once that portal closes, it is closed forever, and you may have to wait years before another comes your way.  However, once you step through this portal, your life immediately executes a profoundly different beneficial trajectory.

Throughout the world of Argentine Tango, I believe these special portals emerge more often than with other activities, because what Tango demands.  Tango demands of its participants: greater intimacy; reflections of social status; a look at social behaviors; greater awareness of personal beliefs of self and others; examination of relationships with friends and significant others; and understand and feeling more deeply our own body.  Tango demands act as lightening rods, attracting portals to vast life change, similar to how psychotherapy and other personal growth modalities attract portals.

I have missed possible portals, or cubic centimeter of chances.   For example, I once stood in line at a Wild Oats grocery store in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  A woman and I made eyes at each other.  I felt some knowing and depth with her, way more than simple chemistry.  A portal opened, yet I did not jump through it by talking with her.

I wonder to this day if my life would have taken a profoundly different beneficial trajectory.  Perhaps in talking with her we would have hooked up, I would have begun an amazing relationship and moved to Santa Fe.  Perhaps she would have imparted life changing information, or conceivably nothing would have come of it.  I still wonder…

What other cubic centimeter of chances have I missed?  What if a portal I already let go offered a red pill to the Tango Matrix?