Tango Takes Us to New Dimensions

 In the beginning, according to Tolkien, there was nothing except the sound, a tone, steady yet silent, for in the nether, there was nothing to hear in the nothingness. The vapid void begat new chords and became the song from which the Universe sprung. A consequence of the cosmic choir, Time, gave rise to Harmony and Rhythm and they are the basis of all things.

In the present day, quantum physicists have discovered, after rigorous inquiry into the fundamental components of all matter, that there is nothing but frequency and vibration at the subatomic level; which frequencies are present and how they vibrate are dependent on what is experienced by a sentient observer. It is difficult to peer into the machinations of the quantum realm without expensive scientific equipment but I’ve found another way: Tango, it is the Way.

The more Tango I dance, the more I dream about dancing Tango. While I was dancing tango around the desert in New Mexico and Colorado, I began taking melatonin, a common sleep-aid supplement. It gave me the most incredible nightmares, only they weren’t really scary, just very vivid to the point I had a hard time convincing myself they were not merely illusions. I think they’re real. Something that happens in the subconscious shouldn’t be automatically discounted as worthy of further investigation, we might be experiencing an aspect of another dimension and not a cerebral fantasy. 

Kudos out there to all you dream research scientists, your work is more important than you realize.

In trying to understand String Theory, a phenomenon of quantum physics that proposes the existence of up to nine more dimensions, I find it difficult to conceive what such a dimension would even be like. Height, Width, Length and Time are the four known dimensions. If more exist, surely we must be able to perceive them. They’re probably sitting right in front of our noses and we can’t convince ourselves that they are unique facets of the Universe in need of further study because of our biases. I have to wonder if other species experience an awareness of these dimensions that are unknown to humans, like cats, they are able to do things we find impossible to comprehend. For example, cats always land on their feet, even when there is not enough space or time to fall. Could it be that they can access a realm without time, a facet of Reality where they are able to manipulate their bodies so they arrive on the ground with all four paws hitting first. 

It is well-known that our brains are able to deceive us, making us believe we are somewhere we are not. That’s what PTSD is. I experienced it once after a dangerous ocean crossing on a forty foot sloop that I crewed on a trip from Rhode Island to the Virgin Islands via Bermuda. For a month afterwards I woke up on the ship and, even though I knew I was not on the boat anymore, I couldn’t see anything of where I actually was, all I saw/smelled/heard/felt was the ship and an angry ocean.

I like to imagine that the Dreamworld is another dimension of Reality. When we die and our consciousness leaves our fleshy vessels, we continue on without them into the world we thought was just our imaginations. I wonder if Time doesn’t exist in the Dreamworld because events there are not experienced in chronological order yet seem so logical. In the nighttime theater of my mind I understand many things even though no words are spoken. Maybe it is better to say that language is not necessary here because meaning is conveyed in a manner we cannot yet fathom. I find it funny that recollections of Close Encounters with Aliens say much the same thing about how the Aliens communicated with their human captives. Sometimes I wonder that speech may be an impediment to the efficient exchange of ideas between sentient beings.

I don’t see a way we can gather any concrete evidence to prove or disprove what I am postulating about this mysterious realm. If we open our minds to the possibility that it is real, we can at least think a lot about it and try to make headway with the few clues we have been given.

Tango’s superpower is that it allows us to easily connect to the Universe. By joining with another in the company of others and moving in Harmony to the Rhythm of tango music, we can reach a place of subconscious awareness—a state where we perceive the minds of others and their intentions/desires without relying on physical communication, such as facial expressions, vocalizations, or body language. This is the Melody of Life and it does not care about Time for it can exist by Itself. In the space between the tandas, if we are lucky, we sometimes find ourselves in the quantum realm somewhere near the Dreamworld, for here is a place where language is of little use. When the music ends we send out our souls to find another to share our space. Perhaps, in opening our minds to new possibilities we will find the person of our dreams is not just a figment of our imaginations after all.

P.S. If you are curious about other ideas of mine, check out my new Book: Kokapelli in the Wiccans' Kitchen.

 

 

Tango, to Infinity and Beyond!

,I continue with my exploration of the physical world that I am learning is nothing more than a wave or vibration at the quantum level and veer off down the rabbit hole of Reality. Taking care of my parents in their waning years makes me think about what is on the other side of Living when our corporeal shell ceases growth and begins a permanent decay without our consciousness in it. Buddha tells us that Life is an illusion and that we are nothing; that, in being nothing, we are everything…or words to that effect.

In my previous posts of late I have been postulating that tango allows us to join in the collective consciousness and become one with the Universe via a combination of physical contact, psychological/spiritual/emotional connection all while moving in harmony with other couples to the vibrations and rhythms of tango music. In my mind, I am conducting scientific study through my obsession with this seductive, South American martial art: tango dancing.

When brain activity ceases, what awaits us on the other side? Of late, I have been entertaining the theory that the ‘Other Side’ is the same world that we live in in our dreams; what we do in the so-called ‘Real World’ is somehow important to what is happening to us in the dreamworld and vice versa. 

Maybe our time spent in fleshy containers is an opportunity of some sort to help us in the afterlife. If I follow that tangent I find myself abandoning scientific inquiry and pursuing a religious explanation for what is and why I am here. If our actions cause us to have violent nightmares, the byproduct of a guilty conscience, maybe we need to think about what we are doing with our time here on Earth. Maybe there is a reward of sorts for living a good life.

Dancing tango a lot makes me dream about dancing. I cannot say what lies beyond but I like the idea of walking a moral path in the hope of spending eternity in bliss, dancing at a never-ending milonga.

Peace, Love, Tango,

The Kayak Hombre

Don't forget to buy my latest book: Kokapelli in the Wiccans' Kitcthen. Click the pic for a link to it on Amazon:

Quantum Entangoment

 There is a dimensional plane that tango takes us to sometimes that we may or may not appreciate for what it is: a place where verbal and physical communication is not necessary, a place where we convey our meaning without the need for words or body language. In my continuing attempt to understand how tango reveals mysterious facets of the universe, I have become enamoured with a concept called quantum entanglement.

Here is what the internet says about quantum entanglement,”it is a bizarre quantum physics phenomenon where two or more particles become linked, sharing the same fate so that measuring a property of one instantly influences the state of the other(s), regardless of the vast distance separating them.This interconnectedness, described by a single quantum state, allows these particles to behave as one system.” 

My interpretation of quantum entanglement is that sometimes things seem connected even though there is no discernible medium between the two objects and the distance between them is irrelevant. They could be next door or the next galaxy but the result is the same and instantaneous.

I imagine that the mental connection between twins or a couple that has been married for a long time would be good examples of this. They sometimes seem to know what the other is experiencing, even at a distance. I believe this happens at some milongas. All it takes is some good vibes among the crowd and a killer DJ and we have us a multi-personal, multi-dimensional experience of the quantum-kind that would devastate a novice and intoxicate experienced tango dancers.

Yes, you could say it is a case of similar nurturing resulting in similar thinking and you may be right but I wish to believe it is something else, that I am experiencing a connection with my partner that allows me to communicate my intentions, to my partner and to the crowd, telepathically, or maybe we achieve a quantum entangoment of some sort that is impossible to describe.

Quantum entangoment flows from the couples to the attendees and is proven by the use of cabeceos after the tanda ends. At this moment you can feel the eyes upon you and the intentions of others in the room. There is a cacophony of desires being expressed and appreciated all at once when the music stops.The ears only hear the shuffling of feet but the hearts hear everything else.

Peace, Love, Tango

Kayak Hombre

p.s. Don't forget to check out my latest book, Kokapelli in the Wiccans' Kitchen.

Tango, the South American Martial Art of Love Takes Us to the Godplane

 In my tango travels I met a woman who was an ardent believer in the Law of Attraction. Consequently, I spent a considerable amount of time reading about this theory of the universe and its origins. I came to the conclusion that proponents of this belief were underestimating the amount of participation necessary to yield measurable results. It could all be bullshit but I try to be open-minded. The examples I read about involved hundreds of people but I’m guessing, and it is just a frivolous shot in the dark, billions of participants are needed. Religions claim to be able to affect results but there is no proof of causality. 

Here is what the Internet says about this philosophy:

“The law of attraction is the belief that positive or negative thoughts can bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life. The core principle is "like attracts like," meaning your dominant thoughts and beliefs, whether conscious or subconscious, attract corresponding circumstances to you.”

It is basically the irresistible allure of every religion that requires adherents to pray for what they want and how they want this world to be. I believe there is some truth to this but it is not a force in the universe that you could hitch your wagon to. I think people who are drawn to the Law of Attraction are too hopeful or naive about their ability to harness its power. 

The secrets of the universe are usually profound but seemingly subtle until we discover their true nature. Each civilization reaches a level of understanding of these mysteries and then they are discarded as the wheel of time rolls forward. I believe our current civilization is at the point now of unlocking the key to many of those mysteries with leaps in computing power and our ability to gather information from beyond the confines of our own planet.

When we do things with other people in unison, e.g. clapping, singing, etc., we feel a certain amount of exhilaration equal in proportion to its complexity and the number of creatures participating. The fundamental building blocks of the universe are frequency and vibration. Both definitions of frequency apply here: repetition and radiation. I guess vibration and radiation are kinda the same thing but it is better to say too much than too little. Two people clapping sounds nice but two dancers connecting physically, mentally, spiritually to each other, to the music, to the crowd and even the very fabric of space, is cosmic.

A yogi may attain enlightenment after years of meditation but a couple dancing tango may do it in one night. That is why I say Tango is the South American Martial Art of Love. It is akin to tai chi in that each person must move with utmost intention but that is where the similarity ends. Learning how to move is only the precursor to getting two humans to connect to the Godplane, or whatever we are going to call that place touched by our souls that keeps us coming back for more.

The very fabric of space exists but it is unmeasurable, maybe that is a good example of another dimension. I find it impossible to imagine what another dimension beyond the space/time dimensions might be like. I kind of feel like this tango connection to the partner/crowd/universe might give us a clue as to what one is. I propose that it is possible for a group of people to experience another dimension by joining together in body, thought and motion to music. I’m going to call this perripoling.

Perripoling is what happens when the crowd of dancers at a milonga, the place where tango is danced, achieve synchronicity with the Universe. It doesn’t happen all the time and not all dancers experience it, but those that do are affected. I know, I have been affected. It is a feeling that doesn’t happen all at once, it unfolds in my memory of the event as I continue my life after the dance is over. A week later and I am still processing just what it is that I experienced. It is a feeling that I will never be able to describe other than one of satisfaction.

Quantum Theory’s bastard child, String Theory, postulates the existence of more than four dimensions. Just what they may be we do not know but I do not believe they are beyond our abilities to perceive, it is just very difficult. Just like the Law of Attraction, I think we underestimate how much effort is needed to achieve awareness. It is possible we experience other dimensions all the time but we just don’t realize it when it happens. When we dance tango, we sometimes achieve awareness of another dimension, having done that we should probably take some measurements or make others aware of what we have found.

In my latest book, Kokapelli in the Wiccans’ Kitchen, I endow my characters with awareness of other dimensions and have them interact with these dimensions in an entertaining manner. I guess I do this for my own personal enjoyment but I also aspire to higher ideals. I think people should be open to the possibilities that they can experience the universe in a myriad of ways and that this is not the sole property of the scientists and the intellectuals.

Thank you for indulging me in my efforts,

Peace, Love, Tango

The Kayak Hombre

Kokapelli in the Wiccans' Kitchen, My Latest Tango-Witch-Magic Fantasy Novel

Kokapelli in the Wiccans' Kitchen, My Latest Tango-Witch-Magic Fantasy is written under my pen name: Carmen Cray. Not so much tango but a lot more wiccan fun as well as an in-depth performance by my favorite Ancient Pueblan Demi-god: Kokapelli.

I am learning that tango allows us to connect to much more than just the human in our embrace; it allows us to establish a connection to the other couples and even to the very fabric of the universe. This momentary bonding is an awesome feeling that most milongueros find addicting. 

That is why I chose connection as the one aspect of tango I hoped most readers of my new book could identify with.  It is always important to me to convey to the reader how special tango is in the grand scheme of things, that it is not just another dance. I don’t believe readers want a tango lesson, they want a good story and it has been my goal to offer a tall tale whilst illuminating what makes tango such a phenomenon. In my book I believe I have taken the most fundamental aspect of tango, the connection, and focused solely on that as a reader’s introduction to the dance. To do any more than that and I would lose my audience and probably not get any recommendations to other readers.

One thing I’ve learned recently is that I have to be careful when I’m talking after having danced tango. I am currently taking care of my parents and have had the good fortune to listen to my dad talk nonsense. He doesn’t mean to talk nonsense but his filter is broken due to old age and sometimes he can’t help himself. In order to make a good tango connection, I find that I need to drop all my walls in order for the simultaneous choreography to happen. Just this past weekend I realized I was talking nonsense just like my dad and had to think about why that was. I think it is because, when I drop my walls to let my partner in, I also turn off the filters between my brain and my tongue.

My new book is a repackaged version of my last two books, Wiccans, Zombies and the Mayan Blood God and The Tango Doctor. I thought, naively, that I could get artificial intelligence, AI, to help  and it did but only in the cover creation, the entire text is totally my creation. In my efforts to harness some value from AI, I found that I really liked what I had written about the witches and their battle with the zombie horde. At first, I mistakenly thought that AI had rewritten some of my scenes but it doesn’t do that; it’ll create new text but it won’t rework old text, which is great because I really liked the old text.

In combining the Wiccans’ tale with the Tango Doctor I got lucky. As I was rolling the character into the Wiccan story, I realized that he was a tool for these ladies as well as something else. That something else is that he has much too much insight into why people do things. In coming up with why that is I accidentally stumbled upon who he might really be. This is one of the wonderful phenomena of being a writer: becoming a creator. I thought I was writing about someone and what I wrote ended up being about someone else whom I hadn’t planned on creating. It's kind of like a tango encounter that goes so incredibly well even though you only meant to kill time until Lady X was available and now you have a new favorite dance partner.

Here is a link to my book, I hope you'll read it and I'm sure you will enjoy it, whoever you may be: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G1GZSHJQ?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520

That's all for now. 

Peace, Love, Tango

the Kayak Hombre

The Tango Connection at the Quantum Level: It's All You, Baby!

    4 years ago, I got a new car and a car loan. Unlike my other cars, it is a gas guzzler, and it is really cramping my style. Driving two hours to Tango, four hours roundtrip,  became unsustainable as I became more unemployable probably due to my age: 64. Consequently, I have not danced much tango in the last year and a half. I think I may be at the end of my tango journey. 

  Well, not quite at the end, there's still a lot to process about what I have experienced and that gives me great satisfaction. I know that may sound odd to those of you who are still on the road to Tango Nirvana, maybe one day you will come to understand. 

I guess I am not at the end, I am merely transitioning, exploring in-depth the finer aspects of tango, such as connection. Connection in the tango embrace is such a subtle skill but absolutely necessary to the dance.

In my research on physics and the structure of the universe at the quantum level, I have come to believe that the basis of all matter is energy and frequency: an atom is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons composed of things called quantum particles. Quantum particles are very strange and what exactly they are depends on something called the Observer Effect which takes us out of the realm of science and into another field of study as yet unnamed. This mystery field is a cross between science and religion. What we see at the quantum level changes with each observation and I suspect there is nothing there other than pure energy or maybe just vibrations or a frequency waiting for someone to experience it.

Some ancient religious beliefs propose that all reality is just an illusion and it is possible that each of us is the central character in our own illusion. Our illusion is like a video game and we are players in our own game. To play the game you must be conscious and consciousness is the true fundamental building block of the universe. 

All that we experience, all that everything is is consciousness and frequency. 

Tango has helped me see the truth of that statement. Social tango is an attempt by two people to choreograph movement to a melody spontaneously. To do this a person must learn how to connect to his/her partner on a level that is simultaneously physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Tango is kind of like tai chi for couples, to do this we must learn how to move but first, even though we are unaware of its need, we must learn how to connect, how to drop our walls and let others into our space and to enter the space of others. 

When I began my tango education, I thought I was learning how to move but I was really learning that I did not know how to connect. It was somewhat humiliating but humility is the beginning of all understanding. 

To acquire knowledge we must first become humble.

Somehow, in my endeavor to lead a partner in this dance, I became aware of the supreme importance of connection in achieving proficiency and I did that through careful examination of past tango encounters and many, many workshops attended all around the USA. 

While we may dance tango with no one other than a partner, the full tango experience is at the milonga, the place where tango music is played and many other couples are present. When we dance tango at the milonga, we make a connection not just with our partner but to the entire crowd as well. At the milonga, I am one person, one half of a couple connected to all the other couples present as we move around the room counter-clockwise, hopefully, in harmony.

Music is the key ingredient to a successful connection to the other couples in attendance. To move to the rhythm and melody of a song in syncopation with a myriad of other pairs of dancers takes a lot of thought, education and practice. This is what makes Tango one of the most difficult art forms to master. A proper Tango education requires constant inquiry into what is going on inside you as well as a rigid respect for the concept of balance in all its forms. It takes years to achieve competence and a willingness to start over from scratch in order to establish a proper foundation upon which to build a fruitful relationship with your partner as well as the crowd, and, though you might not realize it at first, to the universe.

I believe this connection to the partner/crowd/universe is only possible through the music. It is the music which helps us vibrate to the proper frequency that allows us all to join together as one. It is that feeling of oneness that is like tasting the fruit of the Garden of Eden that we find so addicting. It is that feeling of oneness that is the answer to all the questions we have but do not know how to ask. To be aware of the cosmic consciousness and to join it, if only for a few hours, is what keeps us coming back for more.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976586577/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506046303&sr=1-1&keywords=the+tango+doctor

The Dangers of Dancing with Jolene

  

Tango is an Argentine import, not native to my country, America. It is sometimes known as the dance where the man is the man and the woman is the woman, a saying so seemingly senseless and simple that we fail to realize its awesome connotations. American culture has become so dumbed-down that we can’t even define what it means to be a man or a woman.

Tango knows, and to all men I say, “You had better watch out!” 

Let me tell you why but first let me tell you about Jolene. She is a woman who tried to steal the husband of the singer Dolly Parton when she was just beginning her music career. Jolene is a hottie with long, curly, red hair and beauty beyond compare. She’s a man-eater, a home wrecker and a relationship atomic bomb all rolled into one gorgeous package of feminine flesh, with more bumps and curves than an Appalachian Mountain back road. Jolene worked at a bank in a small Tennessee town where Dolly’s husband cashed her checks while she was on tour making the bacon. 

The USA is a mostly uptight, Puritanical nation but there is one state where promiscuity abounds and that is Tennessee. You will not find a better smooth-talker trying to work his/her way into your pants or between your legs than a ‘player’ from the Volunteer State.

Once, while driving through the state on my way to New Mexico, I stopped at a minimart for coffee and gas. At the cashier station there was a young boy ahead of me, maybe 10 or 11 years old at most, leaning sideways against the counter, propped up on his elbow, his one leg hooked on the other like Tom Sawyer waiting for a riverboat, his free hand casually picking his teeth with a toothpick as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Oblivious to me, he chatted up the woman behind the counter, a grey-haired lady in her fifties or sixties, telling her how fine she was and maybe he’d come back to see her later. I started to laugh until I noticed that she was eating it up. He went on for a few moments before he recognized me and gave me permission to go ahead and pay for my coffee. I was definitely interrupting a pro at work and wondered what kind of life lay ahead of this young Casanova.

The scene didn’t surprise me much as I have known many people from Tennessee and was well aware of their propensity towards flirtatious conversation jam-packed with pickup lines.

What I’m trying to say is that Jolene was no rank amateur; she lived in a state full of expert adulterers so you can bet that Dolly was up against some stiff competition from the ginger seductress. The song, if you have not heard it, is a plea from Miss Parton to the bank teller beauty not to steal her man. Jolene is no lightweight so you better watch out when she is in the neighborhood.

For those who are not familiar with the tune, I include a link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA

I have witnessed similar scenes play out in tango communities I have been a part of and most don’t have a happy ending, although there are stretches of incredible delight that will be paid for later. 

Argentines are well aware of what it is to be a man and that means he is susceptible to temptation by the opposite sex. Argentine women know that they are the temptation; they may assume the role with relish and a style unique to each individual female. When Americans, or anyone else for that matter, dances tango, they all become Argentines, and Argentines have a penchant for l’amore like no other culture. 

I’ve met ‘Jolene’ many times on dance floors all across this country and she is a potent cocktail that only makes you thirst for more. In tango, each tanguera’s embellishments are distinctly her own and may take years to perfect so don’t be disappointed when you find yourself falling head over heels in lust. For men, it takes three years just to learn how to hold a woman and many more years to learn how to do it well. It seems like such a simple thing and yet it is not. In comparison, mastering embellishments that can grab the wheel of a man's sex drive is ten times harder.

I think, but do not know, since I am a man, that a woman can find sex whenever she wants but not always with whom she wants. As she becomes older and wiser, I think she realizes that she has special qualities, vague and difficult to discern at first, that she can harness and, in time, refine to a great skill that she can use to gain influence over a man. To do this requires the dedication of student working on a PhD in the science of seduction in tango. The dance floor becomes her laboratory and her partners are merely lab rats who can’t help but think that the bed will be coming later while it is the furthest thing from her mind. All she is interested in is results and they have nothing to do with orgasms. If you find yourself saying stupid things, begging for relief or maybe even writing bad checks, then you can be sure that she has succeeded. Your anxiety/confusion/desperation is merely good data to be recorded and used later for the ‘product launch’.

‘Product launch’ is the beginning of the end for you, so consider yourself lucky if you get out of this with only blue balls and a boner that won’t go away. Sooner or later, Jolene comes upon a man she desires and ripe for the picking, preferably a man with a girlfriend, spouse or some other part of his life worth destroying. She’s spent so much time refining her skill in the form of embellishments that he will do all the work for her. He doesn’t even know what is happening until it is too late. I know this because it happened to me.

Somewhere in America’s heartland I met a woman, a scientist conducting actual experiments on humans to measure satiation. I met her at the Friday night milonga about eight years into my tango education. She was new to the dance and was impressed with my leading abilities, or so she said. I had about eight years of tango experience behind me at that point and was flattered when she invited me to give her a private lesson at her place. She was so beautiful it was impossible for me to say no, even though I was in a long distance relationship at the time.

Nothing happened the first two lessons but the third time she invited me to spend the weekend. I won’t go into details but we danced until she could see I had reached my satiation point then led me to the bedroom; we repeated that sequence for the next thirty-six hours until I had to return to work. In hindsight, I guess I should be grateful that she allowed me to keep my job, such was the strength of the spell she had cast upon me. I felt so guilty that I told my girlfriend right away the next time I saw her. That was a big mistake. We didn’t break up right away but it eventually became a relationship killer.

In the battle of the sexes, victory is defined differently by each side. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t finished paying for my tryst with Jolene. She happened to be attending the same tango festival as my belle and I. Somehow, she managed to ‘accidentally’ bump into my girlfriend on an elevator and made a point of apologizing for my unfaithfulness. She took all the blame but I’m pretty sure she relished the moment as the final jewel in her seductress crown for this is what Jolenes are all about: the exercise of the power of her allure and the work is not really finished until she has humiliated the competition.

I have seen Jolene’s performance many times over the course of the fifteen years I’ve been dancing tango. Sometimes she succeeds and sometimes she fails, or seems to fail since it’s all just a lab trial until a man succumbs.

I am writing this because I thought susceptibility to a woman’s allure destroying my life was behind me, that I was too old at sixty-three or had too much tango under my belt but I found that it’s not true. I fell just as hard as I did seven years ago but luckily I was merely the rat in the lab this time and not the subject of a ‘product launch’. Sometimes it pays to be single. Good for me, I guess, but let me tell you, I sure did enjoy the ride. I am, after all, just a man and no match for a woman when she’s being a woman.