Want to Tango with Mars?

Did you hear tangle? That would be understandable. We often don’t realize we are in a relationship to Mars until we are entangled. I would like to suggest some ways of responding to Mars, god of War known for destruction, chaos and upheaval, in the context of Argentine tango. 

Tango is a dance of improvisation, which requires relaxed awareness. It also requires practice, not in the sense of doing something over and over, but a cultivation of a particular state of being. The music is complex with layered rhythms and themes combining eros and pathos. You need to be responsive to your partner and others on the dance floor. For me tango has correlation to other disciplines that might surprise you. I once went to a Zen/Tango weekend at Green Gulch Zen Center, where the abbot was learning tango and appreciated the connection the Zen arts. I also associate it with the martial art of Aikido and, as well, the creative process.

I first learned about cultivating response in Aikido, where you turn your opponent’s force of energy back on them. You practice responding in ways that pre-empt your natural instincts to flee, flight or fold. It requires a translation of a force of energy into equilibrium and equanimity. Mars energy has strong directionality and he is the quintessential leader. Tango requires a strong lead. 

There is an intimate, yet not necessarily personal exchange in Tango, and within that schema the designated leader cannot function without a responsive follower. Between good dancers the lead and follow can switch back and forth. A powerful leader demands to be met toe to toe.  I will use the masculine pronoun for the leader and Mars in this context of tango.

Let’s suppose that you know that you are on Mars’ hit list and your life is due to be shaken up good. You are scheduled for disaster; loss of job, home or loved-one. Instead of waiting around, I invite you to text Mars with the invitation to meet you this evening at a local Milonga, a tango dance event. 

You put on a little black dress and head out. Arriving at the dance, the lights are low, the band is tuning up. You take off your coat and sit down to put on your dance shoes. From across the room you can feel someone who demands your eye. When you look up you immediate recognize Mars in the guise of a tangero. It could be the rake of his fedora, or the crease of his pants, the shine of his shoes, whatever reason, you have no doubt. In Tango protocol you agree to dance from across the room. You nod your acceptance to his invitation and he starts across the dance floor.

There are a few things that you need to understand before he arrives. The follower decides how close to embrace. You are on your own with that one. In a loose embrace you have your own vertical axis to keep balanced, but in a close embrace, although you both have responsibility for your own balance, you create an axis between you. You both lean into each other to form a triangle with your feet at the base. What each of you do greatly affects the other.

An essential understanding in the dojo, zendo, studio and dance floor is that it is not about you. You are merely a conduit. How well you do does not add to or diminish from who you are. In other words the more ego that you have invested the harder it is. Stay out of the analytical mind and in your body.

As Mars offers you his hand you stand up. Mars will take you just out of the current of dance which is a counter clock flow. Before the music starts he will test your mettle by rocking you slightly from side to side, and you will change your weight from foot to foot as directed. This will determine your dance. It will give him information of how responsive you are to his lead. He will see how you keep and regain your center axis or the axis between you, and how quickly you respond to change of direction. Do you need a two by four upside the head or the slightest movement? As leader his mission is to make you look as good as possible, by bringing out your highest capabilities, but of course he must have an assessment of your capabilities. Good here can mean elegant, sexy, cool or whatever is your expression. Mars will of course challenge you, as he does in all aspects of life. 

Tango is a walking dance, he will be facing forward and you will mostly go backwards as you move around the floor. The other dancers will greatly affect his choice of turns or pauses and what degree of embellishments are possible. Your job is to stay out of your head, trust your instinct and use mistakes to learn.

As you move around the dance floor it is important that you fully understand with whom you are dancing.  In spite of Mars’ bad PR of destroying things, he is not about endings. Mars energy is about beginnings, about becoming--- forward movement. Think about your last meeting and you may see the new beginnings that were created.

This three minute song can be a moment or a life time. And I hope that you are willing to dance out the next two or three song that are part of the set. If you inadvertently say thank you, you will be taken to your chair and in that case you will miss the opportunity to experience being. But whatever you decide to do, if you really engage with everything that you have, you will sit down a different person than when you first stood up.

It is not really a question of do you want to tango with Mars, but how will you tango with Mars, because in life Mars will engage you. Only you can decide the how. I hope this might assist you in your next encounter with Mars, for surely you will be encountering Mars.         

                                                                                                         

                                                                                                            Majio                                                                               

Lady Ragnell of the Art World

Stories carry the wisdom and follies of our everyday life. They convey the patterns of destruction and acts of heroism, which frame our dreams and nightmares. If the universal archetypes that populate these stories do not change over time then change must come in an evolution of our perspectives for they surely are psychologically updated. A spell in traditional fairy tales is a metaphor for constriction to a limited pattern where the life energy cannot flow. Those under the spell often do not recognize it as in the spell of materialism cast over much of contemporary Western art and the Western artist. In a story from the King Arthur legends, Lady Ragnell, can be viewed as a central archetype for the artist of our day.

Our lady has been placed under a magical spell by Sir Grommer to live her life as a gruesome hag.  It is also Sir Grommer who meets the young King Arthur, defenseless, in the forest and threatens to take his life if he fails to agree to return to the forest, unarmed, in one year's time with the answer to a perplexing riddle: "What do women really want above all else?"  Failing miserably in his quest for the answer to the riddle, he reluctantly returns to the forest to meet his fate when he encounters the Hag, who offers to save the King, by answering the riddle, but only in exchange for her marriage to one of King Arthur's knights. The King, facing certain death, reluctantly agrees to her proposal, and the Hag provides him with the answer. The answer, of course, is correct and important, but all the elements of the myth are equally crucial. ”Woman” here refers to the Yin principle of receptivity, intuition and connection to spirit, which is critical in the creative process. The masculine principle, the Yang, is the initiatory principle and both of them can be positive for wholeness and health or negative for destruction.

Why and by whom a spell is cast is extremely significant in these legends which provides a map to the human psyche. It is said in the story that she was put under the spell because a powerful knight took a dislike to her ‘quick will.’ It seems she knew exactly what she wanted and because of that Sir Grommer changed her from a lovely young woman in her prime into an aging, warty, stooped, foul smelling old woman who drooled through her rotting teeth. We have to assume that ‘quick will’ in terms of creative process is different for the Yin and the Yang. Quick willed for the Yang in the artist may be knowing the art market, having a finger on the pulse of public response, and so on. Quick willedness of the feminine, which can aggravate the patriarch, is a different way of knowing, and does not always yield a viable product that the masculine can utilize.

Lady Ragnell in the form of the Hag is the Yin principle tied and bound from her vital impulses, her source; all those things that protect, nurture and allow the natural energy of her ‘quick will’ to flow. She knows the answer to the riddle that can save the King and the Kingdom because she is living it. She bargains her answer to marry Sir Gawain, the knight in the Kingdom with the highest integrity, because this is her only hope of breaking the spell. She is delivered to the marriage altar and then to his bedchamber because she supplies the solution to the riddle that no other woman in the Kingdom can furnish. The one thing that women (artist) want above all else is . . .sovereignty. 

As we well know from the dramatic illustration in Communist Russia and China, the artist cannot be a mouth piece of the state, or anything or anyone else. The artist must have his or her autonomy, just as the masculine principle within the artist must trust and respect the feminine principle. Lady Ragnell, as the Hag, is the dark shadow of the artist who is constrained by the need to please, as well as rebel against outside influences, either way she loses her own authentic impulses. She needs to enlist her own masculine self to protect, trust and value what she knows to be right.

Lady Ragnell’s spell has two parts. The first is the easiest broken in all of us — but it is what causes us to live a dual life. When Sir Gawain kisses her on their wedding night she becomes her beautiful, powerful self, but, like us, she cannot easily maintain this shape without slipping back into her disempowered self. She asks him whether he wants her fair by night in the bedchamber or fair by day in court. This is a hard question for the masculine, particularly in societies where an external feminine symbol reflects back their own masculine power through beauty. Sir Gawain, understands the dilemma, and finally concludes that she must decide, and that he will respect whichever decision she makes. With this declaration the second part of the spell is finally broken.

What do you want as a woman or as the feminine in the artist? If you could only have one thing, do you want success in your inner life or in your outer life? Artists are acknowledged for riding the roller coaster between public and private life. Even as Sir Gawain's answer breaks the second spell for Lady Ragnell, we well know that the twisted, decaying Hag form who restricts the vital energy flow will be constantly lurk in the shadows. If public and private life exists separately from each other, there will always be fragmentation. The artist in us all wants to flourish and needs to be seen, above all, by our own selves for who we are.

It is easy to identify with our appearance or, for an artist, with how our work is received in the world. Women, in particular, are trained to perceive self as a projected image, rather than being the embodiment of creative forces. Healing of the first part of the curse is liberating, but it leads to the second kind of fragmentation. Buddhism speaks of the flash of insight that comes when you see how both the Maiden and the Hag are illusions. This awareness is initiated and supported by the masculine principle that enables the unification. We cannot integrate the fragmentation through the will or by techniques, only through love and conscious awareness of unconditional acceptance, like Sir Gawain in his value for the higher cause of the Kingdom. He resists relating to the Hag through a vision of perfection, a vision that would be crippling to them both, instead he creates a more encompassing vessel. This kind of vision and dedication is what artists need to claim personal sovereignty.

     Majio

Talk on 'Creativity Confidence'

‘Creativity Confidence’ Inspired by the Universe

We are an incredibly creative species, which is good because our world needs special attention right now. Many feel that we are even in peril of wasting life and habitat because of a lack of equitable and sustainability. Through creativity, which can be utilized by anyone for any purpose, positive or negative, we have become a power equal to a force in nature but without the evolutionary commitment.

‘Creativity Confidence’ is not confidence in creativity. I coined the phrase referring to something that you may not aware of until it is highlighted. There are three points to help you to understand it. Once you understand, consider the invitation to the party delivered. It is the only party in the Universe. Accept it and come, or go home and “arrange the deck chairs,” as they say.

The first point is the requirement to form, refine, or at least consider your own worldview. How do you see yourself in relationship to the larger Universe? This inquiry cannot happen overnight…it will require a concerted effort and intense personal reflection. In the studio it means there is an overall context for the meaning and value of the creative activity. Second, is I am talking about a different way of perceiving, which for most of us is a blind spot our culture does not support. In the studio it is a practice that develops a different kind of intelligence and articulation that arises from being, rather than doing. The third point is to suspend resolution. By holding creative structural tension you allow the process to develop beyond what you can do by yourself. The good news is that there are people who are already doing it. This is incredibly helpful, because it makes it possible for others to also take a leap.

In pragmatic terms, in order to think “outside the box,” you need to understand the nature of the box you are in. Like a gold fish in a bowl, you can’t even perceive the water unless you know something about it. This is the beginning of ‘Creativity Confidence.’ It is not a belief or an attitude. It is a way of being connected in the world. How you are in the world speaks to your fundamental relationship to life.  How you perceive your relationship to the Universe is your cosmology.

The other meaning of Cosmology is the study of the origin and nature of the Universe, which for the first time in our history we have an actual scientific foundation to inform our personal relationship with the Universe. That is to say, we now have the means of perceiving the nature of our “box” and, unlike the fish, we can now begin to perceive the water of the fish bowl in which we are suspended.  We can now act upon that water, understand how that water affects us, and limits or encourages our engagement with life.

However, the goal of ‘Creativity Confidence’ is not problem solving, it is about actually creating something that was not there before. It is conveyed through and built upon a clear interconnection between expression and its relationship to the cosmos. Uninhibited imagination is a means for understanding the fish bowl construction, as well as a counter point for developing creative tension between what is desired and what exists.  In nighttime dreaming the tension of every day life’s creative process seeks resolution in any way it can, often inspiring leaps beyond habitual thinking.

Are you familiar with the book Once and Future King, by T. H. White? In the book a boy who lives with surrogate parents in the country is unaware that he is the future king. He is mentored by Merlin, Arch Magus. Merlin changes him into various animals in order for him to learn different states of consciousness. There is a wonderful passage where he is in the body of a fish as he learns to navigate in a fluid world of water.

This is what artists do.  In fact, this is their job description.  They are compelled to extend boundaries, seeking unfamiliar margins of experience. Being an artist is not so much about a particular talent, but ways of perceiving, interpreting, and expressing experience . . . a way of communicating.  Yet, not all painters, musicians, writers, gardeners, chefs, mothers or CEO’s are curious enough to go beyond the required skills of their discipline into artistry.

In King Arthur’s training with radically different forms of consciousness he barely, and somewhat reluctantly, escapes back into his young boy body from the collective mind of an ant colony. There are many different worlds out there to be explored by deep imagination, each of which expands our emotional, kinesthetic and inter-relational intelligence. That is one reason why travel can be so valuable. As we begin to experience other cultures, we move beyond the narrow confines of our own. It does not work, however, if we experience the new place as an extension of Disneyland. In Italy last summer there were tourists from all over the world, arriving by the busload, standing in long lines, snapping photographs for future reference in order to move on to the next ‘ride’. Sometimes we are not even aware of the parts of life that are set up as theme parks by our design or someone else’s.

There is an allegory of a sphere coming to Flatland, a two-dimensional place of geometric shapes. She has a conversation with Square.  Sphere’s attributes of volume are confusing to Square, her movement in space is seen as a circle changing sizes. There is a huge gulf that cannot be bridged except through new experiences, new perspectives, and deep exploration. In some belief systems this could be viewed as normal consciousness meets the mind of enlightenment. You cannot talk someone out of it or into it, but it is this kind of experience that many artists seek to explore and is often difficult to articulate.

‘Creativity Confidence’ is not something that is only experienced by artists. It is an experience shared by professionals in all fields, and it is encountered in different forms. Some achieve, within their discipline, a creative state equal to any artist, but it goes beyond creative process.  They may come to a turning point in their career when they suddenly glimpse a deeper understanding of the nature of their relationships, or the fundamental underpinnings of their own discipline. Knowing a deeper truth by whatever means generates a boldness which has creative power.  Einstein and C.G. Jung are examples. You cannot help but wonder how can these deeper, near-existential experiences be channeled, organized, or assembled in a manner that will allow the quantum leap to benefit our species and planet? I think that one possible means of enabling this transition is through the cultivation of our own individual ‘Creativity Confidence'.

We live in incredible creative structural tension today because we do not know how or if our  planetary situation will be resolved. If we choose to look at the box we are swimming in, to mix metaphors, we will see that we have been back into a corner of our aquarium. As we can see, confidence in our individual creativity is not enough. What we need is conviction that is integral to our cosmology which accesses all the resources available to resolve the creative structural tension of our time. /The studio is a great place to develop ‘Creativity Confidence.’                                                                           Majio