It's spring and I'm putting back on my dance shoes
How I paused then started again to be with my inner seasons
Happy spring! Welcome to my favorite day of the year, the day when, according to Persian tradition, the whole world literally turns into a paradisiacal garden.
And this spring feels like many springs at once. I feel as if I live on many different tilted planets at the same time, and each planet has its own relationship with the Sun and its own rhythm of seasons. And somehow, today, all the planets — large, tiny, and in-between — have miraculously gotten into a kind of numinous alignment and they are all starting spring simultaneously. Do you feel that way too?
A sacred sabbatical
Having all this spring, all at once, of course means that a nice quiet time of hibernation on many fronts is ending.
For instance, I took a short pause from writing this newsletter. The last time I posted was just before the winter solstice. It felt right to my body to let my writing lie quiet under the snow — even though it contradicts ALL the established “best practices” of newsletter writing which promote consistent posting as the number one virtue. But hey, you’re still here, right? (If you’re reading this, anyway. Hi!)
I also took a longer sabbatical from dancing. Years, plural. For awhile there in the deeps of COVID, I convinced myself I didn’t need tango much anymore. I thought tango didn’t really need me, too. And it was fine to let things be that way for a minute there, cool, quiet, introspective.
(Pause)
Looking closer, my quiescence has been rich and alive. I’ve immersed in projects that mean something to me and I’ve allowed them to grow slowly. I haven’t been outgoing, in any sense of the word, but I’ve found myself held in a few warm, strong, genuine friendships: friendships with a song that wanted to endure through life-changes, each a song of many chords, not just one note; friendships expressed in the detail of gracious mutuality and reciprocal care.
I need to remember the value of taking a sabbatical. And the joy of returning from one.
Love isn’t an emotion. It isn’t a feeling. It’s an existential stance of commitment to binding your identity to the identity of something or someone else. - John Vervaeke, in a recent interview with Tim Ferriss
Putting back on my dance shoes
Or, how to get stoned on tango
The idea of returning to the dance floor after such a long break had me worried that I’d fall back into an old anxious patterning. Tango dancers know what it’s like to chase the high. Not exactly fun.
But it turns out that through the pause, my body had learned something about how to construct the high. And instead of being all awkward and angsty, I spent last weekend stoned on tango. It was like being in a grown-up fairy tale that went like this:
Once upon a time, seventy years ago, a musician named Carlos Di Sarli somehow entered a hallocinogenic state and dreamed up a gorgeous new sound. And, while tripping, he experienced what it was to be the bodies of two friends actually dancing to the music he was channeling at that very moment. Those friends were wearing soft clothes and they were in the center of a spinning ronda in a great concert hall in New England on a Saturday afternoon in the next millennium. They were high on the same psychoactive substance that infused the enchanted music he built so many decades ago. And they walked, together. It was 2023 and Di Sarli’s not-yet-written tango bloomed again.
I’m so so grateful to everyone, friends and strangers, who kept the pulse of tango alive during our shared sacred sabbatical. And to everyone who is part of today’s tango fairy tale. I am honored to be a citizen of this eudaemonic ronda and curious as we take our next steps together to old songs with new sounds through new ears.
Time for a tango kabloom
So here I am, high on tango and on life, and eagerly inviting a madcap narrative wherein else everyone is experiencing springtime too, because how fun would that be? One grand gorgeous orchestra of springtime, kablooming everywhere now. And who knows, maybe in seventy years someone will activate the artifacts of this time and experience the blossoming joy we’re about to step into, together.
You may be in a different season, and I honor that and I salute your process.
That said, I’m ready. My voice is here, back online. I am here and I am ready to exchange, learn, practice, investigate, dance. I’m ready for hackathons and think tanks and R&D.
I’m excited to dance to strange-familiar new music; I’m excited to see spring come again again when we see Hadestown on tour next week; I’m excited to see old friends and old projects with fresh new eyes. And I’m ready to celebrate a quarter of a century of loving this crazy dance and other fun milestones right round the corner too. Here’s to the garden we share — today, this week, all spring. Norouz mobarak!
P.S. Pssst! Speaking of tango R&D, I am excited about a new project that will finally see the sunshine this spring. After more than two years of collaboration, Avik Basu and I are ALMOST ready to invite you to participate in a brand new research project on the inner experience of tango. Stay tuned here and at Awaken Tango!