Wednesday, February 4, 2009

On Tango :: Surrender through, not to...

I've been reading "Woman's Love, Man's Freedom" by David Deida off and on for many years now. The copy I have is spiral bound and dog-eared, pre-publication I believe. I think it may have been the precursor to his book "The Way of the Superior Man", but I can't be sure. I've been reading that one off and on now for many years as well. It seems I read all my books that way. Off and on. For many years.

So you've heard me talk about surrender before. Not so much surrender, but "The Surrender". *Not* submission and all that drivel. Some women seem to have it, some women don't. Some nail it on the first embrace of the first lesson, some take more time, some never...never. I was going to say never master it. Or never learn it. Or never get it. Or never do it. Or refuse and refute the concept. It's not a concept. It's a feeling. It's emotional. It's metaphysical. It's hard to say if it can be learned or mastered or taught or explained.

Deida did a good job in Chapter 3, 'Surrender Through, Not To'. As I was reading, it seemed he was talking about tango.

Here it is....intended for men and women, lead and follow...replace lover with follower or leader, and sexual with tango...I suppose...and also, you should understand that 'love' goes beyond romantic love...touched by true love as I have said before...the true, untainted, universal love of the universe...that thread of energy I like to call love...it has nothing to do with romance...that's a separate topic...okay, I digress...

Here it is...

Practice surrendering not to your own fears, nor to the demands of another, but directly to love. Do your best to feel through you own resistance as well as your lover's. Behind all resistive emotion is the motive for love. The desire to give and receive love underlies every emotional action and reaction, including hurt and anger, in yourself and in your partner.

Whatever the emotion - anger, fear, closure - feel through it, breathe through it, relax through it, into the love which lies behind it. And then, actively, surrender to that love. Open as that love. Magnify love by loving.

True sexual and spiritual surrender is not about adapting yourself to what will appease your partner. Nor is it about surrendering to your own momentary emotional needs. True surrender is about relaxing through these secondary needs, both yours and your partner's, and magnifying the primary desire to give and receive love.


I sit here, and wonder, is tango simply a vehicle, a method, through which two human beings can bi-laterally give and receive love? Three minutes. Immersed in the music. Immersed in love? Is that what makes tango so powerful?

I wonder.

4 comments:

Elizabeth Brinton said...

This is good Alex, I want to comment about it but I have to think about it. Surrender was/is the first and most difficult for me, and the most important of all the "tango/life lessons"

XO
E

me said...

do you think that it is powerful because during those three minutes, both people glimpse what is possible?

n a n c y said...

Instead of surrender, I think it is a trust thing. I give my body to you and trust that you will use it to create a lovely tango and protect me in the process. Should you fail to cherish my body.......

But I like the analogy.

Anonymous said...

I do think it is love. To me, it is not a surrender but an opening up of the barriers of the heart, a willingness to meet that person and immerse yourself with them, holding nothing back.

Connie