A recent e-mail exchange. . .

A. - My friend M., the icon painter I may have mentioned to you, just returned one of my books, and later asked to send her a quote she had bookmarked. I found it, and thought you might be equally... galvanized? Sending you my translation and the original.

The relation of the Creator to the creation (or, the Not-created to the created) is called the Father, the relation of the created to the Creator is called the Son, and their shared essence, the Holy Ghost.

This is from Yakov Druskin's Diaries.

How does this strike you? It really impressed me, since we tend to, it seems, assume that if something is an essence it must, then, be a substance; so we then tend to mistake relations for substances, and that's how we get our overly personal Western God... I have the feeling that we generally have a preference for substances in the West, while Eastern philosophies may overemphasize relations at the expense of substances... But, without going too far afield, I think this is the first interpretation of the Trinity that makes even remote sense to me.

B. - Kind of weird that you sent that yesterday; completely blew the top of my head off, last night. Seemed to be exceptionally appropriate with regards to a subject that came up last night at a Bennett group meeting, i.e. the subject of "what is I" and "what is not I".

The idea of this, in pretty straightforward 4th Way work, is that if one takes one's feelings, thoughts, and body (the emotional, intellectual, and moving centers) and then asks where "I" is in this, it's seemingly impossible to say "I" is here, or there, or anywhere. "I" is not one's feelings, or thoughts, or any part of one's body, even though one might be completely in that part (for instance, getting into an argument and essentially being one's frustration at losing the argument, such as what happened to me a couple of weeks ago). When one is able to separate from that, one is able to observe that thing not being "I". (Making sense so far?)

But then who am I? It becomes increasingly difficult to say who "I" am, or what "I" am. Eventually one might see that "I" can not be seen or found. But one might be able to see action from "I".

So, how does this relate? Well, maybe it's that sort of thing where god has a particular relation to man as creator-->created. Similarly, one would see man:god::created:creator. But we might not actually be aware of the relation outside of a direct observation of action.

What excites me about this is the idea that the action might have a sentience and a consciousness itself, which sort of goes along with a hunch I've had for a bit. ("God" being not necessarily an entity or a condition but an action).

Oi, that's enough. . .

2/27/2011

Well, that was interesting. Just finished the morning sitting. The JGB group here in Boston has been working with an extended relaxation exercise that finishes with relaxing the mind, body, and emotions together as the whole self. I felt it all slot into place, and for not much more than ten seconds was aware of the whole. Then something triggered and I lost it, and was very aware of the thoughts trying to relax themselves, the mind trying to relax itself, and not being able to not identify as the body. That is, I moved from a clean and separated observation of the complete self in relaxation, to a slightly panicked inability to not be my body.

Kind of glad I picked up on that.

Goals.

Short terms goals: having the first primary up and down the neck 4 times each (twice 1-2-3-4 and twice 4-3-2-1) at 120 bpm by Christmas.

Also, playing cello suite 2 prelude within next month.

Long term goals: Full suite in 3-4 months. Two original circle pieces by end of summer.

10/02-04/2010 - Triad 1

I suspect that nothing that I write with regards to this subject will be particularly new, and maybe not even that interesting. But in keeping with the personal challenge. . . .

============

Something that occurred to me, today, was to look at the triad in a couple of different ways. I do not profess to be a master of JGB's Systematics, so humbly acknowledge any inaccuracies and shortcomings. Fittingly, if there is something that I've missed, please let me know.

To begin, we'll go over certain terms to set the groundwork. A triad is a three-termed system in and of itself; it works as a model of describing and defining some set of circumstances. Fittingly, there are other systems, each illustrated by its own number of terms*, and each having its particular focus and use. For instance, the monad is a single-termed system, and would be used to illustrate universality or wholeness (more of a point of highest intensity, and gradually fading in intensity**, but that's a conversation for another day!). The tetrad is a four-termed system, styled like a compass, that is used to "give structured activity and combines relativity and order. . . .***"

More directly related to the triad, and germane to this discussion, would be the dyad, or a two-termed system. This is probably most easily visually illustrated as one term on the left, and one term on the right. In a word, complementarity. One can look at this as a simple yin/yang demonstration, or in/out, black/white, salty/sweet, or other dualities. This system can help to clarify a situation, but can also be quite limiting, as it is looking at two extremes only, and not at what lay between, or at an outside influence.

Moving outward from the dyad, we can look at the triad. A simple description of the triad refers to "relatedness without relativity and hence dynamism as distinct from force.***" So, instead of two elements only, one can include a third element, one that moves from a "this or that" to "this and that by way of those". Another way to describe this would be "Subject A and Subject B are related, and share Subject C as common ground." Visually, this would look as such:

Subject C
/........\
/...........\
/..............\
Subject A-----Subject B

Obviously, we can substitute anything we want into each subject's slot, whether it is useful or not. For fun, we could try something as simple as "Spoon - Mug - Cider".

Mug
/.....\
/........\
Spoon----Cider

Though this is certainly a little silly, it's a good example: The spoon stirs the cider within the mug; the mug holds the cider that the spoon is stirring; the cider acts as a substance to be stirred by the spoon within the mug; the spoon stirs in the mug that holds the cider; the cider whirls in the mug because of the spoon; and the mug holds the spoon stirring the cider.

Why all the attention to order and sentence structure? Each element takes turns becoming the center of focus, which allows one to observe a situation from each possible angle. Though it is true that the spoon is stirring in each version of the story, one's perception of the spoon changes with each permutation. For instance, "The spoon stirs the cider within the mug," and "The spoon stirs in the mug that holds the cider." In the first version, the spoon is actively interacting with the cider, while the mug holds the two--in a sense, it becomes the active element to the passive element of the cider and the reconciling element of the mug. In the second version, the spoon is actively interacting with the mug, while the cider is almost an afterthought--the spoon is now the active element to the passive/receptive element of the mug, with the cider being a sort of reconciling/neutral element. Were one to put this element in a dramatic scene, for instance, the first version would give us the idea that the character stirring the drink is at least interested in the cider--whereas the second version implies that the character wishes to have a hot drink, which happens to be cider.

More tomorrow!

*The monad, dyad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hextad, heptad, octad, ennead, decad, undecad, and duodecad are all systems that JGB worked with.

**Anthony Blake.

***Directly from the Systematics.org website.

10-01-2010

The other night, Elan S. was reading from JG Bennett's Making a Soul, and had stopped to take a look at how much longer the selection went on. As he did this, he mentioned a passage that spoke about "potential energy", but did not read it, and advised everyone to purchase the book.

Not having a chance to actually get the book yet, I'm left to wonder what it may have been about (I know it was in chapter 2!), but the concept of potential energy resonates with the uneasiness I've been feeling, lately. And, perhaps uneasiness is the wrong word--restlessness may be more appropriate, and would certainly fit more with the theme of the new phase I wrote about yesterday.

I suppose that, in a sense, I am constantly looking for another piece to a puzzle that continually grows more complex as I slot pieces in (almost like Tetris, but not quite). To further complicate the metaphor, it seems as though each puzzle piece is part of a window. In either case (puzzle or window), I know that I should be taking a moment to appreciate the picture as it is in this moment. This is difficult, though: if a piece that is currently in play is able to slot in, then a few more opportunities may open up. So, I continue to poke away towards the next good fit.

==============

"Man is a three-brained being."

Tomorrow I'll work with this.

09-30-2010

Last night--which also happened to be this morning--I mentioned how I feel like I may be entering a new phase of my life. The actual phrasing of this only came to me yesterday in idle conversation, but this has been almost a sort of theme for the past couple of months.

In all honesty, I don't think I could have put my finger on it, before this. Something has been in the air, whether it was my romantic situation, or the changing of the music in my life, or the shift with the day job, or the shift in my inner work*. Beginning to attend regular Gurdjieff/Bennett meetings with the local group that is directed by George B. and Elan S. certainly influenced that, I am sure--this especially in light of the fact that if I hadn't, I am not sure that I would have seen the "moment" of asking Tessa to come up to Boston as a "moment" of sorts**.

All this said, I do happen to see this all as a phase that is just beginning. At this point, the question that we were asked to consider--"What is my aim? How can my aim be brought to bear in this moment?"--seems like an incredibly important one to ask, right now. The difficulty of this is that, despite the seeming newness of this phase/stage, clarifying an aim into a single point or task seems very hard. We were told that this could be a big or small aim, and that small aims could be related to big aims. Fittingly, a small aim could easily lead to a big aim, so it could be that this small aim of writing each day for half an hour for the next four days (which should be a full week for myself, in all honesty) will lead to something bigger.

But I think that this is more likely an exercise in focus (granted, focus on something that I have been neglecting for months), only distantly related to what the real (big) aim seems to be: to serve music as best I can. This is such a lofty and insubstantial goal that it almost seems useless to write that out, but there are so many things that go in to filling this aim that are achievable--necessary and faithful practicing, learning musical pieces, working on my time, footwork towards securing a venue for the weekly performance challenge, this writing project, writing and arranging music, preparing myself for the Talking Heads show at the end of the month--that giving a cop-out answer like "serving music as best I can" seems like a truly viable answer.

Well, enough. I've written a fair amount today, and I still have at least three more days to continue this!

*I am loathe to use this term, but it seems to be the most honest one. But then, maybe that's why I don't prefer that term.

**Apologies for that sentence.

For the next 4 days. . .

I'll be taking time off work, primarily for a personal break. I have some necessary work to do, though, so I'll be committing to writing each morning both text/prose and music, for at least 1/2 hour for each. It struck me that I am very likely at the beginning of the next major phase. . . .