09.45
Monasterio Nuestra Senora De Los Angeles (Monjas Dominicas), Sant Cugat, Spain.
Cranescape With Dramatic Sky…
After three days, all the novel events that impinge upon us when we arrive in new places, become an accompaniment to Life As Usually Experienced. The traffic. Oh! that traffic. The hammering & drills. Oh! those hammers & drills. The Geographical Cure has a time limit attached. This is not the case, however, with mosquitoes. Each pesky little pal arrives a new friend each time, each with a new relationship to develop upon soft & tender skin.
Rising at 06.15.
At breakfast a new House Manager introduced themselves: Mr. Welsh. And Level T (ie Level Thomas) is beginning this morning. There is also a new person responsible for leading the Level Three Performance Team, selected yesterday evening by The Hat. Their meeting is scheduled to begin right now.
One of the Level Three team left for home after breakfast & an English face has appeared. The energy in the House is equilibrating at a new level, blending ongoers from the Level Three & visitors.
T’ai chi with Luciano & mosquitoes at 09.00.
Visitors with guitar in the Hall with Robert at 10.00.
11.52 Circulating in C harmonic minor & offset in C symmetrical. Some of this is becoming dangerously close to sounding musical. And some brings new life to the tiny hairs of the inner ear.
12.00 Yow! The bell tower is rocking out!
15.45 Lunch at 13.00 with various comments & reports on the morning’s work. Some people had fun, even serious fun. One person was half a happy boy.
Intro to the Chair with our recently-arrived Alexander Teacher, Mariella.
17.41 A quiet tea at 16.00. With raisins. We had raisins for tea. Also biscuits & small pieces of fruit.
Personal meetings at 16.30.
These were mostly with guitars - horrors! the return of the right hands – and two meetings without guitars. One of addressed difficulties with The Practice Of Doing Nothing.
Sometimes this is put on the board as Do Nothing – as much as you can! Doing nothing is very hard: it requires us to be present. So, how do we become present? Before Doing Nothing, we have to do something. In the introductory form of this exercise, we use the attention to scan the body in a particular sequence. Today’s client has difficulty with this because, he reports, he has little attention. Accordingly, he has done almost nothing rather than Doing Nothing. At this stage in the practice, this is the point of the exercise: to develop volitional attention. Without volitional attention, we have little presence. So, we practise directing the attention. In time, we discover that an increasing sense of personal presence accompanies this. With the strengthening of presence, we find we are better able to Do Nothing. Then, an opportunity to Do Something might present itself, with the everyday-self doing very little.
18.50 T’ai Chi with Luciano & mosquitoes. Four savage new swellings have appeared, but nothing like one of the English Johns, whose swellings are more extensive & numerous than I would have believed possible on one body.
Good news: the body is beginning to loosen. I attribute this to 3 primary reasons, in addition to being present on a GC course in a retreat house where practice & worship in ongoing:
Music presenting itself;
Alexander technique;
T’ai Chi.
20.24 Dinner at 19.00. Dessert: a dulce de leche crepe. It was small, but very good, and enough tiramisu was available from yesterday’s dinner to make up one full portion.
Meeting with Level Three Performance Team at 21.00.
22.07 A meeting addressing the symmetrical scale.
22.57 A meeting with Hernan addressing various arisings. The bed is waiting.
"Never become so popular that the public take an interest in you."
