Monasterio Nuestra Seora De Los
06.53
Monasterio Nuestra Señora De Los Angeles / Monjas Dominicas
Mare de Deu del Roser, 2.
Sant Cugat (08174),
Barcelona.
Waking at intervals regularly through the night.
Loud thunderclaps & lighting c. 05.20 signaled the end of the night’s slumbering.
Rising at 06.10, now with four mosquito bites.
Rain.
08.29 Breakfast at 08.00. The various projects for this morning were decided upon & called. Two people declared they had nothing to do this morning & were asked to write & present a duo piece at lunchtime. They now have a lot to do this morning.
The ESP Performance Team has been chosen & will be fine-tuning their acoustic presentations to support the electric pieces of RF & The LCG at CAT.
13.05 Rehearsal with The LCG at noon…
Sound team…
Guitar-parts & Solar Voyager programmes fine-tuned.
Lunch is running late.
14.05 Performances at lunch:
The ESP with Martin playing Small Thrak;
The LCG circulating a fierce figure;
the harp & guitar duo formed at breakfast.
Announcement regarding the upcoming performances:
define the space;
organise the space;
protect the space;
hold the space.
Security is important. Tales told of people who feel the rules do not apply to them, including but he’ll want to meet me; and the notional primacy of consumer rights demanded by those who have handed over their hard-earned pay.
It is important that those of the Team who agree to take on a role are reliable & responsible. At The OCG performance in February at Sant Cugat, a security person decided they weren’t going to do security after all; leaving us vulnerable.
16.36 One personal meeting.
Tea at 16.00.
On the board…
Questions From A College In England.
Q: How important do you think it to start with a clearly defined aim?
Critical. An aim should be clearly, simply & precisely defined. This is necessary, so that we know where we’re going; know what we have to do to achieve the aim; and then, clearly & simply, know that, in fact, we have done so.
This give us three overall stages in the process of moving towards the aim:
injunction;
application;
verification.
If the aim is messy, exactly where we’re going isn’t quite definite; the practical measures we employ to achieve the aim are likely to be inefficient; and looking back, recapitulating our work, will be imprecise & muddled. Verifying the degree to which our realization of the aim is a just fit to the aim as defined, is also not quite clear. Perhaps, the external or functional aspects of the aim may have been discharged, but this accomplishment is not quite an achievement or realisation of the quality embodied in the aim.
Q: How do the results of one’s efforts reflect the clarity and precision of the original aim?
As above. There is a Guitar Craft aphorism:
If we don’t know where we’re going, we’ll probably get there.
Q: How important is it to success that one’s aim(s) somehow relate and synchronise with one’s Will? (I use this word for lack of a better one to represent an essential, spiritual or ontological need or characteristic).
The Will is a difficult notion to grasp, for various reasons. So, how to approach this in a practical manner? A useful practical approach is by addressing the properties or powers of the Will.
Primarily, the most direct & available in our own experience is the quality of our attention. To what degree can we exercise / direct the volitional attention? This is then a very practical matter & available to practising. One Guitar Craft exercise is the Division of Attention exercise; which is actually a series of exercises.
Choice & decision are other properties of the Will; and both may be practised.
Q: I use this word for lack of a better one to represent an essential, spiritual or ontological need or characteristic.
I prefer need or necessity as an approach. The Guitar Craft aphorism applicable here is: honour necessity, honour sufficiency.
A second aphorism…
the necessary is possible;
the optional is expensive;
the arbitrary is unlikely.
This gives us actions that are necessary & unnecessary, intentional / volitional & unintentional / non-volitional.
Once again, this becomes a practical question: what is necessary for me? Alternatively expressed: what do I need? and/or what do I need to do?
Clearly, there are existential necessities & responsibilities. But, there is also essential necessity, however we might term our sense of essential need.
Q: Am I correct in assuming that you conceptualise hazard as a process/ force/ energy that is not random occurrence but somehow determined through an interaction of the perceiver and the perceived?
One way of approaching hazard is to say that, even where there is ontological necessity (whatever we understand by that), where there is commitment to a worthy aim, even undertaken by the deserving, a favourable outcome is in no way guaranteed. And that this is both an inevitable, and necessary, feature of any creative process.
Another way of expressing this: to have the freedom to achieve the aim, there can be no guarantee of success. If there were a guarantee, there would be no aim, no freedom, no succeeding. The Creative Process would be only mechanical; ie not creative at all.
I do not understand this as determined through an interaction of the perceiver and the perceived.
Not sure if this is any help at all!
22.26 Rehearsals with The LCG at 17.00.
A lot of material is available.
T’ai Chi at 18.30. Most of those in the House were at work elsewhere.
Dinner at 19.00. The main dish was a bowl of soup. No comments were offered, other than a few muttered on the top table as to how a bowl of thin soup might be served as dinner.
Changing strings on the Tokai Les Paul.
Rehearsal with The LCG.
More string changing.
It is very hot. More mosquito bites.
