Thursday, 7th. July 2011; 11.51
The Way Of The Artist, successfully embraced, is directed towards developing direct insight. In a sense, we call on the Muse—discover the Muse is already calling to us—and give voice to her promptings, to the degree we are able and shaped by the patterns of who and what we are. The only authentic qualification an artist has is the acknowledgement and recognition of their work, and any authority attributed to them, by those at least competent to make the judgment. Something like: What authority does the poet have? None. But this is what they saw…
If we are private, quietly and invisibly working away, we are already making our contribution to the world. When something changes in us, something changes in the world. For others, their work has a visible component in public view. One example: The Way Of The Working Player, which is clearly undertaken in public.
How to find appropriate forms of manifesting/acting/moving out into the world? The specific and particular forms are determined primarily by the people undertaking them.
Some of the moving-out-into-the-world forms may be more private, supporting the more public initiatives; e.g., publications of various writings, the GC repertoire, and Primary exercises. The archives need to be sorted and assembled. We have some movements forward on these already.
16.35 Tea at 16.00.
Silence visited. At the beginning of a course, something is given, invested in the course to set it on its way.
Friday, 8th. July 2011;
20.43 Dinner at 19.00. Visitors have arrived to eat our food.
Comment on the use of energy: unintentional action is expensive and wasteful of the little energy available to our personal economy. With Intentional action, nothing is wasted. Recommendation: paying attention to the first footfall over the threshold into the ballroom for the House of Guitars. This confers definition, clarity, and certainty to the experience. We may revisit this experience some time afterward and, because it is definite, certain, and clear, we may re-enter that experience which remains available to us, and interrogate it.
Saturday, 9th. July 2011; 07.08
08.58 In a mad world, the person universally judged as crazy will most likely be sane.
14.06 Lunch at 13.00
Mr. V has found the music in the House of Guitars different from Guitar Craft music from his attendance on a course some years ago. Question: Why?
A: That was Guitar Craft; this is the Guitar Circle. The primary aim in Guitar Craft was to learn the instrument, in a context where performance and working with others was a necessary part of that particular approach, supporting the primary aim of learning to play the guitar.
Here, the primary aim is working with others in the Circle, and the guitar is the means into the Circle. The aim in the Circle is for forty, perhaps one hundred people, to act as if they are one: they already are. The work is for us to know that directly; i.e., to experience it.
Sunday, 10th. July 2011; 10.24
An emerging theme of this week is how an insane world judges the sane person as completely mad. For example: to leave an extremely successful position in any field of endeavor, to follow a more substantive and necessary undertaking, is clearly crazy. Why not stay where you are—making lots of money, even where this involves lies, deceit, and serving self-interest above that of the people who are nominally served and supported?
22.14 Beginners in the ballroom with Robert at 21.00.
Music is primarily a social event. Different communities and cultures organise these events differently. In the West, performance venues have been constructed where the roles of performers and audiences are sharply delineated: performers elevated above the audience. This is part of the concert tradition.
Currently, there is a growing culture of home recitals, particularly in the US, by both well-known and lesser-known artists; this partly in response to the unsatisfactory organisation of musical events by commerce. If the performance tomorrow were in a Circle, perhaps the audience would be sitting inside it, and actually part of the Circle.
Tuesday, 12th. July 2011; 06.54
At 16.45 the Beginners who had prepared their One Little Thing To Take Home presented their work.
The first: to sit on a chair, a constant part of their life. They discharged this well, once, and were asked to do this three times. Once may be Beginners’ Luck. If discharged successfully three times, it is more likely that they/we know what we’re doing. If discharged successfully seven times, probably we do know what we’re doing.
Several participants had set themselves to take home a Right Hand holding-the-pick. The hands were not ideal, not the perfectest of Right Hands in a perfect world; but because work was honourably undertaken, we were able to have a conversation.
One returning Beginner opted to tune the guitar. Some assistance was given them by further un-tuning their instrument.
The final piece of work presented was an intentional action: moving through a door. The importance of an intentional act is that the experience of it remains, and continues: we may return to it and re-enter it at later moments in our life, even to interrogate it.
Q: What does that mean?
Interrogate the experience: we can ask our experience questions. Perhaps, when the experience occurred, we were young. Now, as mature characters, we may return to the intentional-experience and find it waiting—provided we were there. Otherwise, it has blown away in the wind. But perhaps we might return to an experience of thirty-five years ago, and find it continues to educate us, able to answer questions we were unable to ask when younger.
7th. - 12th. July 2011
Monasterio Nuestra Senora De Los Angeles (Monjas Dominicas),
Sant Cugat, Spain.
