I am speaking of blending an emotional feeling with a separate physical sensation.
Recently, I have realized that I’ve never given real attention to nor fully practiced the art of blending. In fact, I kind of skipped over practicing blending as such. I practiced sensation in the early days until I could call it up whenever and where-ever. But not blending.
The interesting thing about entering the last phase of life, is that the things I learned, or even read in my youth, are re-visited as if brand new. But now I have a lifetime of practice and experience to apply as I re-read and re-visit Ouspensky, Bennett and Gurdjieff.
This is how I am working currently: after a full twenty minutes or so of relaxation then filling with sensation, I gather all my sensation into one limb, starting with the right arm. Then I allow a feeling to arise in my chest, like Wish or Remorse, waiting for it to be really there, not just a thought. Part of the work is to keep the sensation going in the right arm while recognizing the feeling in my breast. But the real Work is to “somehow or other” move the feeling from my breast into my right arm so that the sensation and the feeling can meld together, or blend. I move to the next limb and either use the same feeling or bring up a different one, like Hope. My aim is to develop a facility with blending, like I have with sensation.
I’ve done much more complicated exercises over the years, but somehow never buckled down to getting the blending of feeling with sensation established. This is what I mean by re-investigating—that something I thought I understood long ago, I now see as nuanced and important, even seminal. The old becomes new, the known a mystery.
Thanks Roberta! I began a new 7 years ago. That was after almost 30 years from the course. I have fond and good memories but left with no understanding. Sometimes I think of the time I lost but catching up did not take as long as I thought it would. Thank you for being a part of it!
HI Sam,
You do not seem to be alone in “beginning anew” as well as “catching up”- even for those who have not “left the work” so to speak in Ouspenskian terms, there is still this “beginning anew” that seems to be happening at this later stage. It is exactly what I am talking about in this blog.
stranded struggling pilgrims;
losing and finding our way.
in the light of a sun that never goes out.
somewhere in Ouspensky, didn’t Gurdjieff say
that one day
the earth would become like the one sun.
the one sun we know and pours itself out
for livingness to be.
As you see from seven years ago.
What was waiting there
for you to begin again?
What reservoir of light at the ready for you
to make the first step again and again
toward an infinite Grace,
feet on the ground,
alive in the grass and open sphere of sky
receiving you?
listen to this man
how he helps a younger man, despairing.
I’m nearly certain that this young man, Ryan,
whose name he speaks boldly and piercingly…
Lost sheep, as we all are.
As he has been.
The way he reveals the light that never goes out.
As deftly one might say
As The Little Prince, guarding but one flower.
this one life that’s threaded like a needle
through the middle of our lives.
weaving our sometimes ragged parts into a whole…
“To make whole, be whole…” he says.
this came to him in his listening:
“Be ye, therefore, perfect as your Father which in Heaven is perfect.”
Best wishes, Sam and Roberta…I hope there is something in here for yinz.
Yeah, I’m a yinzer. LOL.
God’s Peace–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufBFvPshkFc
A wonderful extemporaneous poem you just wove, James. Thank You!
I will PM you about this. Thank you, dear Roberta…