The practice of blending is an important aspect of the Gurdjieff work. It has taken me a long time to appreciate its value. Initially, blending was an instruction that I understood conceptually, but not in practice. For instance, I understood the directive to blend emotional feeling into the sensation of an arm or leg. But was I doing it? I couldn’t really tell. So, the practice of blending remained a concept.
However, when Mr. Bennett introduced an exercise called the 6-Point exercise, I unknowingly began to learn how to blend. The exercise involved following the breath and using attention. I remember Mr. Bennett describing the composition of air, for starters. He represented each particle of air as having five elements. Three “known” elements, (oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide) and two “unknown elements.” These unknown or “finer” elements were the ones we worked with, the others were simply exhaled.
After following one particle of air into the lungs, we would pause and become aware of the two finer elements. Then, using sensation, we would direct our attention to a specific chakra and “blend” the finer elements of the air with the sensation at that chakra point.
For some reason, I did not equate the 6-Point exercise with the practice of blending. Years later, re-visiting my relationship with blending, I realized that was what I had been doing all along. This set me on a path to intentionally look at the practice of blending. I have since realized that it is an important and central skill in many exercises and relates to our work in life.
Blending often has to do with combining a feeling state with our bodily sensation. But as in the 6-Point exercise, it isn’t limited to those two centers.
Blending as Infusion
Once we become aware of and can separate our different centers, blending becomes a work of infusing the energy of one center with the energy of another. Or in the case of air, infusing the nutrients of finer substances into our physical and spiritual, (Kesdjan) bodies.
When I blend a feeling that has arisen, into the sensation of a limb, it is like infusing my physical body with finer emotional energy. But am I also infusing my “sensation body” with that energy? This makes me wonder if creating a fully formed Kesdjan body necessitates blending the finer energies of both feeling and thought with my sensation body. If this is true, then I should be spending more time and attention on practicing blending.
It also occurs to me, that there is a kind of blending that happens over time as we study and practice this 4th Way work in general. It’s how I blend my understanding with my day-to-day practice—how this work infuses my life. For me, I find the ideas become realities not through talking, but as I practice morning exercise, as I do movements, as I join in practical work on Work Events. As my practice and experience evolves, the work becomes more and more blended with my life.
The higher blends with the lower to actualize the corresponding middle. With intention, the higher (sacred impulses, the Presence of the Holy Spirit), focuses and intensifies in our chest like a fire as we breathe consciously and submit/surrender to it. We can then infuse our sensation with this fire to spiritualize parts of the body. The corresponding middle becomes an intense presence, vibrating with a sacred quality, which we can infuse into our actions so that we live life as a prayer.
The physical vehicle for this process is the blood. When we sense a limb, we increase the blood flow to our extremities. Shifting the blood flow engages the parasympathetic nervous system which enhances relaxation, healing and restoration. The conscious breathing in a relaxed state releases neurotransmitters into the blood that carry the vibration of these sacred impulses to parts of the body we focus our attention on. This energized blood is referred to as hanbledzoin, or the blood of the kesdjan body.