None but God can restore us to true liberty
Herman Witsius

Current Reading

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid (A collaborative translation issued in 1717 by Sir Samuel Garth)

7.7.07

Daily Exercise

George, age fourteen, is the only child at the small gathering in the evening. After dinner, around midnight, Gurdjieff gives advice. 'I wish give *real* Christmas present. Imagine Christ. Somewhere in space *is*.' Mr. Gurdjieff forms an oval with both his hands. 'Make contact. Not to center, but to outside, periphery. Draw from there, draw in *I*. Settle in you, *Am*. Do every day. Wish to become Christ. Become. Be.'"

Louise March
The Gurdjieff Years - 1929-1949

6.7.07

Jubilee

01 Souls are sown into the Time-world. All is present. We live in one point in this vast present. The evolving man remembers.

02 You Are Responsible For What You Have Understood.

03 Only through understanding is development possible - a man is his understanding.

04 One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all [EPH 4:5 - 6]

05 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ [EPH 5:20]

06 To need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer he does approach divinity.

07 I am an experiment of the Solar Laboratory.

08 Life falls on the acquired personality – ‘it’ reacts.

09 Do unto other’s as you would have them do unto you.

10 Think in degree rather than in absolutes.

11 Follow the claim of the object – do the next thing.

12 The end of strife is the end of life.

13 Laughter should not be much, nor frequent, nor unrestrained.

14 Find true opposites to irritations.

15 No man is free who is not master of himself – control over things begins with control over ourselves.

16 Remember Yourself Always And Everywhere.

17 Everything is real, but relatively less real than what is above it.

18 Sleep with the remembrance of death, rise with the thought that you will not live long.

19 Imagine how a conscious man would act.

20 Friction creates energy.

21 Lying kills essence.

22 All is vanity.

23 You have a right not to be negative.

24 A fool's voice [is known] by multitude of words [ECCLES 5:3]

25 Never feel you have to be right.

26 The thing that hath been, it [is that] which shall be; and that which is done [is] that which shall be done: and [there is] no new [thing] under the sun. [ECCLES 1:9]

27 Like what 'it' doesn't like.

28 God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus [PHIL 4:19]

29 Everybody is God's own child in different stages of development.

30 Everything seeks completion – the created universe seeks by evolution to return to its source.

31 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, [therewith] to be content [PHIL 4:11]

32 See all negativity as a gift.

33 Valuation is love.

34 Never complain never explain [cf: PHIL 2:14]

35 You possess only whatever will not be lost in a shipwreck.

36 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor [EX 20:16]

37 See in yourself what you dislike in others.

38 Limitations are limitations of Being.

39 Honour the highest thing in the Universe, Honour the highest within yourself.

40 Help is all around us. God help me to help God.

41 Man receives all his possibilities from On High.

42 We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.

43 Conscious labour is the effort to sense, remember and observe oneself.

44 The day will return when we shall be returned to the light.

45 Man is a cell in organic life. Organic life is the earth’s organ of perception & radiation.

46 The chief implement for living felicitously in life is to have the ability to consider externally always, internally never.

47 The Self you try to remember is above yourself.

48 Only super efforts are counted.

49 Time is the boundary of our senses.

50 The fundamental striving of every man should be to create for himself an inner freedom towards life and to prepare for himself a happy old age.

4.7.07

Lady's Bridge

Richard Hawley has a new album out in August. I love his music. I don't say that often, I don't get that enthusiastic about popsters. I mean I adore that anguished baritone melodic vocal. He's one of these great talents that lurked behind the scenes playing guitar for the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton & All Saints and then as if from nowhere started slipping out these beautiful edgey mysterious and lush sounds perfectly produced, gelled together with this extraordinarily rich and relaxed vocal that seems to have caught the essence of all the great male vocalists - it could be Roy Orbison or Sinatra, a Morrisey or Chris Isaacs, Glen Campbell, Leonard Cohen, or Johnny Cash but no, it's Richard Hawley! He stepped so far out from anything that might be cool that he could well find himself becoming the new cool of the British music industry, and if not, at least for a generation with their ears open, one of the finest musicians - he plays umpteen instruments and produces his albums. No small talent.

A Domestic Scene ... falling off the edge of the world



35mm plastic film-can pinhole-anamorph,
set at 45 degree angle.
f.64 @ 4 secs on Kentmere glossy hard paper in full sun.


Two Perilous Knights

Negative Emotions & Identifying will take a noble knight to the floor with barely any exertion. They are perilous knights, they will ride out in the open, they will approach with great boldness and strike you quite casually as if you were merely a fly. Something less than a fly, a quarry that already belongs to them, theirs by rights. You are almost pre-conditioned to submission and their confidence is a fact drawn out of that dreadful state.

Why do people fear loneliness and hide in the agitation of crowds? We are alone in our encounters with these perilous knights, you know that. How you will fight these enemies is a matter your mother can not resolve. You must stand upright or be staked to the ground, held prisoner in a dark forest where light barely penetrates. Pierced with a two edged blade, the days wasted, the pointless years leading you to declare, it's over don't you know? How will you fight these enemies, you who will not bow?

Yes. Search your wounds young knight. Don't look back.

Positive Emotions.
Positive mental attitudes.
Non-identifying.
Self-remembering.
Develop understanding.

Please keep me in your heart - a prayer.