Tom Redmond made travel announcements. Then, at 22.18, I presented the final challenge: at 22.30 two school buses were arriving. The first was to carry the Level Two back to Miller's Tavern for more Adventures In International Guitar, the second to carry the Level One & anyone else from the Kitchen Team & Staff who wished to go to the performance.
The danger for the Level One particularly was to blow the energy generated by & available from the course. The challenge was also the last opportunity for those who haven't quite arrived on the course to do so. This constituted the middle of the Final Meeting.
And then to Miller's.
On our return the key Kitchen Team, responsible for moving our functioning course kitchen from one building to another, had 80+ boxes of stuff to be moved between one building and another. So, some 80+ people formed a line and passed the boxes from one to another up the hill, from one kitchen building to another.
Then we began the ending of the Final Meeting, with a few more comments being made. Just before 01.20 the Level One was declared: finished for some, concluded for others and completed for more.
There were several firsts to the course; the worst for me that this is the first course where I have not been physically present in the morning sittings, nursing coughing fits in the solitude of The Garden Centre.
A highlight of the course were the 3 visits of silence during Tuesday's dinner: gifts were brought.
09.37
Of the performances at breakfast several were exceptionally dismal. Good comments on the performance last night by members of the performance team.
The Level Two continues.
12.37
The morning meeting addressed passing the notes of C natural minor / E flat major one note at a time, from chair to chair. This is intensive work in the Circle.
14.29
One of the Level One has gone off in some high dudgeon: they didn't want to leave. It was "unfair" that when their course had ended, they were not allowed to stay on. During the Level One the energy of the course was sufficient to contain their disruptive tendencies. For this person, their behaviour took one particular form, constantly repeated, to which they were blind. Now the course is over, there isn't a "container" for this behaviour. So, were they to impinge on the Level Two without having the wherewithal to "pay" for their presence, they would disrupt it and without being able to know or see how & why.
En passant, I was hoping to be able to invite any & all of the Level One to stay longer, but the practicalities at the Lebanon Baptist Camp prevent this: the Christian Motorcyclists' Association & their Harleys have been arriving all morning.
One of the Kitchen Team has, independently, undertaken to perform for the Christian Bikers. This initiative is not "bad": it was made in good faith & with goodwill, but it was made without reference to the director of the course (RF). So, an undertaking was given without reference to how this might impact on other possibilities for the course. Then it moves to how the course as a whole is able to honour this undertaking, and find a place for that, without individuals on the course being committed to it. Add to this: the Christian Bikers told our kitchen person that they "get in the face" of other bikers (but without violence), that the Holy Spirit leads other bikers to them, and asked if our music "honoured God". For any Level Two who has difficulties with evangelism, upfront believers (of any background), and a defined religious vocabulary (of any tradition), there is endless possibility for schism, reaction & disputation. In other words, good grist for this course's mill.
A member of the Team came to see me before lunch: they had "seen music before it's composed". To put this slightly differently (and in my own words) they had had an insight into the World of Energies, the unconditioned. This is the "place" that music comes from, where all potential is present and before possibilities become actualised, and defined.
This was a "state" not a "station": a visit, not where the Crafty lived. But now, having visited, they know for themselves what Music might be like in the penthouse roof garden.
Silence is very much like this for me: limitless possibility, not yet committed. Neither can be known. The "frequency band" is above the "knowing" (even understanding) level. But once having visited, even though beyond words & what we can know, we know that this is how it is: we have had a "taste" of what is real.
18.44
Very good personal meetings. Real issues.
The Group Meeting at 16.30 addressed C natural minor once more (for 2 hours) and came within a semitone of nailing it.
20.26
Perceptive comments over dinner regarding the work in the circle. The "mistakes" aren't turning negative or engendering criticism of others. The goodwill is considerable.
The course is a little tired from 2 late nights, plus re-equilibrating & recalibrating to smaller numbers - 40 people! How amazing that this seems to be a small course now. The first course in March 1985 was 16 students plus Robert.
The team visiting this week includes people from the very beginning & the early years, some of whom haven't been around for up to a decade.
"Humour is not permitted."
