Last night the Gurdjieff Society of Newport met for the 13th. We began with Movements, culminating in “I Wish to Have Being” with Mrs Adie’s almost sublime music. The music (violin and piano) was powerful: “Inaccessible Places 1,” “Procession in the Holy Night,” and “Joyous Hymn,” spaced apart.

When the Movements were completed, we set up for a simple meal, at the end of which we had the Toasts to the Idiots. This is the first time we have done this, but I sincerely hope it shall not be the last. I would welcome hearing of the experience of other groups which have worked with this.

The night was based around the sacred image and the Four Ideals Exercise. To that end, we had readings from some of Gurdjieff’s comments to his war-time Paris groups, and Bennett’s talks on the image. We finished with the exercise.

All I wish, or need to say is that I now appreciate, more deeply than ever the profound and wider significance of the final paragraph of Mr Adie’s text of the exercise, and the fact that it is possible to actualise the words in blue:

After that, rest ten or fifteen minutes in a collected state, that is to say, do not allow thought or feeling or organic instinct to pass outside the limit of the atmosphere of the body. Rest contained so that your nature can assimilate in calmness the results deposited in you, which otherwise would be lost in vain.