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| Melody Newcomb, a student of the enneagram and part of the Inscapes community since 1985, began studying the Movements in 1996. |
Gurdjieff Movements as a Practice of Attention and Community
The Greek-Armenian mystic, George Gurdjieff, who brought the enneagram to the West, created a set of exercises for his students. These were based on the dances he witnessed traveling in the East and incorporated the laws reflected in the enneagram. He described himself as a “teacher of dancing”, so central did he see the experience of the Movements to the development of consciousness.
The Gurdjieff Movements are a practice of attention with gestures and choreography set to music created for this purpose. The complexity of the Movements invites concentration and self-awareness. The Movements challenge the unconscious patterns, making us aware of our automatic ways of being.
The effort needed to learn the patterns of the Movements and sustain the practice brings us face to face with our habits of thinking, feeling, and sensing. If we cannot “get” something, what happens? Do we give up? Go on to the next exciting thing? Blame someone? The work on ourselves, awakening to our patterns of behaviour, thought and feeling, is the first point of the Movements.
The community is central to the practice of the Movements. Here we bump into the “Other”, physically, emotionally or metaphorically. These encounters increase awareness of our presence and actions in the world.
When self-awareness and awareness of the “Other” strengthen, and the movement becomes integrated, there are moments we enter the mystery of Presence. The body relaxes, the mind quiets, the heart opens, and we experience what is real: a harmony with ourselves, others and our purpose.
Photos of Sacred MovementsClick to enlarge... |
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