Young North Public Schools senior aerobics group will be heading to the national aerobics championships this week on the Gold Coast in what has been another hugely successful year for the girls.

Young North Public Schools senior aerobics group will be heading to the national aerobics championships this week on the Gold Coast in what has been another hugely successful year for the girls.

The team, led by Young North Public School teacher Jessica Hardy, most recently performed at the 2017 Cherry Jam but the girls had massive success at the state finals coming in fifth overall in their division and making it to the National Championships to be held this week.

The girls werent alone in their success with the Junior girls also doing well coming home with the bronze from the state championships.

It was the Juniors first year sending a competition team, and the school said they were very proud of the performance as well as the behaviour of the students who took part.

The competition in both the senior and junior divisions was very close with the juniors only missing out on moving forward by one place.

In May the teams competed in their first competition for the year with the Junior team coming in a respectable fourth place and the seniors winning second making both teams eligible to compete in the state finals which were held in June.

Ms Hardy and the Junior squad have already set their sights on making it to Nationals next year.

The Senior aerobics team will be making the trek to the Gold Coast where they will compete against teams from all across the country. It is set to be a very tough competition but with the success of previous year's behind them, and a hard working and dedicated coach and parents, the community should be proud of the girls no matter the result at the end of the competition.

FIT AND FABULOUS: Young North Public School's Senior Aerobics team will be heading to the Gold Coast this week for the National Championships. Photo: Rebecca Hewson.

YNPS Aerobics.

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Aerobics champs - The Young Witness

Karma is not produced so much by a wrong kind of action as by the type of action which derives from a refusal to perform creative acts, when the need for them had come. Dane Rudhyar

Since Trumps election, the majority of my clients feel agitated, hopeless or haunted by a fuzzy, low-grade anxiety. To say thats understandable is a whopping understatement.

My initial response: Turn off, tune out and drop in. This is a distorted variation of Timothy Learys defining counterculture-era phrase from the 60s: Turn on, tune in, drop out

And heres what I mean:

I no longer hound dog the news, not because Im in denial, but the ongoing clusterfuck is too incestuous, too convoluted to unravel amidst the coming-at-you-every-five-minutes barrage of infoglut. It would take every iota of my psychic force to gain a sliver of objective truth and Ive other shit I want to do.

But this obsessive entanglement is what ensnares most folks: Once online their nervous system is tweaked, twanged and poked like a cyber-driven form of Chinese water torture. And theres a method to the madness.

Big media is complicit with Trump in myriad tacit ways. Trump is the grift that keeps on giving. As some internet advertising maven said once: Anger makes people click. Within our carnival culture, clicking means money.

Trump is one of the angriest human beings on earth (natal Mars in Leo is conjunct a Leo ascendant translated: righteous anger stoked by entitlement and a hybrid form of narcissism that has yet to be properly diagnosed).

And Americans are some of the angriest people on the planet. They are also in the era of the homogenous online hive mind desperate for acknowledgment, for some sense of being a unique individual so its a great match. People get the president they deserve or at the very least the president that mirrors their shadow.

My favorite form of self-torture is to trawl the comments section of any article I come across online. This is akin to flipping the lid up on the American Id.

Should the comments sections be uncensored, like, on Youtube, then OMG turn back! Or brace to be soaked in our cultures kookoo watering hole. The Internet has unleashed a Pandoras pox of rage and spread it virally into everyones home (and head). Historically this is unprecedented. But take heart. Amidst the horrors there are opportunities. Attached to full exposure is the potential for full illumination.

I do occasionally check in with three websites. Democracy Now, The Intercept (though I wish Glenn Greenwald had a mean editor) and a new site Im loving, The Outline (kind of like a non-puerile Gawker with political undertones and smart sardonic reporting). Those three sites give me enough info to have a cursory idea of the State of the Nation.

And then I get on with living.

The Shadow Knows

The mechanism of psychological projection works like this: The unconscious conjures an image related to some unsavory quality within the self and projects that image onto someone (or some condition, political party or ethnic group.) An adversarial relationship is established. The only way free from this position is through recollection. Reabsorption of the projection.

Projections are weird because usually intermixed with the projection is a lot of energy, passion and force. So when thats blasted out and lands on someone or something outside, a huge chunk of ones vitality is lost too.

Self-inquiry facilitates dissolving the realization that the projection is coming from inside ones own home.

After that insight, you can go to work on recollecting. Owning the projection to regain access to the psychic force that went missing. This is what maturation is all about. But with a Trickster like Trump at the helm, its doubly difficult to pause, evaluate and reclaim. But this is a necessary discipline should you wish to drop in on what youre interested in creating in life.

Which is really the point of this post. If you feel you want to do something more than react, rant and re-post articles from the New York Times about Trumps latest outrage, well, start recollecting. That method allows you to turn off and tune out. Youve made a clean break. Now you can DROP IN.

When a projection is owned, the rearrangement within the psyche creates a blank spot or hole within the fabric of ones familiar sense of self. This hole can act as a sort of portal into whatever youre wishing to align with or do or create in your life.

The quirky thing about projections: Not only does the projection rob you of vital force it acts as a distraction a way to avoid engaging with life because, well, Ive got so many fucking things I want to complain about!

When the complaining stops what do you do?

Drop into the hole and see where the portal leads you. If you need assistance book a session with me and well work it through.

You dont need to have all the specifics about what it is youll be involved with (or maybe you do maybe you want to take to the streets and protest, run for political office or just clean out your garage it doesnt matter.) What matters is that youve regained the drive for doing whatever. Youve dropped into your life and out of the swirling, distracting miasma of Trumplandia.

Good luck!

'Turn Off, Tune Out and Drop In'

June 29th, 2017

Its mid-year. How in the hell did that happen? (Time the revelator).

As I noted last year I havent had the time to compile music for a proper mix on Mixcloud. I miss doing that as the process is actually meditative but well, heres a bunch of tunes on Spotify. Ive been spinning this collection since the dawn of 2017. There are some rhyme and reasons to the order and flow though a lot of serendipity too.

Enjoy.

Opening graphic: Toilet Paper, vol. 12 cover by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.

'Mid-2017: Songs for the New Secession'

April 30th, 2017

Paul Horwich, in a long NY Times essay wrote:

The singular achievement of the controversial early 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was to have discerned the true nature of Western philosophy what is special about its problems, where they come from, how they should and should not be addressed, and what can and cannot be accomplished by grappling with them. The uniquely insightful answers provided to these meta-questions are what give his treatments of specific issues within the subject concerning language, experience, knowledge, mathematics, art and religion among them a power of illumination that cannot be found in the work of others.

Wittgenstein isnt an easy immersion, but hes worth your effort because the more you study his philosophy which was actually, in spots, more akin to mysticism the more freedom you might gain as an astrologer.

Like the closet mystic Carl Jung, Wittgenstein knew how to couch his propositions to pass the scrutiny of his peers (well, except for his mentor Bertrand Russell who he drove to fury by disregarding traditional formulations of logic.)

And because of this sketchy dance, between chilly logic and the nimbus of mysticism, I find Wittgenstein to be the most satisfying of linguistic rebels. His mix of the effable with the ineffable mirrors in a direct way how human beings toil with making sense (or a muddle) of astrology. Read more

'Why Astrologers Need to Study Wittgenstein'

March 15th, 2017

The earth is littered with the ruins of empires that believed they were eternal. Camille Paglia

Dead men walking. Women marching. Alternative facts. Reality show presidents. Anti-Christ-Palooza. Terrorists and Tiaras. Bitcoin. Gold coins. NSA. GMOs. WTF.

Signs, symbols, and Zeitgeist stingers. Time traveling omens from Armageddon are the stock and trade of our modern day narrative. The stories and anxieties we lay down and fret about until the Ambien kicks in.

Doom tales monopolize our inner landscape because speeding up to the end means a new beginning is just around the corner. Or over the cliff. Thats one theory. The catch, of course, is the way we resist other narratives. Its wise now to think beyond the parameters of being a garden-variety human being.

This is the nut of the message from the ongoing transits of Neptune and Pluto through the closing section of the zodiac, while Uranus in short fuse Aries keeps broadcasting, Come on! Speed it up. (Or blow it up). Hurry! Go faster (and furiously.)

When food, money, energy and optimism are scarce we become attached to whatever sort of hoard (be it our meager amount in savings or the way Plutocrats hog all the wealth and investments in their seemingly exempt world) weve come to associate with as a means to see us through to the new phase. Or at the meanest level, its outsiders who are closing in on our turf and must be turned away.

So were looping right now. Sort of like the routine animals demonstrate before being eaten by a predator. Youve probably seen videos like this on those nature shows you watch on Youtube. The prey runs around and around in a hysterical circle before the killing bite is administered by the predator. Right?

This entire article is included in the new book Skywriter: Notes on Modern Astrology. Order below!

For the past ten years, Frederick Woodruffs AstroInquiry has become the go-to spot for readers in search of illuminating commentary on astrology, popular culture, spirituality and the pitfalls of New Age charlatanism.

Woodruffs 40-year career as a professional astrologer, artist, and pop-culture critic have honed a perspicacious writer who doesnt pull punches as he explores radical new views on astrology, the shortcomings of New Age magical thinking and the precarious minefield that dots our tech-obsessed cultural landscape.

Thankfully, hes funny and also keen on suggesting creative ways forward for everyone.

And now theres an e-book that collects Woodruffs most popular and provocative articles into one comprehensive and engaging book. You wont want to miss any of them!

This volume includes:

The Truth About Mercury Retrograde Planetary Ennui: The Nostalgia for Samsara and the Outer Planets How To Make Facebook Your Slave and Preserve Your Creative Drive The Power, Beauty, and Wonder of the Horoscopes 12th House Imbeciles at the Gate: How The Internet Destroys Astrology How To Escape From the Torture of Self-Help Hell Depression and the Solar Consciousness Secrets of the Heart: Love is an Action Not A Feeling Create Your Own Archetype & Call It You: An Escape from Evolutionary Astrology Redefining the Oxymoron of Sex and Marriage Death is the New Black How To Write About Astrology (Especially How Not To) Astrology, Ants, Hives, Essence, and Types: A Gurdjieffian View Final Notes About the Life-and-Culture-Changing Uranus-Pluto Square

Order your copy now!

'Outer Planet Transits & Nostalgia for Samsara'

Read the rest here:
Frederick Woodruff * Astrology * Gurdjieff * Fourth Way ...

The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development described by George Gurdjieff which he developed over years of travel in the East (c. 1890 - 1912). It combines and harmonizes what he saw as three established traditional "ways" or "schools": those of the mind, emotions, and body, or of yogis, monks, and fakirs respectively. Students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work", "Work on oneself," or "The System". The exact origins of some of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but people have offered various sources.[1]

The term "Fourth Way" was further used by his student P. D. Ouspensky in his lectures and writings. After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book entitled The Fourth Way based on his lectures.

According to this system, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on religion. Where schools of yogis, monks or fakirs exist, they are barely distinguishable from religious schools. The fourth way differs in that "it is not a permanent way. It has no specific forms or institutions and comes and goes controlled by some particular laws of its own."[2]

When this work is finished, that is to say, when the aim set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for the purpose of education and instruction.[3]

The Fourth Way addresses the question of humanity's place in the Universe and the possibilities of inner development. It emphasizes that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic "waking sleep," while higher levels of consciousness, virtue, unity of will are possible.

The Fourth Way teaches how to increase and focus attention and energy in various ways, and to minimize day-dreaming and absent-mindedness. This inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform man into "what he ought to be."

Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual master,[4] a human being who is fully awake or enlightened. He was also seen as an esotericist or occultist.[5] He agreed that the teaching was esoteric but claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy but that many people lack the interest or the capability to understand it.[6] Gurdjieff said, "The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time."[citation needed]

The Fourth Way teaches that humans are not born with a soul and are not really conscious but only believe they are. A person must create a soul by following a teaching which can lead to this aim, or else "die like a dog". Humans are born asleep, live in sleep and die in sleep, only imagining that they are awake.[7] The ordinary waking "consciousness" of human beings is not consciousness at all but merely a form of sleep.

Gurdjieff taught "sacred dances" or "movements", now known as Gurdjieff movements, which they performed together as a group.[8] He left a body of music, inspired by that which he had heard in remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.[9]

Gurdjieff taught that traditional paths to spiritual enlightenment followed one of three ways:

Gurdjieff insisted that these paths - although they may intend to seek to produce a fully developed human being - tend to cultivate certain faculties at the expense of others. The goal of religion or spirituality was, in fact, to produce a well-balanced, responsive and sane human being capable of dealing with all eventualities that life may present. Gurdjieff therefore made it clear that it was necessary to cultivate a way that integrated and combined the traditional three ways.

Gurdjieff said that his Fourth Way was a quicker means than the first three ways because it simultaneously combined work on all three centers rather than focusing on one. It could be followed by ordinary people in everyday life, requiring no retirement into the desert. The Fourth Way does involve certain conditions imposed by a teacher, but blind acceptance of them is discouraged. Each student is advised to do only what they understand and to verify for themselves the teaching's ideas.

Ouspensky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways now in existence were not so divided, they stood much closer to one another. The fourth way differs from the old and the new ways by the fact that it is never a permanent way. It has no definite forms and there are no institutions connected with it."[10]

Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff that there are fake schools and that "It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way."[11]

In his works, Gurdjieff credits his teachings to a number of more or less mysterious sources:[12]-

Attempts to fill out his account have featured:

The Fourth Way focuses on "conscious labor" and "intentional suffering."

Conscious Labor is an action where the person who is performing the act is present to what he is doing; not absentminded. At the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently.

Intentional suffering is the act of struggling against automatism such as daydreaming, pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... In Gurdjieff's book Beelzebub's Tales he states that "the greatest 'intentional suffering' can be obtained in our presences by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves"[19]

To Gurdjieff these two were the basis of all evolution of man.

Self-Observation

This is to strive to observe in oneself behavior and habits usually only observed in others, and as dispassionately as one may observe them in others, to observe thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judging or analyzing what is observed.[20]

The Need for Effort

Gurdjieff emphasized that awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort. Such efforts may be made as an act of will after one is already exhausted.

The Many 'I's

This indicates fragmentation of the psyche, the different feelings and thoughts of I in a person: I think, I want, I know best, I prefer, I am happy, I am hungry, I am tired, etc. These have nothing in common with one another and are unaware of each other, arising and vanishing for short periods of time. Hence man usually has no unity in himself, wanting one thing now and another, perhaps contradictory, thing later.

Centers

Gurdjieff classified plants as having one center, animals two and humans three. Centers refer to apparati within a being that dictate specific organic functions. There are three main centers in a man: intellectual, emotional and physical, and two higher centers: higher emotional and higher intellectual.

Body, Essence and Personality

Gurdjieff divided people's being into Essence and Personality.

Cosmic Laws

Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven[citation needed].

How the Law of Seven and Law of Three function together is said to be illustrated on the Fourth Way Enneagram, a nine-pointed symbol which is the central glyph of Gurdjieff's system.

In his explanations Gurdjieff often used different symbols such as the Enneagram and the Ray of Creation. Gurdjieff said that "the enneagram is a universal symbol. All knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be interpreted ... A man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it read the eternal laws of the universe. And every time he can learn something new, something he did not know before."[21] The ray of creation is a diagram which represents the Earth's place in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's laws of octaves.

Through the elaboration of the law of octaves and the meaning of the enneagram, Gurdjieff offered his students alternative means of conceptualizing the world and their place in it.

To provide conditions in which attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements" which they performed together as a group, and he left a body of music inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.

Gurdjieff laid emphasis on the idea that the seeker must conduct his or her own search. The teacher cannot do the student's work for the student, but is more of a guide on the path to self-discovery. As a teacher, Gurdjieff specialized in creating conditions for students - conditions in which growth was possible, in which efficient progress could be made by the willing. To find oneself in a set of conditions that a gifted teacher has arranged has another benefit. As Gurdjieff put it, "You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances ... but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he becomes himself."

Having migrated for four years after escaping the Russian Revolution with dozens of followers and family members, Gurdjieff settled in France and established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Chteau Le Prieur at Fontainebleau-Avon in October 1922.[22] The institute was an esoteric school based on Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching. After nearly dying in a car crash in 1924, he recovered and closed down the Institute. He began writing All and Everything. From 1930, Gurdjieff made visits to North America where he resumed his teachings.

Ouspensky relates that in the early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Gurdjieff forbade students from writing down or publishing anything connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas. Gurdjieff said that students of his methods would find themselves unable to transmit correctly what was said in the groups. Later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting students who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in the Gurdjieff work.

After Gurdjieff's death in 1949 a variety of groups around the world have attempted to continue The Gurdjieff Work. The Gurdjieff Foundation, was established in 1953 in New York City by Jeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils.[23]J. G. Bennett ran groups and also made contact with the Subud and Sufi schools to develop The Work in different directions. Maurice Nicoll, a Jungian psychologist, also ran his own groups based on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's ideas. The French institute was headed for many years by Madam de Salzmann - a direct pupil of Gurdjieff. Under her leadership, the Gurdjieff Societies of London and New York were founded and developed.

There is debate regarding the ability to use Gurdjieff's ideas through groups. Some critics believe that none of Gurdjieff's students were able to raise themselves to his level of understanding. Proponents of the continued viability of Gurdjieff's system, and its study through the use of groups, however, point to Gurdjieff's insistence on the training of initiates in interpreting and disseminating the ideas that he expressed cryptically in Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. This, combined with Gurdjieff's almost fanatical dedication to the completion of this text (Beelzebub's Tales), suggest that Gurdjieff himself intended his ideas to continue to be practiced and taught long after his death. Other proponents of continuing the Work are not concerned with external factors, but focus on the inner results achieved through a sincere practice of Gurdjieff's system.

In contrast, some former Gurdjieffians joined other movements,[24][25] and there are a number of offshoots, and syntheses incorporating elements of the Fourth Way, such as:

The Enneagram is often studied in contexts that do not include other elements of Fourth Way teaching.

The rest is here:
Fourth Way - Wikipedia

This site, and the content herein except where noted, was created byAsaf Braverman. The posts are written by Asaf and several guest contributors.Asaf takes responsibility for any points of view expressed on this site, originating as they do, from his own experience with the Fourth Way and his own study of ancient wisdom.

After the deaths of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, students in Washington and New York continue, as best as they can, experimenting with Fourth Way principles. America now enters the post World War II era, characterized by the breaking down of form and the emergence of the Hippie movement. It is a decade ripe for esotericism and spirituality. Gurdjieffs student William Nyland connects with the young generation of people reacting to the increasingly materialist values of the postwar world.

The old image of teacher infallibility and the best of all schools has worn thin. It does not correspond to the modes of thought in a society where uncertainty and hazard are seen to be the price of existence itself. The school must be seen as a community that has undertaken an almost impossible task of producing a new type of man that will be needed to cope with the predicted world crises for the next hundred years. The image of the Temple of Wisdom must be replaced by that of Noahs Ark riding the flood. Unless awareness of social needs and the awakening of social conscience are recognized respectively as the beginning and end of the educational process, there is little hope for the future. J G Bennett

William Nylands circle includes Alexander Francis Horn, a teacher of theatre, dramatist, and playwright. Horn learns more about the Fourth Way from J.G. Bennets New York groups, from the Gurdjieff Foundation, as well as from Rodney Collin himself, whom he visits in Mexico. Upon Collins death, Horn is dissatisfied with the condition in which he finds the Gurdjieff Foundation (now institutionalized without its founder). He recommends that Lord Pentland disband it.

Horn establishes the Theatre of All Possibilities and incorporates Fourth Way principles into his theatrical work. Horns methods are severe, forcing his students to work on themselves by subjecting them to pressure and charging them with large demands. His plays In Search for a Solar Hero and Ponderings of a Citizen of the Milky Way sum the ideals of the sixties, ideals which that decade never fully attains. Yet in so doing, Horn translates and transports Gurdjieffs work to a new generation.

Horn moves his group to San Francisco, where he meets and marries actress Sharon Ganz. The Theatre of All Possibilities is eventually taken over by Sharon, forcing Horn to return to New York. As the flower children turn into the increasingly materially prosperous baby-boomers, the spirit of the sixties is extinguished. Alexander Horns teaching splits, his wife taking the more active role with the groups, while he continues working with a smaller circle of students until his death in 2007.

Esotericism inevitably flounders and degenerates in the course of time, giving rise to the need for the esoteric impulse to be constantly revivified and redefined. Alexander Francis Horn

Robert Burton joins the Theatre of All Possibilities in 1967 in San Francisco. He dedicates himself to Alexander Horns work, in which he learns the principles of the Fourth Way as expressed by Horn, as well as reads the extensive literature left by Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Collin.

Burton leaves Horn in 1969, and establishes the Fellowship of Friends in 1970. In 1971, Burton purchases property in the Sierra Foothills and establishes the heart of his school. Outlying centres spring up in Carmel, San Francisco, Los Angles, San Diego, and then throughout the United States. In the 1980s, he sends his students to open centers abroad, and the Fellowship draws students interested in the Fourth Way internationally.

Burton departs from Horns severe methods. He uses, as his foundation, the Fourth Way as expressed by Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Collin. In the 1990s his teaching gradually assumes its own hue, as he blends it with earlier expressions of ancient wisdom. His work and organization grow to an international scale and attract more students, as well as criticism, mostly from former members of his organization.

As of 2015, the Fellowship of Friends still resides in the Sierra Foothills, under the direction of Robert Burton.

The work never belongs to anyone. The same esoteric knowledge belongs to all schools, which, in fact, are the same school. Robert Earl Burton

And so ends the arguable history of the Fourth Way as it manifests in the 20th century. Arguable, I say, because many will claim that it ended with Gurdjieffs death in 1949, denouncing even Peter Ouspensky from the title of heir to its spirit (let alone giving any credit to the later generations of Nyland, Horn and Burton). History is, inevitably, an inexact science, one subject to the interpretation of the historian. But since those interested in Gurdjieff who has passed away may find interest in his influence which stays on I have here given its outline as best as I could.

I encountered the Fourth Way in 1995, joining Burtons Fellowship of Friends, and am still a member of that organization. I moved to the California headquarters in 2000 and began working closely with Burton on his teaching. In 2007, I was forced to set out on a two year journey, which brought me in contact with the origin of the ancient wisdom that I had been previously studying in theory.I traveled to all the major ancient sites of the world, spanning Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America.

Those two years of travel were an odyssey a genuine encounter with the miraculous which is always bitter-sweet and involves as much payment as it bestows reward. The experience was proof, if any were needed, that the spirit of ancient wisdom is as alive and accessible today as it ever was in previous days. The spark didnt leave with Gurdjieffs departure nor had it arrived only when he set foot on the stage. But to tell more than this would require telling a whole story which I am in the process of writing.

Original post:
Backstage | Gurdjieff Becoming Conscious

Sam Shepard, who has died aged 73 from complications of ALS, a form of motor neurone disease, excelled as an actor, screenwriter, playwright and director. In each of those disciplines he challenged and reimagined mythic American archetypes. He wrote nearly 50 plays; the most coruscating of them, such as the Pulitzer prize-winning Buried Child (1978), True West (1980) and Fool for Love (1983), established him as one of the visionaries of US theatre and created a fresh vernacular for exploring the disparity in American life between myth and reality, past and present, fathers and sons.

He took flawed macho heroes who might have staggered out of an Anthony Mann western, and broken, overheated families redolent of a Tennessee Williams clan, and forced them into claustrophobic hothouse scenarios; the result was like Beckett performed in cowboy duds. He found in the process a large audience receptive to this blend of stormy psychodrama, pitiless analysis and bruised romanticism. By the age of 40, he had become the second most widely performed US playwright after Williams.

He was fascinated by the violence that arose in American life from feelings of inadequacy. This sense of failure runs very deep maybe it has to do with the frontier being systematically taken away, with the guilt of having gotten this country by wiping out a native race of people, with the whole Protestant work ethic, he said in 1984. I cant put my finger on it, but its the source of a lot of intrigue for me.

To articulate the charged, often oedipal confrontations that littered his work, and its friction between progress and tradition, he forged a genuinely original writing voice. His runaway soliloquies made urgent, rhythmic poetry out of the banal. I drive on the freeway every day, says Austin, the screenwriter grappling with notions of authenticity in True West. I swallow the smog. I watch the news in colour. I shop in the Safeway Theres no such thing as the west any more! Its a dead issue! But he could be just as eloquent with silence, as he proved in his screenplay (co-written by LM Kit Carson) for Paris, Texas (1984). Wim Wenderss plangent masterpiece reshaped the western as a modern road movie in which the wandering loner, played by Harry Dean Stanton, is mute for almost the first hour of the film.

As an actor, Shepard was a softer presence, cast early on for his wan, arresting handsomeness and his connotations of nobility. Later, as he grew craggier, his presence was typically used to denote grizzled tradition. He was fey as the dying farmer caught unwittingly in a love triangle in Terrence Malicks Days of Heaven (1978). His finest acting work was as the pilot Chuck Yeager in Philip Kaufmans mighty adaptation of Tom Wolfes The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard evoked achingly the determination of Yeager, who had been the first person to fly at supersonic speed, to set a new altitude record even if it meant jeopardising his life. Burned and battered at the end of the movie, he falls to earth with a bang but gathers up his dignity along with his tattered parachute. The performance, which brought him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor, marked the point where his acting began to blur with his writing to create the intrepid artist-cowboy of popular imagination, as John J Winters put it in his book Sam Shepard: A Life (2017).

This impression persisted in films such as the Cormac McCarthy adaptation All the Pretty Horses (2000), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and the Mississippi melodrama Mud (2012). Recently Shepard starred in the Netflix series Bloodline (2015), as the patriarch in a tempestuous family scarred by murder and double-crossing. The impression that he was having a whale of a time was enhanced by the suspicion that the programme makers had raided Shepards own thematic larder in cooking up the shows heady gumbo. No wonder he looked at home.

He was born in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and raised largely in southern California, the son of Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher, farmer and former US army pilot, and Jane (nee Schook), also a teacher. The family moved around, living in Utah and Florida before settling for a while in Duarte, California, where his father owned an avocado farm. Sam was educated at Duarte high school, Los Angeles, and at Mt San Antonio College, where he studied agriculture.

Though he claimed to have been a rabble-rouser, classmates later recalled a nice, polite, quiet boy. He did, however, clash repeatedly with his alcoholic father, and left home after intervening in a parental argument. He had various odd jobs and briefly joined a travelling theatre troupe. Ending up in New York, he worked as a waiter and started knocking out one-act plays for the off-off-Broadway circuit.

These immediately earned him notoriety. A double-bill of Cowboys and The Rock Garden caused an uproar by its profane language; a scene from the latter was excerpted in Kenneth Tynans 1969 revue Oh! Calcutta! Shepards work was said to have caused a significant cancellation of subscriptions at some of the venues that staged it. But along with controversy came acclaim: between 1966 and 1968 he won six Obie awards for plays including Icaruss Mother and La Turista.

His own emerging creative life brought him into the orbit of other artists of that time. He became friendly with the Rolling Stones. Along with Allen Ginsberg, he was one of the writers of Robert Franks film Me and My Brother (1969). Less happily, he also co-wrote Michelangelo Antonionis Zabriskie Point (1970). Antonioni wanted to make a political statement about contemporary youth, write in a lot of Marxist jargon and Black Panther speeches, he said. I couldnt do it. I just wasnt interested. Shepards name ended up being one of five credited for the script.

He also drummed for the Holy Modal Rounders and married the actor O-Lan Jones, with whom he had a child. At the same time, he fell into a seven-month relationship with the musician Patti Smith, and co-wrote with her the 1971 semi-autobiographical play Cowboy Mouth, in which they both starred. Another of his plays, Back Bog Beast Bait, was included on the same bill and featured Jones as a character based on Smith.

When Shepard and Jones moved briefly to London to escape that imbroglio, he met the director Peter Brook, who introduced Shepard to the teachings of the spiritual philosopher GI Gurdjieff and encouraged him to think more closely about character in his writing. Upon returning to the US, he went on tour with Bob Dylans Rolling Thunder revue, where he began a brief relationship with Joni Mitchell; her song Coyote was said to have been written about him (He pins me in a corner and he wont take no/ He drags me out on the dance floor/ And were dancing close and slow). Out of his friendship with Dylan came a screenwriting credit on the singers film Renaldo and Clara (1978) and a co-writing one on his song Brownsville Girl.

Unsettled by life on the road, and with Brooks advice in his ears, Shepard took up the post of playwright-in-residence at the Magic theatre in San Francisco and produced the plays that were to mark his most celebrated period and define him forever in audiences minds. Curse of the Starving Class, which had its premiere at the Royal Court in London in 1977, concerns a debt-ridden, alcoholic former pilot trying to offload his Californian farm.

In Buried Child, a dysfunctional family is haunted by the memory of a dead son and dominated by Dodge, the gone-to-seed patriarch marinated in booze. Shepards own father pitched up at one performance and began berating the actors on stage. He took it personally and he was drunk, the playwright said. He was kicked out and then was readmitted once he confessed to being my father. And then he started yelling at the actors again.

True West, about two warring brothers, dramatised what Shepard saw as an essential divide in human nature. I think were split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal Its something weve got to live with. (In a notable 2000 Broadway staging admired by Shepard, the connection between the characters was amplified by having the actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly swap roles on alternate nights.)

Fool for Love (1983) was a feverish, motel-bound drama about incestuous half-siblings; Shepard also adapted it and starred in Robert Altmans 1985 film version. Completing the playwrights most distinguished period, A Lie of the Mind (1985) examined an abusive marriage. It, too, was haunted by yet another drunk, domineering father.

During this time, Shepards career as an actor was picking up. Though he made only a mild impression in Frances (1982), a biopic of the actor Frances Farmer, it was important for another reason: he fell in love with its star, Jessica Lange, with whom he was in a relationship for 26 years. They appeared together in the rural dramas Country (1984) and Crimes of the Heart (1986), while Shepard directed her in Far North (1988), one of only two movies he directed. The other, Silent Tongue (1993), was a mystical western starring River Phoenix, Richard Harris and Alan Bates.

He starred with Diane Keaton in the comedy Baby Boom (1987) and alongside Julia Roberts in the weepie Steel Magnolias (1989) and the thriller The Pelican Brief (1993). He was a good choice to play the Ghost to Ethan Hawkes Prince in a modern-day Hamlet (2000) by Michael Almereyda, who also directed a revealing documentary about Shepard, This So-Called Disaster (2003), which followed the preparations for a staging of his play The Late Henry Moss. Other films included Black Hawk Down (2001), The Notebook (2004), Killing Them Softly (2012), an adaptation of Tracy Lettss play August: Osage County (2013) and the thriller Cold in July (2014).

Shepard continued writing, acting and directing throughout the rest of his life, branching out also into short fiction in collections such as Cruising Paradise (1996) and Day Out of Days: Stories (2010) and a novel, The One Inside, published this year. Asked in 2016 if he felt he had achieved something substantial, he replied: Yes and no. If you include the short stories and all the other books and you mash them up with some plays and stuff, then, yes, Ive come at least close to what Im shooting for. In one individual piece, Id say no. There are certainly some plays I like better than others, but none that measure up. For all the messy domestic histrionics that litter his work, he seemed ultimately to be grappling with solitude. Writing, he said in 2010, is almost a response to that aloneness which cant be answered in any other way.

He is survived by his son, Jesse, from his marriage to Jones, and two children, Hannah and Walker, from his relationship with Lange.

Samuel Shepard Rogers, writer and actor, born 5 November 1943; died 27 July 2017

Read more here:
Sam Shepard obituary - The Guardian

There are so many different skills that experts say can help you attain professional success. Some are especially valued in some lines of work, but dont matter much in others. But, some of the most important skills are extremely valuable regardless of industry.

Self-awareness is one of those most essential skills for any professional, regardless of what you do for a living. It can help lead to success in so many ways.

When you know yourself, you know your strengths. This gives you a better understanding of the unique qualities you bring to your interactions with others and to your work. You can lean on your strengths during difficult times to help you, and others, get through.

Similarly, its important to understand your weaknesses in order to continue to grow professionally. This is more difficult than it seems at first. It can be hard to take a good, honest look in the mirror. But, self-awareness can help you pinpoint what you need to improve.

We need to be self-aware enough to get that were only human in order to face our strengths and our weaknesses with maturity. When you develop self-awareness, it makes it easier to take the good with the bad, forgive yourself, and move forward.

Self-awareness can help improve your career because it makes it easier to understand how others see you. This is key for success. Its essential to be aware of the perceptions of higher-ups, of course, but its also important to know how you come off when youre working in a leadership capacity.

Put simply, the qualities commonly associated with management and leadership being authoritative, decisive, forceful, perhaps somewhat controlling,if not moderated by a high degree of awareness as to how one comes across and is perceived by others, are also qualities that have the potential to easily alienate those on the receiving end, writes Victor Lipman at Forbes.

In another Forbes article, Lipman addresses the important topic of leadership and self-awareness. He highlights a study that was conducted in 2010 by Green Peak Partners andCornells School of Industrial and Labor Relations. This study looked at 72 executives, and concluded that high self-awareness often correlates with achieving high degrees of success as a leader. Per the research:

Leadership searches give short shrift to self-awareness, which should actually be a top criterion. Interestingly, a high self-awareness score was the strongest predictor of overall success. This is not altogether surprising as executives who are aware of their weaknesses are often better able to hire subordinates who perform well in categories in which the leader lacks acumen. These leaders are also more able to entertain the idea that someone on their team may have an idea that is even better than their own.

Self-awareness goes a long way toward improving people-skills overall. Without it, youre more likely to misunderstand situations and misread people. You learn to understand other people a little better once you yourself have become more self-aware. After all, how can you really have a mature understanding of what its like to be someone else if you dont have a good understanding of your own experiences.

Its often better to focus on your own actions rather than on others, especially when trying to solve a problem. People who are self-aware start by examining what they can change, personally, in order to succeed. Others might begin by pointing a finger at others.

Self-awareness leads to self-responsibility. And, that goes a long way to support positive behaviors and positive interpersonal relationships. Chances are that developing better self-awareness will have a positive impact on your personal life, too.

Has self-awareness helped you professionally? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.

people skills self-awareness tips for success

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7 Reasons Self-Awareness Leads to Success - PayScale Career News (blog)

NEW YORK (AP) Perhaps no show in TV history ever had a title that was better suited to it: Difficult People.

In this Hulu comedy, 30-something best friends Julie and Billy form a pushy, shameless united front as they wage war with New York and the world of show business they half-heartedly are trying to break into.

The upshot for viewers as they feast on this screwball, cringey series third season (which premieres Tuesday): Their difficulty not busting a gut.

Difficult People flings snark at Woody Allen, David Blaine, Passover, unhinged subway riders, a government initiative to deprogram gays, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

It finds Julie and Billy ducking into a church sanctuary to charge their phones but, when she finds no outlet there, blurting out indignantly, What is this place good for?

The show spoofs drug advertising with its commercial for Ridshadovan, an antidepressant that personifies depression as a sour, cronish woman who stalks the sufferer (including Julie, who finds this TV sourpuss actually stalking her).

The difficult duo of Difficult People are portrayed by Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner, with the jams they get into flowing from the mind of Klausner, who also created and writes the show.

Its a love story, she says. Granted, Julie lives with an ever-submissive partner (played by James Urbaniak, one among the series splendid troupe). Billy, a gay man, looks elsewhere for his flings.

But Billy and Julie share a transcendent bond.

The fact that we are so loyal to each other buys us a lot of real estate in the Being Horrible Department, Klausner says.

So its them against the world, armed with rat-a-tat, pop-culture-powered dialogue that spares nothing and no one. (Ever since President Trump replaced the Department of Health with Jenny McCarthys blog, says Billy, nothing makes sense.)

One of the most romantic things of all is finding someone you can hate everything else with, Klausner notes. Theres definitely a lot of opinions expressed by these characters. And a lot of agreement: They harmonize in stirring up their chaos.

The real-life team of Klausner and Eichner first joined forces on Billy on the Street, the breathless sidewalk quiz show for which she served as a producer. Its off-the-cuff style and pop-culture frenzy is akin to the meticulously scripted Difficult People she would mastermind soon after.

I spent more time with TV and movies than I did playing outside with people my age, the way healthy children are supposed to do, says Klausner, explaining her store of knowledge. Popular culture is the language I speak. And Billy speaks it too.

Earlier in her career, she applied that passion to churning out recaps of reality-show episodes. (Which, between auditions and capers with Billy, is what Julie does for money on Difficult People.)

For Klausner, recaps provided a great training ground for writing snappy commentary. She loved it.

But there is something about recap culture that feels like youre on the outside looking in, she says. Youre commenting on something that you really want to be making instead. So I definitely leaned into that with the character Julie, who feels like an outsider and is really frustrated.

Obviously, Real-Life-Julie and TV-Julie part ways in many respects. The red hair, air of mischief, and rapid-fire delivery are all the same.

But Im not stupid, and she kinda is, says Klausner, citing one distinction. She knows a lot about certain things. But she has no self-awareness. She is not enough of an adult to learn how to play the game. She doesnt do the work. Shes very stubborn: Ill stay exactly the way I am, and the world will come around to me.

Also: Unlike TV-Julie, mired lackadaisically with her boyfriend, Real-Life-Julie is currently single.

Im very picky, she cracks I want someone who is damaged in a very specific way.

Finally: What about Klausners emotional state?

In a touching scene, TV-Julie declares, I am an unhappy person. But the alternative is being somebody I dont know.

Klausner admits depression is definitely something Ive struggled with, but bursting out with a laugh, she adds, Im happier than I was before I had the TV show!

And the show is very therapeutic. Its definitely very helpful to be able to write about being a quote-unquote unhappy person, and in the process become a happier person and make other people feel like theyre not alone.

Thats what she demonstrates with Difficult People: You never feel alone when youre laughing.

The rest is here:
'Difficult People' star Julie Klausner: making it look easy - Norfolk Daily News

I read with great interest the report from Hadley Police Sgt. Mitchell Kuc, who remarked that the majority of the 400-500 accidents they dealt with happen on the towns Main Drag, Route 9 (Hadley police get unexpected clue in search for hit-and-run suspect, July 5).

It made me think about the causes, how fast they happen, and which are ones I am sometimes guilty of. I hope those who read this will look inside themselves, as well. Eight possible causes of fender benders:

1. Cell Phone behavior.

2. Reaching to change the station on the radio.

3. Driving with food or drink in one hand.

4. Distracted by someone walking by.

5. Leaning down to change the air conditioning controls.

6. Distracted by someone in a car in the opposite lane.

7. Following too close to be able to stop in time when the car in front of you suddenly jams on the brakes.

8. Finally, being too greedy to get ahead in the merges where double lanes get squeezed into one.

Id hate to see my lovely 1995 Toyota Celica Convertible banged by anyone doing any of these 8 dangerous and often mindless causes of accidents.

Sidney B. Simon

Hadley

Continued here:
Sidney B. Simon: Advises self-awareness to avoid driving mishaps - GazetteNET

You may have heard Yoga practice compared to the lotus flower, the flower of a thousand petals that grows in muddy waters.The metaphor that we are like the lotus flower, continuously creating and recreating itself and a reminder that we are in a constant state of renewal.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the viparita virabhadrasana with tree support pose.Gavin Young / Postmedia

The dedicated practitioner of Yoga practice will observe a multitude of blessings present and unfold themselves slowly and overtime.These are experienced initially by the physical body in forms of more flexibility, strength and improved ability to balance.Later on they are experienced more deeply as one penetrates the layers of the body to the more subtle realm and to fostering a quieter more relaxed mind.One will cultivate a deeper internal intelligence and learn how to listen and adjust to what the body is trying to tell you.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the modified adho mukha svanasana / downward facing dog with tree support.Gavin Young / Postmedia

The longer we have a relationship to our Yoga practice the more deeply these things unfold and open.

Like a cherished relationship that deepens and evolves over time, Yoga is the doorway to creating a strong and healthy relationship with all parts of yourself

Our bodies are made for full movement and huge range of motions.Yoga has us exploring movement in every direction and encourages us to keep our bodies connected, healthy and aligned.We practicepostures that work the left side of the body, the right side of the body and the centre line of the body.We expand, extend and work at opening the body in every plane and to moving with more awareness.And along the way, we grow ourselves from the inside out.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the modified virabhadrasana I / warrior 1 with tree to support the chest and shoulder opening for her August 2017 yoga column.Gavin Young / Postmedia

Overtime we learn to attune to what is happening deep within us.We have one side thats stronger and one side thats weaker.One side that is more open and one side that is more tight.Sometimes the disparity is obvious and sometimes it is more subtle.

Yoga practice shows us these subtle imbalances with constant illumination.We learn to work with the body to help create ease caused by misalignment and lack of awareness.And along the way we are bringing back to life what may have gone to sleep.

An example from one of my personal habits is that I hold my head slightly tilted to the right. I have learned that when I do this my ribs shift slightly to the left, my right hip lifts a little higher than the left and I am putting more weight and more pressure onto my right knee.Now that I am awake to the effects this small head tilt has on my body, I am working hard to break this habit and carry my entire structure in better balance.It is not easy to break our personal habits, but the work and effort will hopefully help elude bigger problems down the road.

The following poses will encourage you to stretch out both sides of your body.Pay attention to where things are tight.Move slowly and with your breathPractice patience, practice awareness and practice Yoga tree is optionalTo be guided in and out of each of the following poses, follow along with the attached video.

Be advised that it is always best to practice under the watchful eye of a dedicated Yoga teacher to grow your practice safely and slowly.

May your practice grow like the lotus flower, and may you be at home in the muddy waters.

Johanna Steinfeld teaches Yoga to people just like you in Calgary SW. http://www.itsjustyoga.comJoin me for a Yoga Vacation and Retreat at the Villa Sumaya eco resort on beautiful Lake Atitlan, Guatamala this October.All levels of Yogis encouragedwww.itsjustyoga.com/guatamala2017

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Yoga helps foster deeper self awareness - Calgary Herald

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Author William Sullivan

What: Slide show, Ghost Dancers to Rajneeshees: Cults in Oregon

When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Paulina Springs Books, 252 W. Hood Ave, Sisters

Cost: free

Contact: paulinasprings.com or 541-549-0866

What: Sullivan discusses new hikes in Oregon

When: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: REI, 380 SW Powerhouse Drive, Bend

Cost: free

Contact: rei.com/stores/Bend or 541-385-0594

What: Slide show, Oregons Greatest Natural Disasters

When: 6 p.m. Aug. 10

Where: Sunriver Nature Center

Cost: free

Contact: sunrivernaturecenter.org or 541-593-4394

What: Slide show, New Hikes and Rajneeshees in Southern Oregon

When: noon Aug. 11

Where: Sisters Library, 110 N. Cedar St., Sisters

Cost: free

Contact: deschuteslibrary.org/calendar or 541-312-1070

What: Slide show, Ghost Dancers to Rajneeshees: Cults in Oregon

When: 5 p.m. Aug. 12

Where: Sunriver Books & Music, 57100 Beaver Drive, Building 25-C, Sunriver

Cost: free (registration requested)

Contact: sunriverbooks.com or 541-593-2525

What: Slide show, New Hikes and Rajneeshees in Southern Oregon

When: 2 p.m. Aug. 13

Where: Downtown Bend Library, 601 NW Wall St., Bend

Cost: free

Contact: deschuteslibrary.org/calendar

Eugene author William Bill Sullivan might be doing more running than hiking these days, thanks to his absolutely crazy summer schedule packed with speaking events, hiking research trips and work on his next novel. As part of this whirlwind, Sullivan has six events (and plenty of hiking) slated for his visit to Central Oregon from Saturday through Aug. 13.

Probably best known for his 10 Northwest hiking guide books, including the well regarded Central Oregon Cascades: 100 Hikes/Travel Guide, Sullivan has also published two Oregon histories, two adventure memoirs and five novels.

I actually started writing fiction first, Sullivan said. I have a degree in creative writing from Cornell, but realized you cant make a living doing that so I started doing the hiking guidebooks.

Sullivan is a fifth-generation Oregonian who grew up in Salem, where he nurtured a love of the outdoors. He feels his creative writing background helps his hiking guides stand apart from many on the market thanks to their descriptive narratives, which he hopes will motivate or inspire his readers to get out and complete the hikes and adventures he presents.

Sullivan re-hikes all the trails in his hiking books on a seven- year schedule and frequently updates the guides. He revises the Central Oregon guide annually, posting the new versions online (at oregonhiking.com) and reprinting the updated book every two to three years. He also offers free copies of his guides to anyone who contacts him with corrections to the data and information in them.

The research and updates for his hiking guides take most of the warmer months each year, but that means Sullivan has his winters free for other projects such as his first love fiction.

My fiction is almost entirely about Oregon and Oregon history, Sullivan said. With the hiking guide books, Im showing the physical landscape, but with the fiction, I can talk about the emotional landscape and the cultural landscape.

Sullivans latest novel, The Case of the Reborn Bhagwan, was released in February. The murder mystery centers around a 26-year-old Portland barista who is believed to be the reincarnation of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the infamous spiritual leader whose red-robed followers tried to build a utopia north of Madras in the 1980s.

In a case where the facts really were stranger than fiction, the original Rajneeshee commune fell apart when its leaders resorted to attempted murder and mass poisoning in an effort to remove local and state leaders who opposed their presence and the development of their 64,000-acre ranch.

In the novel, the re-established Rajneeshees are now building a new commune on an Indian reservation near Crater Lake when people associated with the project are targeted by a mysterious sniper. Detective Neil Ferguson must expose the killer and uncover the truth behind the Rajneeshee revival.

The novel is meant to be fun, but like all my fiction, Im trying to illuminate an aspect of who we are as Oregonians and give us pause for reflection, said Sullivan.

Sullivan wondered how the Rajneeshee episode might have turned out differently if it had happened today, and felt it was something that deserved to be re-examined beyond the sensational news headlines about the Baghwans collection of Rolls Royce cars and the host of criminal convictions against the groups leaders after its collapse.

Some of Sullivans Central Oregon events (see If you go) will focus on hiking, some on the states history and others on The Case of the Reborn Bhagwan. And at some, the author will wear both his fiction and nonfiction hats literally. Sullivan likes to wear his hiking hat when discussing the hiking guides, and remove it to talk about his novel.

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See original here:
Author pens mysteries between hikes - Bend Bulletin