Tenacious Magic ~ Chapter 13
Katherine and LM * writing like dancing * a dream of Houdini * G visits the loft * big emotions
Dear Friends,
Tonight I am posting from somewhere over the Atlantic. I’m taking my daughter to Greece to visit the civilization and the gods she has loved since she was a small child. For me, the trip is a return to the birthplace of magic: Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagorus, the Elysian Mysteries, the Pythia of Delphi—and witchcraft: Hecate, Circe…
So, magic is on my mind and has entered the story big time. It is in the title, after all. And I am beginning to feel some new inklings about what the tenacious magic actually is. I feel a little trepidation—the Sorcerer’s Apprentice theme will play in my mind unbidden now and then as a warning. But, I also feel called to walk into this…corridor.
This week I went through a rough patch where I became anxious about Katherine’s presence in my life. I began to wonder why she’d come and what she wanted from me. I’d always felt us having a collaborative experience, but something suddenly felt invasive and even sinister in the way she took over my consciousness for a long time. I felt afraid to admit it to myself—maybe she was using me to work out her own karma. I became suspicious. At dinner one night, I was describing this project and a friend piped in…”you were possessed.”
Possessed. The word frightened me. But, what frightened me more was that I couldn’t deny it. Then, a friend on IG contacted me to marvel that so many of her female literary friends have strong Katherine Mansfield connections. And a reader of this story turned me onto a memoir-style novel written by a female author who felt a connection to Mansfield through time during her own hospitalization for depression.
I had thought Katherine might be a past life. I thought she might be a twin flame. And I thought she might be a friend. I hadn’t thought she might be a hungry ghost. I grappled with this for a few days and had to look at my own porousness, my own willingness to be “taken over” and potentially even “used” for healing purposes that influenced my own desires, decisions and LIFE. I suddenly felt my boundaries had been violated…and then someone pointed out that I am writing all about Katherine’s life without her consent. Touché. I hadn’t thought of that. If she violated my boundaries—or whatever—then I’ve certainly done the same. Backwards and forwards, round and round, inside and out.
All of this made me feel uncertain about the project. Of course, this is to be expected. This project is working on me in many ways already. But, in the end I continued with this week’s chapter and enjoyed it very much. What I know is that I seek the HEALING I believe is possible here for all. This is what I can hold onto…my intention. And isn’t that the difference between white magic and black magic (and even gray magic—of which there is plenty in this story)? My intention has always been for the highest resolution for all involved and for the healing of the archetypal energies this story, these stories, conjure and transmit.
So, what is the tenacious magic? It is the magic that will not let you go until the spell is broken. It is the dance we do through time to find freedom from suffering and liberation in and beyond the body. It is the way material reality interacts with the immaterial—body and soul—to move closer and closer to truth. Like a moth to a flame…it is our agency in this and our servitude.
May it be so. I hope you enjoy this chapter of Tenacious Magic. If you are new to the Substack and want to learn more about this project, you can read the Introduction here, or jump straight to Chapter 1.
And if you are reading this asynchronously—my invitation to comment and chime in and help me craft the story still stands! As long as I am writing, I am reading comments. Your voice matters a lot in this project. Please let me know how it reaches you and what you feel.
Thank you for reading,
Schuyler
Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France 1920
“It’s never so black and white as you think, is it?”
“On the contrary,” Katherine is exasperated, “Somehow it’s always more black and white. I give too much credit to the dark ones and too little to the light ones. I end up being surprised in both directions.”
Katherine and Ida Baker are reclining on the veranda of the Villa Isola Bella. Ida, whom she calls LM, has been her constant companion since girlhood; follows her everywhere; takes care of her; dotes. Ida has brought Katherine for convalescence. The doctor recommended a seaside respite for her lungs. They’ll do anything at this point.
“All these years writing stories, peering into the inner lives of all sorts, and you’re still a bad judge of character,” LM teases her friend gently.
“I know, LM. I know! There’s something wrong with me. It’s like my body acts and then my mind races to catch up. I am already in over my head before I can make sense of what’s happening.”
“I think they call that ‘impulsive.’”
Katherine sighs heavily and coughs for a full minute. Ida braces herself. It’s almost unbearable to watch Katherine’s slight shoulders shaking so and the sound of it…like she’s just can’t get to the source of it.
“You’re right. Impulsive. Mother used to say the same thing…’You’re unmanageable, Katie, unmanageable. Please think before you speak. Please think before you act.’ But, I can’t…the feelings just…come up from below and then there they are! Voilá! I can’t control them. It would be laughable except that it’s caused nothing but trouble.”
They sit in silence and watch the American couple just back from an excursion into town. They must be newlyweds. They can’t keep their hands off each other.
Katherine pouts, “LM, do you think John is cheating? He’s been with Elizabeth every chance he’s had and now I’m gone. He’s so bad at being alone. It just sickens me to think of it.”
LM stiffens. She is tired of the ins and outs of the Murry’s marriage, “If he is, he’d have every right to. You’ve hardly been a pinnacle of restraint yourself. It’s a double standard you’re holding him to.”
“I thought marriage to a respectable man would make me feel safe. Instead I feel in constant peril…what little safety I have is always being threatened by other women. I think Murry rather enjoys keeping me on my toes.”
“Well, he doesn’t like to be taken for granted—like any man. And he’s not a ticket to safety, Katherine. I feel safe enough and I’ve never been married.”
“Oh, LM! You’ve done it. You’ve managed to live outside conventions. You don’t give a damn what they think, do you? I envy you…no, I admire you. All of my wildness and what do I have to show for it? I’ve always been a prisoner…first to my mother, then to my passions, then to my husbands. You…you are free, aren’t you?”
LM is looking at the one person she’s always wanted, always loved and never got much from in return, “Yes, I guess I am free. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be…a bit lonely, I’d say.”
“A lonely woman is never free…and a free woman is never lonely…there’s something in that,” Katherine picks up her notebook and jots it down. Then she looks out across the garden with the pen to her mouth, thinking, “Before I die, I’d like to taste complete freedom.”
“Maybe that’s what death is…”
“I wish…somehow I doubt it. Whatever is unfinished here must be taken care of there somehow…”
LM wants to change the subject, “Let’s go for a walk in the garden before dinner.” The sun is getting lower on the horizon and a chill is in the air. It’s late September and the season is changing ever so softly. But, the garden is still lush and they can hear the waves crashing on the shore at the beach.
“Oh, would you be a dear and run up for my shawl?”
******
Prieuré, Fontainebleu, France 1922
The air in the Study House is uneven. Throughout the big, poorly-insulated space, there are warm patches and frigid patches like a deep lake in the springtime. Near the door and the sides of the room it’s cold, even freezing. Near the stove and the stage it is warm, damp with sweat. As the hours progress into the night, the difference becomes more marked: the cold colder and the warm warmer.
Katherine stays in the warmth as best she can. Winter is getting harder each year. She’s been feeling weaker and cannot stand for prolonged periods. Gurdjieff set up a chair near the piano so she can do the movements from a seated position. She is determined to keep coming to practice; to stay in the discipline of it. She wants to dance. Her desire is strong. And yet, the body…the body fails.
Tonight the dancers move through a dress rehearsal of the Struggle of the Magicians. They are planning live performances in the new year. They are now in a process of refining the movements for transmission.
As Gurdjieff has taught them, the first job with learning the temple dances is one of destruction. First, they must use the sheer strangeness and foreignness of the movements to destroy the unconscious habits of the moving center, the blind assuredness of the mental center, and the unruliness of the feeling center. This really puts the dancers to the test. This is the hardest phase, in a sense. Overcoming the conditioned and incoherent existence that has been up until now, considered…normal.
The second phase happens when the dancers ‘know’ their roles and the movements. They no longer have to ‘think about’ them and can do them quite ‘naturally.’ At this point, it is possible to begin to point out the subtle refinements in the three centers that will produce more and more coherence within the individual dancers and within the group. The relationships between them becomes the focus. The inner and the outer are synchronized. A new possibility emerges in the art.
And the third phase, which is where they are now is focused on transmitting the experience the actors and dancers are having in a way to the audience so that the effect is one of breaking convention open and exposing something more real—reality as it is. This is the gift the art has to give…a direct experience of reality that breaks through expectations and automations. This requires the dancers to hold the experience of the audience as it is happening and adjust realtime to the needs of the space, to find new ways, within the framework of the art, to open a hole in that fabric of resistance and numbness that is often called culture.
As Katherine moves along with them tonight, she is also the audience. As she holds both roles she can feel the method of transmission within herself. She can feel that the art is incomplete without the audience…that it is the circuit between the artist, the dancers, and the audience that makes the piece work or not work. She can feel the moments where there is no question—what is happening on the stage is exactly what is happening in her body and vice versa. Inner and outer become one. She can also feel the moments when there is a split, when something in her body is out of alignment or something on the stage is out of order. This split feels excruciating as her awareness adjusts to a new level of refinement.
In the school of the black magician, the alignment evokes something sordid and sneaky in her. It is not something the story implants—it is already there. She knows it—it’s familiar. In the school of the white magician, the alignment evokes the highest and purest desire of her heart, her deepest wisdom, her bliss. This, too, is already there. She knows this, too. When she finds a way to hold both simultaneously, to integrate the polarity, the vast difference in her various “I”s, she has a realization:
It’s all here. It’s all here within this body. I can sit here and be still and realize truth. I have it all within. All of us do. The more we recognize this moment-to-moment, the more access we have to the vast expanse of reality as it moves in, around and through us. We might even have the capacity to shape it.
Suddenly she understands the ballet on a new level. Gurdjieff is showing them how to do magic and even giving them the means to do it. But, he hasn’t answered the biggest question for the audience: To what end? He’s left them with a question—black, white, evil, good…what kind of magician will you be? She feels herself confronted by this choice and all its implications.
Just at that moment, she hears Gurdjieff call for a break. The dancers stop moving on the stage and become themselves again. They sit, stretch and go for water. Katherine takes up the little notebook she keeps with her always and jots down some notes. She is aware for the first time that this is a choice she’s not made, has never thought to make, that even seemed old-fashioned or conventionally moralistic. So un-modern. She suddenly relishes the childlike clarity of it and she is flooded with her own childlike desire to be GOOD.
One of the male dancers approaches her. She doesn’t know this young man, but knows his name is Matthew. He’s a more recent arrival. Matthew approaches her bashfully. He is a redhead, young and bearded, quite handsome.
“Mrs. Murry…”
“Katherine” she smiles at him.
“I know your work. I was at Oxford undergrad. I wanted to be a writer—maybe still do…I’m not sure. I have admired you…and Mr. Murry, too.”
She nods and opens herself to this strange reminder of her literary persona.
“It’s just been…such a pleasure to watch you dance, and move through space, here. It’s funny…in the texture of your dance, I can hear your words. They come back to me—snippets of stories, your voice. And in the texture of your words, I can also see your dance…I guess what I mean to say is…you write like you dance…or maybe it’s the other way around.”
She is touched by his words—they find their way straight to the center of her heart. Nothing has ever been said about her writing that made her more happy, more pleased. She feels completely unified. Like something has clicked.
“Your words spoke to me…and now your dance speaks to me of something new, something softer, maybe gentler?”
“Yes, I think so,” she says with meaning, “I think I am understanding finally how to move and how to move people. Thank you. You’ve given me quite a gift.”
Matthew smiles and nods curtly and then does a little excited jump into the air, spins around, and runs off to join the others. Katherine moves slowly towards the door. It’s bedtime and she has so much running through her head…but her body, her body feels completely relaxed.
****
That night she has a dream of significance. In the early morning light, she jots it down. Even before the sun has fully risen, there are people up and at their chores—she hears them in the house and sees them in the garden. At the window now, she watches Olgivanna carry the milk pails out to the barn and has an urge to talk to someone. She dresses quickly in a wool dress and overcoat, tucks her hair into a beret and heads downstairs.
The barn is cold. Later, someone will build a fire in her little stove and the loft will become toasty, but down here with the cows, it stays chilly. Olgivanna is already sitting squarely on a small milking stool next to the mother cow’s big belly. She works the udders skillfully. Katherine stands there a minute listening to the sound of the stream of milk hitting the sides of the pail. How like an instrument it is, she thinks. Olgivanna looks up and registers surprise, then smiles.
“Pull up a stool,” she says.
They exchange pleasantries. Olgivanna is happy to hear Katherine slept well.
Katherine is nearly bursting to share, “I had the strangest dream,” Olgivanna stops the milking, grabs a ladle from a peg on the gate and hands Katherine some fresh, warm milk. Katherine savors the delicious warmth of it.
Olgivanna is listening, “Oh? Tell me…”
“Do you know who Houdini is? Harry Houdini?”
“The magician? Of course!”
“Well, he’s more of an escape artist, but yes that’s him.”
Olgivanna smiles and nods. “Yes, I remember hearing about him when I was in London a couple of years ago. He was at the Alhambra doing some kind of impossible trick. Some people I knew were looking for tickets.”
“Yes…yes. I was there…I also saw him when I was a girl…about 16, in school at Queens College. He did his first show ever in London and the parents of one of my classmates took a few of us. We had to hide it from the headmistress, she would have thought it was inappropriate for girls at finishing school. I remember him well…such an American…so sporting, so sure of himself. I’ve never seen anyone with more confidence.”
“More than G?” Olgivanna laughs.
Katherine smiles and reflects, “Yes, I think so. Anyway…last night I dreamt of him. It was so vivid, like he was there…not a memory, but like a meeting. I was with him, if you know what I mean?”
“I do. What happened…?”
“So I am on a stage…it looks like the Palladium, but it’s hard to tell because the stage lights are in my eyes. I can feel the full theater, feel the audience, but I can’t see anything. I am standing there and I know something is expected of me, but it’s like that classic moment…I’ve forgotten my lines or the lyrics to the song. I’m beginning to panic when I sense someone else on stage with me. I look to my left and it’s him…Houdini. He’s standing there and suddenly another spotlight and he is now the center of attention. He is bound completely…wearing a straightjacket and chains, padlocks, the works.”
Olgivanna stops milking and tucks a loose piece of hair back under her headscarf, “Of course.”
“So I realize he is going to escape the contraption that’s binding him and there is a clock ticking. I notice the ticking and I can feel the pressure of time, the growing anxiety, the urgency. I watch him begin to struggle, his face is red, and I feel like we haven’t enough time. Then he looks at me and says, ‘It’s karma.’ He’s struggling with karma.”
“I see…”
“Yes…and I’m trying to understand and wondering if there is anything I can do to help and he says, ‘It’s your karma.’ And I wonder why he’s struggling with it. He reads my mind and says, “I’m trying to help because you don’t yet have the technique. Next time you have to do it, so watch.”
Olgivanna has stopped milking and is listening now. She’s filled her pail. The cow is docile, the barn is getting brighter and the baby cow comes in for milk.
“So, I’m watching and trying to learn, trying to figure out how to get free and I’m feeling my heart pounding and the time is running out. He says to me, ‘It’s tenacious, isn’t it?’ That word…tenacious…it really captures the feeling. His face is now nearly black with effort and I am worried he won’t make it and then…I hear a voice from the audience yell, ‘STOP.’”
Olgivanna laughs, “I know that voice.”
“Yes! The ticking stops. Time stops. Houdini and I stop. Everything stops. I can see Gurdjieff’s bald head just barely out in the audience as I peer through the lights and the smoke in the theater. And then I do my exercise. But, I’ve never felt it like this before, Olgivanna. It’s so clear. Somehow, Houdini is showing me how to align the centers. Everything is present: my body, my thoughts, my feelings…everything is clear and still and…one. As soon as I feel this, the chains drop and Houdini is free…and I am free. I am free, too. He grabs my hand and the audience cheers and we take a bow.”
As Katherine finishes the story she heaves a huge sigh of relief. She has been reliving it through the telling.
Katherine, you should write this down. Write it all down. Your dreams…the tenacious magic…"
*****
Katherine is working in the loft. She feels like a child in her playroom. Orage has brought her the notebooks and pens she loves and the children have made her drawings that’s she’s tacked to the wooden wall where the small window lets in enough light to read and write. The scent and sounds of the livestock below keep her company. She speaks to them sometimes from the loft when she is stuck or struck by an idea. They have touched her heart with their big earnest eyes and slow chewing. She may be imagining it, but her breathing does seem more free here, her lungs less contracted.
She’s been playing with a new idea to write a letter, a poem, or memoir for her future self. She has been thinking about reincarnation—the reality of it, wondering who she has been and might become. She figures it might be nice to have something to start with next time, some instructions, a few warnings. She considers it mainly an exercise, but there is a rush of energy when she thinks her literary fame might actually make this possible. Could she publish something for herself to find in her next life? Could she encode it into stories?
Remember…
Remember the night you fled to another man’s arms?
Remember the next day you fled his, too?
Remember staying at the cabin, refusing to come home, making it impossible to ever go home again?
Remember the taste of ocean on your lips and her hair in your face?
Remember letting a room to a too-handsome student, you knew that would be trouble…and it was.
Remember the doctor’s advice and how you tried to heed it? Remember how hopeless it all seemed in the middle of the night?
Remember the lies you told, exaggerations and worse? And then how you raged when he didn’t believe you?
Remember the first time you smelled his Turkish cologne?
“Hallo?”
It’s Gurdjieff. Her heart starts to flutter. She puts the pen down and straightens her hair, her sweater. She calls back and invites him up.
She hears his footfalls on the stairs before he appears—slow and steady. Then, he stands there in front of her—They are alone for once. He looks even more imposing here in the small loft.
She is used to being in the presence of powerful men. This has never been a problem for her, but with Gurdjieff there is something different. Maybe it’s that she really cares what he thinks. She never cared about the others—could discard their opinions or use them to make a reputation for herself.
They stand awkwardly in the small space. Gurdjieff smiles and motions for her to take a seat as he sits on the edge of the divan. Oh, he’s wonderfully round, she thinks. She readies herself for small talk, but he just stares at her. Her face begins to flush, the heat is rising.
Like sitting in a cage with a lion.
He looks around nodding and smiling. He raises his eyebrows and thrusts his hand into his inner jacket pocket, “I brought you something from Paris.” He hands her a tiny, perfect white box tied with a single blue ribbon.
She takes the box, delighted and intrigued. This gesture feels like a role reversal…he is bringing her an offering? She unties the ribbon and opens the lid. Inside are four prefect bonbons of different colors.
“Our way of life here can be quite spartan, my dear. I know you love chocolate.”
She is touched and thanks him. She offers him one, but he declines. She takes the tiniest bite from the corner of one and her mouth is filled with the taste of cherry liqueur. She rolls her eyes towards heaven and savors.
“I haven’t had something like this in a long, long time. Makes one feel glad to be alive, doesn’t it?”
He nods and smiles, taking in her enjoyment. They chat about her accommodations and the other residents. He enjoys her observations into the “quirks of the human condition” as he calls it and soon they are laughing easily together.
“Do you know why I was so insistent that you spend your first weeks here observing?” He asks, suddenly serious.
She thinks and then says, “I’m aware that self-observation is fundamental to your teachings. I figured you were introducing me to The Work.”
“Yes…it’s true. In a sense, this is the starting point. Without self-study, we have nothing. Nothing can be accomplished. But, self study alone is not enough. One must also change one’s habitual way of being.”
“I feel I’ve done nothing but change since I got here,” she says proudly.
He looks at her closely, “Perhaps.”
She cannot stand the intensity of his gaze and turns to the desk. She grabs the notebook, “I’ve been writing it all down, as you suggested. I’ve always written anyway. It’s my way. I’ve started a poem…”
As she looks for the poem. She feels the intensity of his full attention on her. She can feel an energy arising within her, a pushing out from her lower belly, an arousal. She could swear he is sending this energy to her. But, when she looks up at him, he is still and relaxed.
“Do you remember the lecture from the other night? The one about the carriage and the driver?”
“Yes, of course. The carriage is the body…the driver is the mind, the horse is the emotions, and the master is the totality of being…the soul?”
He nods, “When you arrived, your carriage was broken, your horse was untrained and unruly, and your driver was sneaky. The master wasn’t anywhere to be found. Would you agree, my dear?”
She is used to this bluntness. She has heard it turned on almost everyone at the Prieuré now. She nods, accepting the truth in what he is saying.
“How is the situation different now?”
She is thoughtful, ‘Well…I’d say my carriage is in the repair shop—as a result of the dances. The driver seems to be in remedial school. And the horses are…well, still unruly. But, I’ve at least trained them to work for apples.”
“And the master?”
“I’ve had a glimpse. She’s now aware that she has a carriage…and a destination.”
Gurdjieff nods approvingly, “You are making good progress. Better than most. Your condition is an asset. You feel the clock ticking?”
She is surprised by the reference to the dream. It is as if he knows about it. She begins to tell him, but he has already moved on. And the energy in her body is making her feel high now, a little breathless. Everything seems to be coming up at once. It’s as if…yes, it’s as if he is working on her centers as they sit there…tuning them.
“You must get rid of this…facade. This literary bon mot voice you have. This Englishness. It does not suit you. It’s been a way of hiding your real self but the time for hiding is over. Now, is the time for flying.”
As he says this, she feels the energy in her body expand upwards as if she might leave the ground. She feels so light, she could float. He is gazing at her with amusement as she tries to ground herself. She grabs the chair seat with both hands.
“You will continue to observe, but you must change. We have no time to lose. In order to change, you must align the centers. Each center must be aware of what the other is doing and on board with the unified task. Let me ask you something…when you were writing stories, did your characters change?”
She has never thought about this, “No…actually they didn’t. I never wrote about any of them long enough to change them. I was busy pinning them down…penning them…pinning them…like insects…like an entomologist would do to an insect.”
“Precisely. This is exactly the point. You are enamored with your ability to feel the inner lives of others and with your certainty. You become your characters, inhabit their experience and then tell us about it. But you don’t allow them to change or surprise you. You have controlled them like puppets. This is something you have done since childhood? Controlled your circumstances by inhabiting other people’s lives? You did it and then you made a career of it. This is not your job anymore. Now, your job is to trust what changes us. Let’s try something…face me.”
He indicates that she should square her chair so they are sitting opposite each other.
“What do you see? Look hard.”
She looks directly into his eyes. She sees Gurdjieff. And then suddenly, his face shifts and he becomes a different man altogether…and then another…and then an old, old woman…The changes happen faster than her mind can keep up.
“Relax. Open. Just let the changes happen. Don’t try to…pin me down. Look through me.”
She adjusts her way of looking. She looks through him and he seems to go completely dark. His head becomes a skull with fearsome eyes and she flinches as fear arises in her. He says, “Stay…” and the dark becomes light…a white light envelops them both and she sees what looks like Father Time or God from the Sistine Chapel…”As dark as it gets, so it gets light…” Several more faces flit across his countenance. His body is as heavy as an elephant and seems to be holding down the whole continent. He is a mountain.
“What did you see?” He asks now from his own regular appearance in the dim light of the loft.
“Many beings.”
“One being…many faces. The being doesn’t change, but I have all of my lives here within me. I know most of them…if not all. Each one is with me.”
She nods, “Which is the real one?”
“Oh, that is one that I do not reveal. A magician does not reveal his true self…or his true name.”
“True name?”
“Yes, there is a name you do not yet know yourself. This name is the name of your soul. This name is secret. It is between you and you. It must be remembered. You may share it with a teacher, with me if you like, and together we can use this name to bring your soul into this body, into existence. It can call one immediately into their original self. But, if it gets into the wrong hands…it can be…let’s say, more than an annoyance and less than a tragedy. This has been known since Egyptian times.”
“Sounds like conjuring…like a magic word.”
“Ah! Very good. It is. It is the spell. When we know this name and I call you by this name, there is nothing you can do but show up as your real self. You will finally be in your true form.”
“I want that more than anything.”
“We must begin to work together regularly. You haven’t much time if you want to make progress while you are here and here is the only place we can make progress.”
“You mean here at the Prieuré?”
“No, here…on this planet. While we are living. It is the place where we can radically effect our karma. It is the place where cause and effect is in operation. The elements help us…they inhabit us and they work with the planetary forces. We are pawns…if we are lucky we become kings and queens…but we almost never move of our own volition. We can be conscious actors. We can be willing vessels. We can be in service. But we cannot know the whole chess board and we are not the masters.”
“Not even you?”
“Not even me.”
“Then, it’s the blind leading the blind.”
“I can only say as the blind man once expressed it: We shall see.”
They smile at each other warmly and he moves to leave. She has so many questions and she worries about when she will see him next, “But, what shall I do in the meantime? Continue to observe? Open to change?”
“We will meet here through the new year. I will leave for a while at the end of January. I will come to you when I can during the day. It will not be every day, but it will be enough. Leave behind Katherine. Katherine cannot help you now. You must return to the original state…the one you have been seeking for lifetimes.”
She feels the stirring in her belly once again and the pressure rising. She hazards a question about this, “What do I do with this…new energy?”
He shrugs and says, “There is not much to be done now. The seed is planted. We shall see what unfolds. A new body is being formed, crystalized. You will need this body for the next phase.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do to help it along? I feel the physical body is failing. Every day is worse.”
“Is there anything you can do to speed a pregnancy? There is nothing. It takes the time it takes. The process is…biological…after all.”
She looks down and he feels her disappointment. He turns at the top of the stairs and says gently, “Relax, my dear. I wish you a good pregnancy.”
*********************
Gurdjieff’s office is frequently busy. When the door is open, Katherine can hear the voices, but not the content of what they are saying. Sometimes there are six men in there smoking cigars and drinking cognac. They are discussing plans for the future of the organization, financial concerns. These meetings can get heated and voices are raised. On occasion, Katherine hears Gurdjieff lose his temper.
It is a frightening thing—all of his power and precision directed with fury at someone who has failed to execute an important task or has made a mistake that could have been avoided. He has infinite patience for honest mistakes, but none whatsoever for what he calls instances of imbecility. Laziness is perhaps his biggest nettle. He cannot tolerate laziness and indolence. Sometimes she feels the floor shake as he stomps or jumps up and down with rage.
One night she hears yelling. It is coming from the direction of Orage’s room. She wanders out her door, concerned for her friend. She walks swiftly but quietly down the hall, not wanting to be noticed.
Outside the bedroom she stands listening as Gurdjieff shouts at Orage, giving him hell for botching a plan with a potential donor. He is enraged; demanding that Orage pack his bags and leave at once.
He yells in Armenian and then in English, “Stupid! Stupid! Don’t tell me you didn’t think. You must admit that you intended this subterfuge. I cannot accept that it slipped your mind. Not after all the work we’ve done here to patch up that mechanical balloon in your pea-sized head. The mission is failing in the hands of imbeciles. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”
Katherine peeks around the corner of the door. Orage is standing with his hand on the bedpost, slumped with his head hanging low. Gurdjieff is standing in the center of the room ranting. Orage glances up and the two men freeze. Gurdjieff turns, nods, and smiles as if they were having the most pleasant and insignificant conversation. Orage’s eyes are dark but he reassures her that everything is ok. They all stand quietly for a moment, both men looking at her. She feels frozen and is reminded of her own father’s violent outbursts.
“You can stay or you can go. It’s up to you,” says Gurdjieff.
She looks at Orage, “It’s ok. Go, Katherine. I will come find you later.”
She walks back to her room rattled and cries for the first time since she arrived. Floods of tears wash through her as she remembers and feels the fear of countless arguments, the shame, the rage, the abuse of a father, a boyfriend, a husband, a friend. All of her doubts surface—how could she have put her faith in this man?—and she starts a letter to her husband:
Dear Jack,
Please come to get me at once. Everything has gone horribly wrong. I can’t do it. I just can’t. Gurdjieff is a mad man. You were right. He’s unhinged. I feel I’ve made a grave error in judgment. He’s like Papa and every other man…except you…totally and completely unreliable. And full of rage, a red rage. Please come at once…”
She stops and puts the pen down and holds her face In her hands, breathing heavily. She is not used to so much emotion. She’s made a habit of avoiding the uncomfortable and suppressing the rest. It is strange to feel so much…The tears run hot down her cheeks and her weak lungs heave in a way that she misses—not from coughing, but gasping for breath, wanting, desiring to live. Suddenly, something passes from her chest. A great weight lifts.
Sadness and fear morph into curiosity…What was that weight? She is reminded of Houdini’s straight jacket. Suddenly, she remembers Maata, her first love back in New Zealand. They’d been girls together, running on the beach, watching the dolphins from the shore. They’d fallen in love—wild, uncivilized, rebellious love. Together, they’d felt everything. She realizes in horror that since leaving New Zealand and arriving in England, she’s been wearing a straight jacket. She’s made an art of looking aloof, undisturbed and proper. She has been reserved—very British. She rarely smiles and never yells. She becomes cold and seething when she’s angry and numb when she’s sad. Her focus has been completely external—fit in. Clever Katherine. Ambitious Katherine. Poor Katherine.
She feels what Gurdjieff described in the loft: the facade. She feels Katherine, the persona she adopted at 14, the persona of the modern woman. Underneath it…she can just barely detect something more fundamental and much, much older.
“What is my name?” She asks this ancient part of herself in the dark.
***********
The dance practice and analysis reminds me of the whirling dervishes and the intricate symbols, very fractal like. This is awesome!