Regular Community Events

Claymont Members Doug and Marla Londraville returned three times this Spring and Summer to resume the project they started last fall of repairing, restoring and painting the Great Barn. This summer, working in 90+ degree weather, they made great progress with the paint sprayer, completing the West Kitchen side and painting all the way down to the Octagon. They even painted the old boiler room and paint shed. They also patched and prepped much of the rest of building so we can continue the work in October.

We still need to complete a stretch along the walkway on the north side; finish the south east side and five sides of the Octagon!  That may sound daunting but not to Doug and Marla, who took on the entire building.

You are cordially invited to help out with this effort.  The work weekend begins with dinner at 6:30 on Friday October 7 and ends on Sunday October 9 after lunch.

Suggested donation for the event is $200 if you are staying at Claymont, and $125 if staying off-site. However, do not let cost prevent you from attending, as financial assistance is available.

For more information, and to register, please contact Amy Silver, Registrar, at  claymontgathering@hotmail.com.

Claymont Society Annual General Meeting (AGM) is scheduled for Sunday November 20, 2022 beginning at 10:00 am. 

View a presentation by Claymont board member Jack Chromey.

A Five-hour Experiential Category II Workshop for Social Workers, A Learning Experience for Counselors and Anyone Who’s Interested.

Download Requirements and Application

We explore a practical method in a safe environment for using all emotions as guidance to solutions, happiness, and safety. This notion is often in contrast to seeing emotions as needing to be controlled, eliminated, or at odds with being reasonable. Emotions used productively supports changing our patterns of thought to match the energetic patterns of our ideals.

The five-hour experiential workshop includes lunch, coffee, and tea at the historic Washington family mansion—Claymont Court. Each participant will share with peers an event, old or current, that has left a lingering negative emotion. Choose one you feel ready to explore.

This time between the most stressful holidays of the year is perfect for examining how the technique works and possibly bringing relief to our own situations. However, this needn’t be our choice of event.

Size of the workshop is limited to only six people so that everyone is able to actively experience the technique as we would in personal therapy. A small group setting provides the added advantage of hearing an array of examples which contribute to knowledge that strengthens each person’s own leadership role.

Claymont work weekend

AN EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP

March 10-12, 2023

“With the present, repair the past and prepare the future” – G. I. Gurdjieff

This workshop will be an open-ended investigation into the boundaries and relationships between our essence and our personality. We will both examine and challenge our view of this distinction by means of our own moment-to-moment experiences of who we take ourselves to be. Our view for this workshop will be oriented toward the embodiment of Presence. We will locate and focus our work within the present moment: “All experience is contained within the Present Moment. This is the only immediate and irreducible certainty. The present moment is not a dimensionless point, but a finite region of experience. – J. G. Bennett

“Essence is what you are born with,” Mr. Gurdjieff said. We will examine some implications of modern ideas, including the role of trauma, about how we each actually developed from an essence being into a personality. We will practice inquiry to build competency to subtly shift our felt experience toward essence-as-presence. A further question to be addressed is: What exactly happens to our experience of personality, if and when our work unfolds so as to result in these experiences of essence and subsequent development of essence?

During the workshop we will practice: Sensing and breath-awareness exercises; Subject-matter talks, including the Systematics of Essence and Personality (two pentads); Spoken inquiries into the felt sense of personal truth; Gurdjieff’s Movements exercises; Practical work sessions for abiding in presence-in-action.

The seminar will begin with dinner at 6:30 pm on Friday March 10 and end after lunch on Sunday March 12. Suggested donation for the event is $150 if you are staying at Claymont, and $100 if staying off-site.  However, do not let cost prevent you from attending as financial assistance is available.

For more information, and to register, please contact Amy Silver, Registrar, at  Claymontgathering@hotmail.comChuck Riley will facilitate this weekend. He is a former President of The Claymont Society, who taught on several Claymont courses, including as lead teacher on two four-month residential programs. During 1972-1973, he attended J. G. Bennett’s Second Basic Candidate’s Course at Sherborne House. Chuck is also a long-time student of The Diamond Approach to inner realization.

An exploration of Fourth Way theatre with Anthony Blake and Jesai Jayhmes: Enacting Reality

See Flyer for full information

Dates:  April 27-30, 2023.  The seminar will begin with dinner on Thursday evening and end with lunch on Sunday.

Location:  The Claymont Society for Continuous Education
Charles Town, WV  25414

(See www.society.claymont.org for more information about the Claymont Society)

Seminar Leaders:

• Anthony Blake is Director of Research of DuVersity and a leading exponent of the ideas of John Bennett and his systematics, as well as of dialogue and modern ideas of communication and experiential knowledge.   (See www.duversity.org for more information about DuVersity.)
• Jesai Jayhmes is an eclectic social artist, director, actor and writer particularly interested in creating immersive theatre experiences using classics, mythology and personal stories. He is currently artist director of Teatro de la Tierra in Costa Rica, (See www.teatrodelatierra.com for more information.)

Cost:
The cost of the event including lodging and meals is $450 if staying at Claymont and $315 if staying off-site.

For more information and to register:
Please contact Matt Zenkowich – mattzenkowich@gmail.com

An Exploration into Meaning and Inter-Relationship

Gurdjieff’s Sacred Dance and the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann Music
Led by Elan Sicroff

May 11-14, 2023
What are we to make of Gurdjieff’s assertions about music and sacred dance? In his writings he states that there is an ‘objective music’ that will have the same effect on all people regardless of culture, type or taste; that seekers in the past read sacred dances in the way that we now read books; and that wise men in Babylon inserted “lawful inexactitudes” related to the Law of Seven, into various art forms, in order to transmit information to initiates of future generations.

In this seminar we will uncover underlying principles that govern rhythm, melody and harmony in music. We will explore the ways that composers insert meaning into their work, identify lawful inexactitudes in Gurdjieff’s sacred dances, and then interpret their meaning. We will also bring the music and the dance together, to discover how they support and inform each other.

The dancer Alexander Sacharoff, with whom de Hartmann and Kandinsky worked on the “abstract opera” Der Gelbe Klang (The Yellow Sound) around 1910, once said, “I” dance the music.”
Conversely, in relation to the Movements, the musician must “play the dance.”

Additional activities will include exercises in listening, meditation on sound, and inner exercises based on the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff and Mr. Bennett.

There will also be a lecture-recital about Thomas de Hartmann: his life, the music, and the ideas that inform it.

The seminar will begin with dinner at 6:30 pm on Thursday May 11 and end after lunch on Sunday May 14.   Suggested donation for the event is $395 if you are staying at Claymont, and $260 if staying off-site.  However, do not let cost prevent you from attending as financial assistance is available.

For more information, and to register, please contact Amy Silver, Registrar, at  Claymontgathering@hotmail.com

Elan Sicroff attended the second, third and fourth Basic Courses at Sherborne under the direction of J.G.Bennett, from 1973-1975 —  first as student and later as director of music.   Between 1975 and 1979 he studied with Mme. Olga de Hartmann, widow of the composer, focusing on the music that de Hartmann composed in the classical idiom.  He performed many recitals under her auspices, and in 1982 toured the United States.

Elan has worked with the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann music for 50 years, and has released 3 recordings: A Journey to Inaccessible Places (1987), Sicroff Plays Gurdjieff (2002), and Laudamus… (2010).  He accompanied Movements classes for 40 years. Since 2006 he has been Artistic Director for the Thomas de Hartmann Project, which aims to bring de Hartmann’s music back to the listening audience, after many years of neglect.

4th Way Course of Study – August 18 to November 12, 2023.

Workshop lead by Jack Chromey

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The role of the thinking or intellectual center may have fallen out of favor with some who seek an inner life. This is understandable to an extent, but warnings to avoid getting lost in our heads or just being in the head may lead unintentionally to a passivity of mind which does not solve the problem and may even create new problems.

On this weekend workshop we will explore the role of thinking and the thinking center as it relates to work on ourselves. What is the relationship between the thinking center and other parts of ourselves? Many of the great teachers who emerged from direct work with Mr. Gurdjieff warned about the pitfalls of being out of balance through identification with thought. Yet, in their own right, they were all very accomplished thinkers. We will consider what was said by such teachers as P.O. Ouspensky, M. Nicoll, A.R. Orage, J.G. Bennett, Madame de Salzmann and others. We will also have open exchange, discussion and observation. Presentation topics will include kinds of thought and Creative Thinking. There will also be work on movments.

The weekend will be coordinated and hosted by Jack Chromey who will also sprinkle in some active work withexercises as well as his own version of speculation and wiseacring.

For more information, and to register, please contact Amy Silver, Registrar, at claymont_gathering@hotmail.com • The event will take place at the Great Barn. It begins with dinner on Thursday, the 19th and ends on Sunday after lunch. Suggested donation for the event is $200 if you are staying at Claymont, and $100 if staying off-site. However, do not let cost prevent youfrom attending, as financial assistance is available.

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“No growth of being will take place without a corresponding growth in sensation”

What is sensation and how does it grow? How do we open ourselves to its presence in our bodies? Can I learn to bring it with me into my ordinary life, the walking, the talking, and all the other daily activities? On this weekend we will try to look into questions like these as we study one of the foundational practices of the 4th Way.

We plan to make this weekend very collaborative, a deep conversation and experimentation among friends. We will work with some exercises with a long history and some that arise from our immediate personal experience and we will look as well at some of the obstacles we encounter along the way.

The staff will provide some of the teaching material and participants will provide material that arises from their own efforts. We can be motivated and guided by theory and the words of our teachers but our own experience is the raw material of inner growth.

We hope this weekend will enhance our understanding of sensation and strengthen its role in our work.

Also, if you are interested in learning about the 4th Way and do not have much experience with the practice of sensation you are still very welcome to attend.

Activities for the weekend will include guided sittings and explorations, movements, practical work, and inner sharing.   You are cordially invited to join us in our work and exploration.

The weekend will begin with dinner at 6:30 pm on Thursday March 7 and end after lunch on Sunday March 10.   All activities will be at the Great Barn.

Suggested donation for the weekend is $195 if you are staying overnight at Claymont and $95 if you are not staying overnight at Claymont.   However, do not let the cost prevent you from participating, financial assistance is available.

For more information and to register please contact, the registrar, Amy Silver at Claymontgathering@hotmail.com.

For more information about the Claymont Society go to www.society.claymont.org