that possibility into their life, I find absolutely unacceptable. That should be punished!
Book Club / Sergey Bosov:
True passion can be unconscious. What surfaces may be socially acceptable, safe, and advantageous feelings. It’s astonishing how divided we can be, unaware of our true nature and aspirations, hidden behind facades of masks, defenses, norms, and rules.
Civilization and societal norms are sources of discord and incongruence.
How important it is to recognize and give space to our unconscious desires – it’s healing, often exciting, and unexpectedly transformative.
May 27, 2024: Guild of Plastics and Dance
Elizaveta Yuryevna Matvievich:
Today felt magical in this beautiful hall! Sunlight illuminated the center of the space, endowing it with even greater power. We continued exploring our bodies on the floor – many things didn’t come easily, but I intentionally introduced challenges.
It was a day of physical release and cardio. This part of the lesson is always energizing – perhaps because some are eager to look good for summer, or maybe to relive that sense of ecstasy and satisfaction afterward.
On a sadder note, not everyone dives into their homework, losing the progress we achieve during lessons.
May 27, 2024: Guild of Autonics
Roman Evgenievich Akimov:
It was an interesting and challenging day at the guild. Interesting because we began studying unconscious impulses and one of the most complex aspects of the Autonic Horizon: death and its manifestations in literature, cinema, theater, life, imagery, and roles.
We discussed moments when a person, role, image, or phantom stands at the threshold of choice – the red line that must not be crossed. In such moments, unconscious reactions can descend from natural to pathological. We analyzed this through the examples of Macbeth and Richard III.
The challenge? Beyond the fact that all the curtains in K.S. Stanislavsky’s House-Museum were removed, making the space overly warm and bright, we also couldn’t open the windows temporarily. The reason? Poplar fluff, like an uninvited guest, persistently tried to join our lesson. Pressed against the glass, it seemed to be watching us with great curiosity!
May 28, 2024: Guild of the M. Chekhov Method
Ivan Viktorovich Dementyev:
Once again, the class had an odd number of learners. This meant I actively participated in the process, as we were doing paired exercises to learn how to feel and interact with one another. We are building a team.
What a miracle and joy it is to not just oversee and guide the process, but to engage in it myself through these paired exercises, growing closer with each one. That’s the first thing.
The second? The incredible delight of immersing myself in the practical side of the Method. If I feel such inspiration and awe from this work, what must our learners feel as they walk this path for the first time?
How sensitively we feel one another, how attentive we are to each movement, how much care and tenderness we have for one another. It’s a true privilege to learn from your learners!
May 28, 2024: Guild of Plastics and Dance
Elizaveta Yuryevna Matvievich:
Today, we dedicated most of the session to individually analyzing what each learner had prepared.
The assignment was to develop the simplest mechanical, everyday movement using the “keys” we had studied. We’ve been building up to this step by step all month. Some presented their 15th variation, while others were just beginning to grasp the task.
Based on what I saw, I decided to differentiate the next homework assignment, as many are ready to delve deeper. We discussed this together, and I hope we understood one another.
The second part of the session focused on interaction training. We ended with a small performance, and it turned out quite well.
May 29, 2024: Guild of Autonics
Roman Evgenievich Akimov:
Sometimes, I feel a quiet joy when I step back during our sessions and immerse myself in the truly beautiful natural processes unfolding outside our magical windows.
While everyone is busy with exercises and developing their skills in understanding humanity, I look out the window. It fills me with a bittersweet lightness, knowing that the poplar fluff storm outside is weaving its incredible featherbed blankets.
Meanwhile, we are also (may the weaver not doubt) doing important and necessary work. They will learn, and they will be able to whirl just as lightly and gracefully as you, oh great poplar fluff, as you glow golden in the sunlight and dissolve into the warmth of the approaching summer.
Book Club / Alexandra Kamyshan:
“When a direct path doesn’t allow you to achieve your goal, there will always be alternative routes.”
Manifestation – a clear display or expression of feelings, traits, or features. The appearance of symptoms.
A pathogenic conflict is not merely personal; it is a universal human conflict manifesting within the individual, as being at odds with oneself is one of the defining traits of a civilized person.
Neurosis is merely a particular case of such a split, and therefore, it requires the patient to harmonize nature and culture within themselves above all else!
Mithraism – a mystical religious cult widespread in the Roman army during the 1st—4th centuries CE. The cult was considered secret, with religious gatherings held in mithraea – cave-like spaces undecorated on the outside.
The instinctive nature of humans always rebels against the norms imposed by civilization. Names may change, but the essence remains the same.
Moreover, today we know that not only animal instincts are in conflict with cultural restrictions; very often, new ideas, striving to emerge from the unconscious, are just as discordant with the dominant culture as instincts are.
Neurosis is self-division. For most people, the root of this division lies in the fact that the conscious mind seeks to adhere to its moral ideal, while the unconscious pursues its own, in a modern sense, amoral ideal, which the conscious mind rejects.
People of this type long to appear more respectable than they truly are. Thus, extremes should always be avoided, as they inevitably provoke suspicion of the opposite.
About Dreams:
It can be said that a dream is “the stone the builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.”
However, if, following certain technical rules, the dreamer is encouraged to recount the details of what they saw, it becomes clear that their associations possess a particular direction and group around specific themes. These themes have personal significance and carry meaning that cannot be guessed but, as careful comparison has shown, are firmly connected to the surface façade.
This unique complex of ideas, in which all the threads of the dream converge, is the sought-after conflict, or rather, a variation of it conditioned by circumstances. According to Freud, the painful and irreconcilable elements of the conflict are so hidden or erased that one can speak of “wish fulfillment.”
In Freud’s view, there are unconscious desires whose nature is incompatible with the ideas of the waking mind – distressing desires that a person prefers not to acknowledge. Freud sees these desires as the true architects of the dream.
If