Door IV · Part One · Entering: Of the Voice That Leads Unto Silence
«Some words exist to die in peace within the silence».
Touch the door to open it.
Plucking Stars, Changing Galaxies
Its technical name is Plucking Stars; in my story it also appears as Harvesting Stars.
The poetic name accompanies my reading of the exercise.
The book describes this form step by step. The description accompanies learning with an instructor and, afterwards, helps you remember the movements.
«I have decided not to teach these arts to anyone under eighteen». Common Guide to the Practices.
- Opening
- Sense, soften, and smile from the heart.
- Repetitions
- The choice, frequency and repetitions of each form are learned with the instructor.
- Closing
- Release and leave room for the flow of Chi and for stillness. Finish with the common closing at the lower Dantian and the facial massage.
- Care
- If a movement causes pain or dizziness, stop.
To carry into the day
«I save what I can; the sea does the rest»
As a gesture for the day, choose one thing within your reach to care for today. That is my intention: one thing, the one in my hand.
Seven days
Each day, choose one thing within your reach to care for. Then mark the day.
0 of 7 days
«If something does not serve you, let it go». What you mark stays on this device.
Write from there
Remember a situation you can look at today with some calm. Pause at the moment you wanted to be sure how it would end. What did you fear would happen? What were you trying to protect?
Notice how much effort it took to hold that control. Did it help you face what was happening? Was there something it kept you from hearing, asking, or acknowledging?
If a memory appears, stay with what you recognize in it. You can leave blank what you do not remember; you need not complete a story to find meaning in it.
Perhaps it was a person, your faith, a word, or something simple you still remember. What changed in the way you passed through that moment?
Choose the question that held you longest and write from a scene in your life. Leave room for doubt and for what is still hard for you. Before you close, recognize one possible gesture for today: something you can care for without demanding that it resolve everything.
If you can, write on white paper with a graphite pencil. If you don’t have them at hand, write here and then print your notebook.
What you write here is neither sent nor saved: it is erased when you close the site or reload the page. Print it before you leave, and read your journal again often.
More about this door
«Nada te turbe,nada te espante,todo se pasa,Dios no se muda;la pacienciatodo lo alcanza;quien a Dios tienenada le falta:sólo Dios basta».
I return to these lines when I need to still my fear. They carry me to my childhood room: moonlight came through the curtain, and the picture of Guadalupe was still on the wall.
St. Teresa of Ávila · The Interior Castle (Las Moradas) · “Let nothing disturb thee”
St. Teresa of Ávila in the book- Wu Wei
- “Non-doing”: acting without forcing, like the willow that sways in the wind.
- The Three S’s
- Sense, soften, and smile from the heart: the common opening of the practices. Not to be confused with the three moments of a session: opening, activating the Chi, and closing.
- Biso
- A tall, fine grass that grows around the salt pans of Cervia, as the author names it.
- Faith
- In the author’s experience, it accompanies doubt between reason and the inner space he calls metanoia: “There are days when that presence feels far away and I wonder how to hold on to what I received. Within doubt there is a glue called faith. On my path it has been indispensable.”
- As a boy
The Caribbean: Cata, Catica, La Restinga. In the cays of Morrocoy, the red starfish of the sea.
- At nine
Mexico City, the old Capuchin convent: his mother buys him a small picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
- At ten or eleven
In his room, before the portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The full story is in the book.
A letter every month
Once a month, a short letter from Sifu Carmine «Tony» Colarusso, in Spanish, English, or Italian. You can unsubscribe from any letter.
The House of Livio
«Some stories do not need to be explained. They only need to be heard».
Read «The House of Livio»«You can read one door a week, or stay longer in the one that asks for it».
How to walk through the doorsBack to the thirteen doors