First Teacher Training in Europe

At the beginning of September it finally happened: after years of practicing, discussing, reviewing, and four intensives (with Sandy, Pam and two with Antonia), Sandy McAlister and Dan Pienciak come from The U.S. to transfer us so much balanced energy! Both Sandy and Dan worked hard with enthusiasm and abnegation to offer all of us new opportunities of welcoming the TCC practice in our everyday lives. There were 11 students from Italy and two people from France: Catherine Buillot as teacher sponsor of Jean Michel Victoire, her student from France.

I watched my students one by one, everyone in her/his unique way, unfold their presentations without flaws, everyone with a different style to show enthusiasm and commitment. It has been a joy. I didn’t know they could overcome so well performance anxiety and be so convincing.

It felt like an open channel of sincere communication was established between Europe and the Country of origin of TCC.

Spirituality through matter… I always felt that something like TCC must be possible, but our culture could only offer structured religions, and ever since my teenage years I strongly felt that there already were too many dogmas in my tradition.

Spirituality through matter… how do you clearly distinguish one from the other? Sometimes it is not easy: matter seduces us in many ways, disguising itself, especially when it is not in a tangible form.

Culture, as a gathering of notions, is a form of matter. This is not to say that we should cultivate our ignorance. It is our duty to study, research and deepen our knowledge in the field we choose to be our contribution to society, our work. It is part of our responsibility. But I think that it is healthy to establish a sound interspace between us and our deeds: the involved detachment loosens us from energy dispersion and from the different possible forms of performance anxiety.

Matter always comes from outside sources. Wisdom springs from different origins. Absorbing notions, no matter how deep, abstract or refined, I never experienced anything close to the peaceful sense of blissful satiety I experience when I undertake actions that in some form are involved with spirituality. When the aftertaste of an event, no matter how happy I feel, is: << I didn’t have enough, I feel hungrier of knowledge than before>>, then I know I am dealing with matter.

We may not always notice it, but we continuously face the choice between “being” and “having”. When my daughter, in elementary school, come home frustrated because she flunked the surprise religion test at school, I saw clearly how her teacher was missing a rare opportunity to enter the realm of “being” with her students. There is no such thing as a surprise test in the realm of “being”. In the society of “having”, she felt safer remaining in the “having” environment. Is it easier to ask about religion history that to offer spiritual engagement opportunities? I guess it depends on how conscious you are about the best things in life.

Spirituality is different: even though here too we may feel that when the event is over we didn’t have enough, the spiritual experience projects us toward a higher plane where the trivial everyday life matters appear truly trivial, because deep underneath we are delightfully gratified. It is there that the more we share, the more we evolve.

TCC offered me the opportunity to reap this kind of consciousness.

This is the greatest gift of TCC, and in top of it I was blessed to experience it in a shared form, with other fifteen people, all together, all in a spiritual synchronism, conscious of the steps we were undertaking in a common path, with no boundaries, hand in hand.

I am deeply grateful to Dan and Sandy, to my students, to our TCC cousins beyond the Alps, and ultimately to Justin for being part of our great extended TCC family.