People Change

Seeds X, 31

Seed: People Change

People change. They do.

Recently a friend told me a story about the beginning of a new romance in his life. His closest friend took the fifth about the relationship upsetting my friend. It took us a while to figure out that his best friend was simply reacting to the change in my friend’s life. New romances change us.

There’s a line in Lillian Hellman’s play Toys in the Attic. One of the characters says, “People change and forget to tell each other.”

The next time someone dear to you makes a change in his or her life, before you react, reflect. Is your dear one saying, subtextually anyway, “I’m changing and I’m telling you so”?

People change, and we get to change with them.

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine. and The Huffington Post.

Micro-Vacations

Seeds X, 30

Seed: Micro-vacations

This Seed was inspired by Rev. Margaret Storz writing in Science of Mind Magazine. She highly recommends micro-vacations. She lives near one of the coasts of the United States so her micro-vacations are all about the beach. Mine are not. I’m a redhead; I don’t do beach.

A micro-vacation for me might be . . . a weekday afternoon at the movies . . . or thirty minutes reading fiction during the day . . . or a massage. But what Rev. Storz is talking about is even less time-consuming than these. She’s talking about 30 seconds to a minute several times a day.

Most of us have too much to do too much of the time. Do you have a post-it note nearby, dear one? Start a list of places to visit for 30 seconds at a time. Hawaii, if you’re a beach bunny. The Alps, if you’re not. The mind works in images. Create a Favorites folder on your computer full of micro-vacation images and take a minute to go there and relax every day.

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine. and The Huffington Post.

Holiday Notice

Today I’m posting Seeds for the next two weeks. I’ll be out of town in California and Santa Fe and not doing blog posts (except in my mind) until August 4th. You can still read my weekly posts on Ode Magazine’s blog and The Huffington Post. Happy summer!

Susan

Speed Caps

I want you to know that I’m telling the absolute truth when I say that every single westbound driver on the Mass Pike between 2:30 and 4:30 passed me this weekend. Every single one. I swear it.

In most places, the speed cap is 65 mph. I was going 62. I keep thinking that if we all go 3 mph below the speed cap that we’ll save on carbon footprints.

The point, dear one, to speed limits is that they’re speed caps, not minimums, but most people drive as if the speed limits are minimums. It scares me. People had to be approaching 85 mph at the rates they passed me. What’s the rush? Never mind, don’t answer that.

Speed caps, top speeds, maximum speeds. That 65 mph came through much experimentation, calculation and research. It is derived from the laws of aerodynamics, how cars and tires and velocities interact, weather conditions, road grade, curves, a host of things. And someone smarter than I am—at least about all those things—thought up that 65 mph for a reason.

On the way home, I suggested to my sweetie that there was a very simple solution to everyone speeding like demons eastbound toward Boston. Make cars that can accelerate only up to 65 mph. Full stop.

She answered me, “Yeah. What about freedom?”
Freedom? To what? Hurry? Waste fuel? Endanger others? Waste fuel? Worry others? Waste fuel? Waste fuel? Waste fuel?

WHAT are we doing? Does climate change go out the window when we’re on the road? If it’s important to bring your own bags to the grocery store, isn’t it just as important to slow down and use less gasoline?

I don’t get it that humanity isn’t getting it. What’s not to get? Climate change is one of OUR problems. Ours. Today, and every day we don’t do something to minimize it. It’s not rocket science. Small actions add up to large results.

Ease up on the gas pedal, honey, and at least notice that there are flowers.

A Little Less Effort

I coined a phrase this morning that I know will live on in the world of our experience:

a little less effort and a little more rock and roll.

Sheriden laughed when I said it to her on the phone, and asked me if I’d thought it up right then. I had.

I was talking about today’s (Saturday’s) New York Times crossword puzzle when I said it.

For those who aren’t puzzle maniacs, puzzles in The New York Times get progressively more complicated as the week goes on and the month goes on thanks to editor Will Shortz. Saturday puzzles can be a bear. The clues get more and more obscure and require further leaps of intuition.

That’s what happened to me over the weekend.

I was stumped. Almost totally. Sheriden was away at a workshop and we were visiting in our usual first thing in the morning wake-up call. I was looking at the puzzle in my computer and instead of locking in with my brain, determined to wrestle the clues into revealing themselves through logic and intellect, I let go.

Whilst we chatted, I was able to finish the whole thing.

Most of my attention was on Sheriden and her experience of the previous evening’s Ko Festival performance. The rest of it was on Will Shortz and his Saturday puzzle.

Consider this as a strategy the next time you feel your brain lock in and prepare to do battle with an intellectual challenge. Put part of your attention on the problem and the other on something, or someone, you love, where you go with the flow easily. (Solitaire works just as well.)

See if the challenge doesn’t reveal itself right before your eyes. A little less effort and a little more rock and roll.

Heffalump Pits

Seeds X, 29

Seed: Heffalump Pits

Oh my friend, beware of heffalump pits! Do you know what they are? Do you know where they are? Do you know why they are? A heffalump pit is what one uses to catch a heffalump, and the genesis of such an ingenious device is to be found in A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books.

In the story, Pooh and Piglet dig a heffalump pit to catch a heffalump but succeed only in catching Pooh with a jar of Hunny stuck on his head. Now you and I know that the heffalump is a phantasmagoria, but I want to ask you, is it really?

Isn’t the worst situation you’ve ever found yourself in usually one of your own making to one degree or another? Even if you can’t see it at the time? Well, I’m going to tell you a small secret about heffalump pits.

If ever you fall into one, look at your own hands. That’s right. Inspect each hand, one at a time. I’ll wager a quarter that in one or the other, you’ll find a shovel! The flip side of this is: if you’re unexpectedly holding a shovel, look out! There’s a heffalump pit nearby and you could fall in at any moment!

P.S. The easiest way to avoid Heffalump Pits is to refrain from Digging Them!

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine. and The Huffington Post.

A New Earth (I)

I’m reading Eckhart Tolle’s latest book, A New Earth, and it’s stellar. Only a third of the way through, it’s remarkable how clearly he explains the human condition. Basically, we’re trapped both in and by our minds which, in his parlance, means our egos.

I’m not sure about the bad rap the ego gets. It doesn’t seem correct to me. But I am sure that when I get in trouble, it’s because my ego isn’t getting what it needs. Egos are like any mania. Stop feeding them and eventually the cravings diminish.

What I really like about the book is that Mr. Tolle suggests that going beyond egoic mind is the next step for humanity. We’ve done the mind thing. Done it to death. Finis. Through. Over. Let’s get on with it—what’s the next level of evolution?

His answer is awareness. In fact, awareness, which is only available in the present moment, is the cure-all for egoic mind. Awareness of the late afternoon light shining through my window and into my left eye, the whirr of the fan in the air conditioner, the cool air on my skin, the words that I write right now.

Egoic mind is a jockeying mind. It wants position, acknowledgment, praise, acceptance. Becoming aware of these wanting, we stop wanting these things. Offering awareness of ourselves and to others improves relationships.

I had occasion to speak to a close friend today on the phone. She was fresh from a workshop experience and cranky about one of the participants who wasn’t participating very well. I got annoyed at my friend. Egoic mind. Her egoic mind, and mine. I returned to the cool air and the glinting sunshine and in a trice, I was perfectly happy to let my friend have her complaint.

Awareness is a discipline for most of us. I sometimes am so caught in words in my mind that I have to report to myself what’s around me. I’m sitting in an Aeron chair. My legs are crossed at the ankles. I tell myself where I am and what’s happening to become aware.

Try it and see if it helps you let go egoic mind.

To be continued . . . as I keep reading.

[title of show] & Vision

Sunday’s New York Times Arts & Leisure section had a story about a new Broadway show called [title of show]. It’s been around for a while and it tells the story of two writers who enter a theatre festival and write a show about two writers who enter a theatre festival. Here’s the link to the Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/theater/13simo.html?ex=1216612800&en=7248d15125e717a2&ei=5070&emc=eta1

The coolest thing about their Broadway opening this week is that they created it through the vision-to-reality process taught in the movie The Secret and through YouTube. The two authors saw the movie and decided to use YouTube as their pre-Broadway try-out. They put out the “rumor” that [title of show] was opening on Broadway, and they created short videos to get and keep the buzz going.

Thursday, this week, voila! [title of show] opens at the Lyceum Theatre. My point, however, is not that a show is opening on Broadway. My point is that they had and held a vision and then acted upon it as their inner promptings urged.

This is the backbone of the process of manifesting anything. Anything at all, no matter how difficult in our perception. As A Course in Miracles says right up front, “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.” I know, you see, because I’ve been working on one of my own, and pretty soon, I’ll be asking you, who read this blog, to help me. I’ll also be recording a short video for YouTube. I’ll also ask my personal email list.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and be public about my vision. You know I’ve recorded the text of my first novel from the series, The Healing Mysteries of Mex Stone. It’s called Oklahoma! Hex. I heard the first edit this week of just over seven hours and it sounds great to me. And . . .here it comes . . . my goal is to sell 50,000 downloads by 12/31/08. Yep, 50,000! Why not?

When I asked for guidance about how many to set as a sales goal, that’s the first number that came to me. I’m going for it. If two songwriters can create an opening on Broadway, what’s 50,000 clicks?

H.O.P.E.

Seeds X, 28

Seed: H.O.P.E.

Hope is much in the news today. We can’t read a political pundit without hearing of hope. This Seed is about a different kind of hope, no, a different format.

In 2003, eight teenage girls in Cincinnati, Ohio started a charity called H.O.P.E.—help other people endure—to raise money for a village three hours south of Johannesburg in South Africa called Langkloof. Most of the children there are orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. There is rampant unemployment. Visit them: www.southafricanhope.org

Help other people endure. It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? We all need the hope that help gives us. Just today a friend of mine thanked me for being present as he goes through a difficult relationship. What I offered him was hope . . . for the future, for his choices, for his life.

If ever hopelessness comes to call in your life, consider giving hope to another. You won’t know how good it will make you feel until you do it!

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine. and The Huffington Post.

Spindoctoring the Self

You know I’ve just made a recording of the first of my Healing Mysteries of Mex Stone called Oklahoma! Hex. It should be in the mail to me even as I write. Yesterday, we spent the day driving to Vermont to meet with a web designer so that I can put the audiobook out into the universe and help people heal themselves by reading it.

Between Sunday and Monday, I received three big NO messages in my life. Yikes!

Here’s the NO spin:

The first one was from the first person I asked for an endorsement of the audiobook. I had been certain he’d say yes.

The second one was from a publisher who’d had my book for months. She did write to me, and I quote, “I think Mex Stone is a winner . . . ,” and then she made a request for rewrites that changes the nature of entire series.

The third one came from one of a pair of people with whom I did a very sticky counseling session last week; she just plain chose not to continue our work together.

What happened to me, through these three no messages, is my real subject here. This is how it went down . . . the inner spin, if you will.

The first one bumped my ego. Ouch! I spent half a day utzy—my skin didn’t fit, if you know what I mean. I had to quit working, take a nap in an attempt to sleep it off which didn’t work, and then I repaired to a novel I really wanted to read which scared the bejesus out of me because it turned out to be about something I truly fear. Argh.

The second one made me smile. I recognized it, you see, as a test of my own desire. I don’t believe the universe tests us—I believe we test ourselves. Do I really want what I say I want? Let’s see . . . my novels don’t fit into publishing pigeonholes. The protagonist is a lesbian and an intuitive. The novels are mysteries. The novels are spiritual. Box? What box? Yes, I really believe there is a reading public for my “cross-genre” writing.

The third one was a laugh out loud. I hadn’t enjoyed my session with these two warring siblings. Neither was yielding in any way and a parent had asked them to see me. The desire for healing hadn’t come from the two needing it. Oh bless them, bless them, bless them. And we think God forgets to take care of us?! Ha!

The YES spin:

I’ll get the endorsements that are mine to get.
The right publisher is on its way to me even now.
A new client called yesterday.

The best place to spin is at home. In all senses of spin.

Now Married on a Social Networking Site Near You

Okay, I’m no longer a Facebook virgin but I may as well be. Things startle me on Facebook all the time. I suppose I could be called a noob, a word I stared at for a long time before I spoke it aloud and heard what it meant. Noob, as in newbie, novice, innocent.

Today I got an email from a former student of my sweetie’s. From India. Maybe I’m showing my age, but it used to take weeks to get a letter from India in the United States. Now, it takes nanoseconds. I’d had no idea he’d gone to India. This sort of surprise thrills me.

The one that really got me going was an email from Facebook asking that I confirm my marriage to Sheriden Thomas. I laughed out loud. Who puts someone they’re not married to in that name slot on Facebook? And why? Or is it to prevent people from publicizing their crushes?

After I confirmed that I was indeed married to Sheriden Thomas, my Profile on the site changed itself. It read:

Susan Corso is now married to Sheriden Thomas.

I laughed again. Now married? Yes, according to Facebook. In fact, we’ve been married for several years and counting. We met four years ago August 10th, had a pagan pre-marriage ceremony with a dear spiritual teacher that October 31st, got our legal “permit” (we live outside of Boston) October 13th the following year, and had a small, private ceremony on our gorgeous porch October 31st of 2005. So, we’ve been married three or four years depending upon which anniversary you pick—always on Halloween.

Facebook’s pronouncement that I was NOW married made me think, as I so often do, about what makes marriage work. I think that NOW is one of the great keys to successful relationships of all kinds.

Can I remember the good stuff from the preceding four years? Forget the “bad” stuff? And stay present to Sheriden? I make a sincere attempt so to do, I promise you that.

One of the reasons we chose Halloween for our wedding was to remind ourselves of a standard pagan practice with regard to marriage. Witches marry for a year and a day, and then they decide whether to re-up or not. I think successful marriage requires the daily, sometimes hourly or minutely, decision to re-up.

In a very real way, Sheriden and I get married every day, so thanks, Facebook, for the reminder.

No Thank You Bite

Seeds X, 27

Seed: No Thank You Bite

As some of you know, I turned fifty last year. In a Manhattan taxi on the way downtown to have dinner with dear friends, this Seed was born.

Turned out it was a rule in my friend’s family that if one didn’t want to eat something at the dinner table, one had to take a “no thank you bite.” At my childhood dinner table, a “you have to try it bite” was mandatory. What a difference a phrase makes!

The experience of the second option was a thwarting of my will. I was made to do what I didn’t want to do. My friend’s family, on the other hand, honored her will. And accomplished the same goal! To get a kid to try something new.

The next time you find yourself in a power struggle of any kind, see if you can apply the No Thank You Bite rule. Find a way to honor the independence of the will of the person you’re struggling with. You’ll both be freer.

Blessed Fourth of July.

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine. and The Huffington Post.

A Customer A Minute

I just read the most amazing marketing book I’ve ever read, and believe me when I tell you that I have read LOTS of marketing books. Joe Vitale, of The Attractor Factor and The Secret and Ho’oponopono’s Zero Limits fame, wrote it ten years ago. It’s called There’s A Customer Born Every Minute: P. T. Barnum’s Secrets to Business Success, and it’s a true winner, a marketing bible for anyone anywhere who wants to participate in business at any level.

Most people know who Phineas T. Barnum was . . . or, I should say, is. He’s the same Barnum who can be found today associated with Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. P. T. Barnum died 110 years ago and he’s still a brand name today! The other thing people “know” about Barnum is that he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but it’s not so!

P. T. Barnum had the utmost respect for people. His business dealings were all about generosity, education and sharing. He was a genius at dreaming up wild and crazy marketing to draw the attention of the public to his marvelous displays. He didn’t think of people as suckers, he thought of them, each one, as customers. Vitale’s book title is spot on.

In the book, he details ten Rings of Power. Few of them will surprise you if know anything about marketing at all. What will surprise and delight you, however, is the scale upon which Barnum practiced marketing. If it could be Jumbo, then by Barnum, it would be JUMBO! Barnum even failed on a jumbo scale once upon a time, and dug himself out the same way.

Vitale’s rendering of the showman of showmen is bright, lively and real. His adulation is patent and he wrings the final drops from each of Barnum’s 10 rings. A particular favorite of mine is the visit to Barnum’s grave in East Bridgeport. The long and the short of it is that Joe has a spiritual experience of P. T. Barnum just before he begins to write the book. Barnum, in effect, passes his mantle on to Vitale. It’s beautiful, and it brought tears to my eyes.

The gravestone is simple. It bears his name and a favorite quote of the deceased. “Not my will, but thine, be done.” And that, dear one, is a far greater testament which explains Barnum’s hands-down success in the world.

To Joe Vitale, thanks for accepting the marketing mantle of P. T. Barnum. He’s a genius, and you must be too since you recognized him for what he was . . . and is today.

Here’s the Amazon link to buy the newest edition of this gem:
http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Customer-Born-Every-Minute/dp/0471784621/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214926155&sr=8-1

The greatest marketing on earth!