Learn? Teach

Seeds X, 35

Seed: Learn? Teach

You probably already know that the fastest way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. I figured this out so long ago that the Universe helps me do it.

I’m in the process of creating and launching a website to promote my new audiobook and my healing mysteries www.susancorso.com, so what happened today? Someone called and asked my help on a website about healing. I looked at it and thought, I know what to do to help them, and I began to teach what I was already learning for my own website.

Sometimes all we need is to hear ourselves explain something in order to know that we truly do know our stuff. Want to learn? Teach whatever it is to someone else.

Welcome back to school!

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.

Fear-Facers

My sweetie had her annual physical today. She came home relieved. Here’s why: she’d spent the previous two nights up—fretting. Turning small, aging irritations into mega, aging nightmares. An ache here, a pain there. You know the kind I mean.

In her defense, she’d just spent ten days with her nonagenarian parental unit—and aging though they are, grace on that front seems sadly lacking. At just shy of 60, my spouse is looking at her beliefs about aging. Aren’t we all?

Well, her annual doctor’s visit was to our primary care physician, and care, in her case, is the operative word. In thirty minutes, she faced and calmed Sheriden’s fears. She was a voice of authority over fear and that voice overrode the night frets. Thanks, Doc!

Yesterday a friend called, a cancer survivor, who had convinced herself that she was, once again, riddled with cancer. Feeling sustained tension over more than a few weeks, she reached out for a voice of authority over fear. In this case, it turned out to be mine. I talked her down from the tree limb she’d unwittingly scaled.

There were all sorts of logical reasons for what she was feeling, things that her fear hadn’t let her consider. Fear—so inconsiderate sometimes! We also made a plan that if her symptoms weren’t gone in a month, she’d get a medical opinion. The point is: my friend needed a voice outside herself to speak back to fear enough so she could get her own bearings again. So did my sweetie.

Every once in a while we all need someone to face and speak back to the fear that riding roughshod over our spirits. We need a voice of authority to wrangle the fear so that we ourselves can face what’s really going on.

That’s the kind of friends I have, and I hope with all my heart that you do, too.

Reverse (Spiritual) Economics

I spent much of the weekend writing copy for my new web portal. When I finished it, I felt like I’d given birth. Code for: expansive but tired. That’s when it dawned on me that this entire exercise of creating my website has been a practical demonstration of spiritual economics. Let me know you what I mean.

Economics as taught by our esteemed institutions of higher learning can be reduced to a simple trio of words:

Supply and Demand

It’s explained like this: I create a supply of widgets. Through advertising, publicity and marketing, I create a demand for that widget supply. You, the demander of widgets, demand my supply and I make a fortune.

Spiritual Economics works in the exact reverse. To wit,

Demand and Supply

First, I demand of the Universe what I need. Someone to design this new website, Mother, and a videographer, and a social networking marketer, and graphic designers, and book cover wizards, and a recording engineer, and you name whatever else. Every single time I had a need, I asked the Universe for what I needed.

Second, if I’ll wait, quietly, patiently, without trying to force things, the demand is supplied so fast that my head spins.

It’s a lot harder, and longer, to create according to traditional economic principles. Spiritual economics are far easier because one takes one’s request to the storehouse of the entire Universe. They’re never out of anything. They don’t require marketing. In fact, the Universe itself IS supply.

Seek ye first . . . in the easiest, most abundant place . . . and all these things shall be added unto you.

Change Coming

Seeds X, 34

Seed: Change Coming

Some of you know I write a blog for Ode Magazine on peace. I’ve been doing it for over a year now.

Juriaan Kamp, Editor-in-Chief of Ode, wrote in his essay in one issue, “The powers that be never see change coming. It’s not in their interest.” Bless their hearts, the powers that be are seeing a big change coming now and it’s called the presidential election. It’s been coming for a long while now.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter whether the powers that be see the change coming. The powers that aren’t yet are seeing change on the horizon. This works whether one is a nation or a person.

Need change? You are the power that is in your own life. See it coming. Visualize it. Dream it. Let the change change you. I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you did.

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.

Taking Our Selves for Granted

Have you ever thought about this expression? Do you take yourself for granted? Most of us do, I think.

We take for granted, or, assume as a given, that we are who we are, but are we?

Ever had a reaction to something or someone that surprised you?

“That’s not like me,” we say.

Oh? What is, then?

Granted comes from Latin roots meaning, believed or entrusted.

This puts a nice spin on the phrase for me. We are entrusted with, granted, our selves.

Taking anything for granted isn’t particularly advisable except for immutable laws: Gravity, Aerodynamics (and the bumblebee gives the lie to these!). You know the kind of laws I mean.

Plenty is granted us as human beings, and a far more appropriate attitude toward what is entrusted to us, or granted us, is gratitude.

Including for our precious selves!

The Amazing Video Weekend

We planned it a month ago, maybe a little more. My friend Court Stroud was coming to Boston to make some videos for my website. We had four definite projects to complete in less than two days.

It was just the three of us. Me: the “talent.” Sheriden: the director and producer and crew. Court: the videographer and editor and producer, and crew.

What could have been a nightmare of bumping heads, bruised egos and general dissatisfaction turned out to be sheer, unadulterated pleasure as we three found a way of communicating, a rhythm of working (and taking breaks) and a creative groove that left all three of us feeling fulfilled and pleased as punch with ourselves.

How did we do it?

By planning what we wanted to get done, talking just a little in advance, and agreeing to experiment with our creative impulses together. We planned . . . but not much. Instead, we planned a little and showed up a lot.

Each of us took turns leading and following.

We were all considerate of one another.

We used our eyes and ears to tune into one another’s states of being.

We took breaks when one person wanted a rest.

No one made anyone wrong; instead, we practiced making one another right.

We ended up with all the videos we wanted, shot in less than twelve hours.

You’ll see them on the susancorso.com website soon. I’ll keep you posted.

EZ Pass

Seeds X, 33

Seed: EZ Pass

Many years ago now the New York metro transit authority created a system called EZ Pass. The idea was to facilitate traffic through the tolls at bridges and tunnels in and out of the city. An EZ Pass holder kept a balance on the device to make passing in and out of the city faster. To a certain extent, it works, and EZ Pass is now accepted up and down New England.

I got to thinking about the name of the device the other day though and something struck me about it. Often, humans dismiss the things which are easy for us. We, quite literally, pass, don’t notice, don’t value the things which come easy to us.

The strangest part of this phenomenon is that whatever that thing is that allows you to say, “It’s easy for me,” is the thing you were sent here to do, not to take a pass on. We buy an EZ Pass to make our passage easier. We’re here to pass on (as in hand down) what’s easy for us here. The thing that’s easy for you? Look for someone to whom you might pass it on.

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.

Procrastination

I need a book cover designer for my new audiobook, Oklahoma! Hex, and I’ve contacted several from the Web. I’m supposed to return their emails/calls this morning and it’s already afternoon. What’s going on? I’m procrastinating.

I am not usually a procrastinator. As part of the very process, I opened the OED curious about the etymology of the word. After all, it begins with pro- which means for. I tend to think of procrastination as an against sort of process, don’t you? Its roots are Latin from cras; meaning tomorrow.

So the whole meaning is for tomorrow.

There are plenty of things in my life for tomorrow. I have four appointments with clients for tomorrow, not today.

What’s really going on when we procrastinate?

Usually, we are judging ourselves something fierce. There is an undercurrent of thought about laziness, unreliability, unwillingness to work. None of these things is true of me. I’m disciplined, organized, impeccable about reliability.

Why am I procrastinating?

Over the years I’ve learned that when I indulge in procrastination it often means that something bigger or better is trying to happen. Something feels not quite right about these designers I’ve found, and I don’t know what to do next. The energy in my actions feels logey, until I deliberately decide to release myself from the obligation I’ve set myself.

Once I let go, really let go, it rarely takes more than two days before something I’ve needed comes to me.

The next time you catch yourself procrastinating, consider that something better is on its way to you. Let go, wait two days and see what miracle rings your doorbell.

Official notice: I’m letting go of the book cover designer job right now. Anyone know a good one?

P.S. Thirty minutes after I wrote this, one of them called and they're perfect!

An End to Remorse

William Butler Yeats was a mystical poet. His words below surprised me because I’d only seen the last three lines before. It was on a Mary Engelbreit page-a-day calendar. Typical affirmative fodder. But the verse is so much more powerful with its first two lines intact.

When such as I cast out remorse,
So great a sweetness flows into the breast.
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything.
Everything we look upon is blest.
W. B. Yeats

According to the OED, a wordsmith’s favorite book, remorse means a feeling of deep regret or repentance. It comes from Latin roots meaning biting, as in painful. The key to casting out remorse, and following Poet Yeats’ wise instructions, is revealed in its etymology.

Think of the practice of biting into, say, a brilliant, orange carrot. A happy thing at lunchtime for you; perhaps not so happy for the carrot—I couldn’t say.

Same with remorse. What we do when we indulge in remorse is bite off a memory of an event, or behavior, or choice, or word, or deed that we now wish we’d done differently. Check out the tiny syllable at the beginning of the word: re-. It means again. So not only do we chew on the memory, but we chow down on it, biting again and again and again.

To cast out remorse, beloved, quit biting into it! And letting it bite into you!

As yourself some questions about the experience:

Did I do the best I could with what I knew at the moment?
Could I have done better? Then?
What can I learn from this experience for the future?

Then CAST OUT REMORSE. Let it go. Relax, and let the sweetness of life flow into you.

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has wishes that things had gone differently. So?

So, cast out remorse, let sweetness arise, then laugh, sing and let the blessings of everything make you blest.

I & Enemy

Seeds X, 32

Seed: I & Enemy

The Tao Te Ching, the classic text by Lao Tse says that one cannot have the words I and Enemy in the same sentence if one wants to be a master of Tao. The concepts of I and Enemy do not relate to one another in a master’s understanding of life.

So let’s look for a moment at ourselves. Do we have enemies? According to the OED, the word comes from Latin roots meaning not friendly. It may sound a bit absolutist but anyone or anything toward whom or which we feel not friendly is an enemy according to this definition. For me, that sheds a new and less yielding light on enemies.

Shall we take it deeper? The Hebrew prophet Micah said that the harshest enemies we can have are those “of our own house.” Are there parts of yourself toward which you are not friendly? Take a page out of Abraham Lincoln’s book, dear one, and ask, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make friends of them?” Mastering our inner enemies by befriending them dissolves the outer ones as well.

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.

George W. Bush—Avatar?

A P. S. Upfront: This post was rejected by my Huff Post editors as being "too out there!" Here you go!

The quote on my Google home page was from Saki, the Burman-born British poet who was killed during the First World War: He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

I don’t know to whom Saki referred, but I know people who feel this way about G.W.B. and, to be honest, I was tempted to go there for a nanosecond, but I know too much about how the universe works to spend any time there. The most recent issue of Utne Reader had an article about his legacy as, believe it or not, the AIDS president. Legacy, schmegacy. I think his legacy is far greater than anyone yet realizes. Even him.

I’d better cop to it up front: I am a Democrat, and I am also committed to living a consciously spiritual life, the discipline of which asks me to seek and find meaning in the events of my time.

What kind of consciousness in the United States of America chose a president like George W. Bush? I mean it. I’m really asking. Because, to my way of thinking, he reflects something in that famous mass the pols call “the American people.” What is G.W.B. showing us about ourselves?

Let’s see . . . our apathy . . . our thoughtlessness . . . our short-sightedness . . . our hubris . . . our own Teflonned hearts . . . our inconsideration . . . our denial . . . our lack of care for ourselves, others and the planet. I could go on but you catch my drift.

Relationships, dear one, are mirrors. There really is no them, as in them and us; there’s only us. George Walker Bush is showing us something. It’s our task to determine what. Why would a benevolent universe ask us to look at these things?

Because. Because it’s time. Because it’s now. Because it’s now or never. The American people need to see who George W. Bush really is so that we’ll wake up. That’s what I think his true legacy is.

Try this on: George Walker Bush, preincarnate soul, appears in Heaven to meet with his guidance counselor before he arrives in his mother’s arms.

GC: “George, for that will be your name, are you sure?”
GW: “I am, GC. I’ll do it. They need it.”
GC: “It won’t be easy. People will think ill of you.”
GW: “I know, and it’s okay. I’ll be indifferent in order to make a difference.”
GC: “You got it, GW. Now . . . birth!”

What if it’s true? What if George Bush made a soul agreement, one he knows nothing of on a conscious level, to act as cruelly as he has to fulfill the function of an avatar—a human incarnation of an aspect of Divinity—so that we, the American people, would wake up into caring about ourselves, others and our planet.

And isn’t that exactly what has happened during the 2006 midterm elections, the primaries this year, and, hopefully, the 2008 presidential election?

So although Saki’s sentiment tempts me, my spiritual practice asks for something else: gratitude. Thanks, G.W.B., for doing your soul duty!

Airport Bardo

I wakened this morning thanking God Almighty that I was in my own bed. I’ve just returned from ten days of intense travel: a ho’oponopono workshop in Woodland Hills, California; visits to my in-laws; a sandwich stay in Santa Fe with my ex-husband and best friend.

The trip was, of course, bookended by air travel. By the final taxi ride, I was certain that Murphy’s indubitable law of things going wrong was the ONLY operative one!

The trip to Burbank wasn’t too bad. It could have been because I was so looking forward to seeing my best friend from high school. She’s a friend with whom I don’t need to speak regularly and then, when we see one another again, we’re right back on the same page. Sari’s one of the favorite beings in my life.

I got on an earlier flight than I’d originally planned on Sunday—it should have made my arrival in Albuquerque more than three hours earlier than originally planned. Instead, we flew from Burbank to Phoenix, and there was a mechanical problem with the plane. Mechanical problems happen, I know. Then, US Airways “couldn’t find” (I quote) another plane that was working. Then, when they did, they didn’t have a pilot, so they flew one in from Philadelphia! (And just how Philadelphia is on the way to or from Phoenix, I still haven’t quite figured out!) Even though I paid an additional $65 to get to Albuquerque more than three hours earlier, I arrived ten minutes before I would have had I not made the changes.

Never mind.

The pièce de résistance was the trip from Albuquerque to Boston. We got up at 4 AM, showered and blew into a cab for a 6 AM departure. The flight to Dallas wasn’t bad.

When we got off the plane in Dallas, however, they’d cancelled our flight to Boston. Just summarily. No reason was given. For what it’s worth, if the gate agent had simply said to us, “You know, we at American Airlines are committed to doing everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint; the plane just wasn’t full enough to justify the fuel,” we might have at least felt like we were doing our bit for God and country. But no, she had no excuse, and didn’t seem to need to make one. And I’m not saying she was rude, for she wasn’t, she was charming as all Texas.

She waitlisted us for a 10 AM flight and put us on a 12:45 flight. There was no way we would be put on the 10 AM (we were numbers 15 and 16 on an oversold flight) which I figured out after we schlepped through half the airport and talked to another (more honest?) gate agent. She put us on an 11:35 flight. Why didn’t the first one? So we schlepped some more and got on and took off on time.

Okay . . . we’re on our way home. But are we?

The toilet began to stink almost immediately after take-off and it got worse and worse throughout the trip. As we were nearing our destination, Boston got the weather weirds. We were about to run out of fuel, so we had to put down in Hartford to get more. They kept us locked in the plane with the odoriferous head for 90 minutes. Oh, we’d gotten the fuel we needed but things were iffy in Boston still, or someone needed to clear us or whatever; the pilot was so inept with the microphone that all we heard was buzz-buzz-buzz-Boston-buzz-buzz. Finally, we take off again thinking it’s a spit till we’re in a cab on the way to our happy home.

Oh no. The luggage doesn’t get taken off the plane and put on its delivery spinner for 50 minutes—count ʼem, folks!—five-oh minutes. By the time we get both our suitcases . . . mine was one of the last off-loaded . . . get into a gypsy cab and go tearing through the tunnel to Somerville, we’re toast. No, we’re bread crumbs.

We staggered up the seventeen steps to our front door at 8 PM. Our original ETA had been 3.

Amazingly, this morning I was considering a little cosmic math. If ever we are called to do time in the Bardo, that in-between Heaven and Hell purgatory, we can faithfully point to our Sunday with American Airlines and affirm that we’ve already done it!