Inconceivable!

I hear the word of my title in Wally Shawn’s famous delivery from The Princess Bride.

Of all the files. I mean it. Of all the files. Yesterday ONE FILE turned up corrupted in my computer, and none of the Help suggestions helped.

It was a big file that I’d been working on for months—a little book of all my blog posts on Peace from Ode Magazine for the past year and half. I’d searched and found wonderful illustrations in Google Images to make just the words on peace more interesting. It was almost done, too. Just two more weeks of posts.

And it was corrupted. Irreparably. I closed my computer down to see if it would restore itself. Got back on it after dinner, and no dice. Then I put it aside. Nothing to do till morning. I told myself I had offsite back-up. It would be no big deal to reclaim the next day.

I got in prayer that somehow I’d get it back. I let go. Good thing.

Morning appointments kept me busy till 2. A dear friend suggested I look in the Trash. I don’t use a Mac but there is a Recycle Bin on a PC. I found it! Not whole, or not as it had been, but closer than starting at zero.

Then I got on the phone with the back-up peeps. Oh, yes, it would be a piece of cake to retrieve it. No problem. I was sailing—for a moment. Then we discovered that the guy who had set up my back-up on this new computer had not included that particular set of files! Dashed to the rocks! HOWEVER, and here is looking on the bright side, we got everything backed up now that needs to be!! And that’s quite a Christmas gift.

Then, I decided to brave Microsoft for Windows Vista. They were no help at all. My software was installed by my computer’s manufacturer so Microsoft wasn’t responsible.

I called Dell. Their people told me to reinstall Microsoft Office. No can do. It came on my computer. And besides, they only dealt with hardware not software! Wait, I said, wait just a cotton pickin’ minute, that’s not what Microsoft says!

Eventually (25 minutes later) they transferred me to their software department, which, after asking me another 25 minutes of interminable (and often repetitive) questions tell me that they can offer me a one-time attempt for $69 plus taxes, etc., or a $269 one-year software service contract.

I let go again, thanked the lady, and hung up.

One file, dear one. One file, and tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.

I’ll reconstruct it over the holidays.

And if this hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have known that all the rest of the “missed” files weren’t being backed up.

Cloud. Silver lining. It’s all in the view we take.

Happy, merry to you and yours.

Ode's Intelligent Optimists' Issue

Ode Magazine’s January/February 2009 Intelligent Optimists issue is fascinating, especially so for me since I was nominated to be one of them!

The assignment was:

This year Ode launches its first annual Intelligent Optimists Issue where we will feature people who are not famous yet but should be because of the work they are doing to bring positive change to their communities, their countries, and the world. As part of this special issue, we would like to hear your nominations, too: tales of ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

Just tell us who your nominee is and write a few lines explaining why this person is special and why their work is important.

I thank everyone who took the time to register and comment. It was an honor to be nominated and the comments people left on my nomination made me blush in secret delight! To read them visit, http://www.odemagazine.com/blogs/intelligent_optimists/3849/dr_susan_corso.

To be included in this list is thrilling. People really do work to make a difference on this planet. Personally, I think the only ways to be in the world are intelligent and optimistic!

Thanks again, everyone! I start the holy-days with a heart brimming with joy.

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.

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.

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

Six Degrees of Connection

This is an amazing planet. I had a bloggers dream-come-true happen in my life last week. I received an email entitled: Greetings from The Huffington Post with an invitation to blog on Spirituality for their Living Page. The editor and I exchanged a couple of emails and then I called her. I wanted a human, at the very least, voice connection before I committed to her pages.

I also wanted to run some possible post topics by her so that I didn’t shock her when she got my first one. When I told her what I was considering, she said, “Wow, the comments will be amazing!” I guess, as a blog editor, that’s what one wants. Anyway, I felt free to go forward with it after I talked to her.

As you know, here I write about spiritual practice. On my Ode Magazine blog, I write strictly about peace. (For over one year now!) Go to Ode Magazine to view them all. For Huffington Post, since it’s so well known for its liberal politics, I decided to use Spirituality in the World as my theme. I’ll be writing about worldly things with a spiritual spin. My first post on Huffington ought to be this week. I’ll post a link on this page when it’s up.

One of the questions I asked my new editor was how she’d heard of me. She told me that someone on her staff had recommended me to her. Fortuitously, (the universe is a conspiracy, remember?) that staffer walked right by my editor’s desk at that precise moment (Who plans these things?!) and she was able to ask who recommended me.

Well, come to find out, a former acting student from my beloved’s classes at Tufts University with whom I had a chance to connect (we discovered that we are birthday siblings—you know about that, right? People who have the same birthdate, though not the same year) who left Boston after he graduated and moved to Vancouver and then back home to L.A. and who is working in Australia right now suggested his friend from God only knows where who works for Huffington check me out.

The most wonderful part of this is that I also have to credit another connection made for me years ago by the woman I met through a friend I knew in seminary in Kansas City (they’d done summer stock together in college) who sublet her New York City apartment to me (who “happened” to be a bridal consultant so she referred me) when I officiated at the wedding of two wonderful souls. We’ve stayed in touch and I christened their two daughters as well. (It is my sincere hope that I get to officiate at their daughters’ weddings and christen their children as well.) Anyway, he’s a compu-wizard and he’s the one who patiently, lovingly helped me set up this blog a year and a half ago. He didn’t dis me or my computer innocence. He walked parallel with me for as long as I needed him. The one thing I remember majorly from that conversation is: Be consistent. Decide how often you want to post and do it. I did. And now I’m a Huffington invitee.

So, beloved, never let it be said that you have no connections! The greater truth is that the eponymous six degrees of separation are rapidly becoming six degrees of connection and we have no idea where those connections will take us.

Must-See Video!

Dear Friends,

I don't usually cross-pollinate my blogs. I write solely about Peace for Ode Magazine's Readers' Blog, but this video has moved me so much that I want you all to see it. It offers a genuinely simple action we can all take to help create peace on this lovely little orb we call home.

Be peace,

Susan Corso

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229



P.S. I did my best to embed it, and after an hour of foiled attempts, gave in to just posting the URL. Sorry! I will get more techno-proficient, I will!

Ten Ways to Bring Peace to the World

Many of you know that I am a Charter Member of the Ode Magazine Readers Blog. My blog posts on Ode are always about peace since peace is my mission here on earth.

You can find them all here: http://www.odemagazine.com/people/Susan%20Corso/blogs

Please visit them and post your comments!

I was delighted to see Beliefnet.com get on the peace bandwagon. Check out

10 Ways to Bring Peace to the World

http://www.beliefnet.com/gallery/10waystobringpeacetotheworld.html?pgIndex=0

—and then put them into action!

Peace is a terrific theory; it’s a better choice, a choice that leads to making peace one moment, one situation, one conversation, one experience, one person at a time.

Acts of Peace

Dear Readers, this is a special post. Some of you know that I am a charter member of the Ode Magazine Readers Blog. This is the post that will run on Ode tomorrow. If you're a blogger, dash one off for Kindness, will you please? Susan

Acts of Peace

Sometimes just thinking about world peace is enough to make me want to take a nap. It’s such a big job and, I know this is an illusion, but sometimes I feel like I’m carrying the ball all by myself. Anyone else feel that way?

Enter Blog Catalog on my Sunday morning email telling me that there’s a movement in the blogosphere called Bloggers Unite: blogging for hope. http://unite.blogcatalog.com/ Its purpose is to use the sheer numbers of the blogging world for good works. The latest date we are invited to join together is today, December 17th, 2007 to do some Act of Kindness and write about it. All of us, on the same day.

What, I asked myself and the universe, might be a good work, an act of kindness, an act of peace?

What I heard might surprise you. It did me:

Take that nap you want.

Naps for peace?

Not really, just do the things you do with peace in mind.

My teacup, really more a bowl, sits to my left right now, even as I type. I have a cup of Earl Grey tea every morning liberally laced with hazelnut cream. It’s divine. I don’t know exactly how many sips I get out of each bowl, but I’d bet at least fifty.

What if, with every sip, I held a thought for peace?

May peace prevail on earth.
May there be peace in the Middle East.
May there be peace between my fighting next door neighbors.
May there be peace in the middle school down the street.
May there be peace in City Hall at the top of the hill.
May my brother, David, find peace in his soul.
May my mother be at peace wherever her soul took her when she died.
May I be at peace within my body.
May my sweetheart be at peace within her job.
May all financial need be met everywhere with supply.

That’s ten. 20% of my tea sips.

Thoughts, dear one, specifically your thoughts are actions. Dedicate your thoughts to whatever you choose. I’ll do peace seven days a week. Just like I do tea seven days a week. Do the math: 50 x 7 = 350 thoughts per week x 52 weeks = 18,200 thoughts per year radiating from me alone, and that only during tea time!

Think of what we could do if every time we swallowed, or chewed, or exhaled, or inhaled, or scratched, or smiled, or stepped or whatever, we added a thought for peace! I propose an act of kindness, an act of peace for every one of the over six billion souls with whom we share this planet. Take one activity in your day—one you do every day—and tilt your thoughts peace-ward during that activity.

I googled world population just now: 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 estimated)

18,200 thoughts per year x 6,602,224,175 = Plenty to create peace in our world. (And more than my puny calculator could handle!)

To quote the latest Citibank ads: “Let’s get it done.”

Less Is More

Seeds IX, 30

Seed: Less is More
We’ve all heard this expression, I know, but approaching 50 as I am, it has come to mean a lot more to me lately than at other times in my life. Earlier, more is more made more sense to me. Now, not so much.

So, I did what any self-respecting writer does. I googled it. Here you go: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an architect who adopted the motto less is more to describe his aesthetic. Buckminster Fuller adopted a similar saying, doing more with less, but his concerns were oriented towards technology and engineering rather than aesthetics.

I’m with both men. For me, at this point in my life, less means simpler. Fewer things, fewer distractions, fewer (and clearer) priorities. I prefer life this way because I, like Bucky, am finding that I can do more with less.

The way I do this is to go deep rather than broad. There are plenty of things I still want to learn in this life. I’d rather single out one or two and go deep rather than ten or twelve and skim over the surface. I’m finding this holds true for everything in my life. Less is more because less in the field means I can truly focus on and love what’s left.

Be serene,

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 blog posts Ode Magazine.

Magic is Afoot

{NO SPOILERS HERE!}

I happen to know two people who celebrated birthdays this weekend and I'm so glad both were born, but the real gift was Saturday’s arrival of the latest and last book in the Harry Potter series. I’d ordered it months ago. Months. As I’d had some less-than-totally-satisfactory delivery experiences with earlier volumes, I was Girl Scout prepared for this one.

Imagine my delight when all my visualized scenarios evaporated as I heard the book thud onto our marble front steps at 6:44 AM! I was so pleased that I was actually able to discipline myself to stay on my own writing schedule before I even opened the package. Just knowing it was here was enough.

Around 8:54 AM I opened Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling and just let it sit on my desk in silence, glowing. Perhaps I was the one glowing, but it could have been the orangey Mary GrandPré cover too. I kept whispering to myself, “It’s here. It’s here!”

Finally, I couldn’t stand it, and I fell into the meticulously-crafted world of wizards and witches and the ultimate battle of good and evil, and I was completely quiet. My whole house was silent. I ate up the words till 3 PM when my eyes gave out and I had to take a nap. I was about 400 pages in. A little over half-way.

Up again, eyes rested, I carried on. Reading ever faster. I moved chairs from time to time so I wouldn’t get stiff. I read in the kitchen, in my office, in the living room, on the porch. I knew I had to finish it before I could go to sleep.

I got emails from friends. They were jealous that my copy had come so early. One was already done and wanted to talk about it. Another wanted to talk after we both finished it. This was a much anticipated book.

The further and further I went into Harry’s world, the quieter I became, and the quieter my house became. Reading is, for me, a silent pleasure. The peace that silence brings with it “enables me to experience and absorb it all more intensely.” (I’m quoting Tijn Touber in the June issue of Ode Magazine, where I’m part of the team of Readers Bloggers, from an article he wrote on his experience of a silent retreat.)

It was 10:07 PM when I finished the book. I sat under a Victorian stained glass lamp on my sofa in the living room and clasped the book to my chest. Silent. Pleasure. Oh yes. J. K. Rowling fulfills every storyline and then some in this final volume. Well worth the wait. I’ll start it again in the morning and read more slowly next time.

I couldn’t call my friend to talk it through though, not last night. Instead, I had to hug the book to myself for a little while. In the silence. With the pleasure. As we say in my neck of the woods,

Mazel Tov, J. K. Rowling!

Thank you and bless you for writing Harry Potter.

One other thought. It did not escape me that as millions of Americans were sitting down with a book about the battle between good and evil that we had a different president than our usual one. Mr. Bush was having minor surgery so for 2 ½ hours Mr. Cheney was president. Thank God, magic was afoot.

Just Ideas

For some reason, my favorite magazines have decided to change their taglines all at once. Ode, which used to be “for intelligent optimists,” which is what made me subscribe in the first place, is now “to people, to passion, to possibilities.” (Please be sure to check out their Readers Blog, where I am a regular charter member contributor.)

Utne used to be “understanding the next evolution,” which is a very clever use of their name. Now it’s “Don’t Be Afraid! They’re just ideas.” I laughed when I read it. Just ideas!?!?! Oh, that’s all.

Dear one, nothing but nothing starts without an idea first. I read an article in Guideposts about a stay-at-home mom who wanted to have her own business. She started with an idea to make pillows filled with corn that could be hot or cold. They’re called Wuvits and she’s now got a multimillion-dollar business. First, an idea.

I think ideas are why I write “Seeds” and why I’ve written them for nine years and why I see no reason to stop writing them. The “Seeds” I write are all about ideas. Because you never know. One small idea seed in front of the right person at the right moment could change the world.

One of my favorites, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote,

Nothing can withstand an idea whose time has come.

Nothing. No thing. First, an idea. In an individual. Who is energized by it. Takes the idea and acts on it. Tells others. The world is transformed. Sounds like a short, simple formula. Not so much. But it doesn’t matter.

This summer I’ve been given some quiet time to reflect on the past almost fifty years of my life. The things that have taken me the farthest in these fifty years have been ideas. Don’t be afraid, dear one. We’ve all got them.

What is Global Mindshift?

I’ve found a new, or new-to-me, magazine recently called Ode Magazine. Its tagline reads: for intelligent optimists. That’s what sold me. It was begun in The Netherlands in 1995, began English and Portuguese versions in 2003, and their subscription quotient just passed 100,000, and growing.

A full-page ad in the May 2007 edition made me laugh out loud. I looked at the picture—a rarity for me being a word person—for a long time before I read the headline or the words beneath it. The picture is Earth in a velvet wing chair.

The headline reads:

Your
Mother
would like to have
a word with you.

I bet she would. With all of us. It’s an ad for a website called Global-Mindshift, and I like both its intent and its message. Mother Earth in a chair is an invitation to sit down at our computers and connect with the site. They promise:

Your mother will be pleased you did.

I think she would.

Here’s who the site is for: This site is for you, individuals and organizations alike, who, from a broadening base of thinking, are interested in exploring, connecting and acting on behalf of a better future for all life.

The mission of the site is: Global MindShift's mission is to help bring about a new era of cooperation and creativity on the planet.

The only way I know of to facilitate this is to make space for gathering and thinking both outside and inside our collective boxes together. Global MindShift is an internet Think Tank to which everyone is invited. Everyone with a mother, that is.

One of the things it says on the site is that whilst conversation is important, it’s not the final step in change. The final step is action.

In my careful reading of Ode, I noticed an email address for the Editor-in-Chief, so in the spirit of intelligent optimism, I wrote to him about his website. Why, I asked, aren’t there any bloggers? And would you consider me to be one on Ode’s site? My very own global mind shift. What did I have to lose?

It took three days and I got an astonishing answer. The web editor invited me to be a Charter Member of their Readers’ Blog which debuts on or near June 10th this year. There are only a few of us, and we’re invited to contribute as often or seldom as we choose.

Global mind shift and action, my friend. One email. Think of it. Just one email opened a whole new world to me simply because I sat down and wrote it. My biological mother was a marketing wizard when she was alive; I’m sure she was pleased at my email.