Ampersand Gazette #12

Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …

*This is the last card in my under-development chakra deck, the Integrity Spectrum.*

“Over the years, when I felt twinges of envy, gazing at other people’s glamorous travelogues on Instagram or visiting friends who seemed to have the perfect lives, I summoned these comforting lines:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

“It is a fantastic reminder that people who seem to have it all—looks, talent, money, love—can make themselves miserable, while people who are not blessed with any of those things can be perfectly content. It is within our own power to be happy—or to self-destruct.”

From an Opinion Essay by Maureen Dowd
in The New York Times “Johnny and Amber: Trouble in Paradise”
June 5, 2022

Well, of course, anyone who is a metaphysician from daycare to Ph.D. knows the truth of Maureen Dowd’s words. The mind can make a Heaven of Hell or a Hell of Heaven in one thought, Beloved.

That is, without doubt, both its greatest blessing and its direst curse. Talk about double-edged swords. What it means, though, is that learning about one’s own mind, working diligently on managing one’s own thoughts, owning one’s own internal structures is incumbent upon each of us. To the degree that we can. I’ll type that again, shall I?

To the degree that we can.

So, first, let’s remember that we only have conscious access to ten percent of our own brains. That’s the part of the brain that I would call, instead, mind. Ten percent, Beloved. That’s all. Because, let’s face it, if you had to think about growing eyelashes, churning out red blood cells, and creating bone marrow not to mention taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide whilst you were reading these words, your head would spin itself right off your shoulders! Let’s be grateful for Whoever planned that.

Ten percent. Your conscious thoughts. AND, of all the thoughts you have in a day, how many of those are really, truly conscious? When there’s a latte sitting on your desk, you already know that to partake of it, you’ll need to pick it up, lift it to your mouth, sip, swallow, and let its yumminess cascade down your throat. Do you actually “think” about this? Um, yes. But it’s so automatic as to be arguably not conscious. You don’t think all those steps to have a sip of coffee. You just sip it.

I have a theory about human minds—that we’re actually only responsible for one percent of our thoughts, and that those one percent are only the ones that cause emotion in you and me.

Go back to the latte at your desk. Let’s say your boss comes into the doorway of your office—your hand is around the cup, ready to lift and sip—and she says, like the office sniper she is, “You’re fired.” In the split second it takes for the mind of your brain to catch what that means, you are instantly, completely, totally spitting mad—so mad that you don’t even think about it consciously or deliberately. Your hand, in the grip of your rage, lifts the cup and throws the hot liquid in her face.

See what I mean about the thoughts that create emotions?

Now as part of civilization, whether you want to throw the coffee at her hateful face or not, you probably have enough ownership of your own mind that you would instantly turn that idea into a fantasy and not actually throw the coffee. What happened? You thought it through in an instant, rejected that option, and chose instead to speak about your feelings instead of using action.

The point is you felt the feeling, and chose the action. Both can be conscious processes. It’s when we reject the feelings or react out of them that we haven’t taken ownership of our minds. Take it from a metaphysician whose been working on this for forty years, your reality is well worth the effort to turn most of your experience from Hell into Heaven.

The secret to that is storytelling, but that’s another essay.

&

“NASHVILLE—I wish I could report that shock was my first reaction to the news from Uvalde, but it was not shock. My first reaction to the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers was grief—terrible, garment-rending grief—followed by something dangerously close to resignation. Here we go again. And again and again. When you know something unbearable will happen, and then it happens, grief and resignation sit together in the same pew.…

“Then I saw a Facebook post by the renowned children’s author Kate DiCamillo. …

“‘We writers who write for kids offer our hearts in stories, and the kids offer their hearts in return; the teachers, when they read stories aloud, offer their hearts,’ she wrote. ‘In this way, we bear witness to each other’s lives. It’s magical. And I am heartbroken that that magic could not save those kids, those teachers.’

“This is not a political statement, and it is not a prescription for how to solve the problem of a country awash in guns and toxic resentment and groundless fears. This is a howl of grief, and I felt every word of it settling into my own shaken soul. Grief and fear are equally primitive emotions, but only grief can lead to any realistic hope for change that will keep our children and teachers safe.…

“‘And then I thought, ‘That’s my job: to stay heartbroken, to stay heartbroken about this.’”

From an Opinion Essay by Margaret Renkl
“We Need to Stay Heartbroken About This” in The New York Times
June 6, 2022

Stay heartbroken. Yes, I hear Kate DiCamillo, of course we should stay heartbroken. But I’m also right there in the pew with Margaret Renkl frozen between walls of grief and walls of resignation.

What can I—one person—do about the guns in our country?

I’ve been dedicated to working for peace since my thirties. In the olden days, when I gave motivational speeches, I talked about three kinds of peace:

·      Inner peace
·      Peace in relating
·      World peace

My focus has, for the most part, been on inner peace for the simple reason that the three are contingent one upon the other. There’s no way to create peace in relating if I do not have inner peace. Nor is there any way even to approach world peace unless I have inner peace, and peace in my relating.

Really? I would ask in my speeches. Do you really think you have the right to demand peace in Ukraine when you can’t even be kind to the developmentally-challenged person who so cheerfully bags your groceries? Get real.

The other thing is, we like to assign jobs like world peace—or gun control—to figures of world influence like, say, Mother Teresa. I always told audiences that Mother Teresa was tired.

All of these Big Issues are all of our responsibility, Beloved. But our responsibility begins and ends right where we are. I need to create world peace and gun control here in the Hudson River Valley. You need to help with these things where you are. If enough of us take our responsibilities seriously, we will make change happen.

So yes, stay brokenhearted, but remember the truth about a broken heart, Beloved, and don’t get stuck between grief and resignation. Broken hearts, whilst, yes, in pieces, can also be described as broken open.

This is hard. I know it is. But if you’ll take your broken-open heart and fill it full of those children, their teachers, their families, their school, their town, their law enforcement, their state and its governors, their country and its governors, the grief begins to heal and the resignation drains away eventually, and we will create change to address the gun violence that wracks us today.

&

The lion, of course, represents greatness, majesty, magnificence UNLESS that same lion is biting your leg—then, the animal is monstrous.

“Perhaps they believed, at least in this case, that greatness was inseparably joined to awfulness; you couldn’t have one without the other.

…

“In other words, without monstrousness, we do not have what we have been conditioned to think of as the theater itself.”

From a New York Times Magazine feature by Jesse Green
“Is It Finally Twilight for the Theater’s Sacred Monsters?”
June 8, 2022

Jesse Green’s exposé of the bêtes noires of the American theatre is very real. He calls them the theatre’s sacred monsters, and is referring to the dreadful behavior of white, male directors and choreographers and teachers who used and abused actors and dancers to create extraordinary performances—performances that are remembered to this day.

By the time I went to work in the professional theatre, a lot of that behavior on the creative side had been reigned in. Actors and dancers had started to speak out, at least to one another, and they called out some of those very bad boys, boys who, talented or not, had their wrists slapped before they lived to direct or choreograph or teach another day.

Most of the behavior Jesse Green is citing had moved into management by the eighties. I ought to know. A quite prominent producer, who shall remain nameless, chased me around his desk with such alacrity that I took to wearing sneakers when I had to visit his office. Another called me at home whilst he took care of his “business.” Let’s leave it there. The OWGs were accustomed to acting out without compunction and so, they did.

But that’s not what I want us to focus on today. What I want us to notice and examine is the belief that greatness is inseparably joined with awfulness, and that we must tolerate the monstrous to be given access to the magnificent.

The thing is, metaphysically, Jesse Green is right. They are connected, but they are not, and do not have to be, joined. A finer parsing than critic Green has given us.

Beloved, this world is based on polarity, and, as you know, I maintain that the polarization we are all feeling is the direct result of polarity that we have let run amok.

Polarity, like electricity, is. Like it, don’t like it, it matters not. It simply exists. Because of that, those who exhibit greatness can, of course, join it to awfulness—if they want—but they don’t have to. Oh, no. Monstrous doesn’t require magnificence, nor does magnificence require monstrosity. But, in order to access greatness, in order to access magnificence, we must know that their polar opposites exist in potential. And, do what we can to mitigate their manifestation.

We do the same thing with the notion of starving and artist. Or, better said, suffering and artistry. Why? Is the suffering required? Why can’t we have artistry without the suffering? We can, but we have to allow that to happen.

This is what unexamined beliefs create. From polarity, it’s even less than a hop, a skip, or a jump into polarization. We must be aware of the possibility of polarization in the face of artistry or greatness or magnificence, and choose differently. Other than the spark of life itself, the one gift we all have is what Madeleine L’Engle called “the terrible gift of free will.” But, Beloved, we must, must, must use it.

&

“In [Dr. Paul Slovic’s, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who has explored popular indifference to genocide and other mass atrocities] research, this is part of the ‘arithmetic of compassion:’ We care deeply about helping a person, but can feel overwhelmed and helpless when faced with masses of suffering people.”

Charles M. Blow, from an Opinion Essay “America’s ‘Psychic Numbing’ to Gun Violence”
in The New York Times
June 9. 2022

This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” You will note that our language, in enemy situations, usually uses the phrase the enemy, and not the plural. Why is that? Because it makes them people, not persons.

One of the things I’ve had the hardest time with this week is hearing about how law enforcement behaved in Uvalde. My temptation is to condemn them heartily for their caution.

But … they were afraid.

These four words are a game-changer for me. Of course they were afraid, training with assault weapons notwithstanding. I would have been afraid, too. These four words turned law enforcement into persons, individuals who both could be and were deathly afraid of what they were walking into. Can you blame them?

Well, I was, but then I read Charles M. Blow, the ever-trenchant, and he got me where I live. Those weren’t people—not the children, their families, law enforcement, none of them—they were persons. How can I not view them with compassion?

That’s one of the many reasons I say we must of course pray for those in Uvalde whose children, spouses, relatives were killed. Of course. But we must also pray for law enforcement there, and for all those with whose policies and politics we disagree with. We can’t afford to indulge our polarization much longer, Beloved.

&

“Not so long ago, it was impossible to go through life without speaking, in some way, to a variety of strangers in your life: The bus driver, barista, security guard, receptionist, butcher, government clerk, store cashier and restaurant server were all humans who required at least the bare minimum of conversation.

… [Not so much these days …]

“It shouldn’t be this way. Engagement with strangers is at the core of our social contract. Most religious faiths instruct us to welcome the strangers we encounter, and there’s good reason for this. If we engaged only with the people we knew, our world would be small. That leap of faith toward the unknown other is what allows us to grow beyond the family unit, tribe or nation. Everyone you converse with who is not a biological relative—your best friend, neighbor, lover, spouse or even that chatty taxi driver from last weekend—was a stranger before you spoke to that person. Anytime we ignore strangers in our vicinity, whether because of fear, bigotry or the everyday convenience and efficiency of digital technology, we weaken that contract.”

David Sax from a Guest Essay “Why Strangers Are Good for Us”
in The New York Times
June 12, 2022

Actor Will Rogers said famously, “Strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.” That’s one way to look at those we do not know. This makes strangers right, but usually when we label persons as strangers, what we are doing instead is making them wrong.

Trust is hard-won these days, Beloved. We all know it, but not to trust strangers is to so limit your world that it makes Alice at her tiniest seem like Gulliver.

Look around your own life at everyone you know. Whether you’re married or partnered or not, do you know someone you’d like to marry or partner right now? If you do, excellent. I hope they’re your spouse or partner. But if you don’t, how are you going to meet that person unless you meet a stranger? Short answer: you’re not.

The people you meet certainly won’t all become your friends, but everyone here, every person is … well, a person, as are you, and as a result deserves our positive regard no matter how the same or different from you they are.

My definition of a real friend is a person who would move heaven and earth to get me out of jail in Peru. I have a few of them. Very few. And they are precious.

Think on that, Beloved, those strangers? Yeah, them? There? They are precious—to someone. Maybe not you, maybe not yet, but to someone they are. That in itself deserves our respect, and respect is the basis of our social contract—not xenophobia—respect.

Even if we can only respect persons because we know they are of the Divine, as we are, that’s a good enough reason. It’s also the reason our social contract will begin to heal itself. Because we offer one another respect for our very personhood. And isn’t that a way to live an ampersand life?

&

And in publishing news …

Oooh, oooh, we’re clicking along reading Jezebel Rising out loud. As of today, there will be only twenty chapters left. After that, I’ll do a timeline read—which means writing down what happens in outline form on each day in the book—just to make sure I haven’t written the impossible. Oh, say, you know, like Wednesday comes before Tuesday or some such other silliness. Then I’ll upload it corrected to Vellum, and it’s time for ARCs—Advanced Reader Copies. If you want to be a beta reader for my historical fiction debut, send me an email. susanATsusancorso.com

I’m also deep into research for book two, Jasmine Increscent, and on the The-Universe-Is-A-Conspiracy front, I had felt like I was waiting for something before I could begin writing this one, and sure enough, The New York Times Magazine did a horrifying piece on Eugenics that turned out to be just the ticket. I need to read about the seeds of eugenics, and then, I should be nose to the grindstone for Jasmine, sister number two of The Bailey Sisters, the stars of Chelsea Towers, and my newest series called, The Subversive Lovelies.

Remember the I AM HAPPY card that appeared at the top of this newsletter? I’ve just created some prototype copies of the chakra deck I’m currently developing, and will be sending them out shortly to some friends who will test them in a workshop with me. They’re getting to be quite exciting at this point. The I AM HAPPY card is the last one in the deck, and it means all systems are go, totally copacetic, with your chakras—either that day, or with the issue you’re asking about. I’ll keep you posted about the Integrity Spectrum as things move along.

Some VERY exciting news. As you know, I’ve been slowly researching and approaching podcast hosts for my chakra work, and this past week, I did two of them! There are lots more down the pike, too. Here’s the first one;