Ampersand Gazette #13
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“To be of use to pollinators, a garden needs two kinds of native plants: those whose flowers feed adult butterflies and those whose leaves feed caterpillars. A caterpillar in a butterfly garden is a sign that the whole hopeful plan is working.
…[after rescuing 14 caterpillars from a garden store, putting them in a butterfly cage to protect them from the red wasps, 9 lived]
“This is the trouble with trying to help a natural world in so much peril. It’s never entirely clear when it’s right to intervene and when it’s wrong. … Wanting to help is not the same thing as helping.”
Margaret Renkl in an Opinion Essay “Helping Very Hungry Caterpillars Become Butterflies — It’s
Complicated” in The New York Times
June 13, 2022
Sometimes those two words in Ms. Renkl’s title—It’s Complicated—make me want to sigh, and ask, What isn’t? The greatest blessing of life on this planet is that we are all connected. That’s what makes “helping” complicated. The fact that we are all connected is also our greatest challenge.
Sure, I might want to “help” someone in some capacity, but can I begin to see the long-term effect of that help? I cannot. No matter if I try. No matter if I try with an open heart. No matter if I try with good intentions. You see, it’s, uh, complicated.
I think that’s why I began to think about Ms. Renkl’s instructive words as representative of an inside job for each one of us. She writes,
“To be of use to pollinators, a garden needs two kinds of native plants: those whose flowers feed adult butterflies and those whose leaves feed caterpillars. A caterpillar in a butterfly garden is a sign that the whole hopeful plan is working.”
Part of the human condition involves pollinating our own dreams, Beloved. And sometimes our dreams exist in different stages within us. I certainly have some caterpillar-shaped dreams—those are the ones that require more transformation from me to manifest—and some butterfly-shaped dreams—those are the ones for which I have already accomplished that inner transformation.
Helping our dreams along by taking baby steps toward them is how we get to and through those transformative experiences. Those baby steps do not ever involve figuring out the how. As Terry Cole Whittaker titled a book of hers, “How is None of Your Business.”
The next time you’re feeling like things aren’t progressing fast enough for you, or like you absolutely must have a plan for how you’re going to get wherever you want to go, stop. Look around. I’m pretty sure you’ll find some caterpillars, minding their own business, growing and glowing into the transformation that will turn them into butterflies.
Then, look up, see the butterflies in the butterfly garden all around you. Those are the indication that you’re on the right track, doing your work here, and in Divine Order. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not so complicated after all.
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“Faith is belief without proof.”
Sonia M. Miller
in her book on metaphysics, The Attraction Distraction
I’m always up for reading any basic book on metaphysics. When a teacher really gets what metaphysics is and what it can do, usually their explanations of how the universe works are delicious.
People have often asked me where they can learn advanced metaphysics. That question always makes me laugh. There’s no such thing. All real metaphysics is kindergarten-level. The advanced part comes in applying metaphysical principles in an everyday way. And that is the study of a lifetime. Take it from me, I’m still at it.
So when I read Sonia Miller’s sentence above, I stopped reading. Faith is one of those things, Beloved. I have read countless definitions of what faith is. I’ve heard it parsed out as blind faith versus mature faith or rational faith, and a squillion other semantical definitions, too.
Her sentence is golden. Because it says what is required of we who choose to live in faith. Belief without proof. It also de facto defines what faith isn’t. It also flies in the face of almost every teaching I’ve ever heard on what is “reality.” Science has been harnessed in the service of reality for centuries. Its premise might be, If you can’t prove it, it’s not real. Humbug.
Um, not so fast. I’ve wanted to live in a Queen Anne Victorian house since I first saw one at about age three. The other day a person suggested I find one to live across from because I would eventually be too old and too decrepit to live in one.
Uh, no. That’s not where I’m placing my faith—my belief without proof. I’m focused on finding that dream, forever house and thriving in it till I decide to go on to the next great adventure.
Where you place your faith, Beloved, is always up to you.
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It will "all" seem far easier, SUSAN, when you keep in mind, all of the time, that it's supposed to be easy.
Everything.
That was easy,
The Universe
SUSAN, starting right now.
from Mike Dooley’s Notes from the Universe
tut.com
June 14, 2022
This is, of course, a text from a Mike Dooley Notes from the Universe, and it reminded me of something I’ve known and taught for a long time, although not recently. We are here to do what’s easy for us—not what’s hard.
I knew a woman in seminary who was an exemplary preacher, really good, and a so-so singer. When she graduated, she decided to create a singing ministry for herself and her husband. She struggled with it from day one.
When she finally “gave up,” and took a job as a pastor in a congregation, her ministry bloomed like a huge field of sunflowers. What happened? She did what was easy for her to do, and was rewarded for it amply.
I think we Americans have our Puritan ancestors to thank for this notion that things have to be hard. They don’t. Not at all.
When I tried to market my books according to the conventional wisdom, I stalled out again and again. Then I heard an interview from a business teacher I respect with a podcast expert. That was all she wrote. There, there was my “easy.”
I started pitching to podcast hosts on May 22, 2022. In that time, I’ve already booked nine different ones, and almost every host has asked if I would be willing to return for a second helping of metaphysics.
See what I mean? Easy.
Have a look, Beloved, at where you’ve chosen the hard way, and look again. See if there isn’t an easier path to the same place.
&
“The manager of a library in Cleveland said that books like Newman’s deserve a place in public libraries and schools “as long as they tastefully, accurately and appropriately portray the subject matter.”“…
“Dr. Gayle E. Pitman, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Sacramento City College, explained why seeing ourselves rendered in story is not only validating—it’s essential to the creation of a self. ‘There’s a concept called symbolic annihilation in psychology and sociology, which is the idea that if you don’t see yourself represented or reflected in society or in media (television, movies, books), you essentially don’t exist,’ Pitman said. ‘That’s why it’s so important to have L.G.B.T. representations in children’s books.’”
from an article in The New York Times “‘Heather Has Two Mommies’ Is Still Relevant 30 Years Later” on the 30th Anniversary of Lesléa Newman’s classic children’s book “Heather Has Two Mommies”
June 14, 2022
Heather Has Two Mommies is thirty years old. Rather than focus on the book bans that are happening all over the country, I want to look at symbolic annihilation. I don’t have to tell you how I feel about the book police.
But symbolic annihilation doesn’t happen only in books or the movies or television or any other medium you want to cite. No, the real travesty of symbolic annihilation happens within the self, and as someone who has been counseling people for forty years, I can tell you that the internal version of it is epidemic.
Think on this, Beloved, for a moment. Every single time you decide that some part of you must be flawed, broken, diseased, removed, you self-annihilate. This is why the current trope of the flawed human (and we all are, according to its wisdom) is so very insidious.
I ask this in my sessions all the time. What if, just what if, you weren’t flawed? Can you even entertain the notion? What if nothing about you needs fixing? Yes, I really do mean nothing.
What if, instead of taking—choose your own word—flawed, sinful, broken, poor, damaged as your identifier, you chose instead that you are whole, complete, just right (in the Goldilocks sense) as you are?
What would that mean? How would you live?
I tell people this all the time. In fact, this is why I wrote the eight chakra workbooks called Energy Integrity. To prove that you are an Integrity, a wholeness unto yourself.
Now before we get ahead of ourselves, this does not, by any stretch, mean that you aren’t here to grow, heal, change, improve, learn. You are. But if you do it from the standpoint that you are merely enhancing your integrity, not patching up leaky holes in your walls and ceiling, you’ll be amazed at how much faster it goes, how much easier it gets, and how much you like living here embodied on Earth.
Try it for a week, and get back to me. NO MORE SYMBOLIC (or self) ANNIHILATION.
Oh, and if part of living that deliciousness in the world, means you go about buying banned books and gifting them to public libraries and children you know, so be it.
&
Patreon 6.16.22
This image makes me itch to tell a story, but in lieu of that ... behold a rainbow spiral staircase. We do not see where it begins; nor do we see where it ends.
If you were standing before the red step, where would you be? And what would you find after the hot pink step? Or, if you were standing before the hot pink step and about to descend, where would you be and where would you arrive after you left the red step?
Life is like this staircase, Beloved. We get to pick where we start from and where we end up. Think on that for a bit.
I’ve said in these pages that I am seriously revisiting my relationships with all kinds of social media. And I’m close to a final determination.
Until mid-May, I’d been getting upwards of seventy daily likes on my Instagram posts, which I was using for mini chakra teachings when, without warning, my likes suddenly went down to two. I scrolled through my own IG feed, and couldn’t find my post for that day. I thought it was a glitch, and let it go.
Well, it wasn’t. Some IG elf tweaked the algorithm, and my posts, whilst they appeared on my account, were perma-vanished from the scroll. I pulled the plug. Not doing it. Uninterested in allowing my outreach to be controlled by a rogue algorithm.
What I’m going to do instead is post on Patreon five days a week. A spiritual prompt, if you will. Something to think about. Those will be free to the public. The rest of my teaching will be exclusive for patrons. I’m in the process of updating the page. Give me a week or so.
Here’s how you find me. patreon.com/susancorso
I hope to see you there.
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“In a 2021 TEDx talk, [artist Hiromi] Tango coined the word “brainbow,” a portmanteau of brain and rainbow, and tells her audience that when a rainbow occurs, ‘you may see other people are also fascinated and looking at the sky … We feel so lucky that we see the rainbows, it makes us so happy.’”
from an article in The Guardian
June 16.2022
Of course, because it’s Pride, we have been inundated with rainbows, but in all fairness, I agree with Hiromi Tango. Rainbows make us happy.
I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw one where it touched the ground on both ends. I was in a car with my then-husband, Antony, outside Kansas City, Missouri, and he was explaining some intense thing about how he creates light from pigment. He chose a rainbow for an example.
And, because he’s Italian, he talks with his hands so whilst he was driving, he gestured to the right and I reflexively turned to look, and there it was. A full rainbow—from one end to the other. Perfect.
I’m so attuned to rainbows, Beloved, because of the chakra work I’ve done for so many years. On one of the recent podcasts where I was a guest, I said, “That’s what chakras are: the Divine Spark, or the life force, viewed through a prism.” It’s a sweet explanation.
And isn’t the notion of a brainbow just delicious unto itself? I sure thought so when I read about it.
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“There are times to grow, times to pause, times to shed and times to learn.”
from Lorna Bevan’s weekly astrological newsletter
Hareinthemoonastrology.co.uk
June 19, 2022
One of the things I like about astrology is that it is tuned into the seasons. We are so disconnected from nature’s cycles that I appreciate even the smallest turn toward acknowledging Mother Nature. This sentence caught my eye from the Solstice Edition of Lorna Bevan’s site, Hare in the Moon Astrology.
She was referring to the seasons, in order, like this:
In Spring, we grow.
In Summer, we pause.
In Autumn, we shed.
In Winter, we learn.
I thought these were lovely, simple by-words to remind us of our connection to Nature all year long.
P.S. If you’re an astrology person, I highly recommend Lorna’s free weekly forecasts.
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“More cooperation, not less, is required to navigate a path forward …”
from an essay by The Editorial Board of The New York Times
“The World Has a Choice: Work Together or Fall Apart”
June 18, 2022
This particular sentence caught my eye, of course. It’s an Ampersand statement through and through. For as long as we set ourselves against one another, Beloved, just that long, we will suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know as Truth deep down in your bones.
The moment we capitulate to the notion that we are in this together, it—the whole shebang—will come together.
How do we do that? One yes, one smile, one gentle choice, one kindness, one ampersand at a time. The more of us who commit to this, the faster it will take effect. You in?
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And in publishing news …
The prototype Integrity Spectrum card decks went out to the beta testers this week. They’ll be starting to pull a daily card, and report back within the month. Then we’ll have a Zoom class together so they can ask their questions. I’m getting really excited about this deck.
My beloved editor and I finished reading Jezebel Rising just yesterday! Hallelujah. It was so fun to hear it read aloud. You know there’s something to a book when it even makes its author tear up at the poignant moments. (Or maybe I’m just a sap—that could be, too) FWIW, if any author wants to make sure about grammar and story and proofreading—do not pass GO—run directly to the read aloud square and do it! Anyway, now I’m onto the Timeline Reading for which I will make a list of everything that happens in each chapter. It’s a great way to check continuity. Then ARCs!! Very exciting.
I wrapped another two podcasts this week. One called The Exploding Human with Bob Nickman. Oh and did we have fun! Bob actually asked me to do a chakra healing session for himself while we were recording! So you can see how that works. It ought to be up within the next few weeks.
The other is called New Mind Creator with Maurice Fluornoy, and that can be found here if you’re curious. Maurice is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor so he was much more interested in my personal growth story than the chakras per se. I haven’t told my personal story that way in a long time and it was fun despite the fact that the clouds in the Hudson River Valley kept getting in the way of the technology. No matter, we soldiered on. Just for fun—here’s how he’s titled the episode: “Ep #237 Dr. Susan Corso Talks Metaphysics, Dad Dying In A Plane Accident When She Was 5 y/o, Overcoming Childhood Traumas, Death Of Her Child, Yielding To Her Intuition & Becoming A Minister,” and it’s only 33 minutes!
I’m still studying the horrific history of Eugenics for the backstory in Jasmine Increscent, the second of the tetralogy of The Subversive Lovelies. Jasmine is what’s next on the writing deck.
As for personal reading, I am still thigh-deep in Vampire Popcorn. J. R. Ward’s The Black Dagger Brotherhood. Book Eleven and counting. She has a yummy turn of phrase that sometimes makes me laugh out loud. After this week with the Supremes, I needed that.
I have a surprise for you in the next edition of The Ampersand Gazette. Stay tuned.
And, in the meantime, have a safe Fourth, and be &,
S.