Ampersand Gazette #18
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 …
“In his book “Fun!: What Entertainment Tells Us About Living a Good Life,” Alan McKee, an Australian media studies professor, defines fun thus: “Fun is pleasure without purpose. … “Don’t you know it when you feel it?”
from an article in Opinion by Jessica Bennett
“What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?” in The New York Times
August 22, 2022
Is Fun something you value? I took their 20-question quiz, which you can find not quite halfway down the article if you click on the link above, and are curious about your own. My fun style was Low-Key. Duh. Read a book. Do a puzzle. Read a book. Write in a journal. Read a book.
For a long time I had a client who used to say, “I have to be sure to schedule some fun for me!” whenever we talked about her plans. Schedule? Fun? I didn’t really get it. She didn’t really mean fun either. What she meant was social time with other people.
I never even consider scheduling that. Oh, people schedule social time with me, but the impetus for it rarely comes from me. This article made me wonder why (and I thought it was wicked fun to write about Fun over Labor Day weekend.) And therein lay my clue.
First, I have fun every day because I consider what I do professionally fun. I counsel, I write, I research, I read, I compile, I teach, I learn. All the things I consider most fun in the world. I thought, hmmm, maybe that’s why I don’t schedule fun.
Then, I thought better of it. I don’t schedule fun, really, because I’m an introvert. Quiet, ordinarily solitary pursuits, are what recharge my batteries. Also, upon the rare occasion, a really good intellectual conversation, even a debate, will regenerate me, but for the most part, nope. I’m far better off, like the quasi-only child I was (only girl, eldest, three younger brothers), on my own.
My client was an extrovert, and a deeply-identified mother and grandmother and family-oriented. I’m not any of those things.
So back to fun. How, Beloved, do you have fun? Do you want to have more fun? Do whatever it is that makes you lose time, focus like a laser beam, float amongst the clouds, dance with the stars, or beam like the sun.
Your F.Q. [Fun Quotient] is totally up to you, Beloved. May this holiday from labor which celebrates work include some of your brand of fun.
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“I am reminded of a quote from Orson Welles, who once said, ‘If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop the story.’
“Precision timing turns on recognizing the arc of one’s story and heeding the foreshadowed warnings with grace and knowing acceptance.”
from a Letter to the Editor by Barbara Allen Kenney in Paso Robles, CA
in The New York Times
August 22, 2022
The author of this letter was airing her opinion about whether President Biden should run again. The letters that day were split fifty/fifty. Truth? Everybody has an opinion.
The thing that struck me about this was Orson Welles’ take on what’s known in the romance-book world as HEA—or Happily Ever After. I surely do believe in happily ever afters for everybody, no exceptions, but think on this a moment. Is your HEA the same as my HEA? Probably not. Kinda like fun. (See above.)
What does happily ever after mean to you? Have you ever thought about it enough to think it through and really imagine it? I would venture to say that most of us have a vague idea of what that might mean to us, but when it comes right down to it, can’t articulate it to save ourselves.
I’ve counseled people for forty years. Usually, they come to see me when they’ve reached the end of their proverbial rope or the end of the coping skills that used to work and no longer do. Our initial session is almost guaranteed to be: This happened, and then this happened, and then this other thing happened, and this, and this, and this, and this, and the bus rolled over my dog! There’s a small ta-DA at the end. A combination of can you believe it and betcha can’t top that and a minutely hopeful can you fix it?
Usually my response is: Okay, if you could have your life be any way you wanted, any way at all, how would it be? Then I wait.
In forty years, I’ve only had two people—two!—who could answer that immediately.
We know a whole lot more about what we don’t want than what we do want, and that’s a serious problem for HEA, believe me. HEAs aren’t constructed on don’t-wants, only do-wants. Which means … ya gotta know what that is.
You see, the HEAs that are depicted in fairy tales and in Hollywood stop just shy of the ongoingness of life. Princess gets her Prince—cue credits. It depends where you stop the story, doesn’t it?
Not seeing that daily life bit after the sigh of relief stops us from imagining the ongoing, and it’s the ongoing quality of life that is the essence we’re all really after. Yes, happily. Yes, ever. Yes, and this is what I require of the after.
Ponder that in your heart, Beloved, for these couple weeks. You’ll be amazed at what after means to you.
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“One way to signal your level of education, and hence your class—short of going around in a sweatshirt from your alma mater—is simply to speak. That’s as true today in the United States as it was in 1912 in the United Kingdom, when George Bernard Shaw wrote in the preface to ‘Pygmalion’ (which became ‘My Fair Lady’ on Broadway), ‘It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.’
“A study by researchers at Yale published three years ago found that listeners have a better-than-random chance of discerning whether someone has a college degree by listening to the person speak just seven words. Put simply, your tongue gives you away.
“The world would be a better place if people stopped worrying about class—whom to include and whom to exclude, who’s up and who’s down—and focused on our shared humanity. But I’m writing about the world as it is, not how I would like it to be.”
From an Opinion Essay by Peter Coy
“Whom Can Tell One’s Social Class Based on Grammar?” in The New York Times
August 23, 2022
So the highlights are why I chose this piece, mostly because it put so many of my favorite things (thank you, Oscar Hammerstein II) in one place! I wrote my own annotations when I clipped. They’re below.
Proof! See? Musicals really are ciphers …
The Mex Mysteries, as you know, are all based on musicals. The solves of the cases are found in the song lyrics. Musicals really are ciphers, as I said, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. So there! Do you crack yourself up sometimes? I do.
Proof! 5th Chakra, of course! And Let there be …
Your tongue gives you away. How could it not? I refer you to Proverbs 18: 21 Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Oh yes, fifth chakra in the throat. Another reference: consider Genesis. Let there be … Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Proof! MEInk and my writing
Mr. Coy writes, “But I’m writing about the world as it is, not how I would like it to be.” Our Lady of Whimsy, Mary Engelbreit, said nearly the same thing on Instagram one day:
maryengelbreit My fiercest wish when I was little was to own a flying carpet. I was horrified to learn there was no such thing. I also thought butter came from tigers running so fast around and around trees that they melted. I was shocked to discover I would not, in fact, be able to marry Perry Como when I grew up because he would be an old man by then. So by the time I was 5 or 6, my life had been a series of crushing disappointments and eye-opening discoveries. Instead of caving into despair over the realization that real life was evidently not going to be remotely like the books I read or the thoughts I had, I decided to draw everything the way I wanted it to be. [italics, mine] In fact, I turned that into my life’s work, and here we are. I get my magic carpet and you can get it, too—-on sale on the ol’ website. Link is in my bio👆https://www.instagram.com/p/CSHf59lLkCC/
Mary Engelbreit
on Instagram 8.4.21 with an image of a girl on a flying carpet
I sort of knew this about myself as well—that I write books about how I want the world to be, how I want people to behave, how I want bad things to turn out for good people, but until I saw it in print, I couldn’t have quite articulated it. Of all things, an artist explained this author to herself, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
I must have been in need of some encouragement that day and Peter Coy did the trick. So, you see, I have proof! From the august pages of The New York Times.
Validation comes from all sorts of places, Beloved. If you’re in need, start to notice your surroundings. Messages abound if only we’ll notice.
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“More important, democratic government is an ideal that must constantly be made real. America is not sustained by a set of principles; it is sustained by resolute action to defend those principles.”
From an Opinion Essay by The Editorial Board
“Donald Trump Is Not Above the Law” in The New York Times
August 26, 2022
Read that quote again. Consider that “What It Said.” Now think of it this way “What I Read.” Because when I read those two sentences, I knew immediately they belonged in The Gazette, but that I had zero interest in or intent to write about government or America or Donald Trump.
“What I Read” went like this … More important, the Divine Self is an ideal that must constantly be made real. The Self Divine is not sustained by a set of principles; it is sustained by resolute action to defend [better said, live by] those principles.”
This is a real prescription for a real, conscious way of living, a way that can eliminate striving and go right to thriving where you have a permanent lifetime parking space IF you’ll do the work.
The thing is, we so rarely consider the Divine Self of Me. We just think about the self we seem to live with every day. Our bodies. Our humanity.
I teach that humans are fourfold beings: Body, Heart, Mind, Spirit. Like the four elements, in respective order: Earth, Water, Air, Fire. Order of density for both. It might be better said that humanity focuses on Mind, Body, Heart, in that [out-of-order] order. It’s only a matter of time before we stall out, burn out, cop out, tune out, and any other get-out you want.
The Spirit of You is the Divine Self, the Self that is whole, perfect, unadulterated, can’t really be damaged, and it requires focus for us to connect to it. This is why, in my book, it’s vitally important for each one of us to develop our own creed of principles, know what they are, why we choose them, and that we behave accordingly. Without that North Star, our inner compass has no real orientation. [FWIW, same same for democracy, but I’m not going there today …]
Living by those cherished principles is what lets your yea be yea and your nay be nay. It lets you be a person of your word. It lets you show up on time. It lets you relax because you know you have principles that you live by, that you’ll make whatever choices are required of you based on those principles, and that they will keep you taking resolute action toward your vision of your life. Yours is the only one that really matters, Beloved.
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“For me, meeting new people and new worlds through plays has always been the point. In a way, the further from my experience they were, the more meaningful the exercise; to find something familiar in violent Jud Fry or reckless Walter Lee Younger or donkey-struck Titania was to triangulate my own geography by distant stars.”
Jesse Green
from an article which is part of a series on the state of the American Theatre
After a Long, Starring Run, Will Racism at Last Get the Hook?” in The New York Times
September 1, 2022
If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you have heard me quote that obscure philosopher Fortescue who said, “Comparisons are odious.” They are. In most cases. I say this because we usually—because we have been carefully taught—use it as a mean, mean, mean, mean [Did I say mean?] weapon against ourselves. Those kinds of comparisons are odious, to be sure.
But then there are the kind chief theatre critic of The New York Times, Jesse Green, is invoking here. “… to triangulate my own geography by distant stars.” It’s a fanciful metaphor for just plain old learning, and we definitely do learn by comparison. But not comparison to find fault, to make a problem, to conclude that we are somehow lesser.
No, comparison is dead useful as a tool for learning who we are, and who we are not. I am not Jud Fry, the villain of Oklahoma! But Jud is patently in the throes of self-hatred and its resulting despair about who he is. Could I go there? Have I? In sixty-four years, you bet. Do I choose that for myself? Not consciously. Not deliberately. But have I been there? Yeah. Jud is spot-on for us to ask ourselves about self-hatred.
Am I the Queen of the Fae, Titania, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream? No, but have I made a fool of myself in love? Hell yes. Does she show us one of the foibles of being human? She does. We don’t have to emulate her, but we can indeed learn from her.
This is the purpose of all that can be deemed art in this world, Beloved. To show humankind to ourselves, so that we may learn, prosper, grow, heal, and go on to share the lessons we have learned with those who also wish to learn them.
Here’s the triangle: You. Jud, or Titania, or Neo, or Olivia Pope, or you-name-your-own-teacher. The distant stars, those symbols of twinkling, forever light. Yes, in that case, use the art for your own sake, Beloved. That’s what it’s for, and that’s why, at net-net, we artists make it.
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And in publishing news …
This is one of my five-day-a-week entries on my new Patreon which is currently under construction. I thought you might like to know that you can have a spiritual hors d’oeuvre weekdays if you’ll visit there. Patreon.com/susancorso It’s taken me a whole lot of years to come out of the proverbial closet as a metaphysician, but it’s time. It’s time because it’s the link that holds all of my work—my writing and my spiritual work—together.
If you would consider becoming a patron, I would be grateful and honored.
Patreon 8.29.22
This image is a lotus mandala. I've been fascinated by mandalas since I first saw Tibetan monks creating one in colored sand. I happened upon them in a long-forgotten local museum upon the moment of completion of the image. The four men stood simultaneously and stepped away from it.
Then on some invisible signal they leaned forward like magnificent saffron birds and each one scrambled their quadrant of the image.
The beauty of the sand was unspeakable, but its destruction was breath-taking.
The four then straightened up, bowed solemnly to one another, and filed out of the room in a small parade never catching the eye of any of us spectators.
Later I remember reading that sand mandalas were used to teach monks the lesson upon which all of Buddhism is based: impermanence.
How easily we forget though! My husband and I remind one another almost daily that the state of the world will change, that we needn't fall into despair with even one toe, that we will all be alright. Impermanence, Beloved.
Now, where in your life do you need to remember this Wisdom?
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I’ve been hard at work on my Chakra Correspondences, a master list of all sorts of ways to approach chakra work that ought to resonate for anybody and everybody on the planet. It’s something I’ve been compiling for years, but only now have figured out how to use it for teaching purposes. I’ll keep you posted.
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Heath Cummings is the host of Live This Life, a podcast that asks all sorts of depth spiritual questions, his primary one being: Are you living this life … or just killing time? Isn’t that great?
We had a grand old time together. Listen here.
We’re exploring perhaps collaborating together and co-hosting live Q & A on Clubhouse—a platform new to me that sets the stage for live interactions between podcasters and audiences. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted. So very exciting.
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And KcRossi, whose article appeared in the last Gazette, uploaded our episode to her podcast, Women Developing Brilliance. Listen here. Kc is an amazing business coach integrating business wisdom with spiritual scaffolding. I could listen to her teach for hours! Enjoy.
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I’m in the process of planning the next big project, which is, I think, going to be a tiny course on starting immediate work with the chakra system. Eventually, there’ll be a course for each chakra workbook. If you haven’t had time to check them out, here’s where you find them.
There’s a velvet pillow on my bed with fancy gold lettering. It says, And they lived happily ever after. Any guesses what’s missing, Beloved? Yeah, All. It bugs me every time I notice it. See, here’s the thing about imagining HEAs: unless they include everyone, they don’t really include anyone.
Be blest, and be ampersand,
S.