Dr. Susan Corso

Sassafras Lowrey's Roving Pack: My Thoughts

2012-11-12T18:17:00-05:00

True confessions: I had to call Father Toni Amato to get some help understanding the world of Sassafras Lowrey's Roving Pack. It's a world of transgender gutterpunks. The first word I knew. The second, not so much.

I sit on an advisory group committee for Father Toni Amato, a transgender Catholic priest and writing coach. That's where I heard about Roving Pack, because Father Toni was working on it. Full disclosure: I've been in digital connection with Sassafras Lowrey, although I've never met hir. So let's stop right here at "hir," a new-ish word denoting "his" or "her" without bowing to the gender binary most of us use.

Truth be told, I stand outside the edge of the transgender world. I am not transgender in any way, but I do bear witness to that culture. I was embarrassed that I didn't understand Lowrey's book. Father Toni laughed gently at me and wondered why I expected myself to understand.

I finally laughed and said that I guessed I was Margaret Thatcher compared with the characters in the story. He agreed that I was. The irony is, of course, that Ms. Thatcher would consider me, as a femme lesbian, way out there. All this said, everyone in Western culture needs to read this book.

I'll tell you why: because gutterpunks, leather families and trans-everything people are God's children, just like Margaret Thatcher is. At one point while reading, I came to the end of a line in the middle of a page that read, "...before I got kicked out of the Future...." The sentence continued on the next line, of course, but that phrase, that one solitary phrase, stopped me cold and made me cry.

"...before I got kicked out of the Future..."

That's what Click, the protagonist, and all these courageous young people in this story are fighting for: the right to have a future, and, furthermore, the future they themselves choose. Like all the rest of us who are God's progeny (and that includes everyone, no exceptions), these socially anarchistic young souls have what Madeleine L'Engle called "the terrible gift of free will," and they, just like us, want the right to choose their own futures. Duh.

Roving Pack tells the story of a group of youth in and around Portland, Ore. Many are homeless, parentless and without mooring. They dance together and blend into variations on families that made me see how much pain can be created by social norms -- whatever they are. This is not to say that norms must go, but it is to say that norms are limiting, and that those who choose to live beside them and outside them are no less human and often far more humane than those who conform to them.

At one point in the narrative, the author describes a white board in the Queer Youth Resource Center that forms the pivot point for these myriad souls. It has three columns, labeled "Old Name," "New Name" and "Pronouns." All visitors to the QYRC must declare their current reality on this board. Some of the names are gender-revelatory; others are not. Some use standard English pronouns; some insist on "ze" for "he" or "she," and "hir" (see above).

Lowrey delineates four gender aspects more clearly than I've ever seen them articulated, although I've known and proclaimed forever that gender is a spectrum. First, there is one's sex assignment, that being "what the doctors said when you were born." Second, there is one's gender's identity, that being "how you feel inside." Third, there is one's gender presentation, that being "what other folks think about your gender." Fourth, there is one's sexual attraction or orientation, that being "who you like."

Most of us never even touch more than two of these categories in our entire lives. This is why Click's story is as compelling as the It Gets Better campaign, which began after the devastating suicide of the college first-year outed by a roommate on the Internet. That campaign captured imaginations the world over. It drew attention to a worldwide problem.

I know that the trans subculture has sometimes felt dissed by It Gets Better founder Dan Savage, and they may be, but having read the novel, I cannot help but think that the trans world needs an It Gets Better model, and Click's story just might be that.

I had started to read the book when my beloved stole it right out of my hands because, as she said, "there's a picture on the front of a sweet dog and..." -- she got a little shy here -- "...a guy with pockets."

To my dearest, pockets signify the difference between her clothes and mine. Hers, according to her, are functional, whereas mine are frou-frou. My mother sewed my pockets shut when I was a child. The thing is, my sweetheart unwittingly showed me one of the major themes in this work through her statement. The dogs. Click even says, "[G]od knows that little dog [Orbit] is saving me."

What about having a dog saves Click? I'd say it's responsibility for someone weaker than hirself. Orbit needs care and feeding, and so does Click, and Click has only Click to rely on for that, at far too young an age, in my opinion. Click says, "[M]y whole world is going to revolve around making sure he's happy and healthy." Click could just as easily have said this about hirself, but because of the way our world handles difference, ze can't.

I was reminded of Andrea Jenkins' remarkable poem/diatribe called "Calling for the recognition of self-love as a legitimate relationship in the game of life," the final stark lines of which read, "Be It Much Further Fucking Resolved, / that self-love is indeed the only relationship that really matters / and anybody that tries to tell you different / don't know shit about love."

Click's relationships with hir dogs not only save hir, but they teach hir the only unconditional love ze has ever known.

Click aches, "That's what I want more than anything, just to be enough for someone. Mostly, it just scares me how much I know I want and need to be someone's boy, and to have them want to keep me." What Click learns through injecting T (testosterone), and eventually growing past that point in hir process, is that ze is not only enough but plenty. In fact, ze is a universe.

The director of the QYRC, Gus, "always tells us about how gender is a universe, and we are all stars," Click says. Sassafras Lowrey's Roving Pack is much more than just a star; it's a guiding light in the darkness of the false binary illusion of gender we've been too lazy to address. Sassafras, I'm so glad you introduced me to Click; ze is tattooed on my heart forever.

For more on the work of Sassafras Lowrey, please visit sassafraslowrey.com.

Rev. Dr. Susan Corso is the author of The Mex Books.

RINO Watch on Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom

2012-09-04T16:02:38-04:00

I love Aaron Sorkin. He's smart, he's witty, and I align perfectly with his left-leaning political tendencies. That's why I watch The Newsroom, Mr. Sorkin's brilliant new television show on HBO that just finished its first stellar season.

Jeff Daniels plays television news anchor Will McEvoy in the series, and the news part of the finale both startled and delighted me with its summation of the RINO mentality.

The set-up for the story is 96-year-old, 75-year voting veteran Dorothy Cooper who will not be allowed to vote in the presidential election because she doesn't have a government-issued photo identification card. Ms. Cooper doesn't own a car, so she doesn't need a driver's license; she also isn't likely to go overseas, so she doesn't have a passport -- ergo no government-issued ID card, ergo she can't vote. Mr. McEvoy finds this an outrage, and so does Mr. Sorkin. So do I.

Mr. Sorkin ascribes the Republican insistence on ID cards for voting purposes as the solution without a problem. In the last presidential election, there were 86 known cases of voter fraud. Not 86,000 or even 8,600, just 86 -- or 0.0004 percent.

Mr. McEvoy calls himself a proud Republican, but the "base" of the Republican Party, the GOP, has become the Tea Party, and they would call Mr. McEvoy a RINO, a Republican In Name Only. This, says Mr. McEvoy, is actually what makes a Tea Partier, and then the screen behind him fills with words as he reads to us from the teleprompter. Follow the bouncing ball according to David K. Sutton on the political blog The Left Call:

Here is McAvoy's list of Tea Party traits and beliefs that make them the Republicans In Name Only:

 Ideological purity
 Compromise as weakness
 A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism
 Denying science
 Unmoved by facts
 Undeterred by new information
 A hostile fear of progress
 A demonization of education
 A need to control women's bodies
 Severe xenophobia
 Tribal mentality
 Intolerance of dissent
 Pathological hatred of US government

Mr. McEvoy concludes his broadcast,

"They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives. And they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn't. But we should call them what they are: The American Taliban. And the American Taliban cannot survive if Dorothy Cooper is allowed to vote."

Bravo, Mr. McEvoy! Bravissimo, Mr. Sorkin!

I have not yet seen a list as clear and unequivocal as this one. Maybe it's on television. Maybe it's placed in the mouth of a fictional news anchor. And maybe, just maybe it's a clear speaking of truth to the misuse of power.

The speeches at the Republican convention in Tampa have been scary to me. Ideology does not make a country great. What makes a country great is its people, especially its voters, and most especially the Dorothy Coopers.

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

Planning a Death

2012-08-22T13:13:30-04:00

Planning a death, believe it or not, is part of planning a life. Who knew?

My sweetie has been interested in the dying process for a long time. It's part of how she wants to spend her retirement -- serving people in that process. When her 92-year-old parents were dying, she sang them into release. It was an amazing process.

So it wasn't exactly a surprise to me when my beloved scheduled a meeting with the lady from the Final Exit Network. It's a group of people who grew out of the Hemlock Society who advocate for "good" death.

What's a good death?

Well, there are as many definitions as there are souls, but some of the criteria for a good death are: pain-free, in my right mind, able to care for myself till the end, healthy if a little slower, falling asleep and not waking up. In our society, though, we rarely if ever talk about what we want in a death. Furthermore, when we do, or even raise the subject, our loved ones shush us as being either a) morbid or b) too young for the conversation.

A precious friend of mine is in Texas this weekend with his family making these very decisions for his aging and unwell step-dad. It's painful and uncomfortable despite the fact that his step-dad at the least had this conversation with his wife, my friend's mama.

The step-dad is in the hospital: on a feeding tube, post-heart attack, with a fractured hip that needs replacing, caught in pneumonia on a respirator, complicated further by long-term diabetes. A kind doctor took my friend and his sister aside and explained that the future of their step-dad's life looked none too rosy even if he did recover. He isn't well enough for the surgery for his hip; this means life in a wheelchair and lived in gargantuan pain or even more dramatic pain management.

After the visit from the Final Exit lady, my sweetie said, "If I don't recognize you for six months, and I can't get to and from the bathroom by myself, will you please promise me you'll put me out of my misery?" She was, uh, dead serious. (Full disclosure (with much love): she can also be a bit of a cheapskate and she doesn't want me to spend all her hard-saved money on heroic measures that only prolong her discomfort; I thoroughly appreciate this about her.)

The people who have put a referendum on the November ballot in Massachusetts to allow doctor-assisted deliverance, as the Final Exit peeps say, are serious as well. There are laws about this in Oregon and Washington, and I hope it passes here in Massachusetts. Not that I think life isn't precious, it is. In fact, I think life is precious enough that we need to think and talk about how it ends, or, how each person wants their own life to end.

I was delighted to learn of the launch of The Conversation Project on Friday. Started by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ellen Goodman, and affiliated with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, it seeks to provide a free starter kit to help every person in the world have the conversation about what they want as a good death.

The 11-page PDF is a primer on what to think about, what needs talking about, and to whom and why. It's designed to help you figure out what's most important to you, and help you communicate that to those who could/might/will be/are in the situation with you. The most exciting part of it to me is that it's a beginning -- which is all The Conversation Project means it to be. The starter kit is a prompt for as many conversations as it takes with as many people as necessary to have your own version of a good death. Its opposite -- what's called a "hard" death -- can be very uncomfortable to contemplate, let alone experience.

We've all heard the ongoing and labored lament about runaway health care costs and how we have to do something about it if we want this to change. Beloved, here is something each of us can do.

Get the starter kit. Figure out what your wishes are, and begin The Conversation.

My sweetie and I ended up in laughing tears once she copped to the financial part of her desires. She told me to take the money and go on the trip of my dreams instead of adding three days or three weeks or even three months to her well-lived life. "Have a grand time on me, babe."

As Ellen Goodman said on NPR, "So, have you had the conversation?"

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

Wedding Burnout? Sure. Marriage Burnout? Not at All.

2012-07-31T16:56:00-04:00

I had to laugh at Brooks Barnes' article in last Sunday's New York Times' Fashion & Style section on gay-wedding fatigue. It went around Boston a few short years ago, "the natural outcome of decades of pent-up demand," as Mr. Barnes states. His article formed a poignant contrast to this past Sunday's New York Times article on the "formerly" gay, fundamentalist mother and her daughter Isabella on the run in Nicaragua from the daughter's original same-sex parent.

There is a place that both these articles neglect, though, a place that has existed for millennia without benefit of legal blessing or moral curse. This place is situated between gay weddings and gay parenting, the same as it is between straight weddings and straight parenting. It's called marriage -- not gay marriage or straight marriage, just marriage -- and it can be a real... uh... bear.

In fact, I am not the first person to discover that marriage is hard, nor will I be the last, gay or straight, or anywhere else along that spectrum that you may belong. Marriage, when it's good, can be really, really good, but, like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when it's bad, it can be horrid.

We hear about horrid marriages all the time. Horrid marriages are the stuff of entertainment "news," the tabloids, the movies, and reality television. If I had to guess, I'd say that horrid marriages make up maybe 10 percent of marriages. Likewise, I'd hazard that fabulous marriages cover another 10 percent. But what about the rest, the other 80 percent, the majority of marriages, which are just OK in most respects, not horrid, not fab, but just OK, workable, I-can-live-with-it marriages?

Gay or straight, those marriages are the ones I'm interested in, because these words characterize most marriages. The question is how we nudge them toward the fab end of the spectrum without breaking what isn't broken. The solution my partner and I reached in our eight-year(-and-counting) marriage, and the one most of us reach for, was therapy. Now that I think of it, more than half the couples I know, of all sexual persuasions, are in therapy.

Having had a counseling practice myself for 30 years, I can say that arranging for a witness to one's process, either as an individual or as a couple, can be useful. A witness can help us slow things down long enough to hear ourselves and our partner/s. This is a good thing. What is interesting to me is that in decades of private practice, the thing I've discovered that helps almost everyone in all their relationships, but especially in marriage, is to become more of an individual, not more enmeshed in the relationship.

This notion is thoroughly embraced and endorsed by the marriage wizards David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage and Intimacy & Desire) and his partner Ruth Morehouse. My partner and I went to Denver recently to work with Ruth, and it was phenomenal. The basic premise of their work is that the more differentiated one becomes, the greater one's chance of functioning effectively in coupledom.

This will seem counterintuitive to all those who believe that we need better attachment, better connection, and better communication in our relationships. There's no question that we need all those things, but the path to get there is to become more yourself, not more like the other! When we first read David's books, we were shocked at this notion, but the more we worked with his ideas, the better our marriage has become.

As an ordained minister, I am often asked to celebrate weddings for people. It's one of my favorite parts of being a minister. I always have a meeting with the couple before the wedding to plan the ceremony and to ask a few hard questions. The reason I do this is because what we're about to do is a wedding, not a marriage. That's the job of the B & G (ministerspeak for bride and groom, sometimes amended to B & B or G & G, depending upon the preferred language of the couple).

Doing a marriage is time-consuming, demands focus, initiates change, causes self- and other-contemplation, teaches negotiation, and asks for the fullest expression of one's self of any venture on Earth. It's also one of the most worthwhile efforts there is.

So sure, some of us are tired of gay weddings, and some of us are even more tired of gay parenting, but we'll never get tired of working on our marriages, just like anyone who's married. We're worth it. And so is marriage.

What the Defense of Marriage Act Has Wrought in One Family: An Open Letter to President Obama

2012-05-22T18:34:00-04:00

Dear Mr. Obama,

I thought, since you've evolved in your thinking about gay marriage (for which I am deeply grateful), you might like to know what DOMA has cost just one family in this beautiful country of ours.

My partner and I have been lawfully wedded since Halloween 2005. We live in Massachusetts. On April 8, 2010 I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service informing me that they wanted to audit my 2007 and 2008 tax returns. It is their right to do so, and as a self-employed minister, my return is stranger than many. I prepared all the documents and went to the audit in person on May 20, 2010 at 10 a.m., two years ago this past Sunday. At that examination the IRS auditor informed me:

That he was an evangelical Libertarian.
My response: "Um, relevance?"
His response: [Snort.]
That because my marriage was not recognized by the federal government, I was not allowed to take half of our mortgage deduction.
My response: "I paid half the mortgage."
His response: "You had no legal obligation. Disallowed."
That I had inappropriate plumbing to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the direct quotation: "Women shouldn't be ministers."), so my self-employment tax exemption as a minister was therefore invalid.
My response: "I have an approved form from the IRS granting me said status."
His response: "That's not good enough. Disallowed."

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

This case, alleged for less than $10,000 dollars, has now, two years later, cost me money, time, and distress, but it has also cost you, Mr. President (not to mention the trees). Here are the approximate statistics. I have:

Spoken repeatedly to:
- 1 IRS intake clerk
- 2 IRS auditors,
- 1 auditor supervisor
- 1 taxpayer advocate intake clerk
- 2 taxpayer advocates
- 1 IRS appeals officer
- 1 appeals supervisor
- 1 clerk of the United States Tax Court
- 2 certified public accountants
- 1 senior IRS attorney
- 1 admitted-to-the-U.S.-Tax-Court attorney
- 2 gay and lesbian advocacy organizations

Photocopied 1,521 pages

Placed 620 phone calls

Left 129 voicemails

Scanned 251 pages

Sent 152 emails

Faxed 404 pages to the IRS (because email won't do)

Kept 19 single-spaced pages of notes on what's happened, in what order, with whom, and for how long

Written 8 different letters, comprising 53 pages total

Put 1,043 hours into this

Spent $1,403 dollars

And I don't even have a court date!

This is the fourth time the IRS has challenged my tax status as a minister. They have backed down each time prior, and I have owed not one dime.

Mr. President, no taxpayer should have to go through this sort of harassment ever again. Distress understates the case. I'm sad beyond sad that I have to defend my marriage, my choice of profession, and my integrity to my own government. I don't know if you can do anything about it for me personally. I may be stuck playing out the charade. What I do know is that legal protections for all Americans from the discrimination by the Internal Revenue Service are imperative. Please do everything you can to obliterate DOMA. Please.

Yours most sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Susan Corso

For spiritual noutishment, please visit susancorso.com.

The First Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks & Tinker Lindsay

2012-02-13T16:14:22-05:00

It's about time some visionary publisher woke up to those of us who are spiritual and readers here on earth! This Valentine's Day, I'm doing the Happy Dance over the nascent existence of a new imprint at Hay House called Hay House Visions. Their mandate, as I understand it, is spiritual fiction.

Full disclosure: I've been writing spiritual mystery novels for many years, and whilst they have received phenomenal feedback from agents, editors, publishers, and most happily, readers--alas, alack--publishers, manacled and enslaved in the dank galleys of their abusive marketing departments, have been slow on the uptake, to say the least.

No matter, I am delighted to be able to report that Gay Hendricks' and Tinker Lindsay's The First Rule of Ten is a delicious inaugural offering. Their subtitle is: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective). Enter Tenzing Norbu, known to his friends as Ten, about-to-be former cop, and definitely former Tibetan Buddhist monk, as well as about-to-turn-into private investigator.

This curious protagonist is a curious mélange. Sometimes, he reacts to the world as a cop. Sometimes, as a monk. Sometimes, as a damaged little boy. His response to the world, most of the time, is mindful--a nurturing message in the face of ordinary mystery novels. We readers who value spiritual practice over everything else in our lives are bound to dive in to these sorts of books over and over again.

Inspired by what young Ten deems the mindfulness of the legendary Sherlock Holmes, he models patience, compassion, diligence, meditation, mindfulness, mess-ups, and recoveries all from his worldly/otherworldly perspective. The story is fast-paced, and yet it slows down right when we want it to go deep. The requisite elements of traditional mystery are all present and accounted for. The teaching, if you will, is so integrated into the story that I've had to go back in my Kindle to catch their subtleties and their wisdoms.

Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., has served for more than 35 years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Along with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, Gay is the co-author of many bestsellers. In recent years, Dr. Hendricks has been active in creating new forms of conscious entertainment.

Tinker Lindsay is an accomplished screenwriter, author, script consultant, and conceptual editor. She has worked in the Hollywood entertainment industry writing and developing feature films for over three decades. A practitioner and teacher of meditation, she can usually be found writing in her home office situated directly under the Hollywood sign.

I am so pleased that Dr. Hendricks and Ms. Lindsay have applied their talents to the mystery genre. Truth to tell? I can't wait to read the next one.

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

Review: Daddy's Girl's Guilty as Hell

2011-11-23T08:55:29-05:00

What a remarkable book Susan Ni Rahilly has written about her odyssey through her past in the Catholic Church (caps intentional). Daddy's Girl's Guilty As Hell -- The Lonely Legacy of Catholic Guilt: A Woman's Soul Imprisoned is newly out on Kindle.

One of the things I've noticed in my counseling practice lately is that Catholicism, or as Ms. Ni Rahilly would write: catholicism, is (I just had to go back and change the spellcheck capital C to a small c!) ... catholicism is up for contemplation in the Universe. Person after person coming to me has either a catholic past in this lifetime or another. Particularly women.

That should come as no surprise to anyone in tune with spiritual life these days, but what is a shocker is the depth to which the catholic religion sinks its women. That is what Ms. Ni Rahilly's book addresses -- in spades.

I want to be very clear here: the major legacy of catholic guilt is loneliness. Bone-aching, dense, probably can't-be-gotten-any-other-way loneliness.

What the church has systematically done with its members, especially female, but also male (and she's about to start the men's version of the same book) is to isolate them so effectively, and make them so other-referred [vis-à-vis self-referred], that it is impossible for them to experience their own sovereignty or their own souls. There's no other word for it -- it's agony -- or, as the Catholics would say, purgatory. Take your pick.

She writes: "I believe that part of being catholic is to have inherited patterns; ways of being
and thinking and behaving. Generation after generation of catholics have passed these down to us. The way we behave has been passed on to us, as though it were imprinted in our genes, our DNA structure. catholic ways have been passed on without question, and accepted without question, affecting our lives today.

"My father passed the catholic way of being on to me.

"I had no choice but to accept it if I wanted to be accepted in the family."

It was this acceptance she so craved, and did not ever get because the church set her up. She could never, ever be the good girl she was asked to be. She could never be "holy enough."

How's this for a litany of what was wrong with our author growing up?

"All this stuff I had to be guilty about included being born, being female, being bad, being good, being sad, being happy, being without, trying to get and have things in my life, being selfish, thinking too much about myself, not thinking about other people enough -- often it didn't seem to matter what I did, as it turned out not to be good enough anyway and I would just end up feeling bad about being me."

Is it any wonder -- thinking thoughts like these, and having nowhere outside the system to get a reality check -- that our intrepid author had a nervous breakdown in order to wake up? What else is a soul to do?!

Now go to Amazon and look at the author's picture. Is it not the picture of a beautiful, healthy, sovereign soul? Doesn't she look like someone who knows her own mind? Goes out into the world to get what she wants? Asks and receives?

It wasn't always this way.

Ms. Ni Rahilly's bio on her Amazon page reads in part:

"Susan Ni Rahilly is a published author, Meditation and Hatha Yoga Teacher, founder of suZenyoga. Susan lives in West Cork where she writes and teaches. Her teaching typically draws on breathwork in deep Hatha practice, as well as Raja Yoga (the Yoga of Meditation)."

Her Self was hard-won, and well worth it. She lived through her father's mentally ill abuse, the death of a childhood friend, myriad unhappy relationships, and her own collapse.

Her bio goes on:

"Susan is currently planning a revised edition of Daddy's Girl's Guilty As Hell to include men's experiences of guilt, and a more universal experience of the effects of inherited guilt outside the Catholic religion. Susan says: "I've been being asked for years now to write this update--in fact my own brother was the first to ask me when the "mens'" book would be coming out...."

Susan Ni Rahilly has written a template for anyone recovering from catholicism, or religiosity of any kind. When you read Daddy's Girl's [or Boy's], prepare to be transformed.

There's more information at this link: http://suzenyoga.com/cafe_books.html

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

Elizabeth Cunningham's Red-Robed Priestess

2011-11-16T12:23:31-05:00

Red-Robed Priestess is Maeve Rhuad's last adventure. And oh, what an adventure it is! As I'm sure you know, I've been a fan of Maeve Rhuad for a long, long time.

For those of you who don't know, Maeve Rhuad is Elizabeth Cunningham's delightfully irreverent holy whore, the Celtic Mary Magdalen. This book is the fourth in a tetralogy that takes the reader from Tir na mBan where Maeve is raised by eight warrior-witch mothers toMona (Anglesey) where she is banished beyond the Ninth Wave to meeting with her Beloved Esus to the daughter Sarah they have together and, of course (because this is how all Celtic stories are), back to Mona.

In the time it has taken Elizabeth Cunningham to be the vessel for this outrageous Maeve, I have both met Elizabeth and come to know her a bit. She is every bit as outré as Maeve if slightly quieter about it.

This is the story of Maeve's coming full circle; she returns to Britain to find the daughter the Druids ripped from her arms decades earlier. With her, among others, is her daughter with Esus, Sarah. On the eve of her return, connection/soul/karma makes Maeve risk an assignation with a Roman general, an enemy. That linking is the scaffolding of the story. The two revolve around one another much like two suns.

The morning after ... he captures Maeve and her party, and he asks her, his enemy, to see for him. What she sees would freeze champagne. They both go forward in their destinies; Maeve, to Avalon; the general to create the infrastructure that will let him win the dreadful battle Maeve has foreseen.

Maeve's welcome at Avalon is far from guaranteed. In fact, there is some question as to whether she will be allowed to return or be jailed for her ancient infraction. Rather than tell you how it goes down, I will leave that to Maeve herself. What I can say is that Maeve and her daughter have work to do on Avalon, and they, despite any discomfort, remain to do it. They find Maeve's long-lost daughter, and through that tenuous reunion, Maeve acquires the acquaintance of the next generation -- two granddaughters.

And then comes their father's death, the enforcement of a contract, and...

Many years ago on Beliefnet.com, I wrote that if I were going to write a book on Mary Mags, as we call her in my house, I would want to have written these books. As a fan, and later friend, I have taken this journey whole-heartedly with this author. That's how all readers feel about authors who write series that we love.

Elizabeth Cunningham is a masterful storyteller. I christen her a National Treasure, just as elders are so named in the East. Her spin on Mary Magdalene over twenty years' time is a low rumble of truly amused laughter, a hot cup of cocoa on a cold day, a series of books to read again and again. I knew when I started this book that I wouldn't want it to end, and I was right. I let myself have one or two chapters a day to make it last longer.

Elizabeth wrote in Red-Robed Priestess, "It is strange to know when a goodbye is final. It is a gift." This is a final goodbye to Maeve Rhuad, and oh what a gift to know that I can go to my shelves any time I like where all four books sit just waiting for me to start life with Maeve and her Esus all over again.

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

How to Be More Compatible With Your Partner

2011-09-27T08:26:00-04:00

I've been a spiritual counselor for 30 years now, and I'm getting so very tired of the something-must-be-wrong-with-me approach to life and, especially, to coupling. Nothing's wrong with you, dear one. Nothing at all.

In fact, here's a little secret that few know. If you'll stop asking yourself what's wrong with you, and start asking yourself what's right with you, you'll find that many more things are right with you than wrong with you.

Does this mean that there's nothing that needs improvement? Not at all. Of course aspects of you need improvement. Aspects of all of us need improvement, but does this make us flawed? No. It makes us human.

My best friend is my ex-husband. We talk at least daily, if not more often. I've known him for so long that even a slight variation in my tone tells him that I'm at work on something in myself. It's a relief to be seen so clearly.

The other day we got to talking about relationships. What makes them work? What foils them? In attempting to identify the major deal-breaker in relationships, we discovered to our delight that we agreed. What makes everyday relationships work is a shared attitude about life.

If one of you always chooses blame or victimhood and the other doesn't, you won't be "simpatico." Nor will you have an easy time in everyday relating.

We know a couple who are the epitome of sunshine and shadow. They are clearly attracted to one another in the opposites-attract sense, but in an everyday way their approaches to life are so different that they argue (snipe, really) all the time. It's unbearable to spend time with them.

We know another couple who live in comparable shadow -- where we do not -- and it's easy to be with them. We know they live in shadow, they agree with one another, and they like it like that. Whenever we need shadow, this is the perfect pair for dining.

The point is that they get along with each because of their similar approach to life. Grace Murray Hopper wrote, "The most damaging phrase in the language is: 'It's always been done that way.'"

If you find that you and your alleged sweetie have become snipers, look at your assumptions about life. Is it always unfair? Is someone else always wrong? Are you always the victim? Life hasn't always been done that way, and you have the power to change it.

My ex and I agreed sincerely that the desire to live peaceably with one another goes a long way toward peaceable living. Are you and your sweetheart simpatico? If you can answer yes, bravi! If you can't, do an attitude-toward-life check-in, and change your mind. You'll be glad you did.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

Media Madness to Minimization? We'll See

2011-08-28T13:31:00-04:00

It's Sunday morning in Boston in the midst of a VERY bad rain storm formerly known as Hurricane Irene. And what a drama she has caused!

The Weather Channel rock stars got their 15 minutes of fame and played [and replayed] countless times the news of Lady Irene, where she is, where she was, and where she would be. They still are, even as I write these words.

New York City was supposed to be hard-hit. Mayor Bloomberg pulled out all the stops for preparedness. I imagined that he was imagining a Katrina-sized disaster, and well he might have. A friend holidaying in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts had to up and tear back to town before all transit stopped and was she irked at the Mayor.

My sweetheart, holidaying in the same place, found out just before a Jacob's Pillow performance that her bus ticket for the next morning would be no good because those flighty boys at Peter Pan Bus Lines sent an email just before closing down their offices that all East-bound buses were canceled after 9:15 AM. That email also offered the option to email them for clarification but was anybody in the office to service their customers? Nary a one. Some customer service.

Full disclosure: I arranged a stealth emergency rescue mission for the crack of dawn the following day, tearing like a crazy woman to Lenox, to save my Beloved from the predatory Irene.

In this morning's New York Times a headline in the U. S. section read: "Seeing Irene as a Harbinger of Climate Change." Ya think?

The article went on to cite disclaimer after disclaimer. Really?

When was the last time you expected a hurricane in New York City or Boston?

A long time ago. Decades, to be exact. So long ago that there was no Twitter, my friend.

So it's a very rainy Sunday in Boston. The winds are a little more dramatic than normal, but does it feel like a hurricane is hitting Boston? Not by a long shot.

What does this mean?

Did the media whip us into overreacting?

Did Mayor Bloomberg overreach in his preparations for the storm?

Did Governor Patrick proclaim an emergency too soon?

Did President Obama call out FEMA and the Red Cross precipitately?

Did we really need the National Guard on duty in Boston?

I don't think any of the governing persons or agencies were overly dramatic or drastic in their response, and here's why:

People, if the ones I met were any indication, were terrified. Yes, I mean what I say:

People were terrified.

Part of the energy of the storm, aside from hurricanes being the management of higher ocean temperatures by Mother Nature, is human. We, humanity, fuel the emotional and spiritual aspects of 'Acts of God,' like hurricanes.

The sad thing is that once there is a huge emotional reaction -- it matters not of what kind: fear, sadness, elation -- there is always an equal and opposite backlash. I predict that the next hurricane that approaches the East Coast will find us lackadaisical and far less prepared because our preparations were, seemingly, for naught this time. We'll probably regret it.

We won't really know how badly we'll minimize things, which is so often the kneejerk reaction the next time around, until the next hurricane raises its dramatic head of steam and throws us into possible paralysis again.

Isn't it ironic that today's non-hurricane carries the moniker Irene? She's the Greek Goddess of Peace. Maybe preparedness = peace. No mistakes.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

That's Dr. Cranky Pants To You

2011-07-19T08:57:04-04:00

Damn. Damn it. These doctors are pissing me off -- royally. Who do they think they are?

Granted, I'm in a particularly strange situation at the moment. I just returned from major surgery in a foreign country. I need follow-up from a doctor in the U.S. who didn't do the surgery. It's a special surgery so it needs special follow-up.

I have a bleed in my eye and have to go to a surgery center for laser work. They need a form from my primary care doctor in order to pass me in for the surgery. And I already rearranged a whole day of my own patients because the eye surgeon only does surgery on two days of each month!

None of these circumstances did I create, or did I? Well, alright, maybe I did.

But, holy jeepers! The scheduling backing-and-forthing is sending me into the anger stratosphere!

There have been more emails than I can count between me and the assistant in the New York doctor's office to arrange a follow-up for the surgery. The doc is acting like he's doing me a favor! Excuse me? I'd be like any other patient! Except he only sees people one day a week and I can't get to New York City on that day of the week without it being extremely stressful for me.

We're talking three follow-up appointments at most in the next year. He can't make an exception and see me another day of the week? I guess he can't.

I had to write to the surgeon this morning and say that it can't be worked out with his follow-up guy and can we try someone else?

My primary care doc also sees patients only one day a week. To be fair, she's the medical director of a health care center so I get why that's so. In fact, it was an honor that she kept me as a patient! (Truly.)

Anyway, I just got off the phone with her assistant who has now called me three times to change an appointment to have a form filled out! Which, if she wanted to, she could fill out without seeing me. I totally get the integrity thing. She has to set her own ethics boundaries -- but three changes! I finally had to say, enough. I have clients of my own that I'm unwilling to change.

The thing that amazes me here is that I'm self-employed so my schedule is extremely flexible. What does a person do who works a 40-hour week? And, I'm self-employed, so when I work, I get paid and when I don't work, I don't get paid. It's not rocket science, but it is a fact.

When I woke up at 4 a.m. on the dot this morning, I woke up angry and I knew it. I even knew what I was angry about and it has absolutely nothing to do with these doctors. In fact, they're all on my side.

So here's the real scoop: I'm angry that I had a rotten disease all these years and that it stole so much time, energy, money and life from me, and I just have to get over it already.

And besides, I'm a doctor just like you are, so that's Dr. Cranky Pants to you.

Whew, I feel better. Sometimes a girl just needs a small rant.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

No More Calls, No More Meetings -- Ever?!

2011-06-05T15:32:54-04:00

Years ago I remember hearing about a CEO new to an international company who took all the chairs out of all the conference rooms as one of his first acts. It made meetings a lot shorter.

A funny thing happened to me this week on the order of the chairless CEO.

I joined a professional organization at the suggestion of my literary agent, and, as a result of attending a meeting, it became clear that they needed someone to volunteer for a position on their conference committee which I dutifully did. I can't see the point of joining anything without participating.

So I volunteered to take care of one aspect of putting together this highly organized conference, found out who'd done the job before me, and asked for her email. I wrote to her and suggested that we have a phone conversation as part of passing the baton, if you will.

She turned me down flat. Cold. Didn't even include her phone number.

Honestly, I was shocked.

She told me, via email, that there was no need for a conversation, that everything she would send me via email would be completely self-explanatory. It did arrive, and I did read it, and it was so far from self-explanatory that I wondered if she was telling me about the gig I volunteered for or some other job.

I've been working to arrange a meeting with my literary agent for over a year. Admittedly, we've both had our reasons for postponing and cancelling, not the least of which is that we live on opposite coasts so it took some real coordination to get this together. We finally met a week ago today and it was a blast. We connected and it was of huge value for me and for her. Agents work much more happily with people than authors.

Anyway, the two events coming so close together made me wonder. Are we giving up phone calls? Are we giving up meetings? I sure hope not because if connection is what you want, and we all do, then face time (not Facebook) is the name of the game.

Pull up a chair, my new friend, and set a spell.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

Maybe You Should Have

2011-05-24T12:55:00-04:00

The West has just passed through one of its annual spiritual times: Easter, both Western and Eastern Orthodox, and Passover. In my spiritual counseling practice, I have been falling over what I call "The Shoulds."

We have so many shoulds. And shouldn'ts. Life shouldn't be this. People shouldn't do that. I should never have. You fill in your own blanks.

Do you, as the saying goes, "Should on yourself?"

Why?

First of all, how do you know what you should have?

Second, how does anyone else know what you should have?

Third, how do we know what anyone else should have?

Sure, there are ideals that we all hold, most of them different for each person. We shouldn't litter. We should be kind. We should use common courtesy. We should be honest. We should. We shouldn't. Where does it end?

Here's a formula I use in my practice that almost always releases a client from shoulding.

Okay, maybe you should have, and if you could have, you would have, but you couldn't, so you didn't, so next.

It's all well and good to claim that we should have...whatever, but by the time we are beating ourselves up with that, we haven't done whatever we should have. What purpose is there in that? Staying in the past? Living in guilt/sin? Suffering? Condoning no pain/no gain?

Maybe all those things, but there's no genuine, productive purpose served on that should have path. The issue now is: What's next?

What's next?

What can I do to change myself and my thoughts to release myself from past regret and come into the present moment which is the only place where I can make changes?

So the next time you catch yourself in should haves, remember:

Maybe you should have

And if you could have

You would have

But you couldn't

So you didn't

So next?

The great Nazarene rabbi was noted for saying, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Matthew 5: 48 This is an egregious mistranslation from the Aramaic. The actual translation of the verse is:

"Be ye therefore perfecting even as your God which is in Heaven is perfecting."

Let should haves kick you into a process of gentle, graceful change, dear one.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

Enraptured By Joy

2011-05-23T11:35:39-04:00

Why is it that humans are so fascinated with the end of time? Time is one of the ways we organize our world, one of the few that all persons agree upon.

Harold Camping, self-styled evangelist and eschatologist, predicted that the world would end and the rapture would come on Saturday. It's Saturday as I write this, and I see no sign of rapture, except maybe the monthly rapture that comes when my checkbook balance is to-the-penny-perfect.

What is it about Christians that seems to want the Rapture? Could it be that Christianity has become so craven and dogmatic a practice that those who are mired in the swamp of it can't wait to get out? That makes me sad because that's not what Christianity is, not by any stretch. In fact, that's like thinking that Osama bin Laden's version of Islam was real Islam. It wasn't.

And speaking of Osama, one of his grave promises to male suicide bomber martyrs was that 72 virgins would be awaiting them in Heaven. Similarly, the Risen Lord is allegedly awaiting the Christians who are chosen to be raised up in the Rapture.

This waiting business is one of my big beefs with organized religion. Waiting? Waiting for what? The only time God knows is now. In God, there is no waiting. You can visit with God in any now you choose, and in every now. AA has a brilliant saying: If you can't see God, guess who turned away?

The hardest thing about this religious waiting business is that it's robbery of those who believe in it. Altar Guild ladies come to mind, serving priests good and bad, whilst "earning" their way into a heavenly reward. I don't think God's like that.

Life isn't about a heavenly reward; it's about an earthly reward. That's why it takes place, for us, on Earth. What earthly reward might that be? Put in the simplest way possible: joy in living, no matter what's happening. Good stuff, bad stuff, and all the stuff in between.

Time isn't our enemy, dear one. It helps us cooperate with one another, and organize what we do on our own and together. Waiting for the End Times is an eschatological trap. It robs us of the present, which is the only place where we get to experience joy.

I looked up rapture in the OED and was startled to find the Christian definition so easily bandied about these days as an addition made to the original definition in 1993! The Rapture, as a Christian concept, hasn't been around for very long.

What is universal is that all of us wait for something. A new dress, a new love, a new life. The action that rises from true rapture is praise. If you want rapture, my friend, begin to give, to give thanks for the joy that is happening right now right in front of you. If the end of time knocks on your door, of, for that matter, if the Risen Lord knocks on your door, invite them both in for a joyous cup of tea.

So here's what's enraptured me today. My sweet, talented friend, Virginia, was born thirty-some years ago today. Yes, Virginia, the miracle of your birth has me enraptured with joy today and every day. Thanks for being born.

That's the kind of praise that will keep you enraptured with joy day in and day out.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.

Misery Needs Company

2011-05-18T19:01:00-04:00

I've had a spiritual counseling practice for nearly 30 years, and over time, it's become clear that I can pretty much gauge what's going on in our civilization by the small slice of life I see in my practice. It is perhaps not scientific, but it works for me. Lately, the overarching pattern in people, especially women, is isolation and its resulting loneliness.

More and more people are coming to me hopeless, in tears, and with no clue as to how to begin to pick up the pieces and start over. It's very, very sad because it's what we are all called to do at one point in our lives or another.

Take a session from just this past week, let's call the woman Jane. She was in her early fifties, unemployed, living with an old boyfriend who was emotionally abusing her, applying for jobs she didn't want, knowing full well what her heart's joy would be for work, and at a total loss as to how to make even one small change.

I listened to Jane for about 45 minutes tell me the whole sad story, and sad it was indeed, and then I asked her, "Do you want it to change?"

She was so startled that she stopped crying. Big eyes peered at me as she stammered nonsense syllables.

I repeated myself. "Do you want it to change?"

People don't, you know. Or, to be clearer, they want it to change, but they don't want to change, or, they don't want to change it.

Finally Jane gulped, and said, "Uh, um, yeah, I guess so."

Here's a big clue, dear one. As you read that sentence, I know you felt the lethargy, the exhaustion, the hopelessness that it could ever change.

Well, it can, as long as the person at the center of the problem is ready to become part of the solution, and until that person, here, Jane, is ready, I'm just blowing smoke.

We spent another 30 minutes on what it means to want to change.

In Jane's case, she desperately needed to expand her circle of people. She also was an adult child of an alcoholic. I sent her straightaway to Al-anon. Ninety meetings in 90 days, and find a sponsor. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to Al-anon, and learn that you are not alone.

There's the key: You are not alone.

There are plenty of other people in this world who are as miserable as you are right now. Not only that but there are plenty of other people in this world who have been as miserable as you are right now and have moved on from it. You just need to put yourself into the stream of them.

The biggest problem with misery is that we're taught to be ashamed of it when we're in it, which is almost a certain guaranty that we'll stay in it. Argh! Go be miserable with other people!

Jane was financially challenged, living on unemployment. I did not send her to spend more money. I sent her into community. The Al-anon community houses all sorts who are in every single place on the recovery spectrum. It didn't have to be Alanon either. There are all sorts of programs where peers -- those who have been there, done that -- help other peers.

Jane left my office with a new spring in her step. Nothing had changed really in our two hours together, except that she had a place to go, she had a plan, and she knew she wasn't alone. It meant that she didn't need to be hopeless any more, and that was a big enough change to motivate her toward the path she'd wanted all along.

If you're miserable, blessed one, go find a community. Misery needs company.

* * * *

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook.