21 Ways to Pray at Work

This Beliefnet gallery is so sweet, I had to share it with you.

21 Ways to Pray at Work

By Mark Herringshaw and Nicole Symmonds

Many of us will spend the majority of our waking hours behind a desk, having only one prayer–the one that we prayed in the morning–to keep us throughout the day. Discover how you can blend the sacred practice of prayer into your workday with these 21 ways to pray at work.

Enjoy the Gallery!

And …

Pray, dear one.

Pray for all.

Pray all ways.

Pray always.

Summer Travels

Forgive the brevity of this post please, but we’re traveling. Somehow, our summer travels and visitors all conspired to happen on nearly consecutive weekends.

We went to New York City to have a long-awaited meal with our niece and new nephew-in-law. At the same time, we went to visit Sacred Center.

The next day we had a Royal Visit from Queen Mama Donna Henes, author of The Queen of My Self and her amazing blog on Beliefnet.

Then we were off to Woodstock for two days and two dear friends of whom we do not see enough.

On the Monday, we were invited to tea in the neighborhood with Elizabeth Cunningham, the author of The Maeve Chronicles, three (so far) books on the Celtic Mary Magdalen.

We’re home for a weekend, and then off to Vermont to see my web designer and dear friend, Suzanne Rhodes. On the way home, we’re going to a button store in Brattleboro, recommended by our costume designer friend, Virginia Bristol Johnson.

There’s nothing more lovely than visiting friends in summer. Except maybe having friends visit us.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso’s website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook. And discover your own Inner Peace at, To Me Peace Is … What is Peace to You?

Thanks!

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Seed: Thanks!

Rabbi Marc Gellman of Temple Beth Torah in Long Island sounds like a real character to me. He’s part of the God Squad team on cable television. Over the next four weeks, we are going to explore his four kinds of prayers.

Gellman says that the last of his four prayer types is “Thanks!” Thanks!, of course,  is expressing gratitude.

Ever do this? Find a parking space? Thanks, God. Get that bottom to match a stray top? Thanks, God. Miss a really horrendous traffic pile-up? Thanks, God.

Saying thanks is a habit to be much cultivated. Look at it this way: giving thanks primes the pump—for more giving and more receiving.

So, thanks, Rabbi Gellman, for Wow!, Oops!, Gimme!, and Thanks!

Be passion,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

Check out the Seeds Archive for past messages of inspiration.

If  you would like to be added to the Seeds e-mail list, visit the sign-up page..

For spiritual nourishment, please visit my website www.susancorso.com, and my blogs

Seeds for Sanctuary, Ode Magazine, and The Huffington Post

and

join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter: @PeaceCorso.

The Queen Has Gone! Long Live the Queen!

Amazing.

She’s as elegant, funny, wise, smart and eccentric as she advocates.

The Queen arrived in State—in a state, that is—having ridden through Boston’s rush hour traffic. Argh is the short form. Boston drivers are thoroughly rude and street signage is a concept here. The Queen had been attacked by a kickstand-less door just as she was leaving her castle. The door kicked the suitcase, the suitcase kicked the Queen, the Queen ended up with a sprained wrist after a trip to a not-so-royal Emergency Room.

Suitcases, wrist wrapper, canine, and consort tumbled out of the car. We made a lively procession into our 122 year old Victorian Painted Lady. The Queen appreciated not only the architectural detail but also the chakra colors we chose for our Castle.

Dinner was a hit—Whole Foods smorgasbord. Yummy desserts, and delicious, flowing conversation amongst us all. We came together and broke into pairs like two couples doing a ballet they’ve done for years. Only this was our first time altogether! Even the dog danced.

There is a situation in my life for which I needed guidance so the Queen very generously read her cards for me. The signs are excellent for my sitch, and they were an accurate reflection of where I am right now. Always insightful. If you don’t belong to Queen Mama Donna’s Happy Birthday Tarot Club, go here and sign up.

Also, Donna has been the Queen for a good many years. She is the woman who brought the square to the original goddess trinity. Maiden/Mother/Crone became Maiden/Mother/Queen/ Crone on Donna’s watch. If you haven’t read her book, dash to your computer to get it. The Queen of My Self changed my life when I turned 50. Don’t gyp yourself of her wisdom!

Unfortunately, I had to get up early and dash to work or else I’d have loved to spent the day with Donna. She is what she says she is: an urban shaman, a spirit-led woman, the Queen and a host of other things. Multifaceted, always growing, Donna is a role model for women everywhere, and I’m glad to call her my friend.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso’s website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook. And discover your own Inner Peace at, To Me Peace Is … What is Peace to You?

The Queen is Coming Today!

OMG, am I relieved that the painting is done, done, done, and none too soon because the original articulator of The Queen Archetype is coming to our house to stay for a night with her Consort. My dear sister/teacher/wisewoman/shaman/author, Donna Henes, is staying the night with us on her way to serve our sister wisewomen in Maine.

We’ve cleaned everything! Cleaned out everything, too. Queen Mama Donna Henes can open any drawer or cupboard in our house and it’s spacious, organized and clean. Their room is set up. Surfaces are cleared for their use. Towels are hung up. There’s space for her ceremonial hanging clothes.

Eventually, I had to laugh at our shenanigans. The Queen and her Consort are not coming to see our house. They will not open cupboards or drawers uninvited. They probably won’t even notice half of what we did to make them comfortable. The reason for that is that they are coming to see us!

One of our standard family conversations when we have company is whether to cook or to order in or to go out. We almost always choose order in or go out because neither of us is a fancy cook and our kitchen isn’t set up for it—and besides, we’d rather be in conversation.

So tonight, we, a Queen and Consort are taking the Queen and her Consort out to our favorite local Italian seafood restaurant for dinner—Out of the Blue.

We’re psyched, and I can’t write any more because I’ve just noticed that there’s one more thing to do before She gets here.

Full report on Wednesday.

Gimme!

Seeds XII, 29

Seed: Gimme!

Rabbi Marc Gellman of Temple Beth Torah in Long Island sounds like a real character to me. He’s part of the God Squad team on cable television. Over the next four weeks, we are going to explore his four kinds of prayers.

Gellman says, “Really, when you come right down to it, there are only four basic prayers.” One of them is “Gimme!”

I love this. Isn’t it clear? Isn’t that at bottom what we’re saying when we want a new dress or a new car or a new anything? “Gimme!,” says the good rabbi, “is a request or a petition.” It also applies to intangibles as well as tangibles.

God, give me strength.

God, give me patience (and give it to me now.)

The thing it makes me think about is that God wants always to give each one of us what is the best for us. Ask, dear one, ask all you like, and know that if your Gimme is returned to you with a No, that it’s for the best.

Be passion,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

Check out the Seeds Archive for past messages of inspiration.

If  you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, visit the sign-up page..

For spiritual nourishment, please visit my website www.susancorso.com, and my blogs

Seeds for Sanctuary, Ode Magazine, and The Huffington Post

and

join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter: @PeaceCorso.

Trust Your Resistance

This is from my friend Barbara Winter’s newsletter, Buon Viaggio—Barbara Winter’s thoughts on the joyfully jobless journey. Barbara is an entrepreneurial genius, and I’ve been a fan of hers for many, many years.

It appears that career counselors have it all wrong. Instead of asking people what they most want to do, they should explore what they are most avoiding.

There’s plenty of evidence that what we ignore is often our most cherished dream. Our Resistance is a maddeningly accurate indicator of what would serve us best.

I watched a vivid reminder of this unfold when  The Today Show invited viewers to submit their ideas for a feature they did called Live For Today. The television program challenged their audience to tell them  the one thing they wanted to do before they die.

The response was huge. Obviously, this invitation awakened numerous dreams that had been put to sleep.

That wasn’t the most amazing thing about this project. What’s astonishing was how doable the submissions were. People weren’t asking to acquire their own islands; the ideas were more along the lines of “be an extra in a movie.”

Many viewers reported that they’d had their dream for years. So why have they avoided doing something about it?

In The War of Art , Steven Pressfield profoundly blows open the insidious ways in which Resistance keeps us stuck in place. When I learned that the author was doing an Internet radio interview, I tuned in.

Midway through the program I called in and asked him if there was such a thing as good Resistance. He laughed and said, “When the Resistance is really strong, you better fasten your seatbelt, because something  big is trying to get your attention.”

Entrepreneurship is a surefire awakener of this phenomenon. I suspect that nobody starts a business without having to confront their own Resistance. But it doesn’t stop there. At every step of the way, our Resistance comes out to meet us.

The closer we are to getting what we want, the stronger our Resistance becomes. I see proof of this with every seminar I do. There are always folks who wait until the very last minute to enroll.

I used to think that these were people who were mildly curious, but had no intention of actually doing anything. Now I think these malingerers may be the most likely to succeed—and they’re scared to death to find that out.

While we can’t eliminate Resistance, we can use it as a power tool to move us closer to our dreams. It takes some courage and maturity to do that, but every great achiever has already learned how to pay attention to their Resistance, acknowledge the truth it tries to obscure and then move past it.

Consider what Vincent Van Gogh had to say about it: “If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint…and that voice will be silenced.”

What have you been avoiding? What adventure have you let Resistance abort? What if instead of seeing Resistance as a red light or a stop sign, we started treating it like what it really is: a signal to proceed?

You don’t even have to deny it’s there. In fact, you have to notice it and call it by name.

“Aha,” you might say, “there you are again, but you’ll not be having your way with me this time. I assume you’re here to alert me to something wonderful and I will continue on.”

What if you began to trust your Resistance? At the very least, your confidence would grow because with every defeat of Resistance we get stronger. Viewed from this angle, Resistance seems more benevolent than we may have thought—and far more useful.

So go ahead—be contrary. Listen to your Resistance and then do the opposite. If it tells you not to bother, be contrary and bother. If it tells you that scrubbing the toilet is more important than writing your next chapter, let the toilet go unscrubbed.

Challenge it. Laugh at it. And, most of all, trust what it’s telling you.

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso’s website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook. And discover your own Inner Peace at, To Me Peace Is … What is Peace to You?

Support Amazing Women Rock

Unlimited Inspiration For Only 3 Cents A Day!

Amazing Women Rock went live online two years ago, after one year in development.

It was a dream come true for me – the manifestation of my personal mission to do something concrete to celebrate, motivate and inspire women around the world.

At the time, few people understood my vision – in early 2007, the site was ahead of its time. Open-source technology and community websites were still in their infancy, and most people I spoke to thought I was crazy to want to launch a site that was dedicated to inspiring and connecting women.

Since then, the number of community websites has skyrocketed, and those targeted at women have exploded. Meanwhile, technology has kept pace with exciting new innovations.

A Labour Of Love

I funded the creation of AWR myself and spent considerable time and money further developing and marketing it via social media. That paid off, because it’s how you found it and me

During the past three years, I have worked continuously on the site, researching, writing and uploading content, fuelled by my passion and positive feedback from a growing user and fan base.

It’s a labour of love. The work is joyful, and I feel happy that AWR makes a difference in people’s lives.

I believe AWR provides a valuable, if somewhat intangible service. It provokes thought and discussion on sometimes-controversial issues; it spreads joy, happiness and peace; it’s quirky and fun and funky. Fans and visitors are inspired and enlivened by it – I know that from the comments I get from all over the world.

Right from the start, I wanted the site and everything on it available to visitors for free. I still want that. I want AWR to be inclusive, not exclusive. I want it to be accessible to as many people as possible.

Today, AWR is at a crossroads.

Three-Year-Old Antique

The platform on which it was built (Joomla 1.0) is antiquated (imagine! in just three years); the whole site should have been migrated to Joomla 1.5 over a year ago. But it was delayed for a variety of reasons.

At the moment, the old platform is no longer supported, and the site’s functionality is impaired. More important, the existing site template does not accept standard ad sizes, which makes it difficult for me to host advertising. That means I can’t generate the revenue I need to keep the site free and running.

I need the site to become self-funding, because I can no longer to continue to support it financially on my own. Nor can I continue to work on it alone. I must devote some time to my business, which unfortunately has suffered from neglect these last 18 months. Even amazing women need to earn a living!

The good news is that AWR now has sufficient traffic (an average of about 14,000 unique visits / month) to attract advertisers. Once I have even a small amount of revenue, I can hire some part-time help to upload content, and to administer and market the site.

That means you and others will continue to be inspired, enlivened and amused by the diversity of stories, articles, music, poetry, humour and more that you find on AWR.

Three Cents A Day

I expect the process of migrating AWR to the new version of Joomla to be challenging. That’s one of the reasons I’ve delayed.

The site contains 1,500+ articles with thousands of links. It also has a Google page rating of 5, a critical factor for search engine optimization. It’s important that the content, the links and the page rating remain intact.

Cost estimates for “safely” migrating and redesigning the site to make it more advertising friendly are USD 5,000 – $USD 10,000.

I invite friends, fans and followers to help AWR keep inspiring, amusing and celebrating: please invest with me in the future of the site.

A gift of USD 10.95 would represent 3 cents/day over one year for virtually unlimited inspiration and fun! A gift of $100 is the equivalent of 27 cents a day for one year. Gifted investments of any amount will be gratefully accepted.

Several people have already donated, but I need many, many more to do so – close to one thousand people would each need to donate $5 – $10 to raise the required funds. Or allternatively, 60 people each donating $100, or 6 people each investing $1,000. Or any combination thereof! Please help me to keep doing this good work.

Use the PayPal button at the top right hand side of any page on the site to invest in the future of AWR.

Thanks for your support,

Susan [Macauley]

I sent AWR a little something. Won’t you join me please?

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso’s website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook. And discover your own Inner Peace at, To Me Peace Is … What is Peace to You?

Oops!

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Seed: Oops!

Rabbi Marc Gellman of Temple Beth Torah in Long Island sounds like a real character to me. He’s part of the God Squad team on cable television. Over the next four weeks, we are going to explore his four kinds of prayers.

Gellman says: “Really, when you come right down to it, there are only four basic prayers.” One of them is “Oops!”

Ever made a mistake in your life? No? Good for you. Some of the rest of us are not as wise as all that. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. The Rabbi says that “Oops!” is the prayer that asks for forgiveness.

Truthfully, forgiveness can be a slippery slope for a lot of us. We tend to do it too quickly, not letting ourselves feel our feelings but instead asking premature forgiveness to cover up the ickies, but no matter, forgiveness always works.

This prayer is about asking forgiveness of God. Fortunately for us, Her forgiveness is always right on time.

Be passion,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

Check out the Seeds Archive for past messages of inspiration.

If  you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, visit the sign-up page..

For spiritual nourishment, please visit my website www.susancorso.com, and my blogs

Seeds for Sanctuary, Ode Magazine, and The Huffington Post

and

join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter: @PeaceCorso.

Long Live Imperfection!

This is from Queen Mama Donna Henes’ The Queen of My Self blog on beliefnet. It was too good not to reprint it. Kindness to Self rules!

If you haven’t read her book, you must. It’s sheer genius.

Queen of Imperfection

Just a few days ago I wrote, “The word ‘practice’ also serves to remind us that there is no perfect. Whether we maintain a spiritual practice, a creative practice or a professional practice, we are always in the process of learning, adapting, accommodating, growing and changing. The only end comes when we die. In the meantime, all we have is the means, the very process of living, itself. We try, we move forward, we trip, we fall behind, we start again, and eventually we become, while not perfect, perfectly wonderful Queens.”

No sooner did I post it than I received the following piece by Wendi Knox, a Queen from California. I just love the synchronicity, not to mention the sentiment. Being of the Virgo persuasion, myself, it really hit home. Thanks, Wendi.

Calling All Perfectionists

By Wendi Knox

The difference between imperfect and I’m perfect is just an apostrophe.

In my next life, I hope to come back as an imperfectionist.

Maybe I won’t have Virgo rising. A father who color-coordinates his sock drawer. Or a mother whose handwriting looks like it belongs in a penmanship book.

Naturally, I rebelled with messy drawers and sloppy handwriting.

But I did develop a “good enough isn’t good enough” self-flagellation system.

If you’re like me, you grew up believing you could (and should) have it all.

The Perfect Job. The Perfect Marriage. The Perfect Family. The Perfect Body. (The Perfect Breakdown?)

We measure our human selves against some airbrushed version of life with Jen’s hair, Angelina’s lips and Martha’s culinary skills.

I think so many of us love Oprah because she’s dared to share her imperfections. No matter how many schools she builds or cars she gives away, Oprah’s the first to admit, that she’s still carrying the weight of  a sad and abusive childhood.

Speaking of weight, I know I could afford to lose a few.

But even at my skinniest, I still obsessed about some part of me that could have been more this or less that.

So, these days, my mission is to learn to love myself just the way I am. Of course, it’s not easy being kind to every new wrinkle or grey strand that shows up in the mirror.

But since I believe the world is a mirror of how we treat ourselves, I’m trying to be as nice to Me as I am to everyone else.

So, when I looked in the mirror today, I actually focused on the color of my eyes (instead of the dark circles under them).

And last night, I even gave my hair a compliment.

Guess what — on days when I say kind things to myself, life feels kinder to me.

Instead of constantly comparing myself to the latest cover girl, I try to remember these words from my wise friend Heather:

“If The Goddess were living here on earth, how would she carry herself?”

Hmmm…would She starve herself to squeeze into a size 2 pair of jeans?

Would She inject Her laugh lines with Botox?

Or would She accept and love Her womanly curves and nurture Her miraculous body with delicious, nutritious food, enjoying every morsel of it?

Okay, I admit that I’m not totally there yet.

But each day, I do have a little more self-love than I did the day before.

And on those days when my inner Gestapo (a.k.a. Edna) starts berating me and my imperfections, I take a deep breath and put on my walking shoes.

As I pass each front yard, I’m reminded that there’s all kinds of beauty in the Flower Garden of Life.

Does a daisy strive to be as exotic as a hibiscus?

Does a hot pink zinnia wonder if it’s “too much” compared to an elegant white cow lily?

Does a voluptuous rose in full bloom envy a tiny, delicate bud?

Okay, you get the point.

Now, please oh please, do me one little favor.

Before I re-write this thing for the fifth time, tell me something about Perfectly Imperfect You. (Or is it Imperfectly Perfect You?)

Whichever.

I second that motion. Please do share with us, your sister Queens, your most perfect imperfection.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/thequeenofmyself/2010/07/queen-of-imperfection.html#ixzz0sucZbkfN

For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso’s website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary. Follow her on Twitter @PeaceCorso and Friend her on Facebook. And discover your own Inner Peace at, To Me Peace Is … What is Peace to You?