Archive for July, 2007

What Afterlife?

For those of you who are younger than I am, I write to let you know that at age 49 (in real time) AARP begins knocking softly on your door. Their offers are seductive; their services legion.

Living as I do with someone who is already a card-carrying member, AARP The Magazine comes to our house. It is the magazine with the largest circulation in the world. The September/October issue had an article about what people over 50 believe about the afterlife.

Afterlife.

It’s a word I’ve read in all sorts of settings for years. The beliefs articulated in the article were as varied as there are people. The thing is, the word afterlife brought me to a full stop.

I don’t believe in an afterlife. (Keep reading!)

Don’t misunderstand me. What I mean is that there is life. Life. Period.

There’s no beforelife and there’s no afterlife—
there’s only and always life.
It just keeps going.

Much of the article was consumed with definitions and beliefs about Heaven and Hell, and who would and who would not be taking up residence in either place. The author made me laugh out loud when she quoted a copy editor she knew, who said, “Heaven gets a capital letter. Heaven is a place. Like Poughkeepsie.”

Like Poughkeepsie? Okay. But then I thought about it a little more. Yeah, like Poughkeepsie. Like Oshkosh. Like Manhattan, New York or Kansas. Like Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco. Like Tombstone, Arizona. Like Venice, Vienna, Moscow, Cairo, Johannesburg, Sydney, Bombay, Taipei. I could go on and on and on.

Heaven, capital H, is a place. It has an alternative spelling which is:

Here.

And the time Heaven occurs? In between that beforelife and afterlife.

Now.

Remember Belinda Carlisle? Oooh baby, do you know what that’s worth? Oooh, Heaven is a place on earth.

She goes on, They say in Heaven, Love comes first, We’ll make Heaven a place on earth.

If my own experience is any barometer, it’s my choices that make the quality of my life Heaven or Hell and the only time I can make a choice for love in my life is now.

Less Is More

Seeds IX, 30

Seed: Less is More
We’ve all heard this expression, I know, but approaching 50 as I am, it has come to mean a lot more to me lately than at other times in my life. Earlier, more is more made more sense to me. Now, not so much.

So, I did what any self-respecting writer does. I googled it. Here you go: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an architect who adopted the motto less is more to describe his aesthetic. Buckminster Fuller adopted a similar saying, doing more with less, but his concerns were oriented towards technology and engineering rather than aesthetics.

I’m with both men. For me, at this point in my life, less means simpler. Fewer things, fewer distractions, fewer (and clearer) priorities. I prefer life this way because I, like Bucky, am finding that I can do more with less.

The way I do this is to go deep rather than broad. There are plenty of things I still want to learn in this life. I’d rather single out one or two and go deep rather than ten or twelve and skim over the surface. I’m finding this holds true for everything in my life. Less is more because less in the field means I can truly focus on and love what’s left.

Be serene,

Dr. Susan Corso

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

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blog posts Ode Magazine.

Just Like Me

Would you like a simple spiritual practice that will guarantee you more peace with the people around you?

It will work for the ones you know and the ones you don’t know.

It will work for the ones you knew and the ones you will know.

When you hear a sentence out of your mouth that begins something like, “He is so . . . .” I’ll let you fill in the blank. Or “She really makes me . . . .” Criticisms. Angers. Frustrations. Hurts. Sadnesses. Disappointments.

Take Osama bin Laden.

“Osama bin Laden is hateful.”

Just revise your sentence with three words. Begin it with:

“Just like me, Osama bin Laden is hateful.”

I don’t know about you but that brings me to a full inner stop. Relationships are mirrors. Direct mirrors, not fun house mirrors. If I can see it in Osama bin Laden, then it’s somewhere in me. That sounds harsh, I know, but that’s how the law of relationship works.

Peace will grow in you very quickly if every time in the next 21 days you rewrite your criticisms of others. Try “Just like me,” and be forewarned. Transformation will knock down your door.