Trip Report: Susan Dane's seminar in New York

[Guest guest]

Greetings everyone!

 

I got up at an unusually early hour for a Saturday to catch the 7:00 AM

train to New York to attend Susan Dane's Seminar for WBAI, "When All

Systems Fail, Spiritual Answers Beyond Self-Help".

 

At the reception desk, Susan gave me a warm greeting (we have corresponded

by e-mail, and spoken on the phone, but never met in person before). The

first person I laid eyes on after that was our very own Victor Torrico! He

was sitting there at the reception desk filling out his registration form.

He told me that he and his wife were in New jersey, visiting family, and he

decided to take the bus trip into the city for Susan's Seminar. So it was

fun to share the experience with Victor throughout the day. (I met Victor

at the HarshaSatSangh-NDS retreat last summer).

 

Susan's audience was diverse in terms of race, age, and background. There

were many African Americans and Hispanics, as well as whites. There were

Catholics, Jews, one fellow named Pedro who quoted the Tao Te Ching, and a

couple of NonDualists at least (Victor and I!)

 

Susan has a very compelling speaking style. She is dynamic, speaks

extemporaneously, throws in a lot of humor, and often has her audience

hanging on her every word. I won't attempt to summarize her message, you

can get a flavor for it at her web site (http://www.susandane.com). But

there is nothing "new" about what she is saying, of course, yet she has

devised a way to present it that attempts to bypasses what people already

know of spirituality from their own traditions and seeking, in order to

point them towards what she calls "Ground". If her work has a basis in any

tradition, it is the Christian, specifically Christian Science. But she

presents it in terms of a lived, practical, un-sugarcoated spirituality.

She was always quick to correct people who wanted to turn it into a

feel-good message, or optimism.

 

Susan is also a skilled interlocutor when answering people's questions. She

doesn't comfort or coddle people, but forces them to examine the

assumptions within their questions. She is like that one-on-one as well.

More than once things she has said to me have zapped me with an

uncomfortable truth.

 

Here are some notes I took. Most are direct quotes but some are my

condensed paraphrases:

 

"Spirit is going to work to dismantle self, to bring us to the wall. It

makes an inside out thing happen. We start to have space. Spirit

deconstructs everything that is in its way. Spirit wants to be the only

ground."

 

"The authentic ground is not beyond words, there is expression..."

 

"Learning to be wise about the technology of the human..."

 

"There is a Chooser and it is Choosing: reclaim that ground"

 

"We have to have a relationship to the Chooser: the Chooser is always free,

always free to not be bound by its habit and its history."

 

"Be conscious of your ability to choose that which your rational mind

cannot choose."

 

"Spirit is also that thing within us that is doing the Choosing. Spirit is

choosing us, which allows us to choose Spirit."

 

"Spirit has a feel and a sound and a sense to it."

 

"That which is required of me is impossible for me. That is the way Spirit

wants it."

 

"Our human destiny is not a human event, it is a divine event."

 

"The ground we are looking for is us."

 

"Change happens when someone operates out of a different ground."

 

"Spirit want to be the ground and the expression at the same time"

 

As I said, people seemed to be hanging onto her every word, and there were

many urgent questions. During the lunch break I went out with Susan and her

friend Meredith. We took sandwiches to nearby Gramercy Park. This gorgeous,

gardened urban square is surround by a Black Iron Fence, to which only the

neighborhood people have keys. Needless to say the park was deserted. We

sat on the ledge by the fence, and soon were joined by 5 other people from

the seminar, and Susan was holding forth again, right there on the

sidewalk. To have a gorgeous but empty garden just the other side of the

fence seemed like an apt metaphor for what was going on, the Garden - so

close, but seemingly locked away - being the Ground that she was talking of.

 

After the seminar a group of about 12 people gathered around her and

continued the discussion for another hour or so. I felt that people were

reluctant to leave her presence. Victor and I helped carry Susan's stuff

down to the street and loaded into a cab, and we all said our farewells. I

made it back to Grand Central in time for the 7:10 train. I feel like it

was a day well spent. It was good to meet Susan and to see her in action. I

felt warmed and welcomed, and buoyed by her strong expression of that which

so vibrantly operates in her and through her.

 

Warm regards to all,

David