Category: Global change

Shining Light in Shadowland

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Ever since the election, in spite of attempts to stay centered in a positive outlook, I often wake up in the morning with sadness and apprehension. As much as I try to avoid it, I find that I have to come to terms with a new presidential administration that is displaying the underside of human thought and behavior: racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, elitism. Exclusion that sees “them” instead of “we.” This is the shadow of humanity that has existed for thousands of years as hatred of “otherness.” Yet, now it is in our faces, even more so than in past administrations, which were not exactly stellar either. Electing Barack Obama seemed a step toward inclusiveness and diversity, yet even then, the country was almost evenly split, as it has been for many years now. True, the electoral college is not a fair instrument for representing the will of the people, but changing that will not erase the shadow. We have to face the huge division that exists in this country.

The United States is not united. Nor has it ever been, really. This is a country that has always been made up of people from different countries, cultures, races, religions, and belief systems. The first explorers and colonists—the first “immigrants”—imposed their lives upon the people who already lived here, the Native Americans. The formation of a new country was rooted in exclusion and appropriation.* That shadow has always been there, even as waves of immigrants from countless countries came here seeking freedom and liberation from oppression. Slavery was the most extreme manifestation of the shadow, and racism continues in its wake. The United States has always embodied dual, contradictory aspects: open arms and closed doors; freedom and injustice.

This election has brought to the surface all the fear-based shadows in this country, shadows that exist worldwide as well: intolerance, separation, inability to accept difference. And here is the hard part: As the shadow of humanity is on full display all around us, we have to look at its presence within us as well. Where do we see “other” instead of brother or sister? Where do we judge, condemn, or exclude people from our lives? In what ways do we tell ourselves that the world would be so much better if certain people just didn’t exist? Do we live with an open heart or a closed mind? Do we live in love or in fear?

On the morning after the election, I was traveling to Florida to attend Panache Desai’s annual global gathering. My state of mind was heavy, to say the least. As I found my seat on the plane to Charlotte, where I would change planes, the woman next to me whispered, “Governor Romney is over there.” “Who?” I asked, still in my own thoughts. “Mitt Romney,” she answered, pointing a few rows up, to first class. Finally, it registered, and in exasperation, I replied, “Oh, great, that’s just what I need today.” The woman looked a bit puzzled, and suddenly, it all struck me as very funny, and I began to laugh. (She chuckled a little, but I’m sure she had no idea why I was laughing.) Encountering yet another conservative former presidential candidate seemed to me like a comical cosmic wink or wake-up call. The message: “There will always be someone you disagree with on the plane of life.” In this out-of-the-ordinary occurrence, I was being reminded that from the perspective of global oneness, there is no “other.” No one is excluded.

And that is precisely why we are here on the planet at this time: To break the toxic habit of “otherness.” To find common humanity even when there appears to be none. To love in the face of hate, hope in the face of despair, have courage in the face of fear. You and I are being called to shine our own peaceful light ever more dynamically in the world, no matter what else is going on. To speak out for human rights and universal sister/brotherhood as we hold unconditional love for all in our hearts. (This is the basis of many nonviolent movements for social change.) In seeing every single “other” as another “one” in oneness, we come into greater balance and harmony, both individually and collectively.

Even when it seems unrealistic or emotionally impossible, take a deep breath and express the truth of your soul, which is love, which is kindness. Find the inner strength and compassion to keep expanding your heart until the shadow of separation falls away and you see yourself reflected in every face you encounter. That is the loving connection that holds our very diverse humanity together, in spite of the conflicts that pull us apart. In the wise words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Love is the strongest force the world possesses.”

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*This continues today at Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, where Native Americans are protesting a proposed oil pipeline as an environmental hazard and a threat to their sacred lands.

African Dreams

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
In October, I spent two weeks in South Africa. After I returned, I woke each morning disoriented, thinking I was still there—bird calls and animal sounds filling the air. My own bedroom seemed unfamiliar, and as I lay in a half-awake/half-asleep state, I dreamed of elephants walking slowly with majestic, graceful intent, just as they did when I saw them in the hot, dry African savanna. Gradually, when I awoke fully, I realized I was back home in Massachusetts, where it was cold and rainy, and autumn leaves covered the ground. Yet the elephants are still with me. Africa inhabits my consciousness now, never far way in memory or awareness. I close my eyes, and I see again the enduring, yet somehow fragile beauty of the land and the people and animals who live there.

It was one of my life’s greatest blessings to travel to South Africa, where the animals are like nowhere else on Earth. Elephants, giraffes, zebras, impala, kudu, sable, lions, wildebeests, wart hogs, buffalo, nyala, waterbuck, crocodile, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, baboons, monkeys, bush babies, honey badgers, and many more. The birds too are unique: bee-eaters, hornbills, storks, spoonbills, ostriches. The grey go-away bird and the Egyptian goose with bright pink legs and feet. All miraculous beings living in a world that has drastically changed because of human activities and population growth.

The wild animals of Africa can no longer survive outside of reserves, where they are protected, in theory, from game hunters, poachers, and those who see them as a threat to farms and villages. Still, poachers find ways to enter the reserves (by helicopter) to kill elephants for their tusks and rhinoceroses for their horns. There is a high price paid in various countries for them. The animals face food and water shortages because of drought and the fact that fences block them from following their age-old migration routes across Africa. The heartbreaking worldwide dilemma of humans and animals inhabiting the same areas and using the same scarce resources is nowhere as dramatically visible as in Africa. Foreign investors buy up land to raise rhinos for their horns; private game reserves offer hunting for those who can pay for the “pleasure” of killing exotic animals. Colonialism has not disappeared; it has just taken new forms. You can see it in the everywhere-visible electrified wire fences “protecting” houses, land, and supposedly animals.

Photograph © 2016 Anne Katzeff
Photograph © 2016 Anne Katzeff

I came to South Africa to volunteer at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and Daktari Bush School and Wildlife Orphanage and then to see the magnificent animals in the wild. This was not a usual tourist trip, but one where we learned about the enormous challenges faced by the people as well as the animals. Daktari offers an intensive teaching curriculum for 10-11 underprivileged students a week (grade 8) from neighboring schools. They receive class instruction from volunteers (with special focus on the environment and wildlife) and learn firsthand about animals by helping to care for them (they are often afraid of them at first). They also learn about possible future jobs in Africa’s animal reserves.

The students arrive shy and reluctant to speak and usually leave with more self-confidence and a greater ability to express themselves. Still, when we visited the daycare centers and schools that they came from, we saw the uphill battles they face. Schools with hundreds of students and only a handful of teachers; many classrooms with no teachers at all. When they finish school, many encounter either unemployment or jobs that are mostly low income. Racism and poverty have not disappeared with the end of apartheid.* In spite of the odds stacked against them, however, the students we met wanted to make a difference in their communities.

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

We heard various stories about the animals in the reserves. Some of the staff at Moholoholo and Daktari told us that the two-year drought is drying up both food and water, and animals are dying. That there are far too many of some animals in the reserves (because they are prevented from migrating), and culling operations often kill off the “excess.” Still, many are starving, and some are driven to break through fences to get to food and water, where they are killed by farmers protecting their crops.** A tragic situation. Meanwhile, the rangers at Kruger National Park, one of Africa’s largest animal reserves (7,523 sq. mi.), told us that drought is normal, part of Africa’s savanna climate cycle, and that culling is infrequently necessary. Of course, this is the softer picture presented to tourists, so that they will continue to come to Africa.

So we as visitors who wanted to help, but also tourists in spite of ourselves, did what we could while we were there–offered our love and support to the children and animals and the people we met. A small gesture within a huge continent facing huge conflicts and challenges, within an even bigger world that often sees this unique land only in terms of the money that can be made by exploiting it and the people who live there. We who visit can only know a part of the larger picture, but even so, we can speak about what we have experienced—about the extraordinary beauty of the land, the animals, and the people, and about how precious they are in the greater landscape we all inhabit. Until we can see every part of this world as part of us, we cannot live in oneness. It begins with seeing other people as like ourselves, by seeing every living creature as a sentient being, and by honoring the Earth as sacred ground. To live with good heart upon this planet, wherever we are and whomever we meet. From the African word ubuntu: compassion, humanity, kindness for all. In so many ways, visible and invisible, we are all connected.

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*Just as racism and poverty have not disappeared in the United States in spite of the civil rights laws passed in the 1960s

**Just as wolves are killed by ranchers in the western United States when they leave the protection of national parks

 

Interview with Panache Desai

PanacheSpiritofChangeThis summer I interviewed Panache Desai for Spirit of Change magazine, and the interview, “We’re All Family Here,” is currently in the fall issue. Visit their website to read this moving and inspiring conversation with Panache, as he talks about his work as a vibrational catalyst, facing crisis in life, and the planetary changes we’re all experiencing now: http://www.spiritofchange.org/Fall-2016/Were-All-Family-Here/.  If you live in New England, the print version of Spirit of Change can be picked up locally at bookstores, health food stores, and various other sites.

Amma’s Hug

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
For years I’ve wanted to see Amma, the “hugging saint,” considered to be an embodiment of the Divine Mother. Her appearances in the Boston area, however, have conflicted with Panache Desai’s summer programs at Omega Institute, so I’ve always chosen to go there instead. Ironically, it was Panache who recently provided me with the opportunity to see Amma in person. So often, life’s completely unanticipated events are filled with more magic than anything we could have planned. Therein lies a tale….

In early July, I flew to Washington DC for an Initiation weekend with Panache, which included a vibrational activation connecting participants to their essential divine self and life purpose. Those of us in attendance found ourselves immersed in profound divine connection and soul awareness, an experience that seems to expand exponentially at every one of his events. Within the larger group of 70, there were about 18 of us who have been taking part in an ongoing accelerated program (OAP) with him. On Saturday evening, after the Initiation finished for the day, Panache asked our OAP group if we would like to see Amma, whose weekend events were taking place not far from ours. And the adventure began.

Arriving in several cars, we gathered outside the main hall where the Atma Puja ceremony for world peace was soon to begin. Mind you, people arrive hours early for Amma’s events in order to get a seat and also to stand in line to receive a token that will allow them to stand in line again to receive a hug and blessing (darshan) from her. The hall was already filled to capacity, and we were redirected to the overflow hall, where the main-hall events could be seen on a large screen. We sat in one long row holding hands as the ceremony began. In both halls, hundreds of voices chanting in Sanskrit filled the air. I felt as if I were hearing all of India, all of humanity, calling for peace in those ancient sacred sounds that reverberated in my heart. Afterward, small cups of water blessed by Amma were passed out to everyone, and she herself spoke to the gathering, with a translator. More chanting, and then the ceremony ended, lasting about an hour and a half.

At this point we were going to leave. Panache, however, had something else in mind. He led us to the front entrance to the main hall, closest to the stage. We saw him consulting with several different Amma volunteers. Apparently, the protocol is that spiritual teachers who come to see other teachers are welcomed as honored guests, as are those with them. It seemed that we were going to be given tokens so that we could join the front of the line to receive darshan. We took off our shoes in preparation. Not so fast. One of the volunteers (who evidently did not know of this protocol) said that we were not allowed to be there and should leave. After much discussion, Panache told us that we were going to leave. Shoes back on, leaving. But wait. One of Amma’s assistants came up to Panache and told him not to leave, that everything could be arranged, that we just had to wait a half hour or so.

Over the next 2–3 hours of uncertain waiting, every time we decided to leave, this sweet assistant appeared and asked Panache to please stay, that all would be arranged. As a group, we surrendered the outcome again and again—yes, no, yes, no, yes…. Finally, five us were sent with tokens to join the line. Excitement! More than five would be too many, so the rest of us were just happy to hug the other five as they came back from being hugged by Amma. Okay, time to leave. Wait, no, the assistant appeared again: “Please stay, I think I can get more tokens for you.” We stayed. More time. Maybe we should leave. Then magically, the assistant brought back enough tokens for everyone who wanted to receive darshan. Not only that but they were “fast-track” tokens with tiny red circles on them.

I was among the last group of four to go. Within minutes, I went from no to yes to then following a volunteer around the back of the small stage where Amma sat, surrounded by helpers, and immediately up onto the stage to within a few yards of her. At this point, I entered a slightly dazed state, in which I stepped forward and did everything I was directed to do by the helpers: take off glasses, kneel, move forward inch by inch. Panache was ahead of me, so I was able to see him being hugged by Amma and the expression on his face afterward: sort of, well, dazed. Then I was immediately in front of Amma, and she drew me to her in a hug and said something that sounded like “my daughter, my daughter” in my ear. Her beautiful smiling gaze rested briefly on my face afterward, and light shone from her being. She radiated light, like the sun. I turned and slowly made my way back to the others on the opposite side of the hall, a rose petal gift in my hand.

The energy of the entire evening was so powerful that it raised us to a higher vibration—we could feel it. I can’t even say how much was Amma, how much Panache (who also embodies loving divine presence), how much the Atma Puja, and how much our group, which was so cohesive, so completely joined in oneness. The gestalt of it all taken together was mind-boggling. I learned something about destiny and synchronicity that night. We kept being shown over and over that we were meant to be there, having the experience that we were having. We surrendered, together, and were carried by that surrender. Right through the whole incredible weekend and back into our lives, changed.

As I look at people now, I see reflections of that radiant light-filled energy in every single face. We are the radiance we have sought so long outside our selves. Increasingly, at this amazing time of huge shifts in human awareness, we are realizing that we too carry within us a light that shines from our souls and moves us to live openheartedly, with absolute love for all beings, everywhere. Like a saint, like a smiling hugging saint.

 

Freedom, Justice & Radical Love, 2016

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, was shot and killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The grand jury decided not to indict the officer. It’s a story that has repeated itself again and again, with variations, in the two years since then, and indeed throughout this nation’s history. The daily lives of people of color continue to be defined by racism, violence, and injustice, and the dream of an equal, just society has not been realized. When will black lives matter enough that the killing stops? In the past week, the violence has been escalating: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Then five police officers shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Guns everywhere that divide us even more. Anger, fear, hatred, grief. How do we bridge this huge chasm that separates us from one another?

Yes, we have evolved and grown in many ways, but the tipping point that would shift momentum toward completely ending separation and “otherness” has yet to be reached. It gets down to the fact that people carry silent preconceptions about other people based on race, sex, age, and gender all the time, even if they don’t believe they do. Racism and all the other “isms” have permeated our collective unconscious mindset and inform how people see and act in the world. What we need is a radical awakening and heart opening into conscious awareness that at the level of our souls, there is no difference between any of us. We are one. Our hearts and souls need to supersede the collective mindset.

How does this happen? Can it happen? If ever there was a time in which it could occur, it is now, when global change and transformation are rocking our planet. It’s up to us to remember the dream of freedom and justice for all and live it. To speak up, reach out, and fill our lives with radical love for all people everywhere. The truth is that there is no “other.” We are one consciousness living the illusion that we are separate. Our minds tell us we are individuals, alone, pitted against everyone else for survival. Our hearts and souls see only oneness, only Being that takes a multiplicity of physical forms.

The “costumes” we wear in our lifetimes are temporary. Beneath our transient skin color, gender, and physicality is an unbroken stream of consciousness that fills all living creatures equally. Whether you call it Spirit, Source, God, or Infinite Intelligence, something beyond physical form ties us all together on this Earth. It is this living spirit within that moves us to march in the streets for human rights and to join together in compassion and caring. When our hearts are fully open, it becomes impossible to see another human being as separate from us. The world becomes a mirror, and we see our soul’s reflection in everyone we encounter.

It is way beyond time to put down all weapons and at last be grateful for the miraculous gift of sharing this world with so many other extraordinarily diverse yet infinitely similar human reflections. Let’s end all Fergusons and Dallases by making “love your neighbor as yourself” a reality in our lives. Love everyone, even those you think you disagree with. Sound impossible? Think you can’t do anything to change the status quo? Don’t think, just love, radically, one person at a time. True lasting freedom and justice arises from the love that connects every human heart.