Category: Global change

Ascension for Everybody

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger

What is ascension anyway? The word historically has had either a religious or an astronomical context: the ascent of a human body to heaven after death or the position of a celestial object in the skies. Another definition refers to spiritual masters who spontaneously dematerialize from this plane to another, higher one. Today, however, there is an expanded meaning used by those who believe our planet is undergoing an evolving shift of consciousness. In 2013, ascension is about becoming conscious spirit within our living human bodies on Earth—in essence, “ascending “ into our soul selves and bringing Heaven and Earth into alignment in the process. Not just for masters or dead people, this ascension is for everyone.

The level of spiritual awareness and wisdom attained by the average person is growing exponentially in the new millennium. So many have a sense of something greater touching their lives, even those who don’t consciously subscribe to a particular religion or new age philosophy. God, or the Divine, is no longer a concept associated only with special days or events that take place within a church, synagogue, or temple. Spirit is everywhere, at all times, and humans have given it many names. Some call it Source energy or an intangible Intelligence that permeates all things. Others consider Mother Nature to be the most sacred spirit of all. And many believe that language concretizes something that is beyond physical description, a connection that can only be found in the stillness of one’s own heart.

However expressed, more and more people do seem to be experiencing some kind of greater Presence. It is this awareness that, once fully felt, connects each of us to our individual spirit, or soul. In discovering the Divine within and opening to that powerful flow of energy, light, and unconditional love, we “ascend” into our unique soul-ness here on Earth. We begin to live as our authentic selves—not the ones society told us we should be, but the ones we came to this planet to embody, full of endless possibilities. Body, mind, feelings, and spirit become a cohesive whole, and we learn to love ourselves, as well as others, at a deeper level. Our authentic soul selves live in harmony, peace, and oneness, not separation, conflict, or hatred. Ultimately, that is Heaven on Earth. That is ascension.

 

Sacred Circle of Love

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

Are our ideas about love evolving right along with us? Yes, I believe they are. Today, in our seemingly chaotic world, beneath the surface of visible turmoil and divisiveness, there exists a gradual, almost imperceptible shift in the way we think about love. We are seeing an expansion from clannish familial love and romantic love based on physical appearance/attraction to a more inclusive universal love that encompasses all beings. In the past, this universal love has often been linked to the Divine love associated with a God or Goddess. In various spiritual or religious traditions, the Divine Mother is the primary image of unconditional, compassionate love. Historically, it has been difficult for ego-bound humans to express this kind of selfless loving. But all that is changing.

Now, during this time of accelerating evolution in human consciousness, we are opening our hearts to that infinite love without conditions or parameters. As we step into embodying the archetypal mother’s love for her child, we experience and radiate that love to all whom we meet on our life’s journey. The Divine within each of us mirrors the Divine in others: I love, you love, we love—the sacred circle of unconditional love. This is the love that is at the core of our being and at the center of the cosmos. In truth, both our universe and we were born in love. And we are finally awakening to that universal Divine love that permeates all things.

This February, the month in which people celebrate Valentine’s Day and romance, let us also recognize a love greater than cards or candy or our individual lives. A love that, if we let it, could redefine the way we live on this planet and make every day one filled with profound human connection and global harmony. Let us celebrate Love in the capitalized sense. Let us love the way Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. loved all peoples of the Earth. Let us love one another, and ourselves, with the delight and wonder a new parent feels when they look at their child. Let us, at long last, love from the depth of our souls, beyond limits and beyond words.

 

2013: Reboot to Resilience

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
The year 2012 is behind us. The world didn’t end. But it did shift in major ways for people all over the world, and those shifts continue. Many of the changes involved extreme challenges and emotional/physical upheaval, but the promise of the Great Shift was never instant utopia. It was transformation: the caterpillar gradually morphing and expanding within the cocoon until it breaks free, emerging as a full-fledged butterfly. During this transitional time of expansion and growth, our greatest strength is our resilience, our ability to stretch ourselves beyond limitation or growth pains and emerge triumphant. And 2013 is all about resilience, fueled by the power of our individual and collective evolution.

In 2012, my heart opened more and more—with love, with joy—until there were times when I felt as if it couldn’t possibly open any wider. In the process, however, I found that I also had to face the presence of pain that I had carried within me for a very long time. My heart was aching with the suffering I saw everywhere in the world, and my body itself struggled with pain in the form of headaches. Unconsciously, I felt a resistance to becoming fully resilient and healed because I believed that would separate me from other people. As I moved to a place of acceptance of the full spectrum of human experience on Earth at this time (pain included), my entire consciousness shifted. Pain/suffering is one part of a greater whole, and as we continue to evolve, that part begins to diminish in the face of human compassion and love, which brings all of us closer and closer together in the global experience of oneness.

What is more, as I/we expand and become more resilient (peaceful, joyful, loving), that energy goes out into the collective matrix and helps to shift everything/everybody. This is the power of interconnections and of the reverberations of light resilient energy. It is the butterfly that moves its wings in China and affects the wind on the other side of the planet. It is the human heart that opens so wide as to embrace every experience and every living being with unconditional love. It is the power of fully awakened spirit in human form.

Transformation 2012

IMG_0696
Photographs © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
“And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky,
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation.”—Joni Mitchell

The dream of a more peaceful, compassionate, and loving world has been with us from time out of mind, but perhaps never more powerfully imprinted on global consciousness than during this year, 2012. Maya elders and other indigenous peoples, as well as visionaries from all cultures, have spoken of the beginning of a new cycle of light and possibility. As 2012 draws to a close, and human beings on Planet Earth begin to realize the extent of the monumental changes before us, the way we view everything will shift. To me, the key word for this time, and for the coming years, is transformation.

As I look back on the year, I see countless moments of transformation, both in my own life and in the lives of others, even in the face of great challenges. My/our consciousness is cracking wide open, and the light is pouring in. What is particularly amazing to me is that I also saw these moments reflected in the natural world around me, specifically in the appearance of butterflies. Butterflies are often viewed as one of the most powerful symbols of metamorphosis and transformation: metamorphosis—the caterpillar breaking through the chrysalis to become a radiant, colorful being of light; transformation—humans breaking through the density of form to emerge into the light of higher consciousness. In 2012, butterflies came flying into my life in unexpected numbers and varieties.

IMG_0209In May, I participated in an online live video and interactive chat session with Panache Desai and hundreds of people globally. Positive messages of love and hope popped up from all over the planet—human voices merging in the manifested dream of a world “living as one.” My heart filled with joy as I felt the transformative energy radiating outwards. The next day, when I walked out my front door, a cloud of Red Admiral butterflies filled the air, landing on flowering bushes and on my arms and legs as well. Everywhere I looked were butterflies, and this continued for several days, unlike anything I had ever witnessed here in Massachusetts. I could not help but make a connection between the human event I had just taken part in and the highly unusual butterfly explosion. Both were sheer magic, each reflecting the other.

IMG_0639The magic continued in July after I attended  Panache’s “Awakening Your Authentic Soul Signature” at Omega in Rhinebeck, New York. Our entire group experienced personal breakthroughs and collective shifts during the week, and I truly felt as if my soul self had emerged in new, more expansive ways.* Upon my return home, American Beauty butterflies began to show up in increasingly large numbers in my back yard. Each day, the energy of the dancing butterflies was infectious. As they fluttered and zoomed around the yard, my spirit was flying right along with them!

The third butterfly event occurred in September after I attended a gathering with Maya elders in western Massachusetts, which included a powerful traditional Maya fire ceremony. The elders’ teachings combined with the fire ceremony made for an inspiring and uplifting four days. Once again, after I returned home, a large group of butterflies appeared in my back yard. This time it was orange-and-black monarchs, floating majestically through the air and landing on the purple flowers of the butterfly bush. As they danced all around and above me, their magnificence was beyond awe-inspiring. Tears rolled down my cheeks at the beauty. Was this yet another reflection? No doubt in my heart or mind.

So is 2012 the beginning of something as miraculous and beautiful as butterflies dancing on the wind? Are we co-creating a new Planet Earth when we come together in love and the openhearted desire to live in oneness and light? The challenges of being human have kept us trapped in suffering and sorrow for millennia—can we break free? The butterflies show us the transformative possibilities; they reflect the beauty of our infinitely expanding souls back to us. If we allow our hearts to fly with them, anything we envision becomes possible. May we step into 2013 trusting in the power of our own transformation.

*See previous blog posts “Birth Day” and “Rainbow Child.”

God Is in the Goosebumps

Photograph © 2011 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2011 Peggy Kornegger

These are powerful times. The veil between the physical and nonphysical realms is thinning, and we are becoming more and more aware of something greater that permeates and expands our experience here on Earth. Yesterday was the harmonic gateway 12.12.12, synchronistically occurring on the same day as the Maya New Year, 8 Batz, in the Cholqij calendar. Next week, the long-anticipated date December 21, 2012, will finally become present, then past. No single day is the point of complete awakening or ultimate transformation, however. Everything is part of a continuously expansive becoming that humanity is experiencing at this time.

For me, the moments of clarity and opening have been increasing exponentially over the past few months. In October, I attended a 4-day gathering with Panache Desai at Kripalu Yoga Center in western Massachusetts. I’ve taken part in gatherings and webcasts with Panache for over a year now, and with each experience, I find that my heart opens wider and wider. At this particular event, as part of a meditation journey, I asked for a tangible physical sign of the presence of Spirit in my day-to-day life—and not just any sign—one that would “blow me away” with its power and “unmistakability.” Well, I got my wish. As the weekend progressed, I found that chills covered my body at every synchronicity or deep connection with another person or with the group as a whole. God was not only “in the details” (as the saying goes); he/she was very much in the goosebumps!

In the weeks after Kripalu, the chills increased in frequency until, during a 12.12.12 Global Gathering in Florida this past weekend, they became practically nonstop. Beautiful experiences in nature, deeply touching music, inspiring passages in books, and loving conversations with friends all brought up the now-familiar gooseflesh, and often tears as well. As I took daily long walks in my neighborhood, my heart would open and my eyes would fill at the beauty everywhere: a towering evergreen silhouetted against the sky at dusk; a Japanese maple surrounded by a scarlet carpet of autumn leaves; the vast expanse of endless blue sky streaked by white/pink clouds at sunset. At the Florida gathering, the collective energy of the 405 people present was so powerful that it shifted every cell in my body to a more intense loving vibration.

What I discovered was that I was actually living the wise advice that I had read somewhere once: Live every moment as if it is your first, or last, on Earth, as if you have never seen this world before, or will never see it again. Every second became filled with such poignancy and such heart-breaking magnificence that my body, and my soul, could only respond with tears and goosebumps. And gratitude, infinite gratitude. To be alive at this time and to experience the magic of the world as it transitions into a greater expression of itself, and we all become greater expressions of ourselves, is the most amazing miracle I can imagine.

A number of years ago, comedian Lily Tomlin starred in a one-woman show on Broadway called The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (written by Jane Wagner). One of the play’s many characters, Trudy, the wise/crazy bag lady, talked about her “space chums” who visited her and were in awe of the “goose bump experience” here on Earth. They would take that back with them to outer space