Category: Nature

Birdsong: Don’t Let the Music Die…

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
In 1962, Rachel Carson called it the “silent spring,” the time when pesticides would destroy birds and other wildlife and leave humanity existing in a half-life of stunned silence. Her work was the impetus for the environmental movement and has influenced millions of people worldwide. Yet today, more than 50 years later, pesticides are still very much in use, and we are facing the slow, agonizing fulfillment of her prophecy. In September, the journal Science published the results of a comprehensive study of North American bird populations. The results: Since 1970, there are nearly 3 billion fewer birds singing their spring songs, a staggering 29% gone from the Earth. Bird experts and conservationists are calling it “a full-blown crisis” and “the loss of nature.”*

The day I read these figures, I wept. I could feel my heart breaking. The losses are so huge. Beloved warblers in all their colorful variety: 617 million gone. Two of my all-time favorite birds: Baltimore orioles, 2 in 5 gone; wood thrushes, 6 in 10 gone. It is hard to fathom. Almost unbelievable. The birds that I eagerly anticipated seeing and hearing each spring are vanishing and may one day be gone forever. What would spring be without birds? Without the robin’s cheery song and the redwing blackbird’s flashing colors and ringing call? Dead air, everywhere.

Everyone who knows me knows I am an ardent lover of birds. I grew up in rural Illinois surrounded by countless birds nesting in our yard and visiting our feeders. Birdsong was an integral part of life, like the rising and setting of the sun. As an adult, I became a more focused birdwatcher. For more than 35 years, I was blessed to live near Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the spring bird migrations are well-known, even beyond New England. Birders there are often blessed with more than 100 species passing through. I visited Mt. Auburn at all times of the year and knew it as intimately as I knew the 5 acres where I grew up. Almost every tree and bush held a memory of a bird sighting or song. The brilliant red of scarlet tanagers and the startling orange and black of orioles. The husky song of the rose-breasted grosbeak and the ethereal trill of the wood thrush.

The wood thrush—a bird that touches my heart in the deepest possible way. Each spring I waited to hear it, not just see it. Standing quietly in the early morning silence in the Dell at Mt. Auburn, listening—and suddenly I would hear it, a piping flute-like call that gently echoed among the trees. Tears always fill my eyes at the sound of the wood thrush, a miracle of sweet music offered to the world, for free. Virtuoso performances daily by all the spring migrants. Each bird’s song unique and irreplaceable. Each one a miracle upon the Earth. A friend of mine refers to the “unreasoning cheerfulness” she feels when she sees or hears birds.

And this beauty is what humans are destroying so carelessly. Correction: big business and agribusiness are destroying it, with ruthless intentionality. Mega-corporations like Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) have spent decades laying to waste wildlife and human life throughout the world, making their products ever more lethal, from Agent Orange to Roundup. Not only birds, but butterflies, bees, and other insects essential to our ecosystems are dying in huge numbers because of herbicides and pesticides sold by these companies. Thousands of lawsuits have been brought against Monsanto by individuals who have gotten cancer from using Roundup, and at last the courts are beginning to decide in their favor.

The question is: Will it stop Monsanto and the other businesses? And if it does, will it be in time? The birds cannot bring lawsuits. They can only continue to do what they have done so beautifully since the beginning of life on Earth: sing. The planetary songlines they have created vibrate the world into being. We are the blessed recipients of their musical gifts. The very least we can do is reciprocate with gratitude and love by speaking out and taking action to save their lives: by not using poisons on our lawns and gardens, by always buying organic, and by donating to and joining advocacy groups for birds and other wildlife: https://abcbirds.org/; https://www.audubon.org/. My greatest hope is that the number of birds rebounds and that we are able to hear their songs for years and years to come.
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*Other factors, such as habitat loss, air and water pollution, collisions with power lines and glass skyscrapers, also contribute to the overall losses. On a more hopeful note, a growing number of cities have passed ordinances to use bird-safe glass and lighting practices and designs. And activist groups like CELDF (https://celdf.org/) are working at community and state levels across the U.S. to protect the “rights of nature.”

Dancing Butterflies, Ghost Orchids, Wild Skies: The Florida Dimension

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

Like a quartz crystal sparkling in the sun, Florida has many facets. Last year, in late June 2018, my partner Anne and I moved here from Boston. As we drove south along the eastern seaboard, we felt ourselves dropping past identities and memories along the way. By the time we reached Florida, we were living lighter, not anticipating or looking back, but just being, living fully in the present moment. It was a heightened state of awareness, and it carried us seamlessly to the edge of new beginnings and unexpected experiences in an entirely different place.

Driving across the state line, we had the strong feeling we were crossing into another dimension. A sense of elevated energy that manifested visually: a radiant translucence lit up the sky and the huge white cumulus clouds. The trees, bushes, and flowers were especially vivid in color. The very air vibrated with life force energy. These perceptions continued and actually expanded as Anne and I explored our new home, where everything seemed so unfamiliar.

Corkscrew Swamp, an Audubon sanctuary, is a natural entry point to an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Surrounded by slash pines, lettuce lakes (named for the plants on the water’s surface), and towering bald cypress trees hundreds of years old, I often feel as if I’m walking in a mystical timeless dimension. Alligators, whose ancestors survived the dinosaur era, rest like logs not far from the boardwalk, their eyes barely visible above the water. Ethereal, extremely rare ghost orchids hang suspended from a cypress trunk 60 feet above my head. A white ibis with its long curved bill lands nearby, and I am reminded of ancient Egypt and the god Thoth. When a large yellow-crowned night heron flies past me, I stand motionless, silent, transported. They are like living prayers, these unusual water birds, who by their very presence evoke spiritual connection.

Then there are the butterflies! Like flying rainbows, they never seem to land or rest here in Florida. They are always dancing with the light, dancing with the flowers, dancing with each other. The zebra longwing is a flying perceptual illusion. Its black-and-white stripes flash so quickly that the eye can’t keep up with the flickering patterns, and the mind begins to shift interdimensionally. The orange-and-black wings of the gulf fritillary and queen butterflies flutter continuously, and they seem to magically appear and then disappear into thin air. Bright yellow sulfur butterflies twirl and spin around each other like free-spirited improv artists. Florida’s beautiful butterflies make us believe that we too can dance and express our unique selves just as joyfully and spontaneously in our lives.

If I look up at the sky at any given moment during the day, I audibly gasp at the magnificence of the cloud formations and the play of light. It is a continuously changing, thoroughly engaging drama, based on daily weather patterns. During the summer months, the clouds build in size in the morning, and gradually, darker clouds move in from the Everglades. Eventually, torrential rain, thunder, and lightning take center stage in the afternoon. It is often impossible to do anything but stand and watch the show (in a safe dry place) because of the power of the storms. The lightning is incredible—it fills the sky with constant flashing and jagged electric bolts, both vertical and horizontal. In hurricane season, the weather and skies can become even more wild and unpredictable. Powerful energy vortexes swirl and swell, beyond all human control. This too can seem other-dimensional, like life on another planet.

There is untamed potential in the air here in Florida, something indescribable and other-worldly, in spite of aspects that seem old paradigm. Maybe it’s some residue of ancient Atlantean energy, just beneath the surface, which has been waiting for this time of collective awakening in order to reemerge. Atlantis, with its crystal pyramids and Law of One, is believed by some (including Edgar Cayce) to have existed in this part of the world, and there are times when I can feel its presence and see the pyramids sparkling in my mind’s eye. Is the “other dimension” I am experiencing here really the rise of Atlantis once more? It remains a mystery.

Whether or not it is connected to a specific name out of prehistory, a powerful energy of light and oneness does exist now on the planet. I feel it strongly in Florida but have felt it elsewhere too. It transcends place and time. In remembering it, in opening our psyches and our hearts to loving possibilities, we can embody that presence more profoundly than ever before, wherever we live. If we look closely, a true dimensional shift at the deepest level is taking place. We are becoming dancing spirit rainbows, each and every one of us, freely expressing and celebrating life on this Earth.

You Can’t GPS God

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
If you held a compass in your hand with the intention of locating God, you would see the needle spin in all directions. The GPS in your car could not come up with an exact position for God in its system either. That’s because (of course) God is everywhere at the same time. Its physical form in this dimension is us, our human bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, trees, birds, insects, fish, seashells, stones, etc.

From the nonphysical perspective, God is an experience not a visible object. On Earth, the experience of God is love. And love has no form, no language, no location. If you deepen your awareness of divine connection, you come to realize that you are always held in a love beyond any words to describe it. Peace fills your being and Presence fills your consciousness. I have been there. It’s a place to which I am always longing to return. But there is no compass or GPS to guide you to God. Only in the process of living and letting go do you suddenly turn up in that spaceless space that defies description.

Surrender, the message always reappears. As long as you hold on and try to make something happen and try with all your might to understand, you will spin in circles, like a malfunctioning compass. Control is an illusion that catches us all in its tangled web as we live our lives. Only when we open our hands and hearts completely, does the web disappear as if by magic. You and I have always been free. Our souls have always known the way back to God. The truth is that the soul is God, a living reminder from whence we came. So when we remember to align with it, we are already home.

Each morning, as soon as I get up, I take a 2-mile walk on a nearby nature trail. Some mornings I am immediately aware of God’s presence. A mockingbird singing its delightful medley of birdsongs. A snowy egret fishing along the edge of the lake. Red hibiscus flowers blooming. Love fills my heart. Other mornings, I am not fully awake—literally. I begin walking, only half-aware. Suddenly, beams of light radiate from the rising sun across my path. I am washed in a sea of golden light, and all my senses are wide-awake and smiling (if senses can smile, then mine definitely are!). I stop and stand in the sunlight, eyes closed, and the stillness at my core fills me. I am completely at peace, one with my soul.

Divine immersion. It can come upon you at any time. It can fill you for a moment, for an hour, for days, or for a lifetime. The secret, of course, is that it is always there, within you. When you surrender to the experience right in front of you, your awareness expands to include your soul’s presence. Sunlight or birdsong can open the door to this expansion. Consciously breathing and focusing on the peace that lives within you also opens the door. I find that if I pause, take a deep breath, and center myself in the inner stillness, everything around me becomes part of it. Even sound itself is one with that stillness. And therein is the experience of God, or the Divine. No “global position,” no form—just being itself.

 

Returning Home

Photgraph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

What does “home” mean to you? A place? A group of people? A memory? Or is it a feeling deep inside that touches your heart and soul? All of these perhaps. Our own life experiences define what home means to each of us. I grew up in Illinois, later lived in California, and then settled in Massachusetts for more than 30 years. Massachusetts is where I met my life partner, Anne, and where we were married. I’ve always loved both coasts, but I didn’t realize how much the Northeast had become home for me until I moved away and then returned for a visit.

A year ago, in June, Anne and I moved to Florida, leaving behind many years of memories and starting anew in a different part of the country. This June, one year later, I traveled north for a five-day retreat at Omega in Rhinebeck, New York. I was totally unprepared for the emotions that welled up in me as I flew into JFK and then took a series of trains to Rhinebeck in rural New York.

The Amtrak train route follows the Hudson River. On one side is the wide expanse of the river, and on the other, rolling hills and open fields. It was the latter than grabbed my heart: the GREEN! Avalanches of vibrant early summer green everywhere I looked—green trees, bushes, grasses. Mother Earth bursting with renewed life. Green filled my eyes and my heart. Tears streamed down my face. It was all so profoundly beautiful and so familiar. It was “home” to me at a very deep level. Florida has its own stunning tropical beauty, but here was a beauty that had been part of my life since childhood: the change of seasons and the return of green after a long winter. And for me it was the return of summer green after being away from it for a year.

I was in absolute awe at how stunning and vibrant the colors were, both on the train route and then at Omega itself. The sun highlighted all the varying shades of green, and the play of color and light was breathtaking. I wrote to Anne: “How did we live here and not fall on our knees in gratitude every day at the miracle of these incredible greens each spring and summer?!” It’s not that we didn’t appreciate the beauty of the landscape then, but something about returning after months of absence made it all explode with radiance within my perception.

And the birds! I love birds, and the spring migration in Massachusetts was a highlight of the year for me. This past May I missed it tremendously. My bird friends were passing through on their northern route without me! The warblers and thrushes, the orioles and tanagers. Of all the birds, though, I think I missed the robins most. Their cheerful lilting songs fill the spring and summer air in the Northeast and Midwest. Although there are amazing and unique birds in Florida, particularly water birds, I missed the robins that I saw every day at my backyard birdbath in Massachusetts. So, when I arrived at Omega and heard robins singing everywhere, I was brought to tears once more.

These are the irreplaceable details that make up a feeling of home—at least for me. My heart opened wide in joy and gratitude. I felt like “myself” again in some indescribable way: cells of memory that live in the heart and never disappear. You can have many homes in a lifetime, but one or two may hold particular emotional meaning. For me, the green Earth is always home because it touches the deepest part of my being.

I had no idea I would react so strongly when I returned to the Northeast. It was a gift of unbroken connection with all of life. As I stood looking out at the hilly green Omega landscape, I was reminded of each morning when I walked out the door to my Massachusetts garden and smiled with love and appreciation for the living green beauty before me.

 

Surrender the Outcome—Back by Popular Demand

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

Over the last month or so, I’ve noticed that many different people from many different countries have visited my website to read my 2016 article “Surrender the Outcome.” Day after day, that title keeps popping up in the statistics, from Argentina to Morocco to India. I know it’s a key issue for people in their lives no matter where they live, but I also thought there must be more to it. From the perspective of divine guidance, how much clearer could a message be than the repetition of the words “surrender the outcome” every time I go to my website? The truth is that even though I carry that wisdom within me (and have written about it repeatedly), I often need a reminder when things get challenging in my life. The message to surrender comes when I need it most.

Why can’t I/we always remember to surrender to the life force within, to the hand of God that orchestrates the cosmos? To let go with each breath? Well, forgetting is the human condition. We live our lives in order to remember all that we forgot when we were born. Funny, that. Kind of a nuisance really. Yet the journey that remembering takes us on is one unlike any other—and one I wouldn’t pass up for full recall after birth. I didn’t always feel that way, but after many years on the spiritual path, I’m realizing that we couldn’t reach the greater levels of wisdom, insight, and connection without that veil that curtains off pre-birth awareness.

God, you see, is living my life through me, as me, as all of us. In that unique scenario is God’s opportunity to experience the physical manifest world in all its extremes and polarities, its perspective of separation. Each individual physical form on Earth is a piece of God, slowly recalling its Godness. Each human life is a different experience, a different opportunity to remember the love from which we all came. If we knew the end of the story before we began, how could we experience the adventure, the highs and lows, the gradual awakening to who we really are? God in human form forgets….and then remembers through connecting with the soul. That is the miracle, the flow of the universe in which the many “separate” pieces recognize they are part of the same whole.

My life in the past year has been an odd mix of absolute clarity and absolute confusion. Enlightenment and dark night of the soul experienced almost simultaneously. What’s that about? I’ve asked myself, with increasing impatience. I made a huge leap of faith and landed somewhere that feels like another dimension (Florida), where I see both the heavenly and the disheartening. The fact is I still don’t fully know why I’m here, and everything keeps falling away all around me. I sometimes feel lost, disconnected—except when I am in Nature. There I find divine connection, every time. The shining face of God in every plant, flower, tree, butterfly, and bird. And within my own heart.

Perhaps that’s why I’m here: to experience that, to write about that. To find my way Home through all the puzzling dichotomies. Oh yes, and to “surrender the outcome.” One more time, deeper than ever before. To wake up each morning, and say “I don’t know.” To allow the Great Mystery to open up infinite possibilities all around me. Maybe that’s the sum total of life, right there. When we let go of everything and just say Yes to whatever shows up, we are no longer separate from anything, including God.