Category: Soul journey

The Universal Heart

Photograph © 2019 by Peggy Kornegger
The heart of the universe extends outward energetically through every dimension of Being in the cosmos. That heartbeat is the vibrational source of the manifest world. Every star, every birdsong, every blade of grass, every human emotion vibrates with a universal pulse of life energy, the expression of absolute love many call God. Our own human heartbeat mirrors this divine process. With every rhythmic beat, our hearts pulse the love at our core into the world around us. That pulse connects human hearts around the globe, whether we recognize it or not. The time has come to recognize it.

Each goosebump, teardrop, deep breath, note of music, cat’s purr, and firefly’s light embodies God’s essence. You couldn’t escape that immanent presence even if you tried. You can, however, live your life unconscious of it. Our life purpose, we humans on planet Earth at this transformational time, is to become fully aware of the sacred source energy within us and all around us. To know with every part of us that there is nothing and no one that is not God. This deeply spiritual (and deeply human) process encompasses every facet of life.

Huge leaps in consciousness are being asked of us. This is a time unlike any other that has come before. We are starseeds standing at the edge of the cosmos reaching into infinity. We are lifting curtains and clearing out past histories so that we can fully and consciously embody spirit in our human forms, something that has historically been achieved only by enlightened spiritual masters. Now we are all becoming masters and avatars and recognizing one another as such. The deeper we look into each other’s eyes, the more we see the entire cosmos reflected back to us in all its shining splendor.

So what does this mean in our frequently distracted daily lives? It means that we will increasingly have experiences of seeing whomever we are interacting with as an essential part of the human family, not unlike ourselves. In shared moments of great sorrow or great joy, we recognize our commonality. We see the gossamer thread of spirit that connects us at the soul level and the love that joins our hearts. In those moments, separation, division, and judgment fall away, and we relax into peaceful presence. Thus is peace on Earth initiated, one individual soul at a time. When we softly breathe into our similarities instead of tightly hanging onto our differences, the entire planet shifts. God recognizing God.

The universal heartbeat animates life on Earth and throughout the cosmos. That living pulse permeates every aspect of our lives. Our cells are made of the same stuff as the stars we gaze at in the night skies. The light of the sun is the light in our own eyes. We are all connected, in every possible way, because the entire universe is of a piece: a divine creation that allows spirit, or God, to experience itself in form. We are that form. As Joni Mitchell once wrote, “We are stardust, we are golden.” In moments of inspired connection, we can see this with such clarity that our awareness expands to include the farthest stretches of the universe, and we know it as ourselves. We see the One that became Many which is now recognizing itself as One. What a miraculous time to be alive.

 

God Is a Blue Heron

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
Every day I walk two miles on a nature trail near where I live. I have come to call it my “walk with God” because in nature I often feel that deep connection with all I see. One recent afternoon, before leaving on my walk, I stepped out onto the lanai just in time to see a great blue heron standing stationary at the water’s edge right in front of me. Its body was stretched tall, its legs long, its eyes alertly focused on something nearby. Its presence was so striking that to me it felt like an extraordinary being dropped in from some other celestial realm. As it walked majestically by, that impression only intensified. “God is a blue heron,” I thought.

This perception began to take other forms in my mind as I began my walk. What if I used it as a mantra, a practice in conscious awareness, as I walked? I started with the first thing I saw: “God is…a hibiscus.” Then, “God is…the sidewalk.” Next, “God is…a tree.” And “God is…the sky.” The moon rising. A mockingbird’s call. A fern. A fountain. The sound of traffic in the distance. A fiery sun setting in the west. A squirrel. A street sign. An old broken bicycle. Neighbors walking toward me. Newly tiled roofs. Every sound and every color.

Everything I looked at became God, and as I continued, my eyes focusing on one small part of the universe after another, my sense of the interconnectedness of ALL of it grew. Suddenly, there was no separation between me and what I saw and heard—anywhere, either before me or in my mind’s eye. Everything was pure divine energy and light. The feeling was like coming home—to something greater than me as well as to my self, my soul self, which doesn’t see separation, only oneness. I realized too what a grace-filled gift this particular practice was, lifting me out of a background sadness and disconnection that had been with me for weeks.

Moving from one part of the country to another had turned my world upside down, first in extraordinarily expansive ways and then in ways that felt like loss and separation. Now, as I repeated again and again all the ways that God/dess was part of my every perception, I understood that everything was unfolding perfectly in order to bring me to a deeper awareness of connection in my life. Connection to spirit was everywhere I looked; I had only to open my eyes wider to once again see it clearly.

We may think we know what we’re looking at and where we’re going in our lives. If, like me, you have been on a spiritual path for years, you may believe you see the larger picture as well as the details. Ah, but even though you and I can see more and more expansively as our lives evolve, we sometimes forget how flawlessly everything fits together in the universal plan and what appears as loss and sorrow can later become the doorway to greater awareness.

When we realize at the deepest level that everything and everyone is here for a reason, part of God’s intricate tapestry of creation, then complaining or criticizing seems like a distraction and diversion. This is our life journey. A journey back to recognizing that the blue heron as well as the broken bicycle are both God, inseparable from each other as well as from ourselves. For we too are God.

You Were Born Shining!

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
Claim your own life. Your soul knows what it wants from this lifetime. So does your heart. Your life plan is imprinted in every cell of your physical form. If you pause quietly for a moment or two, you can hear your inner wisdom speaking. It will guide you steadfastly to the destiny that awaits you.

Don’t think about it; just listen. Be silent and receive the download of God’s plan for you. You were born with it; it’s in your genes. You breathe it in and out every moment of your day. The key is to stop distracting yourself with the cacophony of other voices all around you, and pay attention to your own voice within. No one else knows you as well as you. When you align with the inner truth of your being, that truth lives through you into the world. You begin to sparkle and shine with authenticity.

Then you no longer need try to copy someone else’s lifestyle or follow the 10 quick steps to success in all those self-help books and articles. Success, in truth, is just being you. That’s why you’re here and why there is no one else exactly like you on Earth. Your soul knows this. You have a sacred responsibility to be your own true self, not a half-hearted imitation of someone else’s idea of what it means to be human.

We live in a culture that tells people they need an expert motivator or life coach to show them how to plan and live their best lives, but that just isn’t true. Times are changing. Towers and platforms are collapsing, and collaborative circles are forming in their place. Individually and together we are finding our own way to freedom of expression in the world. Within each of us is emerging wisdom that will guide us as we move out of the shadows and into the light.

Don’t unquestioningly follow anyone else’s well-intentioned advice, even that of a gifted spiritual teacher or advisor. Yes, there are individuals with great wisdom in the world, and they can remind and inspire us with their thoughts and presence. However, we don’t really need intermediaries between ourselves and our own lives, between ourselves and God. Because we are God, in human form, and we carry the wisdom of the universe within our consciousness, if we but open to it. The energy of transformation in the world is speeding up everything now, including our own evolution into highly aware, super-connected human-divine beings.

So take a deep breath and inhale the sweet fragrance of your own inner essence. You are so much more than you give yourself credit for. Every one of us is. The world around us often makes us feel smaller in our own eyes because of misguided societal ideas about how to live and ways to achieve worldly success. Many who follow this path are miserable because they are out of touch with their inner spirit. Don’t make the mistake of thinking superficial impermanent “achievements” are the real deal. To live your inner truth, your inner beauty, is the real achievement in life because that connects you to others and makes you one with the universal soul of humanity.

Look within yourself and discover your own uniqueness. Live the dream of infinite possibility that is you. No one else on Earth can do that for you. It’s why you were born. The entire universe is gently smiling on you and encouraging you to just be yourself. That is the gift that only you can give to everyone in your life and to the greater world as you pass through it with the light of inspiration shining in your eyes.

 

Life’s Essential Truth: Impermanence

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger

Recently, a dear friend told me that he is moving back to California, which he had left two years before for Florida, where we both live now. (This, only a few months after I moved here myself from Massachusetts.) A week later, I received news that a long-time friend in Boston had died of cancer. Hellos and goodbyes fill my life these days. Friends and family passing to and fro in my experience and my memory like vivid but ephemeral spirits. And I myself am moving with the flow of my own life’s journey, loving and letting go again and again.

Through the years, as I live through cycles of beginnings and endings repeatedly, I am discovering that one of the deepest truths in life is impermanence. Everything is born, and everything dies: experiences, thoughts, emotions, flowers, trees, birds, stars—each breath we take and we ourselves. Humans embody impermanence within their very existence here on Earth. We are born and we die, just like everything else we experience within our lifetimes. That can feel like both a curse and a blessing, but it is the basis of our very humanity, our evolution as individual souls.

My own experiences of joy and connection followed by sorrow and seeming loss have over time shown me that it’s all in how you perceive it. And our perceptions are always changing. What remains unchanging is change. Kind of a paradox, but it will guide you to inner peace and acceptance at the deepest level if you allow it to. At least that’s what I am finding. It is what my passage through life has given me, and I am grateful. I am learning, gradually, to let go of attachment to outcomes of any kind. That is freedom; that is how your soul experiences your life.

The idea of impermanence can at first feel frightening, but over the space of a lifetime’s experiences, it begins to feel like the key to all wisdom. Let go of expectations, attachments, plans, wishes, wants, mental machinations and emotional grasping. Let go of everything and just BE in each precious moment, free of everything that holds you to one particular outcome. Experience what is unfolding before you with an open heart and soul. This is what it’s like to live limitless possibility, to “hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour” (William Blake). Many, like Blake, who have traveled this path before us have reached this moment of illumination that takes them beyond one lifetime into the timeless expanse of being, which is soul, which is God. We are here to do the same.

As I live my life, as I grow older year by year, I find that deepening awareness and wisdom rise from my soul like mist in an open field on a summer’s morning. And I see it happening to others all around me. I feel blessed to live at an extraordinary time of collective spiritual expansion and expression, foreseen for millennia. As we come to recognize that we ourselves are God in human form, we realize that we carry divine wisdom within us. When we see the transitory experiences of life as the gifts that they are and receive and release them without attachment, we begin to love each day and everyone in our lives completely and whole-heartedly. We are no longer held back by regret or fear. We are fully present, fully alive. We are living the wisdom of impermanence.

Bridging Worlds

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
Recently, my initial excitement and the newness of moving to Florida began to ebb somewhat, and day-to-day life took on an unexpected, almost bipolar energy. I found myself ricocheting back and forth between two rather extreme reactions: joy, optimism, positivity, appreciation, gratitude, love, inspiration on the one hand and sadness, fear, heaviness, pessimism, lack of motivation on the other. This could occur within the space of one day or even one hour, seemingly unrelated to what was happening around me. At times I was thrilled with my new home and surroundings, and then at other times I felt trapped, out of place, and uncomfortable. It took me fully another month to realize that I was experiencing what it is like to bridge two worlds: old paradigm and new dimension.

For several months during and after our move, I was completely immersed in what I experienced as entering a new dimension. It was a powerful force that carried me forward with positive uplifting energy. When I suddenly began to feel doubts and sadness, holes began to appear in that view: Had I made a mistake, a wrong choice? But I absolutely knew that I hadn’t, that moving to Florida was part of my soul plan. So then what was going on?

It wasn’t until November 6, Election Day, that I was able to see more clearly. That day was heavy with strident, conflict-ridden energy. Everywhere in the U.S., but particularly in Florida. I could barely lift my head and feel any hope for the future. Then I realized that hopelessness and conflict is the energy of the old paradigm, and any time we tap into it, we will feel weighted down and lost. Transformative energy and harmony make up the new dimension, and when we tap into that, we are flowing with positive life force into the future.

At this time on Planet Earth, many of us feel both energies and can get lost in the polarity between them. We have to remember that we are here to be bridges, wherever we happen to live. We can’t lose faith in the existence of a new dimension even when we are feeling the heaviness of the old paradigm. The new is constantly being born as the old reforms and reshapes. The key is to understand that everything is occurring for our evolution and expansion, and ultimately resolution will emerge. A challenging path but one that has been walked by thousands of souls over thousands of years.

The idea of karma, or cosmic cause and effect, has been written of for centuries in many traditions. “What goes ’round, comes ’round” the saying goes, and many spiritual masters have carried more than their share of humanity’s past wounds to help shift the balance for the collective. The era in which we are now living has been described as one in which we all become our own spiritual masters. Perhaps in doing so, we each carry part of the collective wounding, which gets cleared more and more as we go through whatever we have to in order to reach the other side of human suffering—whether that is revealing hidden secrets of sexual abuse, standing in the truth of our racial/cultural diversity and gender fluidity, or steadfastly choosing peace over conflict, love over hatred.

If the external world is a reflection of our internal state, that means everything—past lives/karma included—affects our experience in the world. Are we now, at this juncture in the world’s collective evolution, clearing the past through all time so that the mirror reflection is clearing too? If so, then sometimes we are looking through the clear part of the mirror at the new dimension and sometimes we are looking through the murky part of the mirror at the old paradigm.

It is important to keep in mind that at any given moment we can consciously call ourselves back from the murkiness and center ourselves in the clarity just by remembering that the new dimension does exist. At some point, then, as we evolve into clear carriers of pure light, Earth will cease to be the cloudy planet of polarity and separation and become a shining star of oneness and golden light. The new dimension at its most clear and luminescent.