Category: Soul journey

A Life Well-Lived

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

When folk singer and political activist Pete Seeger died recently, at age 94, I was filled with great sadness. His larger-than-life presence and spirit, head thrown back in song, will be missed in this world. I also thought, though, that his was truly “a life well-lived,” as the saying goes. From the 1940s to the last years of his life, he spoke out and sang songs for peace (“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”), civil rights (“We Shall Overcome”), workers’ rights, saving the environment (the Hudson River), and more recently, the Occupy movement. He was tireless, fearless, dedicated, and his heart and soul were in all he did, for human rights, community, and the Earth.

There are so many others who have lived long full lives: Nelson Mandela, Howard Zinn, Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, to name only a few. Of course, not all well-lived lives belong to the famous. My own parents, who passed away at 81 and 94, lived long wonderful lives, deeply connected to the natural world around them and to the friends and family they loved. And age is not necessarily a factor either. My dear friend Michael, actor, poet, and musician, died at 39. His life had been creatively filled to the brim while he was alive.

However long they’re here on Earth, some people seem to embody full-out living, treating each moment as a glorious opportunity to experience all of life’s wonders. They stand out in our minds as vital and vibrantly alive. When Pete died, as I thought about the people I know and know of, it occurred to me that perhaps more and more of us are choosing to live our lives as he did. It is a time of great change on our planet, filled with transformation and evolution of all kinds. Many of us are struggling just to survive, but even within those struggles, there is often a deep desire for more than just the material. Our hearts long for human connection, for spiritual connection, and within community and shared experience, we are finding it. There is so much more to life than we can perceive with our physical eyes. Our souls know this, and as we awaken at that level, we will open up to all the possibilities of life, both imagined and beyond imagination.

So, let us take a page from Pete Seeger’s songbook. However long our life’s transit is, let’s live with our heads thrown back, singing, laughing, celebrating every single moment. No half-lives or shelf lives. No sitting on the sidelines and longing for a chance to dance in the circle of life. Let’s step forward fearlessly, heart open, eyes full of light, and fully embrace this precious gift of life we’ve been given. If time is an illusion, as we’re coming to realize, then it’s the quality not the quantity of the years that matters. Let’s make each moment an entire “life well-lived”—expansive, soaring, and full of sweet appreciation.

In memoriam, Pete Seeger, may your beautiful singing spirit continue to inspire us all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YwKPOgz5o

Heart Vibes

IMG_0816
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

This year on Valentine’s Day, how about being love instead of just showing love? In fact, how about being love 24/7, 365? What’s the difference, you may wonder. Well, to me, showing love often falls into the realm of expected behavior: cards, candy, flowers on a particular holiday. All very lovely, but there’s more to love than that—a deeper beingness that we are at our very core. Our soul selves, our universal selves, are pure love, connected to our hearts. When we live from the center of our souls, love vibrates outward from our hearts, however we are expressing ourselves, in words or in actions.

As human beings evolve into more open-hearted ways of inter-relating, love will become our modus operandi, whether on a specific holiday or on an ordinary calendar day. An unconditional love that includes love of self as well as love of other. In fact, truly loving and appreciating our unique soul self seamlessly leads to loving others’ uniqueness, too. Every one of us is here to be an individual expression of the universal love. When we recognize that, love and loving behavior become second nature. We won’t have to be reminded by marketing ploys to send flowers or chocolates to loved ones. Everything emanating from us will be an expression of the deep love that connects us all vibrationally in the web of life. You are me, and I am you.

So, on February 14, send out your loving heart vibes via U.S. mail or email, on line or in person, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Open your heart so wide that that love will shine throughout all the calendar days of this year and years to come. There’s nothing more important in life than love. And it’s not about doing. It’s about being.

 

The Great Wide Open

Photograph © 1998 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 1998 Peggy Kornegger

When our dear cat Lily reached the end of her very long life (22 years), her health declined during the last few months. In consultation with animal communicator Teresa Wagner, and thus with Lily, my partner and I made the decision to ask compassionate local vet Dr. Jake to come to our home and help Lily make her transition in order to relieve her of any further suffering. He was to arrive around 5 p.m., so we spent the last day of Lily’s life sitting with her in presence, candles lit, soft music playing. The three of us formed a small circle, Lily in her fleece bed and we sitting in chairs beside her. She would reach her paw out to us periodically, and we would kneel and stroke her head, looking into her beautiful eyes and listening to her purr. At that point, Lily was pure soulful peace and love. Teresa herself had commented that she wished everyone in the world could know Lily and experience that extraordinary peace.

As we sat with her, that peace permeated our souls. There was really no spoken language to describe what we were feeling, except in the words of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song about the “great wide open.” The veil between life and death had slipped aside, and Lily was indeed in that space. She gave us that final gift of resting in divine presence with her as part of the love the three of us had shared here on Earth. The sky faded toward dusk, and the quality of the light in the room became almost golden. With Dr. Jake’s assistance, Lily passed peacefully in our arms.

Now, four years later, I have come to understand the full power of what Lily shared with us then. A few weeks ago, as I sat in meditation with Panache Desai’s recording of “Being Peace,” suddenly I was once again immersed in that afternoon of peace with her within the Great Wide Open. As the tears streamed down my face, I realized that Lily had given me my first positive experience of infinity, two years before I met Panache. With his help, I have been facing a lifetime fear of infinity/eternity, and gradually, as I stop resisting it, the fear is loosening its grip, and I am able to experience something entirely different—the light and peaceful expansiveness that is the heart of infinity. Exactly what I had felt with Lily as she transitioned, radiating peace from her entire being.

The animal companions in our lives are often so much wiser than we are, if only we would open our awareness to their divine intelligence. In their quiet loving way, they teach us so much about what is really important in life: love, peace, harmony, heart connection, play. We laughingly referred to Lily as the “cat Dalai Lama” because she always absolutely insisted on a peaceful home atmosphere—no arguments, no friction or raised voices. It turns out we weren’t far from the truth. Lily truly was a small bodhisattva; she came into our lives (on Mother’s Day, no less) to share what she was at her very core—unconditional love and peace. And to show us that we too are that. Thank you, sweet Lily. We love you, always.

[Lily: March 14, 1988–January 7, 2010]

Letting Go into Flow

© 2012 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
© 2012 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
The idea of surrender, or letting go completely, has been key for me in opening to the larger universe and to a connection with Spirit. As I practice this in my daily life (embracing what is occurring in each moment), my awareness of an even deeper meaning has grown. Accepting “what is” is only one part of surrender. In allowing everything in my life to unfold organically—without trying, without judgment—I am also learning to trust in a universal intelligence greater than my own mind. Within that process is a subtle but significant shift: I am moving from ego-centered living to soul-centered living.

When you let your soul guide your life, you are connected to essence, the source of all that is. Whether you call it God/dess, Spirit, the Divine, or no name at all, it is the cosmic energy of which we all are a part. As I live and expand outward from the time/space line of my life, that connection becomes increasingly important to me. Some time ago, I spent several intensive weeks on retreat focusing on my wish to be in continuous communion with Spirit. What I came to realize is that that soul connection is always present within me, and when my heart is open, I become fully aware of it. My soul speaks to me through my heart.

What I also found is that gratitude immediately opens the heart. Love follows. The more I appreciated everything in my life, the wider my heart opened, and the deeper the soulful communion/connection became. My soul, through my eyes, saw miracles everywhere, in every moment. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and goosebumps covered my body. Because I perceived miracles, miracles were what I experienced. Granted, this has not been a completely uncommon experience for me in recent years as I open more and more to Spirit, but the desire for the communion to be continuous shifted everything into high gear within me. It was as if my soul and the Divine were celebrating my wish for constant connection. And all of life became a celebration.

Soul-centered awareness comes into being when you let go of control and allow something greater to guide you, trusting in the eventual harmonic resolution of all things. Soul awareness grows whenever you feel grateful for the world around you—every person, every event, every experience, whether or not your mind/ego labels them “good” or “bad.” When you let your heart sidestep your brain, your soul can move to the forefront and shine its light. Other people will see the light in your eyes and feel the unconditional love radiating from your open heart. That light and love will open their hearts too. Thus is global consciousness shifted, one person at a time.

I believe there is a small child within each of us who longs to let go, to surrender the need to try so hard to control everything. When we were very young, our souls guided us daily in effortless flow, but fear-based social conditioning often blocks that connection. To recover it is not always easy, but it is increasingly possible in a world whose collective heart is gradually opening, just as ours are. Surrender is not a one-time event, though. It’s an ongoing prayer or desire, which unfolds into deeper and deeper layers of letting go. Our longing creates the connecting doorway, and gratitude and love open the door.

Light

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

“This is not a journey of understanding; it’s a journey of trust. It’s a journey of surrendering every aspect of you over to the light.”—Panache Desai

My life is so different than it was two years ago, even two months ago. Perhaps not noticeable to others, but distinctly noticeable to me. The intensive spiritual journey that I have been on for almost twenty years (my entire lifetime really) has become more and more expansive, to the point that boundaries often completely vanish from my perception. Limitations, too, are fading to invisibility, and mental preconceptions are rapidly dissolving. This is at least partially due to facing a lifetime fear of infinity that I had always run from (see previous blog post “Free Fall to Infinity”).

What has occurred is an opening around something that had always seemed rock-solid and impenetrable. Thin beams of light began to filter through what had been a frightening gray mass of emotional density locked into my consciousness since I was five years old. I thought I had been accurately perceiving a basic terrifying aspect of life and death: endless eternity. I came to realize that it was my mind, not my soul, that feared infinity. Beneath the mind’s fright, at my core resided profound peace. Experiencing my soul’s infinite peaceful nature, the light-filled universe within, shifted everything for me (with a little help from my friends, Panache Desai and William Blake).

Now, when I look up and sense the infinite cosmos that both the sky and I are part of, I am filled with amazement instead of fear. The very quality of the light has become infinite to me, a translucent golden that is beyond the color spectrum as we now perceive it.  The doors of my perception have opened, and I have experienced the power and beauty of something greater than my own three-dimensional mind. Sounds like a 1960s acid trip, but I assure you it is not.

I believe what is happening is I am opening to the light within me and within all of us, the radiant light that is the living vibrating essence of the cosmos. One by one, and thousands by thousands, worldwide, we are opening to this light now. It is the light of awareness, it is the light of love, it is the light of infinity. Gradually, we are becoming less attached to this physical reality that we were always told was fixed and immutable. We are beginning to see the deeper truths of what many Native Americans referred to as “the Great Mystery.” We cannot understand the secrets of the universe with our minds; we can only feel their sacredness and infinite miraculous nature in our hearts. We can be in continuous awe before the wonders of the world, including our own ephemeral presence on Earth and our eternal presence within the light.