Category: Spiritual

Amazing Grace—Africa’s Animals

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
I noticed it first in the elephants. From the safari jeep, we saw them in the near distance, walking through the South African bush. Their movement was steady, serene, focused—moving forward with purpose and utmost clarity, undeterred by distraction. They embodied grace in a way I had never seen before, a grace that filled them and emanated forth from them. They were living their unique beingness on Earth, fully and completely, and with a simple beauty that made my breath catch in my throat and tears fill my eyes when I looked at them. It was God’s grace and presence I was witnessing—it filled them so sweetly and divinely. That is the way we were all meant to walk upon this Earth.

The giraffes too walked in this manner, slowly and purposefully, their elongated necks reaching elegantly out and up to eat leaves from the trees. Like the elephants, their shoulders moved fluidly and powerfully with each step. There was no hurry, no rush to reach a goal. They were just living their lives as they were created to be. When they bent to drink from a river, their legs splayed outward to accommodate the downward bending of their long neck to reach the water source. It looked both awkward and graceful simultaneously because it was real, uncontrived. Living yoga. Meditation in motion.

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Soon I realized that all the wild animals I saw in Africa moved with this graceful quality—the impalas and water bucks walking or running together in groups; the baboons and monkeys swinging from branch to branch, from tree to tree; the wart hogs trotting along like large odd-looking pigs; the zebras drinking together at a water hole, their heads moving up and down to watch for predators. And even when startled by the possibility of a predator, all the animals ran with fluid grace and focused alertness. No wasted movement. It was if everything had been choreographed perfectly according to some grand design—and of course it was. Life in its natural state has a beauty that defies artifice.

Even at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where the animals have been injured or orphaned and live in fenced areas, this quality had not been entirely lost. As volunteers, we were given a tour of all the different animals with a brief history of why they were there. It was difficult for me to see these wild creatures behind fences, but I did understand that their lives had been saved by the center and they were being protected there. Still, at times, my heart went out to them. As we passed a male lion walking up and down within a large fenced expanse, I watched him as he watched all of us. Just a few feet away, on the other side of the fence, his eyes surveyed us, one by one, as we walked by. When his eyes reached mine, they stopped, and I stopped. Something passed between us—awareness perhaps: I was aware of him and he was aware of me, a human and a lion meeting, eye to eye, for one moment in time. Chills covered my arms, and tears came to my eyes. Then we each moved on. Yet I will never forget his golden grace-filled wild lion eyes.

The wild animals of Africa live in our imagination long before we see them in person, if we are fortunate enough to do so. They seem to embody a connection to life’s mysteries and magic, something we have lost in our urban world full of cars and concrete. They walk with a living grace that causes us to pause and remember how precious they are in this world. How precious all animals are, everywhere. Their very being, so different from ours, reminds us of the incredible variety of creatures that we are blessed to share the planet with. Each one is unique, unrepeatable. May we celebrate them by protecting their habitat, their freedom, and their infinitely graceful lives.

Time Passing, Time Standing Still

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

At times, it seems that our lives are moving so fast that we can’t catch our breath. At other times, it can seem that we are stuck, that time is standing still. Yet, past, present, future; birth, life, death; and time itself are all mental concepts, distinctions that we humans invent and superimpose on the world as we try to make sense of it. Beyond the mind’s created parameters is eternity. Occasionally, we touch it with fleeting awareness: In moments of great love or great loss, the mental boundaries fall away, and there is just presence without beginning or end. The deeper we live into life, the more we open to this perception.

Over the course of a lifetime, if we are lucky, there can be a gradual disengagement from the arbitrary cognitive constructs that seem to hold life together but actually keep us from seeing the infinite universe we are part of. William Blake writes of holding “Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour.” Poets and mystics help us step over the threshold of the world we perceive as real into a limitless open space of sheer beingness where time passing and time standing still become one.

One night last month, for no particular reason, I thought of my parents and the ages at which they had died: 81 and 94. It gave me pause. I don’t often think of my own age, and I usually perceive the future as open-ended. But, of course, we have no idea how long we have on this Earth. I could live to 100+. Or I could die tomorrow. Thinking of my parents’ deaths made mortality more “real” somehow. I asked myself: In the time left to me, how do I want to live?  A question I have usually answered in the living itself—embracing the full adventure, aware of each precious unrepeatable moment. The answer evolves as I evolve.

Last year, in the midst of a health crisis, I answered that question with a prayer in which I surrendered my separate human identity to something greater: to divine connection, in service to God/dess. That moment of surrender shifted everything for me and continues to, on a daily basis. When I thought of my parents last month, I surrendered again—to the unknown trajectory of my own life and death as a physical form here on Earth. The human ego, or personality self, struggles to survive at all costs, but our souls are eternal. When the personality surrenders to the soul’s greater wisdom, an inner alignment of human and divine takes place. We start to experience life as beautifully orchestrated, beyond time. We step into a flow of living energy that is limitless and multidimensional.

Only the soul sees this greater universal picture. In recent years, I’ve found that there are some experiences that cannot be described, that elude language entirely. They are encounters of the heart and soul that are primordial and timeless. Only in silence are they fully received. When we are present at a birth or a death, when we hold another close to our heart with love, when we experience God’s presence—these are times of wordless immersion in the mystery of life. Time ceases to exist. These are the truest moments of all, when we know that everything is unfolding exactly as it’s meant to. My life, your life, all of life, is of a piece, a miracle that defies description.

It’s All About Love, Always

Photograph © 2017 Peggy Kornegger

A few weeks ago, I watched the four-part series “When We Rise,” about the recent history of the LGBTQ community in the U.S. and the fight for our basic human rights, including marriage equality. At the end, I felt emotionally exhausted, like I had relived the last 39 years of my life. I lived in San Francisco in 1978 at the time of the California Briggs Initiative to ban gay/lesbian schoolteachers, thankfully defeated, and the shooting death of gay city supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1981, I moved back to Boston, right before the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, which would take the lives of thousands of gay men. Every year I took part in the AIDS Walk to raise money for those with AIDS, and I lost dear friends on both coasts to this terrible disease. In 1987 and 1993, I marched on Washington for LGBTQ rights and freedom, and each year there was a Pride March in Boston (in June, to coincide with the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York). Those were years of great sadness and loss, and yet the love in our hearts and the hope that together we could bring about change kept us going.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same sex marriage, and the movement for marriage equality continued to gain momentum. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), and in 2015, it ruled in favor of same sex marriage nationwide. My partner and I, who had been together for 31 years, married in 2014, with family and friends celebrating with us. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the national consciousness had shifted significantly toward love and inclusiveness over bigotry and hatred. We all had gotten so used to living with secrecy, fear, and the threat of violence that when acceptance appeared, it was almost shocking—extremely emotional and powerful for each of us. But it had not really been sudden; years of activism and private and public “coming out” had brought about the change. The rainbow lights shining across the country on national monuments, as well as the White House, reflected the magical new reality we were all experiencing.

However, today in 2017, a new administration, accompanied by a conservative backlash, is already beginning to whittle away at our hard-won gains, beginning with transgender rights. LGBTQ community members are currently the top target for acts of hatred in the Boston area. We are not done. Freedom, equality, and justice for all people are ideals that must be lived and upheld every single day. We do that by not giving up, by not allowing outrage or depression to overrule the universal compassion and kindness in our hearts. Intolerance still exists, but we are here to live our love, and we won’t stop. Not now, not ever. The music of our hearts and souls will carry us forward.

Photograph © Peggy Kornegger

I have changed in so many ways in the last 39 years, yet the core of me remains the same. I too am here to live love in the world. When I am meditating alone or in spiritual circles, when I am marching in demonstrations, when I am speaking my truth, I am centered in that love. A living prayer for love that includes friends and strangers alike around the world. Our hearts and souls link us together into one family. We are all connected, we very diverse humans on planet Earth, reaching out for freedom, equality, and the right to self-expression. In the deepest part of our being, we are not so different; we all want similar things in this life. Ultimately, it’s all about love. Always.

In Memoriam: Gilbert Baker, who in 1978 created the first rainbow flag in San Francisco, died last Friday, March 31, at the age of 65. That first hand-dyed and hand-stitched rainbow flag became the international symbol for LGBTQ pride and freedom.

Faith, Hope, and Clarity

Because of the current tumultuous political events in this country and worldwide, we need to hold a clear positive vision in our hearts of a more peaceful, compassionate world so that we don’t lose hope. In this week’s blog, which is a video instead of a written article, I talk about the importance of maintaining faith, hope, and clarity in our day-to-day lives. (See other recent videos of mine at Videos on the menu above.)

The Deepest Peace

© 2016 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
© 2016 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist

I have discovered that the more I want a situation or person to either change or stay the same, the more I suffer. Yet I have also found that there is a peaceful core within me that understands impermanence and nonattachment. These two Buddhist principles have helped me accept the transitory nature of life. When I am deep in meditation, experiencing profound inner peace, I see clearly the truth of impermanence (nothing, good or bad, ever stays the same) and how letting go of attachment to a particular outcome frees me from the mental/emotional habits of the personality self. At the soul level, all is well, unfolding perfectly for my own expansion and evolution.

Embracing impermanence and nonattachment has been a gradual process for me, over many years. They used to be just concepts that I thought sounded good but I couldn’t really connect to experientially. Lately, however, as my spiritual awareness has deepened, those two insights have risen to the forefront of my consciousness. I often repeat them to myself like mantras to access the peace within me, which they are an integral part of. This is the soul’s peace, which does not judge or have opinions; it just witnesses. And from the witness’s point of view, it does not matter if something or someone changes or not. It’s all part of a greater picture that I, as a human being, have a limited ability to see in its entirety. I just have to trust in my soul’s perception (and in God) and surrender to the power of a divine purpose in everything.

Surrender and trust have also been key to letting go within my own life. They, too, accompany the experience of inner peace that I am connecting to more and more. There is a reason why these principles have been around for thousands of years and have been at the core of the teachings of great spiritual masters. They bring us to a place of flow in our lives, accepting “what is” and aligning with the continuous fluctuations of human existence. This is a time on Earth when the voices and energetic imprints of the greatest teachers are becoming more available to everyone. Their wisdom and beingness within the collective consciousness are here to help us as we move into our own wisdom and life mastery.

Events in the world, and particularly within this country, are now making it essential for us to live in connection with our souls, accessing the deeper truths about life and living. In an environment in which people are being persecuted because of bigotry and prejudice, where is justice? How do we live with this? How do we love all of humanity when some are acting in destructive, hateful ways? This is the challenge of our times: to live in such a way that our own souls’ wisdom and light affect the collective consciousness in a positive way. If we believe that love is stronger than hate, and peace more powerful than fear, then we need to live that in every moment. For ourselves and for everyone who crosses our path. When we shift our own energy out of judgment and outrage, then everything begins to shift around us. The peaceful soul brings peace to the world. As I see it, this is how we are evolving as a people and as a planet within a huge constantly changing universe. May we all help each other find our way again and again to deep inner peace.