Category: Spiritual

It Could Have Been Me…

Boston City Hall, Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Boston City Hall, Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Two years ago, on June 22, my life partner, Anne, and I were married here in Massachusetts after 31 years together. In doing so, we became part of a rising wave of same-sex couples in many states claiming their right to marry after the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was struck down as unconstitutional. One year later, the Supreme Court also decided in favor of marriage equality nationally, and rainbow lights shone on the White House and across the United States. We in the LGBT community celebrated this miraculous shift in public consciousness regarding our basic human rights. People’s hearts and minds had opened beyond anything any of us had dreamed possible. A new sense of freedom and hope filled us.

Yet, here we are today, reeling from the news that 49 people were killed and 53 more critically injured in a mass shooting at Pulse, an Orlando LGBT nightclub. It’s the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, among so many in recent years. My heart sank when I heard the news. As a gay friend of mine said, “It all feels so personal.” And it is. It’s not just a random attack; it’s an attack specifically targeting LGBT people. And it could have been carried out anywhere, by anyone filled with homophobic fear and hatred. Any of us could have been one of the victims. It quite literally could have been me. The media are focused on reporting that the shooter was Muslim and pledged allegiance to ISIS, but that connection, real or not, has little to do with it. Anti-gay hatred crosses all lines of religion, politics, and nationality. (And don’t forget that media-fed mistrust and hatred of Muslims is also on the rise.)

Many friends of mine are having memory flashbacks of past experiences of hostility, intimidation, or violence because of their sexual orientation. Me too. It cuts deep, this mass killing, this act of extreme hatred. We are all feeling it, gay or not. I just saw a news video of a man at Los Angeles Pride events with a sign that read: “I am Pulse.” It brought tears to my eyes. If we could all remember that. People are taught to be afraid of “difference,” but no one exactly fits the mainstream standard of acceptability. If we could only see that we are each very different in our unique human expression, but ultimately the same deep within. When our hearts break open, we start to recognize our own reflection in the eyes of all those around us.

Yes, I am Pulse too. I am a lesbian. I am your neighbor. Your sister, your cousin, your daughter. Your co-worker. Your best friend. I am you. We are one within our shared human experience on this planet. We came here to live that oneness, through love. Love of everyone, every one. Let this terrible event be a reminder to each of us to love without parameters, without definitions. Although it may not always seem like it, we are part of something much bigger occurring on this Earth: a transformation in consciousness that is breaking down barriers between people of all ages, sexes, races, nationalities, religions, and belief systems. It is a massive shift out of an old crumbling paradigm based in “otherness” into one based in oneness and love.

Even so, how do we live day to day after such a traumatic event? What do we do with our grief, anger, and fear? We feel them, completely. Sometimes I just have to cry or rage or shake—allow those emotions to move through me, so that I can move forward. Beneath the feelings of sorrow, shock, and fright lives hope, still. I truly believe that we have not lost all that we have gained. Those open doors can never completely close again. We need to remember too that we are not finished; the human species and the planet are still evolving. The extreme polarities arising from fear of difference, fear of change, are coming up to be faced and balanced in all of us. There is more to do, more to be….

When Anne and I married two years ago, we wanted our coming together in love to rise from, and flow back into, the expansion of love we saw occurring everywhere. We chose June, LGBT Pride month, as the perfect time for our marriage. Looking back, I can still feel that momentum, that greater love filling the hearts of those present at the wedding and overflowing into the world around us. Today, as we all face the tragic results of inner hatred turned outward, I pray that we keep our hearts open in spite of the pain. That we love even more deeply. Our collective love is stronger than fear, stronger than hate. Love is love is love is love…. With courage, with compassion, we can continue to live that truth into the world.

 

Authenticity of the Heart

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

In the current political vernacular, the word authentic has crept into use to mean “speaking one’s mind,” whether or not that includes comments that are racist, sexist, elitist, or homophobic. Some people think that saying things that others are afraid to say is being authentic when actually it’s often just voicing acquired opinions and prejudices. If you listen to the speechmaking and off-the-cuff comments of those currently running for office in the U.S., you can hear a broad spectrum of harsh judgments and angry finger-pointing. All of which has the effect of creating separation and mistrust among people. How did “authenticity” get mixed up in this unpleasant and alienating scenario?

Some would say that that’s just the way politics is, full of name-calling and insults. However, labeling such behavior as “authentic” is completely misleading. Saying anything that comes into your head is not authenticity. The dictionary defines authentic as “genuine.” Genuine, to me, is tied to integrity and heartfelt expression. Authenticity arises from a connection to the heart and soul. Actually, to be one’s true soul self is to be authentic. Authenticity originates in the soul, and the soul is pure love. It does not hold judgments about others; nor is it angry, defensive, and accusatory. The personality may indulge in those attitudes and behaviors, but the soul is always peaceful and at one with all people and all situations.

Speaking your mind is not the same thing as speaking from your soul. The mind stores all sorts of accumulated detritus over a lifetime. It can’t be relied upon for loving-kindness or peaceful coexistence unless it is connected to the heart and soul. That deep connection opens the mind to harmony and balance. If you are confronted by someone who is “speaking their mind,” the wisest response might be to just hold a space of quiet presence. To listen and then speak from the heart calmly and peacefully. Argument just engages the polarity part of the brain and keeps the separation alive. To be your authentic self, stay connected to the soulful part of you that only sees oneness, not “otherness.”

So, in its truest sense, authenticity is of the heart and soul. If we are living as our souls in the world—the open, loving beings we were at birth—we are being authentic. Many highly polarized human beliefs are being expressed loudly and publicly these days. Yet I believe it is all part of a re-centering process that this planet and humankind are undergoing. The judgments, hatred, and separation we have carried so long within the collective consciousness will eventually be dissolved, and our authentic soul selves will come together at last in love, peace, and harmony on Earth.

 

The Pause

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Life can occasionally hand you a time-out whether you asked for it or not. It could take the form of a health challenge, a job loss, a missed connection, or a misunderstanding. You are zooming along nonstop when suddenly an impenetrable wall appears right in front of you. Bam! Stopped in your tracks. Sidelined. No way over, around, or through. You have to come to a halt, take a deep breath, and wait. The pause.

In our speedy multi-tasking world, we aren’t encouraged to see the importance of allowing for that pause. The usual message, from childhood on, is “pursue your goals, full speed ahead, and don’t let anything deter you.” Until we are forced to slow down and reevaluate, we don’t understand the key role of timing in our lives. However, if we look around at the natural world we are part of, timing is the basis of everything. Winter waits patiently for spring and the reappearance of green leaves and flowers. Animals and birds, as well as humans, wait weeks or months for the birth of their babies. Patience and timing are at the very core of life on Earth. To push against that is to cause ourselves unnecessary suffering.

As I faced an uncertain medical diagnosis recently, I repeatedly found myself in the position of waiting—for test results, for the next appointment, for a clearer diagnosis, etc. After the most recent doctor’s visit, I am still in that position. In fact, that seems to be part of the diagnosis: to wait and see if it stays the same, gets better, or gets worse. Status quo means all is well, for the moment. Such is life, really. It’s all a guide for living with awareness. The wisest approach is to live in the “wellness” of the moment. No one can predict what will occur next. So we “wait and see.”

What if we could realize that waiting is not stuckness but beingness? Each moment holds everything within it. If we rush past it, we lose all those precious seconds of everything. To be stopped by circumstance is a gift, a blessing. It allows us to look around and really see the world around us and within us. For our own mental, emotional, and spiritual health, we need time and space to just breathe and be. Out of that flexible state of presence, our next best version of ourselves emerges without effort or pushing. And it will only emerge in its own divine timing. Soul time. Not human clock time.

As I look at the waiting of the past couple of months, I see with more clarity how much was going on within that waiting. A greater wisdom, surrender, and dissolving of effort was arising in me. An integration of experience and emotions. We have to allow ourselves the pause that engenders awareness about what we are encountering in our lives. So let yourself be stopped, let yourself pause. Each day, everything is unfolding just perfectly, with impeccable timing….

“A delay isn’t a denial; it’s an opportunity to evolve.”—Panache Desai

 

Opening to Love

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Sometimes a seeming crisis, like my recent eye diagnosis, can be an unanticipated catalyst for profound inner change and deeper awareness. In the last few weeks, I have written about losing my self and emptying out the past. In the process, nothing was really lost. It was more like opening to Spirit, or the Divine—to my soul’s source within universal consciousness, which is love itself. When people speak of these things, it can sound vague and inaccessible. That does not have to be the case. In fact, I believe it is not only accessible to everyone, it is our human destiny to live in conscious awareness of our spiritual connection. It’s why we’re here, at this time, on this planet. No accident. And we are walking in the footsteps of those spiritual masters before us who are showing us the way.

I found that the more I emptied out, the greater the feeling of expansive inner openness. And within that vast space a question spontaneously emerged: “How may I be of service to others in the world, how may I live love in each moment?” I was asking to live for something beyond my own personal gratification or fulfillment. Or, as St. Francis expressed it, “Make me an instrument of peace.” I knew that on the deepest level I was inviting the Divine into my heart and soul. And when you do this, the Divine shows you that it has always been there. The heart of the Divine is my heart, your heart. The soul of the Divine is the universal soul of humankind.

I felt this divine connection sweep over me in waves, igniting my entire physical body. I walked to my computer, sat down, and began to write. The words came faster than my fingers could type them. I wrote nonstop for hours, from my heart and soul, connected to the energy of love, which was orchestrating everything. This was the answer to my question, at least in part: writing what came through me to be shared. I had sensed that before, but now I knew it at a deeper level of soul purpose. Each of us has such a purpose in our lives, a unique way to share our heart’s love with others. One by one, we are being guided to that knowledge.

What I discovered was that when I surrender the illusion of control, my life begins to live itself in perfect alignment with my soul’s purpose for being on this Earth. When I ask for guidance, it arises magically from within me and around me. I live what appears before me to live in each moment, arising seamlessly from connection to Spirit. I let go in the deepest part of my being, knowing that I am here to live not for me as a single personality or ego, but for me as one soul among millions, one thread within a universal living tapestry of light.

This is the shift in consciousness that humans are experiencing at this time. We are gradually becoming attuned to something greater inside us, beyond definition or explanation. Every day now, I ask to be emptied and filled, again and again: “May love and compassion flow through me.” In aligning with that Presence that is the source of everything in this world, I know I am not alone; I am many: the “I” that is “you,” that is “we,” that is all of us, individually and collectively. As each of us clears out the old stories and opens to the dynamic energy of soul connection, our hearts will overflow with joy, gratitude, and a limitless love that will radiate outward to all hearts everywhere.

 

Losing Your Self

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

What does it mean to lose your self? People talk about losing themselves in their work, or in music, or in a movie. This refers to a merging of the individual self with an experience that is completely absorbing. Another connotation is that of losing yourself in another, a kind of loss of identity, implying dependency or instability. What do these two have in common? Perhaps that they both refer to the personality self, as opposed to the soul self. The personality self is connected to the ego and can be in constant flux; the soul self, on the other hand, is always steadily present and can never be lost.

So what happens if the personality self loses itself within the soul self? Well, now we’re entering the realm of spirit, and the conversation can get really interesting. The personality is shaped by the struggle to live in the real world, to cope, to survive, to “rise above” life’s trials and tribulations. In many ways, the personality “just wants to have fun.” It seeks out pleasurable experiences and avoids unpleasant ones, not always successfully. Thus human suffering. Meanwhile, the soul is in the background, witnessing it all. When the personality suffers, the soul is at peace. Sounds like an impossible situation, but it isn’t really, because if the personality can connect to, or merge with, soulness, it too is at peace, no matter what experiences or emotions arise. That has been the quest of spiritual seekers through the ages.

In today’s world of rapidly accelerating change and radical shifts in beliefs and behavior, nothing is certain anymore. Certainly not a “personality.” People change overnight, or seemingly so. Beneath the surface, something greater is transpiring. We are living in a time of soul discovery, or perhaps soul recovery. Within the larger framework of changes in social consciousness, individuals are increasingly being drawn to the idea of authenticity, of living their true selves, not who society has always told them to be. And when the focus is authenticity, what’s really going on is soul connection. You can’t be your authentic self and be disconnected from your soul. This is the paradigm shift we are living into.

So are we all really losing our selves now, as the world also seems to be losing itself? That would actually be the best-case scenario. To lose your fabricated self within the wisdom and peace of your soul would probably be the most life-affirming thing that could happen to you, and to the world. Because as each person aligns with their authentic soul self (and in conjunction the love that resides in their heart), a connection to something greater also occurs. And in that greater connection is universal sisterhood and brotherhood, or oneness. A oneness that encompasses all beings and Mother Earth herself.

In losing our selves in this way, we are not really losing anything. The personality can live in harmony with the soul, and we can all live in harmony with one another. At the level of spirit, or soul, there is no separation. In truth, we came to this planet as souls for the extraordinarily diverse experience of being human—every poignantly sweet moment from birth to death. And within the trajectory that is life on Earth over the millennia, we have now reached the evolutionary point of complete soul immersion: living as conscious spirit in physical form. So celebrate the re-union of personality and soul. It is truly one of the greatest gifts you could possibly receive—or give to the world.