Category: Writing

The Cutting Edge of Courage

March from Selma to Montgomery, 1965 (Library of Congress)
March from Selma to Montgomery, 1965
(Library of Congress)
In the past few weeks, I have seen two incredibly moving and inspiring films: Selma, about the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965, and The Normal Heart, about the beginning of the AIDS health crisis in the 1980s. Perhaps because I lived through both of these time periods, the subject matter hit me hard as I remembered the events recreated in the films. Selma chronicles three key civil rights marches in Alabama (two stopped, the third completed with federal protection) that challenged the pervasive racism and violence preventing African Americans from voting in the state. The main characters are based on real people, including Martin Luther King Jr. The Normal Heart is the film version of Larry Kramer’s play of that name, which addressed the public silence and denial that accompanied the rise of AIDS and the radical activism that brought the epidemic to the nation’s attention.

As I watched each film, I was struck over and over again by the extraordinary courage displayed by those who lived through these events. Not just mental strength and physical fortitude but raw unglamorous day-to-day courage that frequently meant facing not only hatred and violence but also the deaths of loved ones and one’s own death. Out of that matrix of fear, hope, anger, and pain, people rose up to speak out for the very basic right of each human being to be treated with compassion and respect. In both films, there is a scene in which one individual cries out with anguish and rage: “People are dying!!” These are the voices that have changed history.

Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Selma, Montgomery, Washington DC, and countless other cities. His speeches echo down through the decades, clarion calls to remember that the dream of equality, freedom, and justice has yet to be fully realized. Selma couldn’t have come at a better time, reminding Americans of the history of racism that precedes tragedies like those in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere. Larry Kramer co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the activist group ACT UP to fight for acknowledgment of the AIDS crisis and for treatment, care, and research for a cure. The Normal Heart, written and performed first in 1985, was his heart-wrenching call to awareness and action. Watching it today, I found that the issues have lost none of their power or poignancy. The “causes” in these two films were not popular at the time; many didn’t want to hear what King and Kramer had to say. They were criticized and hated; yet they continued. They walked into the resistance, into the face of death, and they inspired thousands of others to do the same.

When people have the courage to speak the “inconvenient truth,” to be both bold and uncompromising, they become part of the cutting edge of human evolution. When they step forward and take action for basic human rights, they help to move us all forward into greater compassion and caring. We need the activists and the whistle-blowers to shake us up and remind us that the human story is not finished and we are here to do the work of freedom, equality, kindness, and love, not indifference and silent acquiescence in a deadly status quo. Thank God for Martin Luther King Jr. and Larry Kramer. For Mahatma Gandhi and Rosa Parks. Pete Seeger and Robin Morgan. Alice Walker and Dennis Banks. Karen Silkwood and Harvey Milk. Malala Yousafzai and Julia Butterfly Hill. For Occupy Wall Street and Millions Against Monsanto.

I am thankful for the known and unknown individuals across time and around the globe who have spoken and acted with integrity and bravery in their lives and in so doing reminded us of our human hearts, our common humanity. May together we each find the cutting edge of our own courage and live truth and love into this world. The planet needs all of our passion and commitment to turn the evolutionary wheel in the direction of universal freedom, equality, and loving-kindness. We are one people, and humanity’s voice speaks through each one of us.

Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart!

kornegger-loseyourmind-cover-front-finalWith the publication of my new book Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart—Limitless Love on an Evolving Planet, I would like to share a short excerpt here to give everyone a taste of what it is about. The book is based on my belief that it is the love in our collectively opening hearts that will help us create a world that is truly livable as we move through this key time of global transformation. We can no longer afford to rely solely on the mind’s solutions without the balancing vision of the heart. In every single area of our lives, love is the answer. Indeed, it is the answer to every question we could possible ask in this lifetime.

In Chapter 2, “Irrational, Illogical, Crazy Mad Love,” I write about love’s power, which is much greater than we can know with our minds:

Love is not logical, linear, or politically correct. It is not the reasoned argument that will win a political debate in the U.S. Congress or United Nations. It’s not the point-by-point rational presentation of facts meant to persuade an intransigent opponent. Love won’t convince anyone of anything on the level of the mind. It comes from an entirely different place, and therein lies its power.

Love is all heart. It’s a no-brainer. Love is what you feel, not what you think. It’s a hug, a small kindness, a hand held, a sympathetic word, a single tear rolling down the cheek. Love is emotion, moving through us, wanting to be expressed, celebrated, and shared. Love is pure life force, the heart’s intelligence, the soul’s voice in the world. The mind can grasp love as a concept, but it can’t actually experience it. And it is through experience that we know ourselves, our neighbors, and life itself. When we love, we open the door to our hearts and welcome life with appreciation and gratitude instead of hesitation or apprehension. The mind pauses and weighs all the options; the heart just loves without reason or purpose….

Living soulfully in the world, conscious spirit in physical form, is the true meaning of this time of unprecedented change on the planet. Our soul selves are pure love, unique and unrepeatable, and we are here on Earth to shine our luminous individuality into every part of our lives. Each of us holds the key to personal/planetary transformation within our hearts. Imagine a world in which limitless love leads the way—and live in it! Be outrageous! Be crazy! Defy the status quo and the reasonable voices that say, “That won’t work.” Love everyone, even those who everyone else hates. Love the world into wholeness, one person, one sentient being, at a time.

Throughout the book, I give examples of groups and individuals who are living from their hearts (including my inspiring friend and favorite planetary catalyst Panache Desai). A peaceful planet based in loving kindness is possible. And it becomes more and more possible as each person makes the choice to live love in their own lives.

Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers. Love from my heart to yours….

New Book Now Available!

My new book Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart–Limitless Love on an Evolving Planet is now available for ordering at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!
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Moments of Grace

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

The word grace has so many meanings, depending on the speaker’s intent. Grace can be flowing movement; a prayer of gratitude; or a blessing. It can also be an act of kindness, mercy, or compassion. We talk about dancers or skaters moving with ethereal grace. Many people bow their heads and give thanks by saying grace before meals. Spiritually, grace is associated with an infinite divine love that envelops all humans regardless of their beliefs. The iconic song “Amazing Grace” describes a man lost and then found through God’s grace. The juxtaposition of human and spirit seems to run through all these meanings. For me, grace has come to mean flowing with life’s blessings and experiencing connection to a greater Presence in the multiverse we inhabit. Grace is always with me, and my awareness of it grows with the expansion of my consciousness.

The Presence I speak of some call God/dess or the Divine. Raised outside of all religious traditions, I have found my way to spiritual connection through various teachers and my own experiences, often in nature. In fact, the closest analogy I can think of to the shining radiance of Spirit is the sun. The sun’s light is powerful and ever-present, whether or not we can physically perceive it. Clouds, weather, or the turning of the Earth may obscure our view of it at times, but it is always there. When the skies clear, or the day dawns, and that light hits us full force, we are energetically and emotionally uplifted. Yet we are not able to gaze at it directly or run the risk of blindness. Our physical bodies cannot visually take in the full force of the sun’s light. The same is true of the Divine. Physically, we are not yet equipped to receive all of that heavenly radiance without blowing out our circuits. This is changing, faster and faster now, however.

At this amazing time of transformation on planet Earth, we are evolving and expanding so that we will eventually be able to continuously perceive/receive the Divine in its full expression of light and love. In the meantime, we are experiencing what I call glimpses of God—flashes, bursts, increasing increments of open-hearted joy, peace, and love. Moments of grace. When we evolve to the point of fully embodying spirit in our human bodies, there will no longer be a separation between inner and outer; all will be the oneness of divine consciousness, of which we are each an integral part. In truth, the only separation that ever existed was in our own limited physical ability to see the entire panoramic view. As the doors of perception open wider and wider, the light of conscious awareness floods our being with infinite grace, and we see as we are seen. God’s vision of us and the world becomes our own.

That is how my own life seems to be evolving anyway. I am experiencing Spirit/Presence in rushes of electric energy and euphoric expansion that repeatedly fill me to the brim with light and warmth, like the sun. The Divine is acclimating me bit by bit to the power of its infinite love. These experiences flow and then ebb but always recur, each time with greater expansiveness and deeper immersion. Is this en-light-enment? Possibly. Not the historically known, sudden individual awakening, but a new kind of gradual collective awakening that we are all experiencing in our own ways, each of us influencing the greater whole. Great spiritual masters through the ages have pointed the way to this time, when all of humanity would embody what they embodied. I never quite knew what that meant until now. That is why we are here, to live this. These are infinitely grace-full times. What a gift to be alive now and experience it all!

Winter’s Spring Song

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

The cardinal is a favorite bird on Christmas cards—that startling red presence against the white snow. But for me, cardinals are always linked in my heart to the first sign of spring in a frozen winter world. On some random day in mid- to late February, the male can be heard heralding the coming seasonal change with his “cheer, cheer, cheer” spring song. Sitting on a branch at the very top of a leafless tree in the bright winter sunshine, he sings of the coming of warmer, light-filled days, of flower bulbs pushing up out of the ground, of grass turning green. And of the spring migration of birds who have wintered in Central and South America.

House finches and chickadees begin singing their spring songs in February too. Soon, over-wintering robins and returning red-winged blackbirds, goldfinches, and phoebes are part of the morning chorus. By late April and early May, migrating birds are passing through New England in large numbers. This is what we in Massachusetts dream of and look forward to during winter’s months of snow, ice, and freezing rain. Especially those of us who will soon spend countless hours with binoculars pressed to our eyes, craning our necks upward in order to catch a glimpse of migrating warblers, orioles, tanagers, and thrushes.

This has been a challenging winter. The frigid temperatures and seemingly endless snowstorms, coupled with heavy layered clothing indoors and out, have made me daydream longingly of California and Florida. Better yet, Costa Rica, where many of our migrating birds spend the winter, and others live year-round. Still, here I am in the Northeast, and I am reminded that loving “what is” is part of living each moment to the fullest on planet Earth, wherever you happen to be. The sun rises and sets in an extraordinary display of color and light in any given month, no matter the weather. The cardinals brighten our days all winter long. Their very existence holds the promise of spring.

And, on that February day when the male cardinal begins to announce his territorial presence with song, all other thoughts recede into the background. Spring is coming, no doubt about it. The earth is giving birth to life one more time. How can you not celebrate with such a steadfast harbinger of hope and wonder—the bright-red, cheer-full cardinal?