A World Without Marketing

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

Marketing drives our world today. Everything from political candidates to clothing to cars and cell phones is presented to us through a filter of manipulative images and languaging. True needs (supporting life) have been replaced with artificial needs (unnecessary, even detrimental, to our lives). What would the world be like without marketing? Some economists say it would fall apart, no longer driven by false monetary incentives. I don’t believe it.

In much of the Western world, possessions rule daily life. From the time we are born, toys and playthings are dangled endlessly in front of us. Artificially created cravings begin very early. And now that smartphones are often in the hands of very young children, this trend is intensifying. Yet alongside all these distractions is a movement for conscious awareness and simplicity that is becoming more wide-spread.

There is a new consciousness emerging on the planet, one that sees energy as the force behind every thought, interaction, and event in the universe. Positive energy uplifts and moves us forward in our lives with open hearts and open hands, centered in our own inner peace. Negative energy freezes us in place with closed hearts and closed hands, yet always anxiously longing for something else. Positive energy is dynamic and reciprocal; it brings people together in sharing and love. Negative energy pits people against one another and promotes material goods to fill the subsequent holes in their lives.

As people choose simpler lifestyles and are more mindful of global connections and interdependencies, this positive energy flows out to the collective and gradually shifts consciousness. Recycling, reuse, and repurposing are now in the public vocabulary. Many people make donations rather than buy physical presents at holidays. They volunteer at food banks, homeless shelters, or nature sanctuaries throughout the year. The circle of life and generosity extends energetically beyond a few to include the many.

The marketing mentality tells us that selling, whether objects or ourselves, is the baseline for survival in this world. Out of this approach arises written or spoken language that manipulates consciousness to “buy” what is being promoted, whether it’s a T-shirt, a pizza, a drug, or a person with a skill or service. Nothing is real in the world of marketing. It’s usually targeted to specific audiences to create a buying magnet that is irresistible. And often even when we know we are being manipulated, we buy into it anyway! That’s how powerful that particular kind of energy is.

It takes continuous awareness to resist the siren call of the marketers of the world and choose another path. One centered in authenticity, integrity, and the common good. It is entirely possible to present information about life-sustaining products and services with honesty and simple truth. We need to support those who do so and turn away from those who use false hyperbole to promote the accumulation of possessions.

All of us on this planet can live deeply fulfilling lives without poverty, deprivation, or suffering anywhere. We don’t really need houses full of the latest items trending in the popular media. Those things don’t bring lasting happiness and peace of mind anyway. So why not give up the illusory solo quest for “having it all” and choose instead sharing it all. And being it all. Meaning, being rich in spirit, in kindness, in caring. In friendship, in love, in sister/brotherhood. These are the true jewels in the treasure chest of life on Earth.

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.

Women’s Voices: Speaking Truth to Power

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

In last fall’s elections, the U.S. Congress saw a refreshing new influx of those who have been left out of the legislative process far too long—specifically, women and people of color. African-American, Native-American, Latina, and Muslim women were elected from various states across the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York is one of them. Since her surprise unseating of the incumbent there, she has been relentlessly criticized by nervous politicians from both parties for her outspoken and uncensored comments about the President and all those in power. Many of those criticisms show just how much public opinion panders to “acceptable” behavior for political candidates, and women in particular.

This country was born out of a revolution. Rebellious and opinionated “forefathers” are a part of American history. Women and African enslaved people, however, were left out of this version of events, unless we look underground and behind the scenes for hidden truths. Power based on sex and race formed the backbone of the new government. Whatever equalities and rights exist today (and we have a long way to go) are because of courageous people who spoke up and fought back against those who would silence them.

Whether or not you agree with her, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is standing firm in a long line of strong women who spoke their minds, “speaking truth to power,” as she puts it. Suffragists in the early 1900s and feminists in the 1970s and 1980s (myself included) stood up for a woman’s right to do just that. Because of them (and those who continue speaking out today), women are taking their rightful place in this country’s social and political structures and, in many cases, turning them upside down with new approaches to getting things done. Specifically: inclusive, circular, nonhierarchical. And by not being “good girls.”

Rebellious women always make people nervous because they threaten the status quo. People of both sexes want them to tone it down, play nice, not offend anyone by being too radical or outspoken. Well, good behavior and playing by the rules, as defined by the patriarchy, has never gotten women anywhere, not even a seat at the table (or a Presidency). Historically, they’ve been relegated to the kitchen, the bedroom, and menial, subservient jobs. It’s only in refusing to be intimidated or silenced that women have together formed a powerful alliance of intent that has challenged the old boys’ clubs and broken through entrenched traditions. They have also challenged prevailing attitudes about acceptable and “good” behavior for women.

It’s time to throw out the old rulebook and create something visionary and inclusive instead of outdated and elitist. “Subvert the dominant paradigm,” as the saying goes. Many of the world’s greatest ideas have seemed impossibly radical and edgy until they slowly worked their way into the collective consciousness, and people began to see their brilliance. Recognizing truth can be a process of opening to a deeper awareness about everything, including one’s own life.

We in this country are at a tipping point: Will we hang onto the racist, sexist historical patterns that created an undemocratic, top-heavy power structure, or will we topple the kingpins and create an alternative that truly embodies equality and freedom for all? It seems to me that in the midst of conflicting and fear-based news reporting, people—and women especially—are finding their voices and raising them together to speak truth to power. Thus is transformative change begun…and continued to its full flowering.

The Language of Clouds

Photograph © Copyright 2018 Peggy Kornegger

When I was a small child, I saw clouds as one-dimensional, as if they were painted on the sky by some artistic giant. It was really only after I flew in an airplane many years later that I perceived the three-dimensionality of clouds. At 20,000 feet, flying above and through them, I could see their depth and dimensions, their constantly changing shapes and sizes. It was a revelation to me, and I became fascinated with them. Even on the ground, I could see that they were not really paper-thin but often thick and expansive…and constantly morphing into new forms.

Their very names describe clouds’ variety, each kind indicating a different altitude, shape, and weather pattern. There are low-level, mid-level, and high-level clouds, with names like cumulus, cirrus, stratus, cumulonimbus, and altocumulus. They can look like scattered puffs of white dotting the sky, huge towering cotton balls, or long streaks of pale fiber with little sky visible. Flying next to and through cumulus clouds (the giant cotton balls) is awe-inspiring. The play of light and shadow on the brilliant whiteness, as well as the illusion of solidity (flying into and out of them), makes for an other-worldly experience. Thus the reason why many people feel as if they are close to heaven when they fly.

In that heavenly place, I began to look at clouds from the perspective of a spiritual being rather than a scientific observer. Flying in a plane, completely untethered to Earth and its materiality, I felt my consciousness lifted to a higher dimension. I was part of something larger than my one physical form: a powerful presence that encompassed the plane, the clouds, the sky, me, and everything beyond what I could see with my physical eyes. Within that experience, I learned that some things cannot be expressed through the language of words, but only through the silent language of the heart and soul.

My spiritual path over the years has continued to show me that silence often communicates more than sound. Within silence, we are present to Presence itself, which animates the universe. In meditation, quiet walks in nature, or sky rides, my conscious awareness drops deeper and expands wider to accommodate the vastness of that universe. I am speechless before its grandeur and infinite unfolding. An experience of God/dess at its most profound and far-reaching.

As a writer, I often try to describe these moments of transcendent awareness and divine connection. Yet, human language somehow falls short of fully conveying the extraordinary magnificence of our world: the flowers, butterflies, trees, human faces, heavenly encounters—and clouds. Each one is a unique expression of the love and light that is the Source of everything in the universe. When we awake each morning and step into the day before us, it is a sacred walk upon the Earth. For me, it is an experience beyond words, one that teaches me over and over that the wisest truth about life is that it is an eternally changing wonder and mystery. Like clouds themselves.

 

The Power of “We”

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
Human beings came to this planet to learn how to live together in peace. To realize and express the love in their hearts through compassion and kindness. It’s a simple as that. We didn’t come here to accumulate wealth and material possessions while others have nothing. We didn’t come here to distrust and hate everyone who is not an exact carbon copy of our beliefs and physical appearance. We didn’t come here to build walls and wage wars against difference. While those may be the polarities the human species experiences along the way, our final destination is beyond all those divisions and separations. Ultimately, we came here to recognize that “I” alone is incomplete; only in “we” do we find strength and commonality in being alive. Only in loving ourselves and others are we made whole. As the song says: “We are the world…”

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by external global events—the self-centeredness and cruelty that pervades so much of our social construct and that is spread through the media’s focus on acts of hatred and violence instead of love and inclusiveness. There are alternative sources of information that are positive rather than negative, and we need to pay attention to these. When I hear how so many people are coming together instead of being torn apart, I am uplifted and encouraged. The seeming chaos is happening for a reason: to clear out obsolete belief systems and centuries-old histories and divisions. We are living at a time that is taking us to the end of separation, judgment, and suffering.

All around us there are those who are making a difference in the status quo by living lives of caring and compassion. They reach out to others at times of crisis—whether global, regional, or individual—and help them in any way they can, with physical support (money, food, clothes, shelter) or a listening ear and kind word when it is most needed. This is the power of “we” that is gradually shifting the global balance to love instead of hate. People suffering in isolation are finding support and connection in community.

Those who live in fear talk of building walls; those who live in love talk of building bridges. If we live from our hearts, there is only one choice really: to reach out to our fellow beings (and I mean animals, plants, insects, as wells as humans) and share the love inside us. We were not meant to love only those who are exactly like us or to try to make others adopt our beliefs and lifestyles. We were born on this planet to come together and live compatibly in all our diversity.

Humanity is a rainbow tapestry of different races, sexes, ages, cultures, and religions. Yet we all came from the very same loving Source, which some call God. Our soul essence is love, so when we are being our authentic soul-selves instead of the “self” superimposed on us by social norms, we are living that love. It is a compassionate and inclusive love, and a small shift in awareness from “I” to “we” can make a huge difference in the world. That is why we are here, to celebrate and live the power of “we.”