Tag: light

Embodying Light

Photograph © 2021 Peggy Kornegger

In her inaugural poem, Amanda Gorman spoke of being light in the world. In doing so, she opened the door wide so that light could shine in, in all its radiance and power. Her words echoed out from the podium around the world and across the centuries. Standing invisible beside her were immigrants and enslaved people, civil rights activists and suffragists, Parkland students and pacifists, poets and day laborers. All those who have envisioned a freer, more compassionate world and lived and died for it were there in spirit to witness a shift in consciousness becoming visible at last.

You could feel the energy shift and recognize it in the faces of those present, speaking, singing, and seeing herstory/history in the making. Many of the women, like new Vice President Kamala Harris, wore luminous purple, others sunshine yellow, some radiant red or crimson. The colors were visible light. Permeating everything was a vibrant energy of transformation and change. The traditional songs that were sung—”This Land Is Your Land” and “Amazing Grace”—took on a deeper tone of inclusiveness and gratitude. Even the national anthem sounded somehow different, as Lady Gaga, wearing a golden peace dove, passionately sang the words. The feeling in the hearts of those listening, there or at home, was relief at having collectively survived an extremely challenging, painful time into a new dawn. Four years fell away, 200 years fell away, 2,000 years fell away. This is the Great Shift into Light that has been foretold by elders and seers for millennia.

I was continually moved to tears during the songs and speeches. It wasn’t patriotism I was feeling; it was profound gladness that this country had narrowly escaped falling further into fascism, that light was visible ahead of us and all around us, that humanity was reaching a new level of awakening. The colors of the thousands of flags spread out on the mall seemed to show a rainbow expanse of possibilities—for all people everywhere. Ultimately, it’s not about countries and presidents (though they can hold symbolic places in the world’s histories); it’s about the evolving of human consciousness and the emergence of a shared life on this planet based in love, compassion, and celebration of diversity.

I could see and feel it coming into being on January 20. Amanda Gorman gave voice to the words that were written on our souls before we entered this particular lifetime. We are all playing our parts, none of us extraneous or unimportant. Each of us is unique in our life purpose and inner vision and thus absolutely indispensable in the weaving of the greater tapestry of freedom, peace, and loving kindness here on Earth.

Poets and politicians and people of all kinds are being moved by something just now coming into humanity’s awareness. We are here to live out a sacred promise made eons ago across the cosmos. We have come to this planet to live the Light, our soul light, and share that light in all we say and do. This is the time we were born for. We are standing, souls shining. We are Light embodied.

Caretakers of Consciousness

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger
We have a responsibility, those of us born on Earth at this key transitional moment in the planet’s history. A powerful and sacred responsibility. And that is to hold the dream of a harmonious world and a loving human species in our hearts at all times and to act accordingly: with love, with kindness. To keep our minds clear of fearful thought forms and influences, which are becoming more and more prevalent and strident now. Conspiracy theories of all kinds are beginning to dominate social media, and hatred of “other” is growing. Divisiveness is encroaching on compassion in the human experience. When we separate off into smaller and smaller groups, suspicious of one another, we are falling further and further away from our purpose in being here.

We human souls who incarnated with a vision of a peaceful and loving planet are repeatedly called to turn away from the distraction of negative perceptions and divisive viewpoints and hold the course of positivity. Separated, we are easily controlled and kept trapped in boxes that don’t allow us to fully flower into our unique expressions. When we come together to celebrate our diversity, harmony naturally unfolds, and the human species begins to come back into balance. This is the destiny we planned for ourselves before we were born. Our souls remember this clearly; it’s only our personalities that get caught up in polarities and judgments.

It’s time to shake off the negativity and take full responsibility for aligning with our soul’s positive vision. How we each see the world affects those around us; our energy vibrates outward and creates either love or fear. When we open our hearts with love and live our lives that way, the collective unconscious is shifted and uplifted. We truly are the caretakers of consciousness. What we hold within our awareness moment to moment is the sun that we shine into our lives. If we allow that sun to be overtaken by clouds, then that is felt by everyone we have any contact with. To be a caretaker is to live with compassion and kindness. When you care for your own consciousness, you are feeding it love and peace, hope and joy; your consciousness in turn feeds others.

Yesterday morning, as I walked along a nature trail, I stopped next to a small lake and watched the sun rising behind a tall pine tree, which was perfectly reflected in the water. As I stood there in the stillness, I noticed a concentric circle of ripples near the shore, possibly coming from the movement of an insect or small fish. Widening my gaze, I saw there were dozens of these concentric ripple circles in the lake, forming a web of motion across the water in the morning sunlight. I knew I was being shown a visual representation of our human/divine grid here on Earth as we radiate light, love, and peace to the greater collective, fed by the luminosity of the Central Sun. I had tears in my eyes as I slowly walked on.

This is our role, our sacred trust in this lifetime, we caretakers of consciousness. To hold the light, to be the light, and to amplify the light of love wherever we are and whomever we’re with. It is the energy from which our entire universe is born, from which we are born. As we fully awaken to that awareness and share it with others, the entire planet also begins to awaken and shine golden light outward in concentric circles across the cosmos. This is the hidden meaning in all the chaos we see around us now; it is the birth pains of a radiant new consciousness based in harmony and love. As that Great Shift occurs and the old paradigm falls away, caretaking becomes the primary collective focus. We honor and protect our planet and all life in every dimension because we can now see clearly how we are all connected, always, through a light grid of limitless love and compassion.

Are We Here Yet?

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger
Like small children, those of us on a spiritual path sometimes want to tug on the sleeve of those walking nearby and ask, “Are we there yet? Are we any closer to enlightenment?” Perhaps the question should be rephrased: “Are we here yet?” Because as long as we see enlightenment as a goal and oneness with God as a destination, we will be forever on the path. “There” seems to imply an ending, the achievement of an intention, the reaching of a final destination, whereas “here” is more about the present moment, right before us. “Be here now,” Ram Dass wrote. In truth, we are always living in the “here” of eternity, an infinite present in which time does not exist. The problem is we can’t recognize it because our vision is blocked by visions of “there.”

Time to take off those future-colored glasses and look around without any questions, aspirations, or parameters. Where we are now is full of light and God, even during a pandemic and social/political unrest. World events are throwing us all back into the present moment repeatedly. We want to plan our lives and map out future events to create certainty in the midst of seeming chaos. Yet this is a time of no certainty, and the chaos we perceive is actually dynamic change in motion. The illusion of permanence that many of us have subscribed to for so long is being overturned by continually shifting circumstances. We keep trying to bring back what we once knew as normal life: social gatherings with friends, travel, school openings, regular jobs, elections. The trouble is none of that is playing out in the same way, even when we try to force the issue. Nothing is the same.

Every day we are pointed to the present moment as the only workable way to live, as the greater truth of our lives. Perhaps our collective enlightenment is coming to us through the back door. Awareness doesn’t always arise from long years of practice and devotion. Sometimes it appears unexpectedly in the middle of sudden out-of-control life events. In this unprecedented time in which the world as we knew it has been turned upside down, individuals are learning to let go of the future in favor of the present. In casual conversation with socially distanced strangers on my morning walks or in line at the grocery store, I find that we often speak of living “one day at a time,” appreciating each moment. This also comes up in emails and social media posts from friends around the globe. It seems to be a worldwide experience: remembering the wisdom of Now.

Here is our reality, here is universal truth, here is enlightenment. Not in some distant future or at the end of an extended quest. Profound realization can catch you off-guard within crisis and uncertainty. We want life to run smoothly and predictably, but it never does. If you can return to living one precious breath at a time, one heartbeat at a time, you may find peace and connection when all else appears to be upheaval and loss. Life is many things, but at its heart it is love and oneness with others and with God. Expanding planetary awakening is showing us that now. As our gaze returns to the present, instead of the past or future, we recognize, for the first time, the light shining in all we see, including ourselves. Elusive enlightenment right here, right now, in the never-ending present moment.

 

What About Love?

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger

Your mind can’t comprehend it, and your heart can’t absorb it: Sudden death—and the fear, pain, and anger that accompany it. Yet another African American man, George Floyd, murdered by a white police officer. Hundreds of thousands of lives cut short by a virulent worldwide virus. In the U.S. and internationally, thousands protest in the streets against years and years of racism, violence, and injustice. As COVID-19 circles the globe, people lose relatives and friends, their jobs and homes; immigrants are again targeted and blamed. Grief. Anger. Is this how life is going to be from now on? It is unless we make the conscious choice to change it. It is until we see our neighbors as ourselves.

We are at a turning point in this country and in the world. Our direction will determine our future. Will we repeat the fatal mistakes of the past, continuing to exist in a polarized “reality” of hatred and mistrust, separation and fear, every stranger a potential enemy, our green planet dying right along with us? Or will we wake up in the midst of this nightmare and recognize the madness for what it is: inner pain externalized. The idea of “other” arising out of a distorted desire to feel “better than.” Can we salvage something livable from this brokenness? Is it possible for humanity to learn how to value life again? And what about love?

We have that love within us. We were born with it. Look in a newborn baby’s eyes and you see only possibility, only love. Children have to be taught how to fear and hate. Can we erase the programming and start afresh? The coronavirus stopped the world in its tracks. In the absence of “things as usual,” the skies began to clear, and new ways to live were born out of compassion and kindness. Still, racism and attitudes about “difference” remained. Now is the moment of truth. Let’s not fall backward into old patterns of divisiveness and “otherdom.” Disagreements about wearing face masks that end up in physical fights, racial hatred that ends up in murder. We can choose differently. We can value the lives of every being on this planet. We can open our hearts in love instead of close them in mistrust and fear.

What will it take, you ask. Seems impossible. But the world we are currently inhabiting is just about as “impossible” as it gets. And that is becoming obvious to more and more people. An awakening is happening on this planet. Humanity is breaking through to the other side of hundreds of years of internalized and external separation. The concept of “other” is being shown in all its distortions so that we can at last see it for what it is—a prison that we are all entrapped in. As we awaken more and more, we begin to see ourselves in every person. What happens to you is simultaneously happening to me. The universal point of view suddenly opens up, and we recognize that separation is an illusion of the mind; at the heart level, we are inseparable. Oneness is not a concept, an unreachable ideal. It is the truth of our existence. There is no “other”; there is only the energy of love out of which we were all born and within which we always dwell.

Love is the awakening. Love is waking up to itself in everyone. Choose it every day in every way and transform the planet. Love everyone. Break through preconceptions and stereotypes (race, gender, age), opinions and beliefs, judgments and arguments. End the war inside you and live in peace with everyone. Allow your heart to guide you. Love every single person you encounter as you would a newborn, and love yourself as well. There is no way to “measure a life,” for life is immeasurable, unfathomable. It is a miracle of love and light that we are blessed to experience. Let that awareness fully awaken within you, and your life and the lives of all those around you will transform immediately. That is why you came to this planet at this time, to be part of an awakening. To open your heart to love even when you are facing a wall of seemingly solid opposition. Keep loving courageously, and the walls will eventually fall, the opposition dissolve. The awakening is in you and me and all of us. Our collective love and compassion are more powerful than “impossibility.”

 

Hold Your Beliefs Light-ly

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
Beliefs are tricky, especially in times of uncertainty. They can be a source of inspiration or a heavy chain around your neck. They can uplift you into possibility or weigh you down, keeping you from open-hearted expansion. Historically, beliefs have been the cause of cycles of planetary polarization: renaissances and wars, connection and separation, coming together and tearing apart, hope and despair. Humans have yet to reach the evolutionary tipping point of being present in experience without filters of any kind. Maybe now is the time to let go and see everything as light, including ourselves and our beliefs.

Growing up, we are taught to identify with our beliefs, that they are the “truth” of our experience. Social groups band together around certain values and perceptions, and identification with those views causes any differences to be seen as a threat. Very early in our lives, a sense of “other” is cultivated, as well as an emotional investment in one’s own view of the world. Mine vs. yours; us vs. them. Cliques, clubs, religious groups, sports teams, states, nations. The ubiquitous “they” follows us through our lives, fostering suspicion and stubbornness. This life view becomes an overlay to your inner light-filled soul self who only sees commonality and unity.

Even when you or I embark upon a spiritual path that encourages opening into the oneness of all life, those old tendencies can interrupt the flow of our soul’s journey on Earth. The personality self, or ego, still holds onto past stories and mental habits, which often center on beliefs. It can take years of conscious practice and commitment to awakening for a deeper awareness to break through the rigidity of belief itself. Eventually, the journey becomes about letting go of everything so that life can move through us unimpeded. This is where we are now on this planet.

Is there a place for belief within complete letting go and acceptance? Personally, I’m still coming into balance with this. I find open, expansive beliefs arising from kindness and inclusion to be inspiring and enlivening. My core belief in a divine loving Presence in the universe and within all beings connects me to others and to life itself. But if I go one step further and attach that core belief to a particular teaching or an expectation about how things should unfold, then I can slip into inflexibility and rigidity without even noticing it. If I look at someone else’s behavior or beliefs and judge them in any way, I have lost the thread of connection.

Perhaps it becomes a balancing dance in which we hold a belief so lightly that it can slip away easily when we open our hearts completely to the present moment and to those we share it with. When we relax into Presence fully, nothing else exists except a love that is both endless and wordless. No separation, no need to differentiate or articulate. There is a freedom in that, as well as a profound sense of connection to everything in the universe. Who would want to give that up in order to hang onto a belief of any kind? This may be our collective direction as a species and as a planet: to hold all of life lightly—with light, as light—and to see our own light-filled reflection in all we perceive. After all, we are just spirits passing through, part of a vast oneness beyond believing or not believing.