Tag: love

Three Pelicans Circling

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger

Last week, on my morning walk, three brown pelicans flew overhead, high in the sky, as I tilted my head up to watch them. Slowly they turned in perfect unison and began to circle above me, directly above me. They circled three times, large sweeping circles of which I was the epicenter below them. Then they turned back the way they had originally come and flew off into the distance. As I watched them leave, my spirits uplifted by their brief aerial presence, I thought, “Why did they fly here, circle three times, and then return? Was my presence somehow connected to theirs?”

I am inclined to see the synchronicities of the universe, believing that everything is somehow connected in the greater tapestry of life. We are part of an energy dance, we living beings, and we all affect one another. The thread between us seems invisible, but it does exist. Their circling and my seeing happened simultaneously. No visible cause and effect, yet I felt as if my seeing reached out to them and drew them into a circle. Just as their circling reached out to me and drew me into heightened seeing. A bit like what physicists call quantum entanglement.

Humans on this planet are involved in a similar dance of circling and seeing, invisible much of the time but highlighted when synchronicities catch our attention and expand our awareness. A friend and I recently had a conversation about how everyone affects each other in the dramas of daily life. It became a wider discussion of the polarities of light and dark and the evolution of consciousness on Earth. We came to the mutual “conclusion” that every person and event plays a key role in the expansion of our collective consciousness. Nothing is just a disaster or a godsend. No one is just a hero or a villain. We all have bits of each of those extremes within us, and when we can embrace that polarity, we are free to live the nuances of life. Our life purpose is to accept what is challenging as well as what is inspiring, to come into harmony with everything.

It all gets down to something my friend/teacher Panache Desai has shared repeatedly: “Everything is perfect. Everything is God.” I receive that wisdom at deeper levels within me each day I live my life. This past week it filled me completely, permeating my cells like oxygen, like light. It was light. I saw that we are all here to come to that awareness, to embrace that full expression of compassion and love. We are here to embody divine Presence in the world. A Presence in which all polarities come into harmony within us and thus within the world. That is humanity’s role and destiny at this time.

The pelicans demonstrated that greater circling and surrendering to invisible energies that carry us to where we’re meant to be. Each detail of our flight is part of our soul’s journey, which we chose before birth. We are living our lives to align with our soul’s overview and to align with the love that connects all of our hearts—human, bird, animal, star. To live in loving awareness, with kindness and generosity of spirit, is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, each other, and the world. You and I are God meeting God everywhere every day of our lives. And it’s all perfect.

A Conscious Reset

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
There are times in life when you may feel as if you’re running backward down a dark alley that has no outlet. Kind of like a bad dream. When you finally realize you’re backing yourself into a dead end, there’s nothing to do but stop, take a deep breath, and look honestly at where you are. In fact, you are being given a precious opportunity to fully awaken and live with greater awareness. It’s what I call a conscious reset. And it’s what I’m experiencing right now.

This past year, a series of losses and life-direction changes hit me hard with their collective force. I couldn’t understand why, if I was following clear divine guidance, things were not unfolding divinely. They were just plain painful. It was one of those “God, why hast thou forsaken me?” moments. Yet deep inside, my soul knew exactly what was going on. It took me a while to re-align with that wisdom, but I learned a lot in the process. I had to consciously, intentionally, raise my head above the onslaught and see with God’s eyes.

When I was able to look at things more clearly, more “soulfully,” I came to realize an important truth: It’s easy to believe that I am being divinely guided when everything is going well and I am surrounded by synchronicities and miracles. The real challenge is to trust that I am also being guided when nothing makes sense, and everything appears to be falling apart. To have faith that even the seeming setbacks are happening for my evolution as a soul within a complex cosmic plan that includes all souls and all of the universe. I am one thread in the divine tapestry, as are we all, and we each play a key part.

Even in difficult circumstances and events, there is a greater purpose. The razor edge of pain can pierce our armor of assumption and habit and make us more acutely aware of the sweet grace of everyday life. For there are synchronicities and miracles in loss, sadness, and struggle, but we don’t always have the clarity of vision to perceive them. The more we are awakened by life’s events, the more we can see that God is in everything, without exception. Confusion and crisis come to us to encourage trust and surrender, the gateway to peace at the deepest level.

A conscious reset, then, does not mean you have brought disaster upon yourself through failure or negligence. It doesn’t mean blaming yourself or trying to erase the past. A conscious reset involves the way you look at things; it means seeing life positively, not negatively. Some call that the “silver lining” or “rose-colored glasses.” But it’s not a false happiness that ignores difficult emotions. A positive worldview accepts everything as part of the human evolution on this planet. One that trends to love instead of fear or doubt. You can emerge from even the darkest alley into the sunlight.

For me, a conscious reset meant stepping out of complaining and criticizing, either situations or people. One way to support that is a “negativity fast.” My partner and I agreed to do that last month. We made a sign that said “No Criticism. No Judgment. No Complaining. No Irritation,” and we placed it where we would consistently notice it. We gently (or humorously) reminded each other if one of us slipped into a negative outlook. It helped. What also helped was thinking of one thing to be grateful for each morning and holding that in my consciousness throughout the day. And taking walks in which I silently expressed gratitude for everything I saw. It is a heart-opening practice.

You or I may still find ourselves in an experience that triggers sadness, fear, or upset, but if we have consciously committed to feeling those emotions in a larger context of trust, then we can return to a more peaceful state of mind. We let life just flow as it’s meant to without trying to control the outcome. This is the soul’s greatest wisdom, which it is perfectly willing to share if we just pause and listen. What better way to begin a new year?

Limitless Love on an Evolving Planet

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
Is love on a global scale, for oneself and others, possible? I believe it is, despite evidence to the contrary. Let’s face it. The current planetary paradigm that we inhabit is based in limitation. From a very early age, we are taught to curtail our heart’s desires for fear they will be crushed within a skewed social matrix that does not allow universal self-fulfillment and growth. Most social constructs in our world are organized on a top/bottom basis. Whether you are at the bottom or top, your life is limited by the very fact of inhabiting a limited paradigm. What would it take to shift that paradigm, to make it inclusive instead of exclusive? How about a complete transformation in global consciousness? Because until the collective consciousness changes, we are all caught in a web of limitation.

So how do we transform consciousness in such a way that it affects everyone on the planet? The answer can’t be found in political parties, social revolutions, or individual changes. For as Emma Lazarus once wrote, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” All the attempts by humans down through the ages to create a “better world” have moved us along and opened possibilities but have not eliminated all inequities. We are living in a time when all that changes. The reason? We are moving into a greater awareness on this planet, one sourced in the heart not the head. Our evolution as human beings is reaching critical mass as we open to the heart’s transformative energy. Love will break through all limitations and separations and bring us home to ourselves and to each other.

When we look into our neighbors’ eyes and see brothers and sisters, that is when the world shifts. It is a collective phenomenon. Together, we love a better world into existence. Together we recognize that anything is possible. Together we become limitless. It’s not an individual endeavor or solo struggle. Now is the era of soul family and soul family reunion. We came to this planet to carry love in our hearts and see it through to its ultimate earthly manifestation: universal connection. One after another, we recognize one another as family, and the circle expands. No one is left out this time around. No one rises up while others fall behind. It is the collective heart of humanity that is opening.

Even when it looks like hatred and fear predominate in the world, see it as the last breath of a dying paradigm. Know that nothing is stronger than love, in any dimension. We are here to live the ageless wisdom of the heart in all that we say and do in our lives. We are here to collectively shift consciousness throughout every dimension. It is already happening—in every act of kindness and compassion worldwide. Together we are embodying limitless love on an evolving planet. Now.
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*Many of the ideas expressed here are expanded further in my book Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart, available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Unsubscribe and Live Peacefully

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
“Subscription” once referred mainly to printed magazines and newspapers (“Your subscription is about to expire—please renew”). Now it’s the backbone of online communication. If you ask a question or sign a petition online, you automatically get subscribed to a barrage of ongoing emails. Subscription has become a cyber activity, distanced from anything real or living. We don’t subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, life. It’s just there, always supporting us. We can, however, lose touch with the essential simplicity of life. We can get entrapped in excess minutia—like too many emails.

A few weeks ago, I reached critical overload with the number of non-personal emails flooding my inbox. Political and environmental groups, spiritual programs and teachers, doctors and alternative healthcare practitioners, bookstores and theaters, online businesses. What a waste of time just to delete them multiple times a day! I went through and unsubscribed from virtually everything except a few key ones. At the same time, I decided to cut back on social media, visiting only occasionally. It was a relief. I felt as if I had lifted the heavy weight of contemporary social busyness and distractions off my shoulders. At least one day a week now I don’t even turn on my computer or phone. Wow, what freedom!

In unsubscribing there was also surrender, letting go into the natural flow of daily life, unmanipulated by technology. I was once again the 9-year-old girl who spent summers running through the fields with my dog or sitting up in a tree reading mysteries. Life was rich, full, perfect. It was a simpler time then, both in my life and on the planet. Now we have to filter out unnecessary complexities in order to live a simple life, one dedicated to what’s really important: connection to the spirit within us and all around us.

Spirit has become the focus of my life in recent years. The idea of unsubscribing as surrender somehow fits with that. As my soul’s wisdom moves to the forefront of my consciousness, I make choices that are more in alignment with a loving beingness in the world. Heart more than head. Social media engages the mind for the most part. What we want is to engage the heart, with the mind giving quiet feedback but not dominating. This is the way to balance, to harmony. The heart is directly connected to our soul’s purpose, and when we live a simple heart-centered life, we are living the “why” of our presence on this planet, in this lifetime.

If I remember each day to choose love and appreciation over distraction and dissatisfaction, then I am connected to the natural flow of spirit everywhere in the universe. Even disliking social media or emails can take you to a place of judgment and negativity. The key is to calmly “unsubscribe” from anything that is not positive and uplifting, anything that locks you into busyness instead of beingness. It’s not as hard as it may seem. Allow your computer or cell phone to be an occasional tool for information or connection. Visit now and then, not continuously. Life is not “virtual.” It expresses itself everywhere in extraordinary bursts of color and light. When your awareness expands and your heart opens, life becomes both richer and simpler. Within that is peace—of mind, of body, of soul.

 

Middle Earth

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

In Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien used the term Middle-earth to describe the land where his stories took place. Situated somewhere between angelic and demonic realms, the inhabitants struggled to hold to the light. Sometimes I feel that is where we live now. Opposing forces are mobilized on all sides. All around are compelling reasons to believe that “evil” is on the rise and that “good” people are increasingly victimized by those in power. Yet holding to the light within darkness means we cannot succumb to what the prevailing belief systems would have us accept as truth. We may live in Middle Earth now, but it is just a way-station on the way to the New Earth. The challenge and balancing act is to accept and live in the present moment while also embodying a new vision for the future.

When I was in my 20s, I began to catch glimpses of this “New Earth.” Like many others of my generation, I envisioned where we were meant to evolve and how we were meant to get there. The where and the how were both Love. It sounds like a Beatles song (and it was), but it was/is so much more. “All You Need Is Love” is the oldest wisdom on Earth, handed down in every spiritual tradition for thousands of years. Compassion, loving-kindness, generosity of spirit, oneness—all names for love, for living as if there were no separation between any of us (and there isn’t, at the soul level). If “otherness” falls away, fear and suspicion also fall away. War and violence fall away. Hatred and abuse fall away. If you see every being as just like you on the inside, then how could you hurt them or turn away in aversion and rejection? If you look in another person’s (or animal’s) eyes without preconceptions or guardedness, there is only God looking back at you.

That is the vision we had so many years ago, and I still hold it in my heart. It is a dream that becomes real as we live it. Equality; respect for all ages, abilities, races, and religions; gender fluidity; shared resources and abundance; love for and protection of nature and the environment. Kindness, compassion, and gratitude as the basis of all interactions. No privileged classes served by others or elite groupings that exclude the “undeserving.” No higher and lower. No kings or presidents or top dogs. No hierarchy. All remnants of the patriarchy will fall away, to be replaced by ever-evolving circular structures that support both individual and collective creative growth and flowering. A living social agreement that changes with the always changing awareness and potential of those who are part of it. Our lives will be defined by infinite possibility and vision, not dead-ended rules and laws that only benefit those who make them.

Some may consider all this utopian fluff, not grounded in the real world. But every dream is considered unrealistic and impossible before it manifests into reality. We begin with the dream and we dance it into existence. Right now, we are in Middle Earth, seemingly stuck somewhere between the old and new paradigms. We haven’t yet crossed the line of “critical mass,” at which point, momentum picks up and impossibility gradually becomes possibility, becomes “reality.” The key, the secret, the incentive, is to live now as though it has already happened. Because it has—in our hearts. Every single one of us was born with love at our core. When the layers get peeled back and the masks fall away, that’s all there is. At some point, we will stand soul-naked before one another and realize at the deepest level who we are and why we are here.