Tag: love

Woodstock and Its Legacy

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger

Fifty years ago, in August 1969, nearly a half million young people gathered on a farm in rural New York for “three days of peace and music.” Contrary to warnings about how it would all go wrong, peace and music are exactly what occurred. In spite of the huge crowds, rain, mud, and countless challenges, love and community prevailed. The impact of that peaceful spirit was felt across the country and around the world. Woodstock Nation, whether you were there in person or not, defined a generation. Its legacy continues today.

In California, where I had moved from the Midwest, I was living out my own flower-child dreams in the late 1960s. The counterculture’s vision of peace, love, and flower power was everywhere, and the energy of Woodstock and Haight-Asbury linked both coasts. The music events and peace demonstrations I went to in San Francisco had a very similar high vibration. When I look at film of the Woodstock festival now, I feel it all again. So many iconic moments: Joan Baez’s unmistakable voice ringing out over the hillside, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night…” Sly and the Family Stone singing “Wanna take you higher,” echoed by half a million people. And Richie Havens opening the festival with “Freedom”—a perfect description of the greater message of Woodstock.

In the many years since then, that message has been carried forward in the hearts of those who attended as well as those who read or heard about it. Woodstock showed that one generation’s dream of freedom, peace, love, and community is possible. It was made real at Woodstock. And it has continued to live in the consciousness of subsequent generations in spite of increasing challenges.

War, racism, and violence were predominant issues in the United States in the 1960s, and we continue to face them today. As racial hatred of immigrants, gun violence, and destruction of the environment escalate, the voices calling out for radical change also grow. More and more individuals and groups are speaking out for peace, social justice, diversity, and connection through community. Somewhere in the collective consciousness, we know it can be different. We remember Woodstock, despite many efforts over the years to dismiss it as a childish unrealistic dream that no longer exists.

The Woodstock legacy does exist. Every time someone speaks up for peace and freedom or acts with loving kindness, the dream is revived, and the memory is awakened. If complete strangers can love their neighbors—the people sitting right next to them in very crowded conditions—for several days, then we can love our local and global neighbors in the same way, for even longer periods of time. It takes open hearts and open minds to reach that critical mass. And that is the transformation that is now taking place beneath the turbulence of a world in transition.

If the Age of Aquarius first dawned in the 1960s, then its emergence continues today, and its full flowering is yet to come. At some point, the prophecy of universal peace and love will come to pass. You and I are here to assist in that birth. Woodstock was just the beginning.

The Universal Heart

Photograph © 2019 by Peggy Kornegger
The heart of the universe extends outward energetically through every dimension of Being in the cosmos. That heartbeat is the vibrational source of the manifest world. Every star, every birdsong, every blade of grass, every human emotion vibrates with a universal pulse of life energy, the expression of absolute love many call God. Our own human heartbeat mirrors this divine process. With every rhythmic beat, our hearts pulse the love at our core into the world around us. That pulse connects human hearts around the globe, whether we recognize it or not. The time has come to recognize it.

Each goosebump, teardrop, deep breath, note of music, cat’s purr, and firefly’s light embodies God’s essence. You couldn’t escape that immanent presence even if you tried. You can, however, live your life unconscious of it. Our life purpose, we humans on planet Earth at this transformational time, is to become fully aware of the sacred source energy within us and all around us. To know with every part of us that there is nothing and no one that is not God. This deeply spiritual (and deeply human) process encompasses every facet of life.

Huge leaps in consciousness are being asked of us. This is a time unlike any other that has come before. We are starseeds standing at the edge of the cosmos reaching into infinity. We are lifting curtains and clearing out past histories so that we can fully and consciously embody spirit in our human forms, something that has historically been achieved only by enlightened spiritual masters. Now we are all becoming masters and avatars and recognizing one another as such. The deeper we look into each other’s eyes, the more we see the entire cosmos reflected back to us in all its shining splendor.

So what does this mean in our frequently distracted daily lives? It means that we will increasingly have experiences of seeing whomever we are interacting with as an essential part of the human family, not unlike ourselves. In shared moments of great sorrow or great joy, we recognize our commonality. We see the gossamer thread of spirit that connects us at the soul level and the love that joins our hearts. In those moments, separation, division, and judgment fall away, and we relax into peaceful presence. Thus is peace on Earth initiated, one individual soul at a time. When we softly breathe into our similarities instead of tightly hanging onto our differences, the entire planet shifts. God recognizing God.

The universal heartbeat animates life on Earth and throughout the cosmos. That living pulse permeates every aspect of our lives. Our cells are made of the same stuff as the stars we gaze at in the night skies. The light of the sun is the light in our own eyes. We are all connected, in every possible way, because the entire universe is of a piece: a divine creation that allows spirit, or God, to experience itself in form. We are that form. As Joni Mitchell once wrote, “We are stardust, we are golden.” In moments of inspired connection, we can see this with such clarity that our awareness expands to include the farthest stretches of the universe, and we know it as ourselves. We see the One that became Many which is now recognizing itself as One. What a miraculous time to be alive.

 

Are You Twins?

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger
My partner/wife Anne and I have been together 36 years, married 5 years. During that time, we have been present to many changes in consciousness about and reactions to LGBTQ people. It is a time of great expansion on this planet. At the moment, it can feel like everything is going backwards, but it’s really just the rising and falling of waves of change. Awareness is definitely continuing to open and flower, even in the most unexpected places.

As a couple, Anne and I have experienced one particularly humorous reaction/interaction over the years that has repeated itself in place after place, with slight variations. After looking at us curiously for a moment, complete strangers will ask either “Are you twins?” or “Are you sisters?” When we say “no,” their faces register disbelief. This was especially true 30 years ago when the general public had little awareness about same-sex couples.

On one occasion, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, two individuals came into a store just to ask if we were twins. We found this particularly funny because we were in the midst of a conversation with the storeowner who was asking the same thing! When this kind of inquiry first began to happen, we said little other than “no” (especially while traveling) because acts of hatred and violence against those in the LGBTQ community were not uncommon, and we knew we had to be cautious in what we revealed to strangers. Anne would often divert the conversation by saying that she had a twin brother.

As the gay/lesbian rights movement grew over the years and more and more people courageously came out in their lives, a dramatic shift in the collective consciousness began to occur. In May 2004, Massachusetts (where we lived at the time) became the first state to allow legal marriages of same-sex couples. State after state followed. In 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was struck down, and it became legal at the federal level. Thousands joyfully flew rainbow flags throughout the nation, and rainbow lights even graced the White House. It became much more commonplace for people to recognize a same-sex couple when they saw one, particularly in Massachusetts.

Today, of course, negative opinions about LGBTQ individuals and anyone else considered “different” are re-surfacing, all fed by fear. But those on the receiving end of these attitudes are not turning back and becoming invisible, even in the face of threats, anger, and violence. Acceptance and love has entered the collective conversation at the national and international level, and that is a genie that cannot be returned to the bottle.

When Anne and I married in 2014, we were surrounded by those who loved us, and waves of love radiated out from all of those present in the most magical of ways. We continue to live in that radiance in spite of whatever divisiveness is playing out in the national media and in the underside of public consciousness. Our openness about being who we are has been tested recently as we moved from Massachusetts to Florida, a state historically not known for its support of LGBTQ rights. We didn’t know what to expect, but we have been pleasantly surprised so far.

Yes, there have been replays of the “twins” conversation, but sweet ones. In January, we were celebrating our 36th anniversary at the local botanical garden. As we stood waiting to enter, a woman next to us struck up a conversation, and soon that familiar series of questions began: “Are you twins?” “No.” “Sisters?” “No” “Oh, just really good friends then?” At this point, I said: “We’re married—5 years. And today we’re celebrating 36 years together.” The woman immediately responded, “That’s wonderful! Congratulations!” And the woman next to her echoed, “Congratulations!” with a big smile on her face. The man beside her wished us a “Happy Anniversary.” Smiles all around.

Assumptions, yours or mine, can separate us from each other. I’m finding that you can never assume anything about someone else’s beliefs or lifestyle. You just have to be willing to be yourself and to hold love in your heart. Generally, that is what you will receive in return. Just yesterday, we had a mini-replay of the above conversation, and when the woman heard we had been together 36 years, her face lit up and her eyes softened with tears as she looked back and forth at us. “That’s so wonderful and so unusual for anyone to stay together that long. You are blessed.” Yes, we are. And may such blessings as these multiply and circle the globe, filling every heart with limitless love.

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.”