Tag: love

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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Freedom, Justice, and Radical Love

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Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

The grand jury decision not to indict the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, weighs heavily on the national conscience. Regardless of the specifics of this case, it’s a story that has repeated itself, with variations, countless times in this nation’s history. Even though today we finally have an African American president, the daily lives of people of color continue to be defined by racism, violence, and injustice. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an equal, just society has not been realized.

Yes, we have evolved in many ways, but the tipping point that would shift momentum toward completely ending separation and “otherness” has yet to be reached. It gets down to the fact that people carry silent preconceptions about other people based on race, sex, age, etc. all the time, even if they don’t believe they do. Racism and all the other “isms” have permeated our collective unconscious mindset and inform how people see and act in the world. What needs to occur is a radical awakening and heart opening into conscious awareness that at the level of our souls, there is no difference between any of us. We are one. Our hearts and souls need to supersede the collective mindset.

How does this happen? Can it happen? I believe if ever there was a time in which it could occur, it is now, when global change and transformation are rocking our planet. It’s up to us to remember the dream of freedom and justice for all and live it. To speak out, act up, and occupy our lives with radical love for all people everywhere. The truth is that there is no “other.” We are one consciousness living the illusion that we are separate. Our minds tell us we are individuals, alone, pitted against everyone else for survival. Our hearts and souls see only oneness, only Being that takes a multiplicity of physical forms.

The “costumes” we wear in our lifetimes are temporary. Beneath our transient skin color, gender, and physicality is an unbroken stream of consciousness that fills all living creatures equally. Whether you call it Spirit, Source, God, or infinite Intelligence, something beyond physical form ties us all together on this Earth. It is this living spirit within that moves us to commit “random acts of kindness” and to march in the streets for human rights, as 1,400 peaceful protesters did in Boston (and many other cities) last night. When our hearts are fully open, it becomes impossible to see another human being as separate from us. The world becomes a mirror, and we see our soul’s reflection in everyone we encounter.

This Thanksgiving, let’s be grateful for the miraculous gift of sharing this world with so many other extraordinarily diverse, yet infinitely similar human reflections. Let’s end all Fergusons by making “love your neighbor as yourself” a reality in our lives. Love everyone, even those you think you disagree with. Sound impossible? Think you can’t do anything to change the status quo? Don’t think, just love, radically, one person at a time. True lasting freedom and justice arises from the love that connects every human heart.

 

Only Child, Only Parents

Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
My parents were both born in the month of October. My mother would have been 100 years old this year, my father, 105. I was their only child, born nine years after they met and married, one of the baby-boomer generation. Although they have been gone for a long time (my mother died 19 years ago; my dad, 10), I still miss them. As an only child, I dreaded their deaths, fearing I would lose my mind without them. Of course I did not. In fact, their transitions were profoundly loving and spiritually uplifting experiences, partly because I was able to be with each of them as they passed. Sitting by their sides, I felt connected to them and to the spiritual realm beyond and intersecting this one. That connection was a great comfort to me for months and years afterward.

It was during those years that my spiritual journey and quest for the meaning of life (and death) began in earnest. My exploration was intentionally eclectic, and I worked with many different teachers. Perhaps I inherited that tendency from my parents, both of whom were also eclectic and nonaligned religiously. They were free thinkers who read widely and attended philosophical discussion groups that pondered the mysteries of life. They encouraged me to make my own choices with regard to religion and spirituality. Over and over throughout my life, they gave me that gift of freedom and unconditional, uncritical love in every area. Whatever paths I took (and I took many—personally, politically, spiritually), they loved me without question.

Their love—for me and for life—is what has stayed with me beyond their lifetimes. It is interwoven with all that I am. As I searched for my own “meaning of life,” my evolving beliefs have always been grounded in love, as were theirs. I can still hear my dad reading aloud a poem by William Blake and choking up at the beautiful words: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.” Reading those lines now makes me cry too, recalling that shared moment of love and gratitude for life. It was music that touched my mother’s heart, the voices as well as the lyrics: Italian tenors, Paul Robeson, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland—she loved them all. We used to listen to all kinds of music together (including birdsong), often with tears in our eyes at some particularly moving musical expression. I am so grateful that my parents passed on their emotional openness to me. As my friends and my partner well know, I cry all the time at life’s beauty and poignancy.

An only child experiences the loss of parents a bit differently because there are no siblings with which to share family memories. No one alive today remembers my parents in all the ways I do. Consequently, I carry their lives within me, where they are present in spite of absence. My backyard flower garden is one of the places I feel them most strongly. They were both gardeners—my dad, vegetables, bushes, and trees; my mother, flowers. I grew up on five acres in rural Illinois, so living with this small piece of nature right outside my door now has been like “coming home” for me—to my childhood home, to myself, and to my parents. Along with so much else, my mother and father gave me a deep appreciation for nature’s miracles. Each time I stand in awe, gazing into the delicate heart of a flower or at a sleeping bee or dancing butterfly, they are with me. They live on within the love in my heart.