Tag: open heart

Ride the Current

Photograph © 1999 Lynn Van Gundy
Photograph © 1999 Lynn Van Gundy

There is a river running through Bern, Switzerland, that is used as a kind of moving thoroughfare by local residents and adventurous tourists. Individuals don swimsuits and hike upstream alongside the river and then ride the fast-moving current back into town (without boats or rafts). The Swiss pride themselves on the cleanliness of the water, and a recent PBS travel program showed people of all ages and body types zipping along rapidly, laughing in delight at how fast they are traveling, with no effort whatsoever. They just have to jump in and become one with the current.

If only we could always see life in this way: a beautiful river that will carry us home if we let go and flow with it. Nature gives us so many examples of how life flows if we don’t try to swim against the current: dolphins and porpoises surfing ocean waves, birds and butterflies gliding on airstreams. Surrendering to life’s natural movement allows you to just be instead of striving and struggling. Strenuous effort is so draining, whereas becoming part of something greater energizes you and moves you forward with lightness and grace. Even when the current feels wild and a bit scary. That wildness is life’s pulsation, which is within each of us as well. If you find yourself caught in a small eddy of fear, sadness, or tension, relaxing into feeling it fully often allows you to effortlessly slip back into the main current of life’s events.

For much of my life I was a “trier,” believing that nothing would happen without my own efforts. Of course, I was taught this, at school and in the world at large. Only later did I come to realize that it was in moments of being rather than striving that I always found a connection to life’s flowing essence, which is spirit. As a child, when I climbed trees, ran through open fields, or lay in the grass watching the ever-changing sky, I was most relaxed, alive, inspirited. The natural world held me in its arms and nurtured the evolution of my young soul. Today, it is gardening in my backyard, hiking in the mountains, or swimming in the ocean that fills me with that sense of oneness with all things. As a writer, I tap into this ever-present life energy in order to express my soul’s voice.

Aligning with the pulse of the universe, inside us and all around us, brings liberation and deep connection. When I allow life to flow through me, I am not forcing anything. The current carries me easily. I let go of judgments about people, events, or my own feelings and see them all as part of life’s river, alive with motion and possibility. Every moment is a new opportunity to release expectation and just experience everything openheartedly: “Oh, this is happening now…” Living with all the doors and windows open, no barriers to what is showing up, is the perfect way to expand your inner being. Every river you jump into wholeheartedly will carry you to magical and undreamed of places that will feed your soul. Ride the current of your own heart’s desire, and you will come home to yourself, again and again.

 

 

Freedom, Justice & Radical Love, 2016

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, was shot and killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The grand jury decided not to indict the officer. It’s a story that has repeated itself again and again, with variations, in the two years since then, and indeed throughout this nation’s history. The daily lives of people of color continue to be defined by racism, violence, and injustice, and the dream of an equal, just society has not been realized. When will black lives matter enough that the killing stops? In the past week, the violence has been escalating: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Then five police officers shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Guns everywhere that divide us even more. Anger, fear, hatred, grief. How do we bridge this huge chasm that separates us from one another?

Yes, we have evolved and grown 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, and gender 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 we need 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? 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 up, reach out, and fill 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 march in the streets for human rights and to join together in compassion and caring. 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.

It is way beyond time to put down all weapons and at last 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 and Dallases 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.

 

It Could Have Been Me…

Boston City Hall, Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Boston City Hall, Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Two years ago, on June 22, my life partner, Anne, and I were married here in Massachusetts after 31 years together. In doing so, we became part of a rising wave of same-sex couples in many states claiming their right to marry after the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was struck down as unconstitutional. One year later, the Supreme Court also decided in favor of marriage equality nationally, and rainbow lights shone on the White House and across the United States. We in the LGBT community celebrated this miraculous shift in public consciousness regarding our basic human rights. People’s hearts and minds had opened beyond anything any of us had dreamed possible. A new sense of freedom and hope filled us.

Yet, here we are today, reeling from the news that 49 people were killed and 53 more critically injured in a mass shooting at Pulse, an Orlando LGBT nightclub. It’s the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, among so many in recent years. My heart sank when I heard the news. As a gay friend of mine said, “It all feels so personal.” And it is. It’s not just a random attack; it’s an attack specifically targeting LGBT people. And it could have been carried out anywhere, by anyone filled with homophobic fear and hatred. Any of us could have been one of the victims. It quite literally could have been me. The media are focused on reporting that the shooter was Muslim and pledged allegiance to ISIS, but that connection, real or not, has little to do with it. Anti-gay hatred crosses all lines of religion, politics, and nationality. (And don’t forget that media-fed mistrust and hatred of Muslims is also on the rise.)

Many friends of mine are having memory flashbacks of past experiences of hostility, intimidation, or violence because of their sexual orientation. Me too. It cuts deep, this mass killing, this act of extreme hatred. We are all feeling it, gay or not. I just saw a news video of a man at Los Angeles Pride events with a sign that read: “I am Pulse.” It brought tears to my eyes. If we could all remember that. People are taught to be afraid of “difference,” but no one exactly fits the mainstream standard of acceptability. If we could only see that we are each very different in our unique human expression, but ultimately the same deep within. When our hearts break open, we start to recognize our own reflection in the eyes of all those around us.

Yes, I am Pulse too. I am a lesbian. I am your neighbor. Your sister, your cousin, your daughter. Your co-worker. Your best friend. I am you. We are one within our shared human experience on this planet. We came here to live that oneness, through love. Love of everyone, every one. Let this terrible event be a reminder to each of us to love without parameters, without definitions. Although it may not always seem like it, we are part of something much bigger occurring on this Earth: a transformation in consciousness that is breaking down barriers between people of all ages, sexes, races, nationalities, religions, and belief systems. It is a massive shift out of an old crumbling paradigm based in “otherness” into one based in oneness and love.

Even so, how do we live day to day after such a traumatic event? What do we do with our grief, anger, and fear? We feel them, completely. Sometimes I just have to cry or rage or shake—allow those emotions to move through me, so that I can move forward. Beneath the feelings of sorrow, shock, and fright lives hope, still. I truly believe that we have not lost all that we have gained. Those open doors can never completely close again. We need to remember too that we are not finished; the human species and the planet are still evolving. The extreme polarities arising from fear of difference, fear of change, are coming up to be faced and balanced in all of us. There is more to do, more to be….

When Anne and I married two years ago, we wanted our coming together in love to rise from, and flow back into, the expansion of love we saw occurring everywhere. We chose June, LGBT Pride month, as the perfect time for our marriage. Looking back, I can still feel that momentum, that greater love filling the hearts of those present at the wedding and overflowing into the world around us. Today, as we all face the tragic results of inner hatred turned outward, I pray that we keep our hearts open in spite of the pain. That we love even more deeply. Our collective love is stronger than fear, stronger than hate. Love is love is love is love…. With courage, with compassion, we can continue to live that truth into the world.

 

Authenticity of the Heart

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

In the current political vernacular, the word authentic has crept into use to mean “speaking one’s mind,” whether or not that includes comments that are racist, sexist, elitist, or homophobic. Some people think that saying things that others are afraid to say is being authentic when actually it’s often just voicing acquired opinions and prejudices. If you listen to the speechmaking and off-the-cuff comments of those currently running for office in the U.S., you can hear a broad spectrum of harsh judgments and angry finger-pointing. All of which has the effect of creating separation and mistrust among people. How did “authenticity” get mixed up in this unpleasant and alienating scenario?

Some would say that that’s just the way politics is, full of name-calling and insults. However, labeling such behavior as “authentic” is completely misleading. Saying anything that comes into your head is not authenticity. The dictionary defines authentic as “genuine.” Genuine, to me, is tied to integrity and heartfelt expression. Authenticity arises from a connection to the heart and soul. Actually, to be one’s true soul self is to be authentic. Authenticity originates in the soul, and the soul is pure love. It does not hold judgments about others; nor is it angry, defensive, and accusatory. The personality may indulge in those attitudes and behaviors, but the soul is always peaceful and at one with all people and all situations.

Speaking your mind is not the same thing as speaking from your soul. The mind stores all sorts of accumulated detritus over a lifetime. It can’t be relied upon for loving-kindness or peaceful coexistence unless it is connected to the heart and soul. That deep connection opens the mind to harmony and balance. If you are confronted by someone who is “speaking their mind,” the wisest response might be to just hold a space of quiet presence. To listen and then speak from the heart calmly and peacefully. Argument just engages the polarity part of the brain and keeps the separation alive. To be your authentic self, stay connected to the soulful part of you that only sees oneness, not “otherness.”

So, in its truest sense, authenticity is of the heart and soul. If we are living as our souls in the world—the open, loving beings we were at birth—we are being authentic. Many highly polarized human beliefs are being expressed loudly and publicly these days. Yet I believe it is all part of a re-centering process that this planet and humankind are undergoing. The judgments, hatred, and separation we have carried so long within the collective consciousness will eventually be dissolved, and our authentic soul selves will come together at last in love, peace, and harmony on Earth.

 

Opening to Love

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Sometimes a seeming crisis, like my recent eye diagnosis, can be an unanticipated catalyst for profound inner change and deeper awareness. In the last few weeks, I have written about losing my self and emptying out the past. In the process, nothing was really lost. It was more like opening to Spirit, or the Divine—to my soul’s source within universal consciousness, which is love itself. When people speak of these things, it can sound vague and inaccessible. That does not have to be the case. In fact, I believe it is not only accessible to everyone, it is our human destiny to live in conscious awareness of our spiritual connection. It’s why we’re here, at this time, on this planet. No accident. And we are walking in the footsteps of those spiritual masters before us who are showing us the way.

I found that the more I emptied out, the greater the feeling of expansive inner openness. And within that vast space a question spontaneously emerged: “How may I be of service to others in the world, how may I live love in each moment?” I was asking to live for something beyond my own personal gratification or fulfillment. Or, as St. Francis expressed it, “Make me an instrument of peace.” I knew that on the deepest level I was inviting the Divine into my heart and soul. And when you do this, the Divine shows you that it has always been there. The heart of the Divine is my heart, your heart. The soul of the Divine is the universal soul of humankind.

I felt this divine connection sweep over me in waves, igniting my entire physical body. I walked to my computer, sat down, and began to write. The words came faster than my fingers could type them. I wrote nonstop for hours, from my heart and soul, connected to the energy of love, which was orchestrating everything. This was the answer to my question, at least in part: writing what came through me to be shared. I had sensed that before, but now I knew it at a deeper level of soul purpose. Each of us has such a purpose in our lives, a unique way to share our heart’s love with others. One by one, we are being guided to that knowledge.

What I discovered was that when I surrender the illusion of control, my life begins to live itself in perfect alignment with my soul’s purpose for being on this Earth. When I ask for guidance, it arises magically from within me and around me. I live what appears before me to live in each moment, arising seamlessly from connection to Spirit. I let go in the deepest part of my being, knowing that I am here to live not for me as a single personality or ego, but for me as one soul among millions, one thread within a universal living tapestry of light.

This is the shift in consciousness that humans are experiencing at this time. We are gradually becoming attuned to something greater inside us, beyond definition or explanation. Every day now, I ask to be emptied and filled, again and again: “May love and compassion flow through me.” In aligning with that Presence that is the source of everything in this world, I know I am not alone; I am many: the “I” that is “you,” that is “we,” that is all of us, individually and collectively. As each of us clears out the old stories and opens to the dynamic energy of soul connection, our hearts will overflow with joy, gratitude, and a limitless love that will radiate outward to all hearts everywhere.