Tag: open heart

Sacred Circle of Love

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

Are our ideas about love evolving right along with us? Yes, I believe they are. Today, in our seemingly chaotic world, beneath the surface of visible turmoil and divisiveness, there exists a gradual, almost imperceptible shift in the way we think about love. We are seeing an expansion from clannish familial love and romantic love based on physical appearance/attraction to a more inclusive universal love that encompasses all beings. In the past, this universal love has often been linked to the Divine love associated with a God or Goddess. In various spiritual or religious traditions, the Divine Mother is the primary image of unconditional, compassionate love. Historically, it has been difficult for ego-bound humans to express this kind of selfless loving. But all that is changing.

Now, during this time of accelerating evolution in human consciousness, we are opening our hearts to that infinite love without conditions or parameters. As we step into embodying the archetypal mother’s love for her child, we experience and radiate that love to all whom we meet on our life’s journey. The Divine within each of us mirrors the Divine in others: I love, you love, we love—the sacred circle of unconditional love. This is the love that is at the core of our being and at the center of the cosmos. In truth, both our universe and we were born in love. And we are finally awakening to that universal Divine love that permeates all things.

This February, the month in which people celebrate Valentine’s Day and romance, let us also recognize a love greater than cards or candy or our individual lives. A love that, if we let it, could redefine the way we live on this planet and make every day one filled with profound human connection and global harmony. Let us celebrate Love in the capitalized sense. Let us love the way Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. loved all peoples of the Earth. Let us love one another, and ourselves, with the delight and wonder a new parent feels when they look at their child. Let us, at long last, love from the depth of our souls, beyond limits and beyond words.

 

Child’s Play

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Over the holidays, I received a very interesting tutorial from Spirit in the form of a New Year’s Eve game of Scrabble. Instead of strategizing and studiously mulling over possible letter combinations and words, I found myself just being present, doing nothing in particular. As if by magic, letters began to form themselves into words that I would effortlessly place on the board. My partner could barely finish her turn before I had a new word ready to go. This continued throughout the game, and I ended up with the highest score I had ever made (hers not far behind). But it wasn’t really about winning; it was about playing. The entire experience was almost surreal—I felt as if Scrabble was being played through me, and I was just the vehicle to allow the playing. Thus, the larger life lesson: When you let go and stop trying so hard, life flows through you. And everything becomes more play-full.

Effort, trying, has always been my approach to the world (I was born pushing hard to emerge from the womb, breaking my mother’s tailbone in the process). Only recently have I learned to slow down, breathe, and allow my life to be lived through me instead of trying to plan every single event and experience in my reality. It’s not as if I’ve never lived spontaneously—I was, after all, a flower child in the 1960s! Nonetheless, there has always been some part of me that believed that living life meant working hard to make it happen (write down a list of those intentions, and act on them—now!). Really, the greater truth is that life is meant to be played. And playing is the opposite of work. It’s being, letting go and flowing with the energies. Of course, that flow comes from an open heart, unblocked emotions, and trust in something greater than your individual life.

All part of human evolution at this time. As babies, we were easily playful, but we lose it within a social construct that demands serious effort from us at an early age. Now, as that old paradigm starts to disintegrate, we are beginning to reacquaint ourselves with that wise child within, that soul self more aware of what’s really important in life. Our soul knows that, first and foremost, we are here to love (the world and life itself), and that everything is a vehicle for that—a way to reach greater and greater levels of loving and harmony with our fellow beings. How do we do that? Play. Allow life to play with you. Let it be an adventure and a game, one that you are not here to win but just to play—with everyone in your life. Play it forward!

2013: Reboot to Resilience

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
The year 2012 is behind us. The world didn’t end. But it did shift in major ways for people all over the world, and those shifts continue. Many of the changes involved extreme challenges and emotional/physical upheaval, but the promise of the Great Shift was never instant utopia. It was transformation: the caterpillar gradually morphing and expanding within the cocoon until it breaks free, emerging as a full-fledged butterfly. During this transitional time of expansion and growth, our greatest strength is our resilience, our ability to stretch ourselves beyond limitation or growth pains and emerge triumphant. And 2013 is all about resilience, fueled by the power of our individual and collective evolution.

In 2012, my heart opened more and more—with love, with joy—until there were times when I felt as if it couldn’t possibly open any wider. In the process, however, I found that I also had to face the presence of pain that I had carried within me for a very long time. My heart was aching with the suffering I saw everywhere in the world, and my body itself struggled with pain in the form of headaches. Unconsciously, I felt a resistance to becoming fully resilient and healed because I believed that would separate me from other people. As I moved to a place of acceptance of the full spectrum of human experience on Earth at this time (pain included), my entire consciousness shifted. Pain/suffering is one part of a greater whole, and as we continue to evolve, that part begins to diminish in the face of human compassion and love, which brings all of us closer and closer together in the global experience of oneness.

What is more, as I/we expand and become more resilient (peaceful, joyful, loving), that energy goes out into the collective matrix and helps to shift everything/everybody. This is the power of interconnections and of the reverberations of light resilient energy. It is the butterfly that moves its wings in China and affects the wind on the other side of the planet. It is the human heart that opens so wide as to embrace every experience and every living being with unconditional love. It is the power of fully awakened spirit in human form.

The Maya Cosmovision: Beyond 2012

Tikal © 2007 Peggy Kornegger
“The Maya Keepers of Time know the opening of this new cycle to be transcendental, as it is the beginning of the Fifth Sun and brings with it the possibility of great spiritual awakening, insight, and realization for all of humanity.”—Nana Mercedes Barrios Longfellow, Maya Mam elder

Contrary to what you might hear or read in the media, the Maya never predicted that the world would end on December 21, 2012. Never. That’s a complete misinterpretation of the ancient Maya teachings, which have been handed down and preserved by indigenous Maya lineage carriers. The Maya cosmovision brought forward by the Maya elders of today speaks of the end of one cycle or Sun and the beginning of another, one filled with light. This is a time of transition, possibility, and expansion, not apocalypse.

Over the past eight years, I have had the opportunity and honor to learn about the traditional Maya teachings from Nana Mercedes Barrios Longfellow and other Maya elders from Guatemala. A number of us have traveled with the elders to Guatemala and participated in traditional fire ceremonies at Maya sacred sites there. Gatherings and fire ceremonies with the elders have also taken place in the United States, often at Rowe Center in the mountains of western Massachusetts.

Nana Mercedes’ teaching always involves a discussion of the Cholqij, one of the twenty sacred Maya calendars. The Cholqij is used as a guide for the spiritual growth and evolution of human beings, thus its particular importance at this time. The calendar consists of a 260-day cycle, each day of which carries a different frequency. In Nana Mercedes’ words, “Spirit speaks through the energy of the day. If we attune to the frequency of the day and begin to obey the laws of the universe, that day that sacred energy will fully support us.” Using the calendar on a daily basis helps humans to live with a conscious awareness of the larger cosmos that we are a part of here on Earth.

Over the years, I have learned so much from Nana Mercedes: about slowing down and getting in touch with the flow of each day’s energy (through meditation/prayer); about living life with humility and respect for all beings; about being of service to others and being grateful for the blessings we receive every moment on this beautiful planet. To spend time with Nana Mercedes is to experience a deep connection to a profound and wise way of living in the world. “We are one heart,” she has always said, and for me that is one of the most beautiful of the Maya teachings. I feel it profoundly when I am present at a Maya fire ceremony and also when a group of us—some longtime friends, others new friends—comes together to hear the wise teachings that have been handed down for thousands of years.

In September, about 30 of us spent four days at Rowe Center with Nana Mercedes and Nana Regina (who is also from Guatemala). Afterward, my heart was full, and I felt the ancient wisdom and light embodied by the Maya, and other indigenous peoples, shining forth powerfully and helping with the global awakening of all beings to universal oneness. More and more, I see evidence of that awakening, in spite of the huge challenges the planet faces today. The Great Shift—this transition to a new era, or new Sun, which the Maya have foreseen—is with us now. And it’s not about one date, or even one year. As we release old ways based in separation and fear, the cosmic energy will carry us forward beyond time and space into full immersion in the realm of the heart. As Nana Mercedes herself has said, “We are destined to be evolved beings, living in harmony, with great gratitude for the miracles of life.”

From the Heart

© 2011 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
People in the United States (and Canada) have set aside Thanksgiving as a day for being grateful and counting our blessings—literally,“giving thanks.” Taken to the next level, however, gratitude for life’s blessings also means sharing them with others. At the heart of gratitude is giving. The potlatch or giveaway ceremonies of various Native American nations, predating the arrival of Europeans, exemplify this value. Historically, these indigenous families gave away or shared their own “wealth” or possessions with others in the community as part of the potlatch. Both the Canadian and U.S. governments banned the practice for many years, but it never completely disappeared and has experienced a resurgence since the bans were dropped.

Many other groups in the Americas have included generosity and gratitude within their living traditions. The Andean peoples of Peru practice a form of mutual aid called ayni, which is based on both cooperation and generosity—in essence, helping others who will in turn help them when they are in need. The Maya in Guatemala believe in living in balance with giving and receiving. They make offerings to life, toq, in the form of prayers of gratitude or acts of service, for all that life gives them—air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat.

In the United States, being grateful has not always moved people to share what they have with others. In fact, American beliefs in rugged individualism and competitive economic growth have led to just the opposite. Still, generous impulses have not entirely vanished, and I truly believe that they are making a comeback. We are living through a time of radical shifts in values, from “me first” to sister/brotherhood, from cutthroat competition to generosity of spirit. The old ways that separate and pit people against one another are slowly disintegrating. Once we become fully aware of the web of light that connects all our hearts, there will be no need to speak of giving as a desired value or behavior. Within oneness, there is no separation, and sharing is a part of living, just as automatic as breathing.

We are evolving to a future in which we won’t have to be reminded at special holidays to be grateful or to give generously. We will wake up each morning with thank you on our lips and fall asleep each night counting our blessings. We will live in gratitude, oneness, and sharing. We will live from the heart. That future is Now.