Tag: open heart

Say It Loud—Now!

With the passage of legislation in Florida restricting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, the “Don’t Say Gay” movement is gaining national momentum. Similar legislation is in progress in multiple states. Those of us in the LGBTQ community who marched for our rights in the 1970s­–1990s can hear echoing in our ears the rallying cry we chanted then: “Say It Loud: I’m Gay and I’m Proud!” The right to be who we are without fear or shame; the end of hatred and violence directed at us.

In 1975, a group of teenagers sprayed mace in my eyes for holding hands with my girlfriend in public in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2014, almost 40 years later—also in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in public—my partner Anne and I were married after 31 years together. Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. Huge changes in those years; huge shifts in the collective consciousness. Even rainbow lights on the White House when same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states in 2015. And now this frightening backlash. But we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced again.

Human rights are in jeopardy world-wide. In the United States, immigrants and Asians have also become targets for hatred and attack, along with Jews, Muslims, and people of color from diverse cultures. Hard-won women’s rights are threatened as well. ”Make America great again” translates as the desire to erase from existence anyone who doesn’t fit into the dominant patriarchal paradigm (white, Christian, heterosexual). This is the face of fear of difference, growing stronger and more widespread. I am reminded of the oft-repeated quote by Martin Niemoller regarding the systematic purging of groups in Nazi Germany: “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” He continues naming group after group and finally ends with: “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” Chilling history lesson. It’s on each of us now, at this time, to speak—to “say it loud.” Don’t wait until you are left standing alone.

So here we are, witnessing threats to the growing universal acceptance of all peoples. What we thought we had moved beyond is once again at our front doors. Anita Bryant was not the last antigay vigilante. The Klan still exists. But giving up and living in denial is not an option. We were born for these times, like it or not. And we came here to do it differently. Not with fighting and aggression but with peace and kindness. The individuals who act from hatred are filled with pain themselves. In our hearts we have to hold empathy for all.

So I urge you to “Say Gay,” to say “Black Lives Matter,” to say “Stop Asian Hate.” Say it with conviction but not hostility. I encourage you to speak with truth, love, and compassion to everyone you encounter in your life, whatever they may believe. And to live that truth every day. We must continue to remind ourselves that love is stronger than hate, and fear is an illusion that can dissolve in the presence of a courageously peaceful open heart.

Where Do You Want to Live?

Some people live in the same place most of their lives; others move frequently over the years. Wherever you choose to go, your soul remains with you, as does your identity. The soul travels lightly, no passport, no possessions. The identity or ego, however, usually has a lot of “baggage” to declare. That baggage can take the form of either physical objects or nonphysical opinions and beliefs. Both can weigh you down, but the latter actually constricts your future experience. What you plan on, what you think should happen, places a limit on possibilities. It also limits whom you allow into your experience. The soul, without the opinions of the ego, would live life open-endedly, open-heartedly, inclusive of many kinds of experiences and people. An expansive circle instead of a small box.

This circle of soul energy is a place, or rather an empty space, where there are no limits to what is possible and no barriers between people. There is unity within your heart and unity among all those in the ever-expanding circle. Another word for it is oneness, the oneness of the spirit within which we all are sourced or born, and to which we return at the end of our lives. The question becomes why not live there now?

A few blocks from where I live is a street called “Unity.” I often pass the street sign and think: That’s where I want to live all the time—in unity of the heart. I feel humanity is gradually moving in that direction. We just have to make the clear decision to deeply desire the free life of our soul instead of the weighed-down life of our identity and the identities of others. Identity is the basis of separation. At the soul level, we are one.

In the framework of opinion/belief, if someone doesn’t agree, it’s a threat to the identity’s existence. Soul doesn’t care. Soul is eternal. Ego wants to believe it is permanent but it is not. At the end of our lives we see this and awaken to the wisdom of impermanence. Why not open to this awareness now and live life in greater unity with everyone and everything? The universe is not made up of single-lane, disconnected highways that lead nowhere. We may each be on different paths, but our lives are divinely intertwined, and we are all moving, imperceptibly, to the same final destination: beingness or oneness in Spirit, or Source. In fact, we are already one now, if we see with the eyes of the soul. From this perspective, life becomes a playground of possibility and connection with others, instead of a solitary burden and place of division.

Unity is a moment-to-moment choice. Your mind, in coherence with your heart, can consciously choose unity instead of separation. Your identity can take a backseat to your soul and not allow beliefs to prevent friendship and community. Hold your opinions lightly or drop them by the roadside. It’s a long life journey—don’t let extra baggage hold you back and keep you from the possibility of a shared future centered in love.

Seeds of Life

My second chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer took place on 2 Qanil in the Maya calendar. The sacred symbol Qanil stands for “the seed that generates life and creation.” For me, a perfect analogy, because I envisioned life’s seeds of light and love being transmitted to me via the infusions, at the same time that I felt them radiating out from me in my own vibration. This is the circular process of God creating God in the world. We each embody God in our physical forms, and God experiences life through our experiences. As we create, or express our soul selves, God is creating simultaneously. The entire universe is a divinely designed participatory symphony of living light and love. I feel this almost continuously now.

Everything I experience arises from this awareness. During my treatment, the meditations I listened to were Panache Desai’s “Eight Beatitudes.” His words gently carried me along (“You as you have known yourself are dissolving. There is a powerful transformation unfolding within your being….The splendor and magnificence of your soul and the God within revealed.”). The accompanying instrumentals (Pachelbel’s Canon, Ava Maria, Unchained Melody, etc.) had a similar effect. Tears repeatedly filled my eyes as I looked out at the rain and wind blowing leaves from the trees—a choreographed dance of sight and sound. Everything I saw with my physical eyes, heard with my physical ears, and felt with my physical body aligned exactly with my soul’s experience of Life at that moment in time. A blessing—and another blessing just to be aware of that blessing. Gratitude filled my heart and soul.

Later, when I described this experience to a friend of mine, she told me that she too has felt the awakening of her soul and the inner guidance that accompanies it, which explains why I had thought of her during the meditations. We are all here to receive these truths, to bring forward from our past lives and varied traditions the light of awareness and wisdom, sharing with all those we encounter during this bridging time into a future of infinite possibilities. We are a soul family flowing together from and to the source of all being in the multiverse.

This journey I am on with breast cancer is an expansion and opening beyond anything I could have imagined earlier in my life. I was not religious or spiritual growing up, yet I experienced God in Nature in every moment of my childhood in the Illinois countryside. The Spirit within my soul guided me on an ever-widening path to immersion in divine consciousness. We are each on these paths, in our own ways. That is why we are alive at this time. Sooner or later, we all will awaken to cosmic awareness and a sense of oneness with all we see. Even in the midst of challenges or pain, the seeds of life are growing and will eventually flower.

The language you use to express this doesn’t matter. It is the opening of your own heart and soul that will move you forward and ultimately connect you to every form of life you encounter: other humans, animals, plants, insects, trees, rocks, stars, planets. Each part has the whole inside it. You are a sacred imprint of divinity on this planet, in this universe, carrying the seeds of life within you. Awaken to the blessing you are.

A Camino: Firewalk and Life Streaming

When I first heard the diagnosis “breast cancer,” I was lost in shock and fear. How could this happen in my life? To me?! After a few days, I gradually was able to re-center in the peace within me, to remember that everything that happens in my life is part of a soul plan that I was part of designing before my birth. Nothing is a coincidence, and everything is connected to everything else. I am one soul in one lifetime on one planet. Yet I am also part of the entire fabric of being in the universe. Sometimes it takes loss or crisis in our lives to fully realize this. When things fall away or apart, the long view becomes more visible.

Illness or disease can stop you short in your tracks and remind you of your own mortality. Even if you think you are unattached to outcome or completely surrendered to however events unfold. Even if you feel connected to a greater consciousness beyond life and death. There is always more surrender available, deeper all the time. And there is always more letting go of attachment—until there’s nothing left but soul. The physical body holds within it the last attachment. You definitively let go of that attachment at death. But you can also let go of it as part of life. This is what is meant by “dying unto yourself.” You release attachment not only to your identity but to your physical form. You live your life as your soul, immersed in peaceful Presence. The same immersion in Presence that occurs at death. Only you are radiantly alive and aware.

I have experienced times of surrender and Presence on my spiritual journey, but when breast cancer came into my life, I stepped onto an accelerated path: my own Camino.* The more I trusted that I was being divinely guided on this path, the more everything flowed. During and after surgery, I felt surrounded by angelic healers, floating in profound Oneness. My physical form seemed almost nonexistent. I returned home to heal and rest quietly. A week later, the pathology report showed wide clear margins—excellent! Then my surgeon told me that new test results indicated I should probably include chemotherapy in my treatment plan along with radiation. I had already accepted the latter, but the combo frightened me. Attachment to my body as it currently looked and felt was front and center. I was being asked to dive even deeper into acceptance and surrender.

My breast-cancer-survivor friends helped me with this acceptance (as did my very knowledgeable and kind doctors), but then my own inner genie handed me a vision that changed the way I saw everything. During a powerful meditation one morning, I suddenly understood what breast cancer represented in my life. In my mind’s eye, I saw an image of burning coals, like those used in the traditional firewalk, practiced by many cultures for thousands of years as a rite of faith, healing, or initiation. Immediately, I knew that for me radiation and chemo were the “burning coals,” and that I would safely “walk” through them as I surrendered attachment to my body and trusted my soul’s journey. My Camino walk is a fire of initiation, transmutation, and expansion beyond the physical. I envisioned myself afterward as pure soul light. No attachments, just life streaming through eternity in timeless splendor.

This is our collective destiny: to walk through humanity’s fires and emerge as light, each in our own way. Every person’s journey is unique. Each soul path divinely orchestrated. On the other side of our firewalks is a Presence that permeates the universe in life and in death. In truth, they are one: infinite beingness. When we realize that, all fear falls away, and we can live our lives with peaceful, open hearts and souls.
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*The Camino is a well-known path of spiritual pilgrimage across northern Spain.

Heart Memory

Photograph © 2021 Peggy Kornegger
I once read about an injured hawk that was rescued and taken to a raptor rehabilitation center. The hawk, after recovering from its injuries, was driven back to the location where it had been found, many miles away. At a certain point in the trip, the hawk suddenly became more alert. It lifted its head and looked around sharply; it moved its wings with anticipation. It sensed in the deepest part of its being that its home was near. Such behavior can’t be logically explained by science because it has to do with the things we know without physical evidence to prove it. Awareness beyond the five senses. Author Rupert Sheldrake called it “morphic resonance” in explaining how a dog would know its human companion, a hundred miles away, had started to return home. We living beings, animal or human, feel presence and remember home from great distances. Our heart has an intelligence even deeper and wider than the brain’s.

I have experienced this time and again in my life. It is a powerful connection to the world around me. I can literally feel my awareness extend beyond time and space to people and events at great distances or in the past. Like the hawk, I have recognized “home” in my cells and in my heart. Most recently, on the return flight moving back to Boston from Florida, I visually tracked the plane’s movement up the coast, passing through state after state. I could feel my heart begin to beat faster as we neared New England. When the edge of Massachusetts appeared on the flight map, I looked out the window at the Earth below. I felt the familiarity deep within me. Then, as the plane touched down, tears filled my eyes. Anne, who had lived in the Boston area all her life, was sniffling beside me. We squeezed each other’s hands as the flight attendant’s voice came over the PA: “Welcome Home.” Yes.

A couple of weeks after arriving and settling in to our new apartment, Anne and I drove to the neighborhood where we had lived before moving to Florida. As we passed through the familiar streets and turned down ours, once again I cried. Eleven years of memories flashed through my mind: summer gardens, autumn leaves, winter blizzards, spring awakenings, sunrises and sunsets, full moons, screech owls calling at dusk, mockingbirds singing at dawn, goldfinches feeding, squirrels chasing each other, neighbors bringing banana bread and kindness. It all was alive within me. My heart remembered every moment.

Immediately I thought of the hawk and connected to its experience from within my own. We creatures of Earth are here but a short time; yet each second is imprinted on our consciousness and carried within us. Our souls know the brevity of our stay, which gives us an intensity of experience that continues throughout our lives. The homes we have here are but a reflection of the greater Home that we come from and to which we return beyond lifetimes. Perhaps in remembering our Earth homes with such emotion we are also remembering our heavenly Home. It is a mystery, this life. Still, in moments of deep connection to the present and past as one, we, hawk or human, experience the far-reaching power of the heart’s memory. And of a greater Intelligence that holds us all in its Universal Heart.