A Cornucopia of Hope

Teri Degler • August 31, 2021

Every time I do a workshop there is at least one moment – and usually many moments – when I am moved to the kind of emotion that leaves your throat so tight you can’t swallow and your eyes stinging, then flooding. The cause of this is always the same. One of the participants is reading something they have written or talking about something they have experienced.

Their words are the result of lives they have lived and lessons they have learned. And these words have power.


They have the power to move not just the listener but the speakers themselves. These words often take a once foggy insight or nebulous yearning and make it concrete – turn it into something solid; something that can be acted upon. But what is most amazing and marvelous to me is how frequently these words, while being on one level about transforming themselves, are on an even more profound level about transforming the world.


This summer I led an evening workshop along with Donna Henes in New York City where words of the participants were no exception. It was held in the healing center of the truly marvelous Namaste Bookshop. Donna Henes, who is well-known in the city for conducting empowering ritual and ceremony, did just that; then I talked about the power of Shakti as the divine we hold within and led a creative visualization exercise aimed at experiencing the creative and transformation power of this cosmic feminine force.


To close Donna conducted another ritual that added to this sense of being empowered by the divine feminine within and then invited each person to say what they wanted to do with this new awareness of their inner power.

Every single person in the circle stood and talked taking some kind of concrete, positive action that would make the world a better place. Many mentioned personal objectives too, but there was not one person who did not aim for a goal that was beyond the self.


Something about the fact that everyone in the room was so clearly on the same page suddenly made me acutely aware of just how many people I’ve personally come in contact with that are dedicated to making the world a better place. In workshops I’ve taken, workshops I’ve led, social justice movements I’ve joined I have met literally hundreds and hundreds of individuals who are filled with a passionate yearning to end the suffering they see around them, to spread peace, to save Mother Earth…


Just thinking about this fills me with an abundance of hope, a great cornucopia of hope – it is filled to overflowing and it is brimming….

New book on Gopi Krishna launched

By Teri Degler • June 21, 2023
Gopi Krishna—A Biography: Kundalini, Consciousness and Our Evolution to Enlightenment

Blast the Rubble

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Blast the Rubble from the Pathway to Joy Yesterday a young woman was talking to me about her boyfriend breaking up with her. She was hurt and sad about the break-up but it seemed to me she was even sadder about how this was going to affect her in the future. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I am going to start putting up walls.” Up to this point in her life she said, “I have gone into every relationship with a completely open heart – no holds barred; just absolutely open to exploring all the possibilities….” She was not, she thought, going to be able to do that anymore. “That’s what happens, you know,” she said as only a 20-something can say to a seemingly clueless 60-something, “people reach a point where they put up walls. They do it to protect themselves.” This probably doesn’t seem to be a particularly startling insight to most of us. But what I think was truly insightful about this young woman’s observation was that she was truly and deeply lamenting it. These carefully constructed, impenetrable rock and mortar constructions were going to limit her: close off her openness; curtail her spontaneous joy. As long as these walls existed she would not be able to feel love, to experience it, to be awash in it the way she once had. And even if a time might come when she’d feel safe enough to tear them down, she would find rubble strewn over pathways that once would have been free and easy traveling… We all know that erecting walls doesn’t just keep us from feeling hurt; it does to our emotions exactly what chopping off the red from one end of a rainbow and violet from the other would do to our vision. But we might not think about the fact that it also restricts our creative ability. It’s like one of those laws you had to memorize in high school chemistry class: The degree to which you suppress your emotions is inversely proportional to the degree to which you are able to express yourself. In my workshops I sometimes say, “There’s no art without heart”. Corny as this saying may be, it remains true. So let us examine ourselves. Ask a hard question: “Do I truly feel with the intensity that I once did?” If the answer is no, be brave, seek out old hidden walls, tear them down, and clear the rubble from the pathways to your heart. Then take up paintbrush, pen, drum, or dancing shoes and express your Self.

Body Love

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Body Love, Oh Body Love I’ve been going to the same gym for many, many years. In the women’s section there is a large, wide-rimmed whirlpool. Women loll about, stretch out, submerge themselves, or just dangle their feet in the hot, bubbling water. Almost everyone is naked. Some are towel-less; some are towel-wrapped. This distinction does not blur over time. The women who are happy naked, remain happily naked. The women who are not, are not. I am among the latter. For many women there is not any great significance to being in this group. Some are just naturally modest; for others it’s cultural or just a way of being raised. There is, however, a great significance to being in the other group. All of these women are, to one degree or another, comfortable with their bodies. Some are trim, fit, and slim. There are even a few who preen a bit – not in any sexual way – but as if to say, “Hey, I’ve busted my butt to get this butt, and I’m proud of it!” Others are frankly, honestly, openly, unashamedly obese – and, as I slip up my towel and slide my body down in a move so carefully orchestrated that it leaves not an inch of naked flesh exposed – how I envy them. Once submerged, the tune of that old Supreme’s song “Baby Love” often comes to me. Only the words aren’t baby love; they are body love, oh body love, I need you, oh how I need you. The irony of the fact that I still don’t completely accept my physical self is that I have spent the last three decades of my life working at being in my body. The idea that the body is a temple is fundamental to my spiritual practice. It is based on the ancient yoga philosophy that says the human body is a microcosm of the cosmos and, as such, is being propelled along its spiritual path by the Divine – known, in this tradition, as Shakti. The human body is, in this sense, a container for creative force of the cosmos. A spiritual path like this shouts out the need for being able to be in and thus experience the body. I have come to believe that this is true, not just for my path, but for all spiritual paths. Elements of Christianity, Judaism, and many other traditions teach the idea that the Holy Spirit – call it prāna, chi, ruach ha-kodesh – is the power of the divine that is with us, the power that calls us, moves us…. Clearly the more comfortable we are with our bodies, the more easily we can be in them – feeling and responding to this holy force.
Show More
Share by: