Saturday, August 31, 2013

A Day at the Museum


I am so grateful for a lovely day at the museum.

Before attending the exhibit, we had lunch together and enjoyed conversation ranging on many topics.

I noticed the different feelings that came up on various topics.

I am getting more and more aware of how important it is to embrace things in a way that is uplifting.

Looking for solutions, or at least acknowledging that there is one is an important part of staying uplifted.

If you have the gift of humor, this is an important place to practice it.

There is an appropriate way to look at painful moments, and sometimes humor is one of those ways.

We are all here to share our gifts.

There are many places and circumstances which need them.

When you think of yourself as a giver, then you have a much better approach to life.

Policies can be turned around, but while you are waiting, be as authentic in your life as it is possible to be.

There is human dignity no matter what, because it comes from within.

There is true love and compassion no matter what, because you make those decisions for yourself.

I find myself looking for and appreciating these qualities because they contribute more to society and culture than anything else.

I would rather be involved in expressing and creating more of these qualities, than in berating those who are not.

I am sure everyone has their part to play in society, but I am biased toward those who use their power and influence to help everyone uplift themselves.

Please join me in being uplifted and being a compassionate giver.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Getting My Energy Back Up




I have started observing how things that are going on around me make me feel.

I used to just feel however things made me feel.

Up, down, elated, depressed, sometimes in the middle.

Now, I am noticing it.

Does the event, remark, experience have the effect of making me feel uplifted and happy and full of light?

Or is there another feeling?

I like the uplifted feeling the best.

So, now I am starting to look for ways to get my energy back up into the uplifted category.

Since I live with myself first, I want to feel the best I can the most time possible.

Since noticing the feelings “barometer”, I am taking the time to do what it takes to get uplifted again.

This is how I want to feel and this is the feeling I want to share with others around me.

This is the feeling I want other people to know and to have as a result of the work which I do in this world.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.inspiredPractices.com

For a printable version of this meditation, please go to:
www.InspiredPractices.com and click on "LovedCherishedAdored".

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Already Happy


I am already happy because I am accomplishing my dream.

After rigorous searching, I was able to discern my purpose for being here, and with a habit of deep listening, each step for accomplishing it comes to mind at the right time.

When I am tempted to be impatient or to feel frustrated in some way, I look at when and where I started, and I am greatly encouraged.

Each step is being carried out in order to have a sound business along with appropriate creative and efficient production methods from concept to sale.

I love receiving the ideas to turn into little music books for children.

I am privileged to have the best teachers in the world (at the Apple store ) to teach me how to use the computer.  What a great team!  There is always someone who knows  way more than what I am asking about.

I have a long-term relationship with a couple of print shops.

I found the types of magazine racks I need for book display and sales at events.

I learned how to set up my blog to include digital downloads of the latest releases (with an occasional freebie thrown in).  www.MusicandBooksforChildren.com

I have been tracking the google rating and find that my inspirational blogs are rated higher than my business website and blog because I have daily multiple entries on it.  www.InspiredPractices.com.

So, listening to the inspiration pouring from within, I have started writing articles about each music book which will be posted daily as soon as I get that rhythm flowing at  www.MyMusicalMind.com

My husband built me some portable banner holders to support my banners of sample musical patterns when I attend events.

I get fun responses when I dress up in costume as my teaching character, "Kacky Muse".

I have expanded my teaching base to include Farm-Arts-Nature topics which can be found at www.KackyMuse.com as part of my F.A.N. Club.

Ideas are pouring in and it is my job to acknowledge them and to express my appreciation to the Universe for its abundance by making these ideas available to whoever can be benefitted by them.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Self-Appreciation Fills Me


I am learning about the value of self-appreciation.

Who I really am, and what I enjoy most about myself, comes from my own inside knowledge of myself, knowledge to which only I am privy.

I can enjoy my special insights on what I am reading.

I can enjoy the new skills I am learning.

I can enjoy the special friends with whom I share deep respect.

I respect the many people who put together the interesting clubs and Meet-Ups available in this area of such rich resources.

I enjoy the quiet natural settings available to me through Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists.

I am so privileged to know and attract interesting people who are doing meaningful and fulfilling work in our communities.

Despite the powerful commercial and political interests all around us all over the world, we have deep self-appreciation for our involvement in issues that are important to us and we celebrate our ability to engage in meaningful work.

This is deeply powerful and we can’t help but practice it on a larger and larger scale as the superficial world becomes emptier and emptier for more and more people.

This is what is changing in our world.

I appreciate you being on this journey with me.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Monday, August 19, 2013

Managing Someone Else's Life


I just realized that I am very susceptible when other people act helpless.

I try to come up with all kinds of helpful suggestions, which is frustrating, because it just makes them mad.

Then I feel all tense and distracted because I am not getting anything done.

It finally occurred to me, that when other people act helpless, that is their choice.

I can be aware of that, but as it is not my life, I am free to go on with my projects and keep my attitude positive and productive.

I am now recognizing, that if I find myself feeling frustrated about someone else, I have been paying too much attention to them.

I have worked hard to figure out my purpose.

My job is to fulfill it.

Anything that gets in the way of that has no place in my life.

I can keep doing what it is I came here to do.

That way, I add to the satisfaction factor for myself.

I keep the atmosphere around me uplifted and happy.

I have quite enough to do managing my own life.

It was not easy to learn how to do it for myself and it may not be easy for someone else to learn how to do it for themselves.

But that is why we are here, to manage our own lives in order to uplift ourselves and to encourage anyone else in the vicinity who happens to notice.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Groove of Fulfillment


I am just now getting back in my “groove”.

I have been writing my blog posts by hand in a spiral notebook while we have been “off the grid”.  I catch up some of the time at the public library or while recharging my computer off the car battery as we are driving.

But now, we are back “on the grid” and what a luxury it is!

I have been revving back up on blog posts while battling the attendant “monkey mind”, and then, once that baseline has been established, going to my work of developing children’s music reading readiness materials (www.MusicandBooksforChildren.com and www.MyMusicalMind.com).

A new avenue of communication has been coming to me, so, since I take that sort of thing very seriously, I have been taking dictation from the Universe and writing it down.  I am now being gifted with the words to describe my musical materials.  These will appear as articles on the home page of www.MyMusicalMind.com as I release the materials I am describing.

It has long been my goal to share what I have been doing for so many years with other folks.  I am now being led to release my materials to parents of very young children.  It will be easy to follow up with these simple and delightful Music Reading Readiness Books with their accompanying Music Stories which make it really (very) easy to practice.  Just read the story and play the musical symbols as the story unfolds.

Once again, I am so grateful to receive these wonderful ideas which have been so very effective with young children for so many years.  I love watching them make the transition to traditional music reading once they have had lots of experiences developing their confidence through originality, that is, composing their own original musical patterns with my Music Reading Readiness Kits.

I am looking forward to sharing more, now that I am back in my “groove”.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Feeling


Now that I know the feeling I am looking for it is much easier.

I knew I was restless.

I took action to get ready.

But I didn’t know where I was meant to go.

So, after a while, I found the feeling I was after.

Then the action I had been taking made sense.

And it made sense to continue it.

A simple thing, but elusive.

Once I had the feeling, the rest made sense.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Troward and New Thought


I am reading about New Thought, specifically the lectures on it given by Judge Thomas Troward.

It has taken me a little while to get the rhythm of his terminology, especially since he uses some words in exactly the opposite way that I grew up understanding them.

But as I take my time and even read his essays aloud, pausing at phrases to be sure I understand how his complex sentences are put together, I gain his meaning.

I am grateful for the concept of shaping our lives in accordance with the highest Principle.

I am grateful for the concept that there can only be one Cause.

I appreciate his reasoning through these concepts in order that the people attending his lectures would be able to follow him.

This is a legacy.

A legacy of spiritual thought.

It is so good that he carefully shared his thoughts in a way that can benefit later generations.

It helps me see beyond what I deal with on an immediate basis.

It gives me deep appreciation for the freedoms he describes in aligning my thought with what he calls “Originating Principle” and describes as good.

It is a new discipline and practice to look at things this way. 


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Slowing Down - Doing More


I always worked under high speed tension and got lots of things done.

So I could not understand why I could’t get a lot done when I came out to the country.

I find myself sitting around “soaking up the peace”.

Finally after a couple of days or so, I am able to slowly and gently walk myself over to do something.

I find I take my time doing it, and then I walk myself slowly back.

Now, I know I am falling into the rhythm of the place.

I can’t do anything fast as I listen to the wind through the trees and watch the leaves slowly flutter to that rhythm.

As I watch the sun-line progress across the meadow, I can’t measure things in terms of quarter hours and appointments.

I can feel the rhythm of the insect sounds and birdsong.

I can turn my head slowly to take in the layers and layers of different colors and light.

I can only work in that same rhythm.

In that way, going slowly does get things done.

I stay in rhythm with the environment.

And it is painful to change back into the harsh, fast rhythm of “accomplishment” when I come back to the city.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.KackyMuse.com

Monday, August 5, 2013

When Is Love?


Love is now.

Love is forever.

Love always has been.

That is the definition of Love Eternal.

I am finding out that love is not dependent on persons in my life, past, present or future.

Love is a universal phenomenon.

It occurs in so many ways.

But backing up all those variations is the deep Love that is true about all of us all the time.

We are simply, loved.

I am finding that I can turn inward to feel that deep Love.

It gives me what I need.

It connects me with where I need to go.

It supplies the ideas and even the very things that I need.

It is uncanny sometimes, how I will connect with something that I don’t know I need yet, and then, shortly, I find that I already have it.

It outlines the next steps, usually one at a time.

As I do the next one, I am led to consider something else, which leads to the next step.

This deep Love absolutely knows where I am going.

It provides for me in advance.

I do, however, have to take each step, either on faith, or because I am so in love with what I am doing, that I continue my project anyway.

Then the next step becomes evident.

I am actually learning to listen more closely now so that I don’t waste my time.

The Universe has infinite time.

It is there, waiting for me to listen.

We have an exchange.

I listen.

The Universe provides.

That is Love.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Returning to Center


I joyously and excitedly got off center.

I found myself very engaged in the emotion of the event.

After realizing that I no longer felt good just about being, I observed why.

Feeling good and centered is not about any event.

It is fine to be happy and supportive and even excited about things.

But I realized that I could enjoy the event without letting go of what makes me feel good all the time.

Now, I am getting back to my center, and feeling good.

I am happier all over.

I feel the glow from within spreading and circulating all through me.

I am delighted and happy about the event.

But that is not what keeps me going.

I keep going in the love and appreciation for myself which I feel all over.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Two Bios


Recently, the thought came to me to look up a former high school music colleague.

By all the usual measurable standards, she has had a very successful career.

In fact, her biography reads like a directory of good choices, recognition and fulfillment.

No one can tell what is going on in someone else’s life, of course.

As I tracked the record of my own life, I marveled at the differences between us.

Not in a jealous way, just as an observation.

The deep roots which were laid so early in my childhood and which had to be overcome, sent me through a completely different set of doors.

Everyone has their own path.

We all know that.

I am certainly grateful to be learning what I am learning and accomplishing what has been set out for me to do.

It was just a funny feeling, as though reading a biography which could have been my own.

I am so very blessed in my life today.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com