Other Minds From Ancient Cultures

Today I went to an exhibit on “Peruvian Gold” sponsored by the National Geographic Society.

Incredible workmanship.

A philosophy in which 26,000 artisans supported 6,000 elite.

Full-time work on textiles, gold, silver, copper, ceramics for entire lifetimes.

A completely different emphasis on what is important in society from our modern Western culture.

The work in discovering the artifacts and putting the story of this ancient culture together is mind-boggling.

What an incredible discipline archeology is.

It brings so much insight into how we are living today by contrast.

I am so moved by the experience of getting to see inside another time and place.

The devotion through art and artifacts is profound.

Those artisans must have had an incredibly deep sense of satisfaction through such intricate, exacting and beautiful work.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Acting from"Quiet"

I was all set to go an event, my car was loaded the night before with all my supplies, I had laid out my clothes, gotten money to make change, and the next morning my body let me know that all was not well, and I was unable to participate in my plans.

As I started feeling better during the day, I listened for anything I needed to know.

I discovered that there was a critical element missing that I wanted to include in my product line.

I began working on it, and it started coming together over the next several days.

I am completely satisfied over the new additions and the deep philosophy that is portrayed in the products.

This quiet time has afforded me the opportunity to look beyond making a living or making money.

I was very tied up in that process while I was raising my children and providing for all our needs.

Now there is a greater need, to look beyond the superficial value of what I am doing to the contribution I can make through doing it.

Everything needs to support the greater value, the contribution to a view of life.

I am certainly willing to be quiet and keep listening and take action as I am directed.

I know I will feel good about what I am doing when everything truly is in place, and then it will happen effortlessly.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Let It Blow Right Through You

I was standing up and resisting and hating the fact that once again I was dealing with the dragged up memories of the past.

I had gotten so much farther along, but then, with the holidays, the dreaded memories came back.

My husband reminded me to just “let it blow right through me” instead of giving myself something to resist and fight against.

I was able to take his advice and to get on with my holiday baking.

He wrapped presents.

We will be ready to mail them later this evening.

We can let this part of the holidays move along in a harmonious and gentle way.

We will be grateful that we choose to remember and celebrate our adult children and our grandchildren.

We will be grateful that we have always celebrated them in the ways that we can, and that that is sufficient.

We will not judge ourselves or anyone else.

We will let all that “just blow right through us” and get on with our sense of celebration.

And then we will find a quiet way to spend the actual holiday, free from any of the dreaded memories of the past.

We will choose our own path through the cultural traditions and the media harassed “enhancement” of them.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Permanence

The perception of differences between permanent and transient states of thought is becoming the deep question of today.

Destroying the undesirable conditions of today’s world is occurring through a higher perception of what actually is permanent.

The temporary ways of control and exploration are certainly still evident.

But the higher approach, because it is permanent, is the winning hand.

Awareness express through the outrage at social repression is changing acts of regression into progress.

Now that intelligence and consciousness are aligning together with compassion and wisdom on a world-wide basis, we are seeing the unstoppable wave of progress all over the world.

The old modes and the thought-regimes which support them are toppling and decaying from the inside.

There is nothing to withstand the reality and manifestation of this new consciousness as it moves from within to the outside expression.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

The Reward of Finding Our Way

Deep inside each of us is a basic and detailed identity.

This is our individuality.

We may have no knowledge of this, caught up as we are in all the demands of day-to-day living.

But at some time, when these break down due to personal inadequacies, overwhelming demands, stress, or just a feeling of a need for something else, we have the opportunity to look within.

As we do, we can see who is actually in there living this life we have constructed for ourselves on the outside.

When we begin to listen to this inside guide, we find we have not been living at all in accordance with our deep feelings and goals, even though we didn’t realize we had some.

When we finally give ourselves the time to listen and discover what is inside us, we are given the opportunity to make some changes.

If we accept, and often, it is impossible not to given the steps that led us here in the first place, we are then shown how to take the steps to harmonize our lives.

Our life begins to feel better as we harmonize the inside goals with the outer steps.

The outer life begins to take on what is deep within in our true character.

We become nicer, easier to be around, more fulfilled and whole.

The atmosphere we design for ourselves is uplifting and happy.

We learn how to release stress and send it far away from us, not just as momentary relief, but as part of a rebuilding plan.

This is a much better way to live.

It is worth all the disorientation we may feel while enacting it.

Reconciling the without to the within is our essential need and gives us the life we desire and were meant to live.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Being In Tune

Sometimes you find yourself doing something that makes sense to you and then you find out later that you are in tune with something much larger.

The last couple of years that I taught music to pre-schoolers, I began my class in a way that allowed them to transition from their previous activity.

I had them take three deep breaths of inspiration.

I have continued blogging about this (www.takethreedeepbreaths.blogspot.com).

The first deep breath is inspiration for yourself.

The second deep breath is inspiration for all the people that we know.

The third deep breath is inspiration for all the people that we don’t even know all over the planet.

At a workshop today, given by Howard Martin, co-founder of Heart-Math, I listened to many nuggets from research which inform us that our heart’s intelligence is our deepest guide.

One of the things which I noted was that the attitudes that we hold about ourselves and others extend in a scientifically measurable way.

The distance can be three to four feet, eighteen feet or more and to an unlimited distance, depending on the study.

That is how I feel in tune with the practice I led my pre-school students in for several years, and which I still practice today.

We are sending out information about ourselves and extending it to others who we know and who we don’t know.

Shaping our information and attitudes and withholding judgement goes much farther than we might have imagined.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Musical Retrograde

In an operetta by Paul Hindemith’s, (I have searched for its name but cannot find it), the action takes place up to a certain point, and at the climax, the entire opera is sung and acted backwards, or in what is called retrograde.

I feel like that is happening simultaneously in my life as I am continuing to move forward in a different line from the one which I started on.

The old life is backing out of my way even though it makes gallant attempts to restage itself, but there are no longer any actors nor audience.

I am writing a new score, and I like all the new parts.

All the action takes place in the present moment.

I validate it with my decisions, which I like, and my values, which I also endorse.

Lest this sound too self-centered, it is not.

I am simply aware that I am making the choices which I wish to see, instead of acting out the old dimensions which were around me in the past.

So my musical retrograde is over.

It is becoming easier to draw the curtain on the performance and go off to write entirely new scenes which I enjoy.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Convinced of the Wrong Thing

After hearing the dreams and goals of a friend for years, I was convinced I knew what he was talking about.

I watched him commit resources, brain-storm about programming, visited the site with him.

And watched nothing take shape.

Frustrated with that conversation, I began committing my own time and resources to my own dreams and goals.

I just worked on my own projects.

From time to time, I would hear more of the same unfulfilled dream from my friend, but I just kept working n my own dreams.

Finally, there was a painful and massive shift about my friend and resources began to flow for him.

But not in the way his dream had always sounded to me.  What I was convinced of was wrong.

When his shift came, the dream came to be realized in a much easier flow which gained momentum.

The new form was the one that was trying to emerge all the time.

I am grateful to see this process where a dream which is held for a long time, is transformed even while it is being nurtured in a different form.

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

What My Mind is For

My mind has a designated use for which it is designed.

It is designed for discernment.

Yes, i know it ca be programmed for memorization and factual analysis.

But it is designed for intuition.

What comes into the mind from outside can be influenced and programmed for particular results.

What comes into the mind from within, is the pure, unadulterated communion of love and intelligence.

Either influence can produce action.

Which one am I paying attention to?

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Inspiration and Action

Today you can discern who you are and what you need to be doing.

You are more than you appear.

You have a deep identity which knows hot to tap its rich resources.

Your purpose and resources are the uplift, not just yourself, but everyone around you.

They also have the deep purpose and resources to uplift everyone around them

Each one of us starts the chain.

We take our inspiration, let it empower us into action.

the strength of that action inspired other receptive minds.

Every mind has the power to receive inspiration from within and to translate that into action.

When we see that in someone else we receive a signal within ourselves.

When we take action from our own inspiration, it sends a signal to others.

Today is the day we start this process for ourselves.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

On Receiving Abundantly

I sat down to wait for my order.

As I often do, I pulled out my notebook.

Soon I felt it, and I thought, “Here it comes.”

And so it did.

I wrote and wrote and filled my notebook and notated songs.

I realized that I am ready now.

Always ready.

I know that the ideas are going to come.

They are going to come in a flow and all I have to do is be ready to write.

Some of the next steps I know.

I transcribe them into little teaching books or a children’s calendar or a newsletter.

Then I listen some more.

That’s what I know to do.

Each step has been directed from within.

That is my new business plan.

Listen within.

Every step is directed from within.

Just keep listening.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Honoring Our Feelings

I was raised to be extremely disciplined, and for the most part, it worked for those things that I was required to do.

But it doesn’t work for those things which I love to do.

I can only do them when I am inspired.

I am inspired most of the time, but I can’t keep doing just one thing.

My inspiration directs me to different things along the way.

Then I get back to the original things I was doing, and so it goes, until many things are done.

It is more of a circular route instead of a straight line.

But it is how I love to work.

When someone outside of us is directing our actions, it may seem to them that things should be done in a certain way.

But when we are being directed from within, we certainly feel a deep commitment and joy in the way we do things.

Go for the joy and delight.

Honor the way you feel and do the things you love.

The more you do this, the more you will see your life arranged to suit your deepest feelings.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Spiritual Study and Its Visible Results

Gaining a spiritual vocabulary and practice will change your life.

I was seeking change when I began my search.

I had no idea it would have the deep effects on my metabolism as well as I began to absorb the profound meaning of the different authors I studied.

Since our thoughts completely govern our lives, and since we thing so many of them (millions and millions each day) unconsciously, for the most part, we live the lives we are given completely unintentionally.

When we decide to take responsibility for our thoughts, we then see different effects.

In some cases, the awareness I have gained has been disturbing.

I had no ideas of the thoughts that were running my life, although I could certainly see the results!

When the old thoughts reject the new ones, something the battleground is the body.

I am learning when to keep reading and processing the new ideas and when to take a break to let my mind and body absorb the new thought-processes.

My life-practice is being changed completely.

It is like moving overseas and living in a new culture with a new language.

I am giving my body time to catch up.

Then I walk my new path harmoniously with mind and body with each new vista.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

My Manifestation

As the beginning of the inspiration of the world, God is.

I witness and express the divine power inherent in my being.

I have this power regardless of any outside factors.

As I listen to my God-nature and act with my God-being, I am led to take certain steps.

These steps lead in a God-direction to bless and uplift.

I always have everything I need at the instant I need it.

I am always expressing my God-inspired purpose.

I am fulfilled in my expression.

I naturally manifest my God-inspired product lines.

They appear in their perfect, most useful form.

They appear naturally.

As I continue to listen, I eliminate doubt, limitation, confusion and obstruction.

God is.  I am.

There is only my manifestation.

I am one with the whole, entire, complete process.

Every step is my Oneness.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

The Value of Orchestration

Since the age of nine years old, I have been playing in symphony orchestras, at first youth orchestras, and later professional ones.

I have been in the middle of the sensations of multiple melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic lines flowing all around me.

I have noticed, even in the years after my active involvement in playing and performing, that I still seek out the complexity of lines, relationship and flow to engage me.

Most often, I seek it out in conversation.

I see and feel it in art and dance.

I definitely participate in it in any and all of my create modes.

And now, I see it in business applications.

To be most effective, there must be enough of value going on with everyone contributing to the beauty, power, majesty, and sensitivity of the whole.

It must wash over all who come in contact with it, designer, maker, receiver.  

It must be a thing of reverent, passionate memory.

It must engage and enrich all of us.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Astounding Wealth

But we don’t see it as wealth.

We in the Western world have been taught to value stuff as wealth.

And the more and bigger stuff, the more wealth.

But wealth is actually quite different.

For one thing, we all have it.

For another it exists as ideas first.

So, if we never listen to our ideas, we miss out on the first step to our wealth.

One of the things that lets us listen to ideas is all of our conveniences.

We don’t have to go to a well for water.

We have electricity available every day and all night.

We can sit quietly and listen for our ideas.

We have to practice the quiet, though, because of all the media noise and all the judgements in our own minds against ourselves.

But once we get started on our practice of quietness and deep listening, the ideas have a place to appear.

Then, they tell us the next step and the next, and the next.

And that is how our wealth begins.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Spiritual Marketing

I watch as spiritual marketing unfolds and reveals itself to me.

For this cause, “I was brought forth”, in innocence and maturity.

Only I can listen and feel the deep within, which tells me which steps to take.

They are new steps which have never been taken before.

They are revealed, just as the ideas and products are revealed.

Spiritual marketing is a revelation to me for each product.

I am connected with the purest people and their companies for printing and manufacturing, just as I work with the purest minds on the planet as an early childhood music teacher.

Products are produced the same way they are conceived and received and written, with conscious spiritual qualities as the impetus for each step.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Find Your Own Peace

What gives you the greatest sense of peace?

What lets you feel the depth of your own nature, your own being?

Take the time to listen for it.

Walk in Nature.

Sit quietly in a corner of the library.

Where are your quiet places?

They yield a different kind of beauty.

The beauty of “slow”, of “quiet”, of “peace”.

I can’t imagine doing that when I was in the full swing of college, grad school, orchestra gigs.

But now that it is part of my life, I really love what it is doing for me.

The peace leaks over into all the other areas of my life.

It lets me look at what is happening from a different perspective, one where I am not in control all the time.

The peace is.

I carry the feeling with me.

But I still love the opportunities to recharge it and feel its depth all around and through me.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Going for the Highest

I acknowledge the presence and direction of the Most High in all of my life.

Whatever is the best, I am capable of it.

I listen and I receive and I strive.

I become aware and I practice and I achieve.

No door is closed to me, but I must walk through it.

The next step is always there, and I take it.

Guidance is with me from the inspiration to the first step and through all of them for every project.

Through totally trusting, celebrating and investing in myself, I achieve success and abundance.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

Different Seasons

“A time to sow and a time to reap”

So many ideas pass through our mind each day.

Which are the good ones?

When will they happen?

Often, thinking about an idea and developing it mentally is the “sowing” and the manifestation or “reaping” of it takes place much later.

The return from an idea may be the simple pleasure of thinking about it.

It may be the creation of an object or a business or a relationship.

Listening to the ideas which do pass through our mind lets us analyze which ones are original and which ones are just coming in through our surroundings.

It lets us discriminate between the ones which are productive and the ones which are just noise and repetition.

It shows us which ones are actually valuable, and which ones are useless.

We are able to refocus our attention on the ideas which we do want to see manifest and away from the undesirable ones.

We then “sow” what we do want to grow in our life, and we can expect to “reap” good things from it.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Your Mind Leads the Way

The new ideas you discover argue with the old ideas you received when you were little.

You draw conclusions.

You take a new path.

Or you entrench yourself more deeply in the old one.

Your mind leads the way.

Experiences tell you which is the most effective path to reach your goal.

If the old way is working, you continue to take that path.

If it is not, you become open, or possibly desperate, to find a new one.

Even if you are comfortable in an old way, you may discover, with your increased awareness, that it is not good for everyone.

With you increased awareness, you may desire good for everyone.

Then you mind will go to work on a new path and you will find a different way.

© 2014 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com