Contrasts in Nature

I appreciate the peace and rhythm in Nature.

Sun and rain, cool and heat, strength and gentleness.

My alone time is balanced with friendly get-togethers over quilting, knitting, weaving, cooking.

The complementary exchanges of food and community, trust and skills is such a delight.

I feel the calm and relief of a cloudy day in summer.

I feel the excitement of winds building up before a storm with the smell of the ozone in the air.

The shear number of leaves on a single tree boggles the mind.

So many shades of green and yellow as the sunlight catches the leaves.

The different textures of bark on different varieties of trees.

How little tiny seeds and plants grow up to be large and edible fruits and vegetables.

How many small pieces of grass create a carpet to walk on barefooted.

The color and contrast of shapes - peppers, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins.

Sharing is always acceptable.

Nature shares by her presence, her variety, her balance.

She accommodates us and ignores us.

The more Nature is present in my life, the more harmonious and balanced I feel.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com

Peaceful Contrast

I appreciate a balance of contrasts in my life.

Activity and rest.

Intensity and peacefulness.

Get-togethers and alone time.

The ability to be involved with others or to work intensely on a project employs a different kind of concentration than reflection and meditation.

The feeling of quiet observation creates a different kind of radiant energy than even a walk through Nature.

These differing kinds of focus give me a sense of wholeness and completeness.

I enjoy the balance and contrast.

The feeling which comes from these different kinds of activities satisfies different aspects of my life.

Communication with others in an uplifting way makes me feel good all day.

Reading literature which addresses how to meet the needs of others and learning about the people who do this offers another kind of relief and comfort.

Engagement and reflection, always for the purpose of better understanding, creates a richness and a wholeness in my life.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com 

Spark of Peace

Finding the peace within me means turning away from the news and other outside influences.

I have to find my way to a deep sense of who I am by listening quietly within.

With lots of media harassment and emotional disturbances, it sometimes takes quite a while, but eventually I find it.

The peace within.

I sit quietly and just feel the little spark begin to spread throughout my being, warming me and calming me.

I feel as though I am in a different kind of Universe, once where peace and harmony are valued.

I feel as though I am a valued member of that Universe.

I have a purpose and a place.

My desires and intuition are important in my community.

My ability to create and uplift permeate the way I live.

As I return my conscious awareness to my surroundings, I know that I can carry my feeling of peace and purpose with me.

I see peace manifest around me as I remain persistent in the feeling of peace within.

Habitual feelings of despair and isolation drop away as I learn to maintain my feeling of peace within as I go about my day.

I always have access to the peace within, and I can manifest it all around me.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com 

Feeling the Self-Respect Begin to Flow

I have been actualizing my dream for a few years.

I am doing the things I have always wanted to do.

I am learning the things I have always wanted to learn.

Even though I earned a living for many years and ran a household raising several children, this is the first time I am supporting myself.

This is the first time I am respecting and supporting my own needs and desires.

I am feeling a sense of self-respect which goes much deeper than any other kind of achievement or accomplishment.

Just because I got things done does not mean I led a life which allowed me to respect who I am.

Sure, I accomplished what I needed to.

But this is completely different.

I feel so privileged to have persistently desired a goal of my own and done whatever it took to achieve it.

I feel as though I am living a new life.

I am energized and renewed.

What a marvelous new way to live.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com 

Building a Peaceful Life

Doing what you love means moving in the direction of peace.

You lose conflict within yourself as everything works together in harmony.

You expand your abilities as you eliminate conflict within.

As you proceed toward the things you love, you increase your ability to do them.

The more you do them, the more you attract the connections which come from what you love.

Your life increases in peaceful, harmonious expression and you expand that feeling into your community.

Each step you take builds on a desirable foundation.

Soon you are standing on new ground and it feels great!

What you love has taken over your life.

Your way of doing business, how you talk to people, the joy you express all attract good relationships.

Your personal power expands in the directions that you love.

Your respect for other people expands as you see them desire more peace in their lives.

Your ability to inspire them comes through the amplification of your desire in your own life.

Imagine how doing what you love can bring peace to you and to all around you.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com 

How Do Yo Receive Encouragement?

We are not meant to be isolated.

We are not required to do everything by ourselves.

This was a revelation to me.

Finally getting help and then receiving the benefits of it, opened me up to a new idea.

The idea that I was part of a community. 

I discovered that living in community is how humans are meant to live.

We are meant to lend our strengths and insights to each other.

We all have strengths.

We all have value.

We receive encouragement by sharing what we have with others and allowing them to share their strengths with us.

By slowing down and allowing ourselves to become inspired.

By taking in and observing what is going on around us and asking how we can be part of an uplifting community.

By admiring and supporting what others are doing which uplift and benefit others.

By admiring and supporting the simple things.

By building something simple that we, ourselves, love.

By being quiet and listening within, and valuing what we hear, and doing it.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com 

A Calm and Orderly Pattern

Even in the wildest creativity, there is a pattern.

Certain repetitions appear, certain augmentations and diminutions.

Creative contrasts highlight consistencies and inconsistencies.

And so the pattern evolves.

I love to feel the excitement overlaying the underlying calm of creativity.

It is a direct “feed” for me, and I write or draw, or compose as fast as I can write things down, but with the certainty of the underlying calm and order of it all.

The certainty is new because I have gotten used to the phenomenon of ideas pouring forth all day and night any time I want to tune in.

I have a consistent practice of listening for ideas from within which has been developed over several years.

I didn’t know how it worked at the beginning, of course.

But now, I understand that the creative ideas are always there for whoever wants to tune into them.

They take shape in individual lives according to that person’s life focus.

Once you accept the presence of ideas and learn how to employ your intuition by listening, the flow of ideas becomes a natural and orderly event.

You can let your entire life be shaped by this orderly flow of creativity and let it employ you in the most satisfying ways.

I know I am glad to have learned how.

© 2017 Kathryn Hardage

www.pebblesofpeace.blogspot.com