Blog | Mindfulness, Meditation, Journaling & Walking in Nature
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Writings and Readings Blog

Madhu Bazaz Wangu

Thursday, January 1, 2026

Posted on December 31, 2025
in Awareness, Flourishing, Spirituality, Well Being
2 Comments

From Our Family to Yours, "Happy New Year to All!" Happy New Year All! Each year the last ten days of December and the first day of January are celebrated with family gatherings, sharing special foods and giving gifts. It is also a time of gratitude, generosity, self-evaluation, self-reflection and resolutions. These are darkest, coldest, and bleakest days around winter solstice and of hope for healthier and happier time. Happiness and hope are symbolized by lighting our homes and gardens with candles, lamps and electric lights. Numerous families, businesses and government agencies create dazzling landscapes with rainbow-colored illuminations on buildings, in gardens and wooded areas.  The outer lights stir the inner light of consciousness and awaken us to the spiritual illumination within. They inspire us to be humbly thankful to our joys and blessings as...

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Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Posted on December 30, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

Nothing spiritually wonderous happened to me until my early fifties. Living with love of my life and our two beautiful and bright daughters, and a decade of teaching behind me I still felt something significant missing in my life. But I did not know what it was. The more I read and wrote, the more yearning I felt for the unknown. What was I searching for that felt absolutely real, true, deeper?  I had discovered that at the core of major world religions is the lesson that to live a life of awareness, joy and contentment is to live simply and fully. A whole life, a holy life. The lesson seemed simple but was difficult to cultivate. Eventually, with enlightened audacity I developed a regimen of five practices with which you...

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Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Posted on December 22, 2025
in Awareness, Daily Reflections 2025, Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

The spiritual space that we’ve created here together is as safe and secure as the Sacred Power Spot where you sit at home to practice. The practice creates a presence that grounds us for a day in a meaningful way. After meditation and journaling an energy stirs that comes alive as we practice and spreads through the rest of our day. Freely expressing our thoughts and feelings is like prying open an oyster and discovering a pearl within. When you journal do you feel a pearl of kindness and wisdom in your heart-mind? Jot down anything that may be obstructing the pearl within. In Buddhism it is said that our intention is at the tip of our every action. Repeat to yourself your intention to practice meditation; the intention to...

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Thursday, December 18, 2025

Posted on December 17, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Spirituality, Walking
4 Comments

The final month of our arduous yet calm and creativity stimulating, mind clarifying, heart-warming year-long journey has arrived. I hope the year provided you perspectives on every significant aspect of your life: physical, intellectual, creative, and spiritual. That it underlined how fundamental sitting in stillness, spontaneous writing, walking, reading and creating help you make a strong bond with yourself and strengthen emotional bonds with family and friends. You have almost finished reading, Unblock Your Creative Flow. This was the first rough look or the clearer second read. Starting from the New Year we’ll begin once again to explore the gift of each day as it unfurls, partly as we plan it and partly to let the universe lead us. With pure intentions, determination, patience, make certain that the combined habits of meditation, journaling, reading,...

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Tuesday, 16 December 2025

Posted on December 15, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking
6 Comments

Meditation, journaling, walking and creative practices are built one day at a time. We come out of the fog of living in the past and see how we are now and could become in the future. We move closer to our true self, witnessing ourselves in meditation, noticing our strengths, and discovering things we can improve while pouring out our thoughts and emotions in our journal.  You’ve come a long way at your own speed. And you continue to mindfully pace your creative and spiritual path. Think about the goals you have reached this year. Thanks to your practice, you are kinder to yourself, compassionate with others, and more forgiving, generous and filled with gratitude. Look around you, take a few deep breaths and be thankful for being HERE NOW. You have...

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Thursday, December 11, 2025

Posted on December 10, 2025
in Daily Reflections 2025, Meditation, Reading, Spirituality
2 Comments

Potala Palace, Dalai Lama's Residence, Lhasa, Tibet In today’s world, you’re faced with a constant bombardment of information and social media overload. You are pressed for time, hurried, and not even conscious how overwhelmed you are. Meditation and Journaling Practice trains you to slow down. Being slow does not imply being sluggish. In a time when doing multiple things at once and rushing are considered positives, being unhurried is a good thing to cultivate. A calm and quiet mind is a kind mind. Don’t get caught up in the rat race which society pushes you to join. Do one thing at a time with an undivided mind.  Each thought is a seed that turns into action and words. In time, those thoughts bear fruit. Remember the seeds you sow in a hurry...

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Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Posted on December 8, 2025
in Awareness, Being in Nature, Flourishing
2 Comments

A Lazy Morning in Lhasa, Tibet, 2016 Three cheers for completing your year-long journey of mindful writing meditation practice! Today is a good day to journal! Let yourself be spontaneous, honest, and focused on journaling in detail what you learned about yourself and your writing life this year. Write until your mind can’t think of anything else about the twelve-month adventure you just completed. Here are a few questions to get you started. How is your focus on daily tasks now compared to before you began this journey?  How do you feel, artistically and spiritually? Do you feel more empowered?  Do you find yourself going deeper into meditating, journaling, walking and reading than ever before?  How has your writing skill and productivity benefitted?  How has your sense of awe and wonder over nature and simple things in...

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Thursday, December 4, 2025

Posted on December 3, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Nonverbal Activities, Writing
4 Comments

Our daughter, Zoon's Indoor Plants Writing Meditation Practice has five disciplines. Here are the taglines for each. Meditation: Align with the universe Journaling: Lighter mind, kinder heart Reading: Author as revered teacher Nonverbal activities: Letting imagination go wildCreativity: Get into the zone Writing Meditation Practice is painstakingly slow but measurable. Progress is not a straight line. But in meditation and journaling the practitioner feels it. You watch yourself changing from mindless to mindful with increased self-understanding. In turn, self-understanding increases self-compassion and kindness toward others. No outsider could or is keeping score of your inner self. With a year of practice you notice personal insecurities and fears slowly alleviate. You feel the cacophony of thoughts settling down, the physical discomfort changing to a relaxed body, and an indifferent heartmind turning kind and wise. You stop judging yourself and learn to live...

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Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Posted on December 1, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Being in Nature, Daily Reflections 2025, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Spirituality, Travel
4 Comments

Bryce Canyon National Park National parks have created a new religion, that of secular spirituality; they have created new pilgrimage centers, the National Parks; they have created a new breed of parishioners, the travelers who love nature. We cannot experience the sacred or let creative and original ideas stir in our heart-minds while living a daily rut. Something has to shake us up, shatter our unexamined values, question our unanalyzed beliefs. This happens often midst the beauty of nature or listening to fascinating piece of music or viewing works of great masters. Nature, good books, and master artworks are all potent with enchantments. These magical things wait patiently for you to come to them. For you to cross the threshold from slumbering through life to living audaciously. You can’t encounter flowerbeds unless...

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