Thursday, December 25, 2025
Posted on
December 24, 2025
4 Comments
Merry Christmas!Wishing you all the happiest of holidays and another awe-filled, wondrous, courageous and fruitful journey of twelve months in 2026! ...
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Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Posted on
December 22, 2025
in Awareness, Daily Reflections 2025, Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
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...
Read MoreThursday, December 18, 2025
Posted on
December 17, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Spirituality, Walking
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,...
Read MoreTuesday, 16 December 2025
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December 15, 2025
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...
Read MoreThursday, November 6, 2025
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November 6, 2025
Awe, Wonder and Delight are sacred emotions that kindle spiritual delight, tenderness, and kindness. Ancient Hindu texts teach that within us there is an innate force of joyful wonder, but we must create outer circumstances for it to sprout and surface. This may happen when we face an adversity or when we are midst beauty of nature such as the rays of setting sun filtering through spring foliage making the shadows dance. Wonder is a heightened state of awareness that is triggered when something unexpected happens that disorients us yet delights. It is present in us all the time but remains dormant under something enters our consciousness to part the mental clouds. We have the power to turn each moment into a wondrous moment. There is no reason to wait for a...
Read MoreTuesday, November 4, 2025
Posted on
November 3, 2025
Death is inevitable then why am I here? For what purpose? What awaits me after death? Throughout our lives, behind all the business of growing old there is a mild restlessness. Yet, all are not fortunate to watch themselves grow old and enjoy the final decade or two of the final phases of our lives. We slow down. We learn to spend time in silence and solitude. We meditate and journal to turn our deep desires inwards. And we discover that the source of meaning and fulfillment is right within us. We discover that we all have the same essence, the same awareness, the same Authentic Self deep in our consciousness. One of the most important questions we ask is, what is my legacy? What would I leave behind? How may I contribute? A...
Read MoreTuesday, October 28, 2025
Posted on
October 27, 2025
in Daily Reflections 2025, Death and Dying, Last Quarter of Our Lives, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Old Age and Death, Spirituality
The text of today's post is addressed to the folks 65+ who live at Ashby Ponds. I've the feeling that most of you who read this blog may not be even 65 yet, but see no harm in your reading and remembering the thoughts I write about. So here it goes: Witnessing sickness, old age and death for the first time can be deeply unsettling—especially for someone who has never encountered these human conditions before. That’s exactly what happened to the prince Siddharatha Gautama, now known to the world as the Buddha. From the time he was born, Siddhartha was sheltered from all human suffering. In the palace where he lived, physically and mentally disabled, sick and old people were not allowed to enter. He had never seen a dead person. One...
Read MoreThursday, October 23, 2025
Posted on
October 22, 2025
We all have had experiences of writing alone at home behind closed door, writing with a fellow writer, writing with a group of writers on weekly basis and writing at retreats. These are different experiences. For some writing alone the first thing in the morning or last thing at night in the silence of their study is the most productive way to write. For some others a gentle beginning with a short meditation and/or journaling session inspires them to write for hours. What helps my flow start and continue for hours is to practice meditation, deep reading, and journaling in the morning. Then, working on my “formal” writing flows like a waterfall. (For decades, I journaled daily. But at some point I had nothing to pour out on the pages of...
Read MoreThursday, October 9, 2025
Posted on
October 8, 2025
in #Stillness, Silence, Solitude, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
When I began my spiritual journey, I knew intellectually what I wanted but emotionally I had no clue. I did not know if I would arrive and where. Yet, I was willing to surrender and walk on the path to the great unknown. Midst running a happy household with two daughters and husband I was struggling, first as an artist and then as a writer. My quest was for something beyond being a mother, wife, artist. The thought, “Is this all there is?” loomed large at the back of my mind. Somehow I ended up learning to meditate. While learning the practice, I learned that the reason you sit still in silence and solitude is because the novice practitioner is like a jar of river water, all shaken up. The requirement...
Read MoreTuesday, September 30, 2025
Posted on
September 29, 2025
When I began the practice of meditation, more than thirty years ago, it was the toughest discipline to follow. It required sitting still in silence, focusing on the breath and bringing attention back to breathing over and over again. But in time I found it one of the most rewarding practices. I discovered that there was a subtle difference between meditation and sitting still in silence and solitude. In breathing practice the flotsams and jetsam of my mind settled down and by the time all the debris had quietened down my body was still. When I was still and by myself I contemplated about the meaning of my life. And I contemplated about current situations. Without silence, solitude did not mean much. I could be alone but listening to music, surfing the...
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