Walking Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Walking

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Posted on August 17, 2026
in #Nature Lover, #Stillness, Silence, Solitude, Being in Nature, Imagination, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Mindfulness and Travealing, Travel, Walking
2 Comments

While traveling through the Canadian Rockies one of our stops was the Jasper Park Lodge in Fairmont. Our cabin was situated facing Lac Beauvert (pronounced: Lack Buh-vair), “beautiful green lake.” By this time we had seen, smelled, touched, and listened to so much natural beauty that we were emotionally overwhelmed, and the stamina squeezed out. But through the cabin window the mesmerizing view of the lake magnetized us. After enjoying a cup of hot tea, we decided to walk the trail that circled the lake. We must have walked for fifteen minutes or so when the view stopped me in my tracks. My heartbeats fastened. The surface of the crystal-clear turquoise water was shimmering silver; tiny shiny waves waltzing over large spherical stones. The reflections of distant mountain ranges—green at some places, blue...

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Thursday, 16 July 2026

Posted on July 16, 2026
in Being in Nature, Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Walking
0 Comments

Another Peacock Dance, New Delhi, India. Summer 2026 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) firmly believed that people should regard themselves as part and parcel of nature rather than members of society. In nature one has absolute freedom and wildness. To his consternation he wrote, “only one or two persons in the course of my life understood the art of walking” or who had “a genius for sauntering.” Legs were not made to sit upon, he declared, but to stand or walk upon.  People walk in the highways and across parking lots, “I walk out into nature much the way the old prophets and poets, Manu, Moses, Homer and Chaucer walked in.” True sauntering takes place in the woods and meadows” and not in parking lots and on highways. “The moment my legs begin to...

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Tuesday, 14 July, 2026

Posted on July 13, 2026
in #Authentic Self, Awareness, Death and Dying, Flourishing, Nonverbal Activities, Old Age and Death, Walking
2 Comments

Walking through a well-maintained cemetery is a unique experience. Observing the headstones and monuments of those who have gone before us not only grounds us but also stirs a feeling of serenity that stirs contemplation. For the preliminary exams for my doctoral work, I was to collect the rubbings from the headstones from three New England cemeteries. My topic was symbols and rituals of death from four different cultures. India, China, Mexico and New England. I didn’t find these resting places of long-gone ancestors morbid or depressing. On the contrary, walking through these was calming and tranquil. After making drawings and collecting rubbings, I was inspired to take longer walks on the pathways that webbed the greenery. The moment we’re born, we begin our journey toward death. Each human life’s path might...

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Posted on June 29, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, Being in Nature, Creativity, Flourishing, Imagination, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking, Well Being, Writing
2 Comments

I hope the poems I read in the class this month have motivated you to read more poems. Here is a link to mindful poetry for you to explore: https://cih.ucsd.edu/mindfulness/mindful-poetry I thought you may want to know that by the age 85 and older, about a third of people have dementia. Prevention is the most powerful antidote to the illness. You can’t prevent something you cannot see and dementia is one such illness. It increases exponentially after age 65. The mental decline is linked to lifestyle: physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, social isolation, poor sleep, lack of mentally stimulating activities and misuse of alcohol. All opposites of the eight good habits we’ve been reading about and hopefully practicing.  Prevention should start early. Our Ashby Ponds community may be retired but it has not quit...

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Thursday, 18 June, 2026

Posted on June 17, 2026
in #Nature Lover, Being in Nature, Flourishing, Travel, Walking
4 Comments

Dear Readers, Here are two poems for you to enjoy. The first one is about my struggle to paint the red Sedona mountains and the other is Valarie CoX's excellent humorous poem about "Cookie Thief." Grandeur Revealed (Sedona) 2021Charcoal lines on a blank canvas,trying to evoke the images that dazzled me once. How do I recapture? Flame-red sentinel against the azure expanse,twisted trees, majestic canyons,sculptor’s statues or creator’s carvings? Grandeur magnetizes but the dread cements.I soak the bristles with sunlight,so heavy it is ready to drip.Where do I begin?  Close your eyes and see. Under crystal blue domewooly sunSage-scented mesas rising like flames orange dusted pathways, terrifying gorges.Intoxicating heatwaves inebriating me. I stretch the neck of my lilliputian bodyand feel miniscule I view the colossal against the crystal dome. Thirsty canvass absorbs dripping strokes sublime and dreadful coalesce.I color the edges orange red, highlight with gold streaks. Grandeur reveals...

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Thursday, January 15, 2026

Posted on January 14, 2026
in Cooking, Journaling, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Walking, Writing
4 Comments

A sketch from "Writing Meditation Practice," 2019 When you shine the light of awareness on yourself, you begin to awaken to an authentic life. With the help of daily journaling you begin to become conscious of what masks your Authentic Self. You pen down passing thoughts and emotions running through your mind like a broken record and leave them on the pages of the notebook. Journaling daily clears your mind and lightens your heart. More importantly, things about yourself are revealed to you which you were not even aware of.  So place the bubbling thoughts, not under your control, of bitterness, anger, resentment or sorrow triggered by a family member, a friend or social event on the pages of your notebook. Then watch the petty or vindictive thoughts, careless actions or unnecessary...

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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, July 31, 2025

Posted on July 30, 2025
in Spirituality, Walking
4 Comments

For Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer-prize winning American poet, “the door to the woods (was) the door to the temple.”  Walking in the woods helps us understand ourselves and improve our lives in ways you didn’t yet know we could. A moment on our mindful walk may turn into a portal to a creative activity, an insight or an intuitive idea. We just need to pay attention to things you normally may ignore or think that they are not of our interest. Original ideas flow in when our body is busy moving and we are quiet. We may get lost in thought. When that happens, as you now know, bring your attention back to your breath and ask why, how, what, and when about the days at this stage of your life....

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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Posted on July 23, 2025
in Nonverbal Activities, Travel, Walking
1 Comment

Only a few astronauts have actually walked on the moon. But our fictional heroes have traveled through space like no body’s business. Here’s Captain James T. Kirk from TV show, Star Trek. “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”  Quite different from what the real astronauts said when they walked on the surface of the moon on which no one had walked before. But each one of these utterances resonate with the same exhilaration for exploration. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” declared American astronaut Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, when he put his left foot...

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