Online Mindful Writers Group Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Online Mindful Writers Group

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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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, November 18, 2025

Posted on November 17, 2025
in Being in Nature, Daily Reflections 2025, Nonverbal Activities, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
4 Comments

Here’s to enhancing our six senses! Seeing: To sharpen your sense of sight observe art and witness nature. Begin to appreciate the world around you as if you are seeing it for the first time. When you encounter beauty in nature or view a great work of art, it excites not only your sense of sight but also all other senses. However, it takes time and self-training to be able to derive this level of sensory delight from viewing. Seeing Hearing:Enhance your sense of hearing. Listening to a favorite piece of music is the highest kind of hearing. Music restores order and reduces mental atrophy. A music lover absorbed in listening can feel one with the music. The two become one. The feeling of oneness stops time.  Similar to practicing solo, listening to...

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Thursday, October 23, 2025

Posted on October 22, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Writing
4 Comments

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...

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Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Posted on October 13, 2025
in Meditation, Online Mindful Writers Group, Spirituality
6 Comments

Except the photos of the Buddha images in-situ that I've been posting lately, the rest of the statues of the Buddhas are the one's Manoj and I collected through years during our travels in China, Japan, and India. There is time to write together and time to write alone. Having written alone, with a writing companion, and in a group I mostly write alone now, especially after moving into a retirement community. Some of the residents who are writers, prefer writing alone unless they are teaching writing. When I write I’m absorbed in my work. On my spiritual journey that includes morning meditation, journaling, and deep writing (and walking later in the day) I'm one with my Authentic Self within, the consciousness. This awareness watches me from moment to moment...

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Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Posted on September 1, 2025
in Mindfulness and Travealing, Nonverbal Activities, Travel
2 Comments

This is my last post about Lewis and Clarke’s expedition toward the western coast. Following them to some of the towns and sites that the captains had discovered made me feel grounded in my adopted country, made the land real for me. To continue, on September 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis. An excerpt from Lewis’s letter to President Jefferson reads: “Sir, it is with pleasure that I announce to you the safe arrival of myself and party with our papers and baggage. No accident has deprived us of a single member of our party since I last wrote you from the Mandan in April 1804.” In his reply the President wrote: “I received, my dear Sir, with unspeakable joy your letter of September 23 announcing the return...

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Thursday, August 7, 2025

Posted on August 6, 2025
in Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Travel
2 Comments

Tracking back a little. From the Portland airport we took a cab to Red Lion Hotel on Jantzen Beach in Hayden Island, Oregon. The eastern sky threatened with thunderclouds, pouring down with vengeance, while the western sky welcomed us with dazzling sunlight.  Our hotel balcony overlooked the Columbia River, partly hidden behind pine trees. Was it the same river upon which sailed Louis and Clark with their crew? I couldn’t believe my fortune! The next morning I saw our boat, “American Harmony,” docked right next to the pines! Under the early morning sunlight the air was fresh. We walked on a trail that ran parallel to the river. Cumulus clouds announced themselves against the bright blue sky with such confidence that I straightened my shoulders. The riverside of the trail was studded...

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Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Posted on August 4, 2025
in Journaling, Nonverbal Activities, Oral Stories, Reading, Travel
4 Comments

For Month 8 “Mindfulness and Travel, I’ll share the story of how the country to which I arrived as an immigrant in 1974 became my home. A trip with my husband tracing the last leg of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition from the east to the west coast was an adventure of a lifetime for both of us, especially for me.  After reading two hefty volumes, Undaunted Courage and Journals of Lewis and Clark I was “called” to go on the same journey. My husband and I took a flight from Pittsburgh, PA to Portland, Oregon. From there we embarked on a boat that carried us upon the waters of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The third American President, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) had envisioned an expedition that would boldly navigate the heart and the west of the country,...

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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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