Reading Books Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Reading Books

Thursday, April 30, 2026

Posted on April 30, 2026
in Imagination, Reading Books, Travel, Well Being
2 Comments

When you read, words turn into images in your mind and thought process begins that awakens senses and feelings. Two-dimensional pages conjure three-dimensional realities. You become absorbed in the sensory experience of an unfamiliar world. Mentally out of your body you temporarily live subliminally the book’s protagonist’s life. Events seem real as you shed tears, smile, laugh, or feel heartache. Hours fly by as you experience pleasure or pain or loads of other emotions from an artistic distance.  At times it so happens that a sudden call, a noise, a smell catapults you out of your imaginary orbit and back to your armchair. How you wish that had not happened! Reading can be that fantastic. And so much more. “Much more” for me is when absorbed reading persuades me to actualize...

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Thursday, April 23, 2026

Posted on April 22, 2026
in #Story Telling, Awareness, Reading, Reading Books, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
4 Comments

Waiting, Oil paints on canvas board, 1975 Singing the praises of reading, Horace Mann (1796-1859) early 19th century American public education reformist, widely known as “The Father of American Education,” advised, “Resolve to edge in a little reading every day even if but a single sentence.”  Erasmus, 15th century scholar and humanist wrote, “Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite and worth remembering.” “When you walk in the mist, you get wet,” says the thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen. He means that you absorb the stuff you take in and the environment that surrounds you.   Reading lets you step out of your cloistered life and dwell in the midst of masters. By the process of unconscious assimilation, good books enter your mind. Reading improves vocabulary, reasoning, concentration,empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence. Read new books and read old books....

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Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Posted on April 20, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, #Story Telling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Reading Books, Sharper Brain after Retirement
2 Comments

Loneliness, Oil on canvas, 1977 Whether reading for pleasure or personal growth, what you enjoy depends on your interests and experiences. What you choose to read is as unique as what you enjoy eating or wearing. When you select a book to read, what are you seeking? Pleasure, growth, transformation? It is not what you choose to read but what happens to you when you are absorbed in reading – that pleasurable feeling of forgetting who and where you are, temporarily experiencing life through someone else’s perspective! I read to be entertained, to learn, to adventure into unknown worlds where my heart is slashed, where my guts are punched, or a brick falls on my head. With each book I read, my emotional and intellectual sensibilities emerge and deepen. In 2003, a group...

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Thursday, April 16, 2026

Posted on April 15, 2026
in Awareness, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Reading Books, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
6 Comments

Lady in a Sari, 1980, Oil on Canvas After reading the nightmarish poem, “A Dream” by Hermann Hesse in his book, The Glass Bead Game, I shuddered. A feeling of restlessness creeped in. The only way I could eliminate that feeling was to journal about it. I wrote what ended up being a short short story.  Here is a summary: I walk to the monastery on the hill and enter the building. Its walls are lined with books from ceiling to floor. The spines of the gilded lettered books glitter in the morning light. I pull out the one closest to me. The spine reads, Meaning of My Life. The leather cover tooled in gold promises a story still untold. What wisdom will the book reveal? I read the front folio aglow with words, “Learn to...

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Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Posted on April 13, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading Books, Spirituality
4 Comments

Inventor, Manoj Wangu, Colored Pencils, 2019 When, for no particular reason, someone in real life or even on television makes you cringe or stirs negative emotions in you become conscious of yourself, examine your thoughts at that moment and ask yourself, why am I reacting negatively against this person? Am I biased or prejudiced? Am I stereotyping him or her? And bear witness to your own answers. Now let’s move on to reading for pleasure, the topic for this month. Does reading make you happy, make you forget who you are or where you are? Reading is my passion—anything that has something to do with language—fiction and nonfiction books, stories, essays. In addition, to reading I’m devoted to writing. I write more than I read.  Dorothea Brande (Becoming a Writer, 1934) and Julia Cameron (The Artist’s...

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Thursday, October 30, 2025

Posted on October 29, 2025
in Awareness, Reading, Reading Books, Writing
4 Comments

You know well the benefits of writing alone behind closed door as well as meditating and writing with others at retreats and groups. You’ve come full circle back to where you started as a beginner on your way to an advanced writer. How much pleasure do you feel as you practice in your study, at your Sacred Power Spot? Through years that space has accumulated a presence due to your meditation, journaling, and deep reading practice. It emits a spiritual aura that you sense when you enter the room. No longer do you feel alone. You feel grounded in the source of your creativity, your AS. The walls of this space are lined with books which you know well. The story of your writing life echoes from the pages of these...

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