Travel Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Travel

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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Thursday, November 27, 2025

Posted on November 26, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Being in Nature, Daily Reflections 2025, Spirituality, Travel, Well Being
0 Comments

I had not heard about national parks until we came to the United States. When we visited Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon National Park in 2013… I. Had. No. Idea! I was enthralled by how awe and delight enraptured me in the presence of the natural resplendence. I was born in the lap of the Himalayas, in the valley of Kashmir. I was two years old when we moved to New Delhi the overcrowded metroplex with high-rise buildings. But it was home. To get away from scorching summer heat in the capital city, my family would return to the valley for a month. We exhaled in the most pleasant weather in my birthplace about which the Mughal Emperor Jehangir soulfully exclaimed, “If there is paradise on Earth, it is here, it is...

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Thursday, November 6, 2025

Posted on November 6, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Awareness, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality, Travel
4 Comments

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...

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Thursday, October 2, 2025

Posted on October 1, 2025
in #Nature Lover, #Stillness and Quietude, #Stillness and Solitude, Awareness, Spirituality
5 Comments

What is it that you do in which you completely immerse yourself? Reading, baking, gardening, knitting, painting? When you are absorbed in an activity, does it feel like nothing else exists? When you are intensely focused on something you truly are by yourself.  Try this. When you are completely engrossed in doing something for an hour or two and you have the need to go to the bathroom, as you walk away from the place you were seated in, become aware of how focused you were a few moments ago, and how you continue to be so for a few more minutes. Sense the spaciousness around you and peace within. This is the feeling that you were not aware just a minute ago. You were immersed deep in your aware self,...

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Thursday, September 18, 2025

Posted on September 17, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Awareness, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality, Well Being
6 Comments

In stillness and silence we practice living in the present moment. When we are Here and Now our awareness is one with us. With practice we learn to bring the inner quietude right into the present moment. When we bask in self-recognition of our aware self we feel love, joy, peace and contentment.  Present moment has two layers: the immediate one, the one we are familiar with. It is a bundle of contents of our experience—our thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, images, events and relationships. We are constantly entangled with this content. In stillness and silence, we learn to focus on the breath or mantra instead and go beyond these mental things. For some time or at some point we stop identifying with the things and go deeper.  What do we find when we go deeper within? We...

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Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Posted on September 8, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
4 Comments

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal noted, “All the unhappiness of (people) arises from one simple fact: that they can’t sit quietly in their chamber.” The practice of sitting quietly by yourself trains your mind the way exercise trains your body. It leads you deep into yourself where you become one with your Authentic Self, wiser and kinder. When you are walking outdoors, sit for 5 minutes and feel entertained listening to birds or crickets or rushing water. Nature’s sounds add depth to any time of the day or night. Last month you discovered how much pleasure and insight travel brings. Yet, sitting at home in the silence of our Spiritual Power Spot settles the mind and opens the heart. At such moments, we genuinely feel that going nowhere is as fulfilling as...

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Thursday, August 4, 2025

Posted on September 3, 2025
in Being in Nature, Flourishing, Spirituality, Travel
4 Comments

On our way to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the bus stopped for a photo break of the spectacular peaks of the Teton mountain range. The driver pointed to a log cabin in the distance, a cottage in the middle of a meadow of swaying yellow flowers and wild grass. I hurried to the restroom behind it but noticed a sign board: “The Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration” and wondered, what exactly does transfiguration mean? When I returned, people had already seen the chapel and left. Its sparce decoration and plain walls constructed with logs moved me. The space felt cool and comfortable. In front of a large rectangular glass window was a table on which was placed a cross flanked by two glass vases with fresh-cut flowers. I sat on the corner seat...

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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 28, 2025

Posted on August 27, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Being in Nature, Travel
4 Comments

Nature is imbued with numen (spirit). Rudolf Otto, the German phenomenologist of religions, qualified the numinous (spiritual) as being mysterium, fascinans et tremendum. In other words: mysterious, awe-inspiring, and filled with terror. He used the Latin phrase, Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans to describe the dual nature of the experience of the Holy or the Sacred. It encompasses both a terrifying and awe-inspiring aspect (tremendum) and a fascinating/alluring aspect (fascinans). He argued that this profound emotional experience was at the heart of the world religions. I have experienced this in nature which I regard as Sacred. I would like to share with you two such experiences, the first being fascinating and the second terror inspiring. #1 Awe Inspiring and AlluringOur stay at Denali National Park in Alaska remained covered with mist and clouds. The guide had promised an unforgettable view of the...

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Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Posted on August 25, 2025
in #Story Telling, Travel, Writing
2 Comments

Lewis and Clark Exploration (The Corps of Discovery) shifted into settlements when fur traders and explorers moved westward within a few years after the captions and their crew returned home. Within 30 years (1830s-1840’s) began large scale settlements by ordinary families. That’s from where small American towns west of Mississippi trace their origin. Such historic towns, nestled in beautiful landscapes, reflect the persona of the American people – down to earth and friendly, proud of who they are and where they live.  Before taking the Corps of Discovery voyage, we had visited cosmopolitan cities in the United States – New York, Washington, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles – and capital cities of the world – Cape Town, Beijing, Tokyo, New Delhi, London, Paris, Rome and Lhasa. We had gazed at great monuments and sailed long rivers....

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