#Reading for Pleasure Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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#Reading for Pleasure Tag

Tuesday, June 24,2025

Posted on June 23, 2025
in Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Sharper Brain after Retirement
6 Comments

Today's inspiration is geared more toward Ashby Ponds' Mindful Creators than Mindful Writers because, if I remember correctly, the age range of MWs is younger. But it never hurts to know things in advance to prepare for future health benefit. So here it goes: By the age 85 and older, about a third of people have dementia. Prevention is the most powerful antidote to this 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...

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Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Posted on June 16, 2025
in Journaling, Sharper Brain after Retirement
6 Comments

I hope the Inspirations so far 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 In my previous email I mentioned the practice of following disciplines to a sharper and smarter brain: meditation & journaling, sleep, nutritious meals, walking, reading, socializing, any creative project and something that you feel passionate about, something that gives purpose to your life. Based on these eight, do you have a weekly routine? Body without brain is just flesh. Our 3.3-pound brain monitors our body and heart. Amazingly fragile, it has incredible ability to perform sophisticated tasks such as language learning, performing complex skills, trying new creative hobbies, living amicably in social groups and so on. All these activities help increase attention, reasoning and memory.  The brain grows,...

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Thursday, June 5, 2025

Posted on June 4, 2025
in #Reading Poetry
2 Comments

In the book, Unblock Your Creative Flow, the month of June is dedicated to writing poetry. If I get a slimmer second edition of the volume published, I would devote the spring season to READING poetry instead of writing it. It's only after we read or listen to plenty of poems that we may feel inspired to write one.During May and the first half of June why not sit at the edge of a pond, under the shade of a tree and listen to birds singing chorus? Feel a pleasant breeze caressing the skin while you take pleasure in reading a poem or two? This month we'll read poems by William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Valarie Cox, Hafiz, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Marianne Williamson, Michael Castori and Jon Kabat Zinn.  As a...

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Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Posted on April 28, 2025
in Reading
3 Comments

Our brain can adapt, master new skills, store memories and information, and even recover after a traumatic brain injury. This is called neuroplasticity. The lifelong capacity of the brain to change and rewrite itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. One of the skills that contributes to brain’s neuroplasticity is reading. It allows our brain to grow, expand, learn, and relearn.  Some older individuals in their eighties or nineties, even if they were avid readers when younger, lose their ability to recall. A short story may be easier to comprehend but reading a novel and remembering all they read until the end eludes them. “Research shows that along with diet and exercise, reading can stave off signs of dementia. Reading, journaling, meditation and other mentally stimulating activities, no matter the...

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Thursday, April 10, 2025

Posted on April 9, 2025
in Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading
2 Comments

Singing the praises of reading Horace Mann, the  American public education reformist 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. Read books written by living writers and those from earlier eras. Read everything you feel is relevant....

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Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Posted on April 7, 2025
in Creativity, Daily Reflections 2025, Imagination, Reading
4 Comments

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 of doctors in Wales...

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Thursday, April 3, 2025

Posted on April 2, 2025
in Journaling
2 Comments

Below is a slightly revised version of the Inspiration (Day 91) from the book, Unblock Your Creative Flow. 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 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...

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