Insafu-Good Heart: F Wambura Blogs

Make Today The Best Day Ever!  I came home craving for a what my sister calls ‘good cup of tea'. Often when I need masala chai, I brew the spices and loose tea-leaves. On this particular day, I followed instructions given by a friend. Milk in a cup, dip the tea bag, add the spices and in the microwave for a minute plus. Long process. BUT! He forgot to warm me that I should watch my tea like a haw k. A very messy affair, nonetheless it was half cup of the best tea I had taken in a long time. I believe each day is designed to be the best day of one’s life, better than yesterday or days past. Just like wine, from sour grapes to sweet tasting wine. Well, I can’t speak much of wine tasting, but I know well ripened grapes are sweeter. Sure there is a formula of making that wine; fermentation and ... plus time and patience. But life is more complex than wine and we may not have a formula to make each day the best ever. All that we need is optimism and resolve... ...

Be in tune with this infinite flow. Nyandarua, Central Kenya Well, I’m not a long shower-soothing baths-swimming-diving kind of a person. I’m the just being near water kind. I can sit by the banks of a river, ocean shores (once in like forever) and just look/stare as I reflect on so many things. Since ancient times, humans have assigned healing and trans-formational properties to water. The water element is crucial to balancing the body and creating physical harmony. Rivers have long been seen as sacred places, and in a number of different spiritual contexts, water has symbolized rebirth, spiritual cleansing and salvation. Today, we still turn to water for a sense of calm and clarity. Not until recently when I was asked to describe a picture and what that moment meant to me did it dawn on me on the many times I have just sat near water and ... some of those moments are frozen in time, and I have shared them here. And this made me dig up and read about sev...

  “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” – C. Joybell C. December 31 2016 - Pretoria I love sunsets, and I have made it a habit, especially New Year’s Eve, to stop and just gaze at the fleeting beauty, the spectacle of colour painting the sky. Nature gives us free beauty, something to behold for a moment, making us in tune with our body, mind and soul. It can be the rain, a rainbow, water, stars, whatever the choice, be sure it will guarantee a sense of satisfaction that will endure as long as you last.   There are psychological effects that persist long after the sun has gone down. Studies show that appreciating natural beauty may boost well-being and enhance life satisfaction. To reap all the goodness a sunset has to offer, one has to drop everything and really notice the spectacular display in the sky, and really engage with the experience. 15th December 2016...

Make One & Stick To It -  by Wambura F Ngari The New Year resolutions; most of us make them and those who don’t see them as ‘damn’. But new year resolutions are all about hope and optimism; looking into the new year with renewed energy. Well, according to research, only 12 percent of those who make resolutions stick to them. I am in the 88 percent. But then why bother make them? Westacott, a blogger says New Year resolutions are "a triumph of hope over experience, a way to quantify what we wish for ourselves”. Yes, New Year's resolutions are all about hopefulness. History tells us that this dates back to about 4,000 years ago.  Babylonians rang in their new year with an 11-day festival in March and reportedly made promises to the gods in hope they'd earn good favor in the coming year. They often resolved to get out of   debts. So what is your New Year resolution(s) and how do you plan to stick to it/them. Since the resolutions we make are about/say mor...

December 31 2016; Looking back at year ending today - by Wambura F Ngari   I liken 2016 to a “Mystery bag”, no idea of what will come out of it. The good, the bad and the in between all dished out this year. However, my highlight is that I will remember 2016 as the year I traveled by road from the slopes of Mt Kenya to Cape of Good Hope (In Jan & Dec) and somehow the wide, open road has helped unwrap my mind to a wider vision, a realization that possibilities exist beyond the horizon. So what lessons am I taking out of this “Mystery bag”? To love with honesty and to genuinely care. Never to assume that I have another year, you know, that thought of “arrgh, tomorrow is another day, I’ll make that call …” I don’t have forever, this is the moment. I lost cousins and close friends in the most sudden way I can imagine. One day alive, the next, gone! Just like that! So let us tell the ones we love how much we love them. To family, friends, colleagues, the waiter at...