Random Musings. . .by Kui Gathua

  “ Relax, recharge and reflect. Sometimes it’s OK to do nothing .”― Izey Victoria Odiase It is 92 days to Christmas and 99 days to the New Year. The greater part of the year is gone, only a little is left to go. How are you feeling? Energized, refreshed, energizer-bunny-energetic or tired and lethargic? Maybe what I should be asking is have you been recharging your batteries along the way or do you wait to crash into Christmas at 0.2% left, worn out and battered? As my days have turned into months, years and now decades, I have learnt to sharpen my internal ears and look out for subtle clues that it is time to recharge. An occasional sleep-in day when I don’t jump out at the first cock crow, a day out in the forest with my camera and my thoughts, a few days without food, a break from social media, a morning meditation in silence, an hour of old school reggae music, a rare tub of ice-cream and cake. . . just because. Because loving me is all about setting goals and discip...

    “Your mind is programmable - if you’re not programming your mind someone else will program it for you.” ~ Jeremy Hammond I was listening to a podcast this week that dealt with gardening, but not of the conventional kind. It was more of ‘the garden of your mind’ kind of gardening. During the agriculture class, we learnt about soil types. Some were dense, others were too spacious, others were just between. Clay soil is good for growing cabbages and broccoli; loam soil is good for carrots and beets; sandy soil is good for root vegetables such as turnips. Each soil type has certain qualities that make it more suitable for some crops and not others. Just like garden soil, so is the soil in the garden of our minds. No two minds are the same and that is a function of many factors as well as the cultivation methods we employ. The best agricultural method for the garden of your mind is regenerative agriculture. How are you improving the soil of your mind garden? Do y...

  Ecclesiastes 3:6 A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away . (AMP) What have you had to go without lately? What had you taken for granted until it was gone? Lately I’ve been thinking about going without and how many times I’ve been denied, lacked or abstained from things I took for granted as must-haves. I love my lipstick collection but it’s been a long while since I used any because: masks. I have never been a shower skiver, not even in Nairobi winter. But during my treks up Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro, it never occurred to me to want a shower because: extreme cold. I love reading and my book collection attests to that but when I’m hiking, I have to concentrate on the trail. Eating is the way we nourish our bodies but once in a while, the body needs a break so that it can clean house and heal. Hence the seasons of fasting. These are all optional deprivations; I make a conscious decision to go without for a season. What happens when your ...

  “ Many treat friendships and other human connections as if they are things they can store in a closet where they can come back one day and find them unaltered. Alas, human connections do not survive with this mentality .” ~ Louis Yako The instant messaging capability of the Whatsapp App has made connections between people so easy and instant. I have lots of individual as well as group connections. It is how I keep in touch with my siblings, parent, extended family, former school mates, church mates, and many other groups of people I’m connected to locally and abroad. Lately, it has become the preferred method of bringing people together where meeting physically is not possible or desirable. And the reasons for bringing groups of people together have indeed increased. While need for human connection appears to be innate, the ability to form healthy, loving relationships is learned. A relationship is defined as a connection, an association or involvement; a connection betwee...