Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way (Justin Hayward)

Possess, as I possessed a season, 
The countries I resign, 
Where over elmy plains the highway 
Would mount the hills and shine, 
And full of shade the pillared forest 
Would murmur and be mine - A.E. Housman (1922)

The lengthening shadows are a dead giveaway - autumn is coming.

The cooler nights and shorter days are another - autumn is coming.

With three weeks to go (autumn takes over in the southern hemisphere on March 21), everything is starting to feel sharper as the temperature starts dropping, thankfully there's no humidity, with a changing sun pattern there are some distinctive earlier shadows in the day, and the first signs of leaves turning. 

I love autumn. It's my favourite.

Love and peace - WNP

We're lost in this masquerade (Leon Russell)

Photo by grafixart grafixart_photo on Unsplash

Today's entry from The Venerable Hsing Yun's 365 Days With Wisdom is a doozy.

Things happen when all the conditions are ready. Things end when all the conditions cease.

When all the conditions are ready, everything goes smoothly. When all the conditions are not ready, everything fails.

Remember the maple leaf!

Love and peace - WNP

It's the terror of knowing what the world is about (Queen/Bowie)

Stress City, Arizona. You don't want to go there.

Stress comes in all shapes and sizes.

Selling your house, which we are currently doing, is stressful. There's also work stress - been a tough two weeks, and for me to say that...

Some may argue that stress doesn't even exist. My old boss at Cambridge High School, Alison Annan, was a non-believer. 

However, lately my wife (SWMBO),  has remarked, "You look  stressed", so I suspect it does exist. She's never wrong.

The Oxford Dictionary says that stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

Okay. So Alison was wrong. It's a thing, okay?!

Do I feel stressed? Not particularly, but for SWMBO to notice it, I guess I act and look stressed.

Particularly when Saturday morning comes. It's like I'm trudging through molasses and if we travel I haven't the energy to drive and my end of the conversation is pretty monosyllabic. 

In other words, after a week of demanding full on brain salad surgery (myriads of decisions and mass human interactions all day long for five days), communicating with anyone, even my BFF is the last thing I want to do.

So this weekend, we went to the beach and that helped, and to Real Groovy in Auckland and that felt GGRRREAT!

I'm back baby!!

Love and peace - WNP

[BTW/ sidebar: here are some ideas to help relieve stress - personally I don't go for the soothing music option - on Friday night I came home and whacked on a Rory Gallagher album and played air guitar to Shadow Play, but, you know, whatever works, right?]

And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?" (Talking Heads)

How naive am I? 

I'm on the scary side of naive. I always have been. And, I suspect, I always will be.

I don't mean that I lack experience in a general sense or good judgment; I mean I am one of life's innocent characters with a trusting soul. 

I'm without guile, childlike, trustful, a simple guy with a complex life. I'm unpretentious, unaffected, gullible (oh boy, am I), credulous, unsuspecting, dupable and deceivable. 

I'm starry-eyed, dewy-eyed, wide-eyed and wet behind the ears.

Childhood experiences were always innocent. My teenage world was lived in a fog of innocence. Once I entered young adulthood, I was two-timed by girlfriends and betrayed.

At university I studied and avoided parties, drugs and romantic entanglements.

When I met SWMBO on February 26, 1983, I was a guy in a suit at a fancy dress party, literally! Yikes.

I wish I was exaggerating, embellishing, or making this stuff up.

I'm a poster boy for naiveté.

But here's the thing: I wouldn't have it any other way, even if I could. It's the source of my relentless optimism.

Naiveté is a good quality to have - otherwise you end up bitter and suspicious. And, therefore, unhappy.

Secret agendas and game playing have no place in Wozza's naive world. 

Love and peace - WNP

I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp (W. Somerset Maugham)

Photo by Sandis Helvigs on Unsplash

I suck already with my writing goal for this year. Spontaneity is working out over pro-activity big time. I'm out of whack. Imbalanced.

Doh!

How can I get organised and write better posts? Last year I read a book a week for goodness sake. This shouldn't be that difficult.

Time and motivation are not really an issue. I love writing. I love blogging. And yet, I suck at preparing posts in advance and honing them before I hit 'publish'.

Why? 

Well, for a start my notebook lacks weasels (writing ideas/plans so cunning they have tails). So my fall back material is often bare (okay, dry) and I don't know what I am writing ahead of my publishing deadline.

Looking for help with this, I found an interesting article on how to write more blog posts. The author, Pam Neely, gave nine pieces of advice. If you blog it's worth your time.

After considering her advice, my aim is to correct my imbalance. For this I am taking the view of Hsing Yun: I need to consider the big stuff - my life budget. Everything is relevant to my life budget (inwards and outwards resources).

This will include time, situation, ideas, reflection and weasels.

Planning, thinking, writing better blogposts will flow once I get all my ducks in a row.

Love and peace - WNP

The boy with the thousand yard stare (Big Country)

Very jelly of cousin Christine, who is back in blighty after her downunder trip to Nu Zild, as she reports on snow and football.

Some advice from Catherine Collautt comes to mind: if your patch is feeling dry or looking blanched to you: try some water.

Grass needs water to grow, to be vibrant and healthy and green. It simply will not amount to much on a diet of entitlement (“It should just be green and awesome”) and neglect (“What, water it again? But I did that last month”). Give it a respectable amount of TLC and you may still find that you don’t want your patch, that perhaps you want somebody else’s; but you will at least find it to be something prettier, greener, and more comfortable to sit on as you figure out how to make your way there.

James Whatley has an interesting alternative take on this: The grass is always greener...if you water it.

Keep that in mind when the opportunity to leap comes along. The best advice I was ever given was: move towards things, not away from things.

I like this!

Love and peace - WNP