And the craic was good (Van Morrison)

Glastonbury Tor in Somerset

Wie geht's?

A colleague recently posted about early morning rituals and routines. I don't see a distinction between the two myself but there you are. 

One of mine is to read each day's entry in Hsing Yun's 365 days of wisdom.

Today it said: being without worry is the best form of happiness; excessive desire is the greatest suffering.

Ironically, my desire is wanting to be a pilgrim; so much it hurts. I've conquered a few of the Beatle related pilgrimages (New Zealand to Abbey Road - tick) but a few,  more spiritual ones, remain slightly out of reach.

Heading off to live in England soon should help get over the tyranny of distance (Nu Zild is soooooo looooong away from anything).

For what it's worth, here's my want-to-do pilgrimage list:

The Camino de Santiago (a.k.a. The Way of Saint James)

Glastonbury Tor to Stonehenge

Wye to Canterbury

The Rydal Water Walk (a.k.a. the Wordsworth walk) in the Lake District

Downpatrick to Coney Island (as outlined in the Van Morrison song)

This last one was added following a reminder via Thom Hickey's wonderful blogpost on Van's song.

Watching this and especially listening to Van's delivery makes me yearn to get started!

Love and peace - Wozza

Have I told you lately that I love you? (Van Morrison)

This one's for all the people out there in the blogosphere who love me.

I don’t think we do this enough – tell the people we love that we love them. But I’m not sure. When I watch American films they are forever ending a conversation with ‘I love you’. So much so that it tends to devalue the sentiment.

At the other extreme is the stoic New Zealand ‘see ya!'

I guess it’s come from our ancestral British reserve. When Fiona tells her son Marcus in About A Boy that she loves him, just before he goes into school, he looks crestfallen and is immediately mocked by the other kids.

I don’t recall my own mum or dad ever actually taking me to school (kiwi kids in the sixties said ‘who-ru’ from the door as they skipped off to skool barefoot and fancy free) but if they did they would never have done a Fiona on me. Their love for me was never in doubt though!

The good thing is that Van Morrison is in the world with us to sing like a dream and say those things that sometimes we don't say.