If you ever meet a fellow traveller who tells you that they have “completed” their Pack, doubt them.
Packs expand and expand.
And yet a properly filled Pack of a 95 year old will weigh nothing more than,
and perhaps even less than,
that of a troubled 17 year old;
because the 95 year old will have tidied up the ends and ravels of their goods,
so that nothing weighs them down at all!
Packs expand and expand.
And yet a properly filled Pack of a 95 year old will weigh nothing more than,
and perhaps even less than,
that of a troubled 17 year old;
because the 95 year old will have tidied up the ends and ravels of their goods,
so that nothing weighs them down at all!
Body
"Come on men! Do you want to live forever?"
- General Putnam
There is increasing evidence that a degree of care spent on our own physical well-being provides benefits in terms of both a longer and a healthier old age. Although “disease” can strike any of us, even the most able-bodied, the inevitable debilitation of our older years seems to be reduced if we spend a little time on ”looking after ourselves”.
The Pack is a private place where you can “be in charge” of your body! Down the months, I shall provide links
to healthy eating sites, to National Guidelines,
to recently published information about health,
to motivational tools, to exercise routines,
to opportunities to record past physical performance – Cricket scores made; Bowls; School skipping competitions; Rounder’s matches; Walks you took, courting, on holiday, with the kids; Dances you went to (and with whom); all that digging in the allotment!
to the expeditions you intend to make……..
Mind
Earlier evidence that “Brain training” keeps our marbles all in a row seems to have been disproved in a BBC sponsored study . Although players’ performance improved with practice, the gains were not transferred to other parts of their mental life.
Oh well, bang goes immortality! BUT, there’s a lot of pleasure to be had from an engaged mind for its own sake.
Again, The Pack is a private place where you can “be in charge”, this time of your mind!
Down the months, I shall provide links
to reading groups,
to puzzlers’ magazines,
to mystery weekends,
to Pub Quizzes,
to Chess matches,
to Theatre, to galleries, to museums, to art exhibitions, to panto, to musicals,
to painting, to writing, to blogging, to choirs, to diary writing,
to big political debates, to local issues
Spirit
John Muir, Scottish born American father of environmental conservation wrote:
"We all flow from one fountain—Soul. All are expressions of one love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favoured races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shore-less and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.”
How very few of us, faced with a tragedy, or sometimes even a success, will not scream or murmur a prayer? The Pack is a spiritual place; not in any creedal or denominational sense, but in the sense that Muir writes about.
It is predominantly a theistic place – that recognizes the existence of the Divine – but it is not insistently so. It is above all a place that honours our shared humanity.
But The Pack does not seek to impose a doctrine or tradition; perhaps if it has a mantra, a creed, it is the motto of the Royal Society, the ancient British scientific society founded in 1660.
“The Royal Society's motto
'Nullius in verba', roughly translated as
'Take nobody's word for it',
dates back to 1663, and is an expression of the determination of the Fellows to withstand the domination of authority (such as in Scholasticism) and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
The Latin words below are taken from a passage of Horace in which the poet compares himself to a gladiator, who, having earned peace and retirement, is free from control. ”
Ac ne forte roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter,
Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri.
(Horace, Epistles I.i, 1.13-14)
You shall not ask for whom I fight
Nor in what school my peace I find;
I say no master has the right
To swear me to obedience blind.
(trans. C.T. Carr)"
http://royalsociety.org/General_WF.aspx?pageid=6891&terms=motto&fragment=&SearchType=&terms=motto
Again, The Pack is a private place where you can “be in charge”, this time of your Spirit!
In my journey with The Pack I shall follow a Christian tradition, but be prepared to question all!
There will be links: to debating societies,
to how to hold your point of view in the pub (without the use of fists ;-) )
to the principles of meditation; to Retreat and creative silence
to non Judeo-Christian practice in the pursuit of self awareness
to the place of dance, of dining, of drama, of conversation
on spiritual self-examination and growth.
Community
“There is no such thing as Society, only individuals”.
This statement was attributed, pretty accurately as it turns out, to Margaret Thatcher, sometime Prime-Minister of Britain.
It made many a blood-stream boil!
In actual fact, she went on: “There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us (is) prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”
I’m not finally sure what’s meant here; in fact, it seems to me that the explanation that follows the initial denial is pretty much a description of “Society”. But perhaps what’s meant is that “There is no anonymous, external agency called “Society”, there’s just us, caring and sharing; it’s our responsibility how the world works out”.
The Pedlar’s Pack provides a place where each of us can deposit and display the stitches of our lives, past, present and future. But those packs will be like the dusty bundles of a long-lost mail-service unless we find a way of sharing and displaying them.
And what better way of sharing and displaying them than by filling them in the presence of others?
The Pack is a private place where you can “be in charge”, this time of your part in passing on your skill, your experience, your lifetime to the next generation!
You will build links
to your children,
to your grandchildren,
to your local school, your church, your mosque, your temple, your dojo, your soccer club, the local Brownies, BB, the local swimming club,
Your older neighbours, the young family two doors down…….
And in them, you will live forever!
