On a clear Spring morning, after we had done the Whitby MBS Fair, Rachael and I went for a walk in the countryside (about 4 miles above Whitby) to visit an ancient tumulus burial site. Even though we had a map we couldn't find this archaeological site, and after walking about in the woods, returned to the car. Only on our way back did we notice the tumulus, which we had walked past earlier, but Nature and Time had taken its' toll. The Earth reclaims its' own.Burial grounds are the place where we try to hold-on to our ancestors, to the past, to what we loved, but within a generation loved ones are gone, and after many generations stones are worn down, and bones turn to dust. We tread past unaware. Occasionally there is a glimpse of the forgotten past. But it wasn't the past that I didn't notice, but the present.
I was expecting something else. The impression I had in my mind of what I should have seen was nothing like what was actually there, and because of that I walked straight past it. The surprise to me was that such an impression was so strong, even though I knew it was fanciful, it conditioned my expectation and perception. So half of me lives in a fantasy world, and the other half walks through the material world looking for a confirmation, a recognition, an expectation,
of what is not there.
I walk through the world looking and listening, feeling and sensing, and I did notice that it was a lovely day. This may have been the same thought that occurred to someone a few thousand years ago, before they had to drag these stones across the landscape, to the spot marked on my map. Apart from the expectation, and the 'religion', we might have wondered 'How on Earth did we end up HERE ?'
