This past weekend our good friend, Pat Machin, gathered 6 friends who all share a love of books. The customized experience that grew out of this love was called 'words and walking' and activities ranged from presenting a bag of your favourite books fireside to making beaded jewelry to exploring the ambulant realm of walking philosophy.After a lunch of curried parsnip soup and goat's cheese souffles on Saturday, the group donned coats and walking shoes and headed out to try peripatetic walking. This consisted of pairing up and, whilst strolling down the late autumn lanes surrounding the Nurtury, questioning the nature of Socrates' Big 6 : moderation, virtue, piety, good, justice and courage. Paying heed to Eastern Philosophy's Classical Greek equivalent, Nishida Kitaro, we also included 'what is harmony?' in our line of questioning.
Around a roaring fire down by the lake we contemplated together what we had learned from this exercise, both in terms of the issues at hand and our 'walking the talk' experience. We then took a completely different track : trying out a post structuralist walk where we experimented with our haptic sense and got to know our surrounding environment by walking as sentient 'bodies without organs' that felt their way through the world as energy fields rather than flesh and bones. This proved somewhat of a challenge - one that we revisited later on that evening over Moroccan kemia and tagine.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch over tea and scones, Pat was organizing her posse into a book sharing extravaganza. This involved taking notes on people's favourite reads and plenty of appreciative oohs and aahs when they coincided.Sunday morning found the group taking over the breakfast table and creating beautiful jewelry from Pat's prolific collection of beads. Forest walks followed...And finally, to top a great weekend off, a warming lunch of Thai-inspired carrot and pumpkin soup and spinach and feta flan.
Special thanks to Pat for creating a wonderfully stimulating weekend of 'words and walking'. What a great combination! And to Carolyn, Elizabeth, Judy, Louise, Ann and Wendy - it was so great to enjoy your company for these 2 days. For more information on organizing your own customized weekend, please visit our website or contact us directly.
