“Tradition is not the worship of ashes,
but the transmission
of fire.”
Gustav Mahler
There’s a myth that says all the cells in our body are replaced every 7 years and yet we stay who we are.
In fact our red blood cells have a life span of about 4 months, muscle cells last for about 15 years and some of the neurons that survive mahogany are never replaced.
But the average is somewhere between 7 and 10 years.
We’re never the same but we don’t become someone else either.
To be alive, an organism must be able to regulate it’s own internal environment, it should have some sort of structural organisation, it will use energy to convert matter from one form to another – or into something non-corporeal, spiritual, it must be able to adapt to the changes in the world around it, and it should be capable of growing and reproducing itself.
On the evidence of last night’s Gathering, Montol is alive.
The Cornmarket Revellers and the ‘Gyptians signed the ledger just before the Scaleybacks and The Order of The Geep. The next generation danced with old hands, old rivalries and arguments were moved on from and new friendships made.
The Ancient Montol Ledger itself dates back all the way to 2023. Every tradition was once an invention, newfangled.
There’s an idea that those relationships which last are fed by an ongoing, cycling but supportive and gentle rivalry.
It’s obvious that some of the people who will be organising Montol in 30 years time were there and that there will be a Montol 2054.
Any of us who survive to see it will see something quite different but I’m sure it will still be essentially … Montol.
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