The Tale of a Dream: Wandering Bones – returning home

By Pamela Ratsey

In The Tale of a Dream, an octogenarian author embarks on a reflective expedition through the archives of her mind. With a quest to understand how events, people, and experiences have moulded her life, she aims to unearth universal truths and a sense of purpose. What begins as a straightforward analytical endeavour transforms into a fascinating odyssey where patterns and connections manifest with surprising ease, as if the puzzle pieces of her life were falling into place on their own.

Seemingly without effort, her fragmented thoughts coalesce into a coherent philosophy that she terms ‘Taoist-Existentialism.’ This innovative approach harmonizes natural wisdom with intellectual insights, and fuses the primal elements of nature with the complex algorithms of technology, illuminating the untapped potential within evolving humanity.

Guided solely by the currents of her thoughts and absent any preconceived notions, the author delves into life’s multifaceted questions. While many queries find answers, the eternal ‘why?’ remains intriguingly elusive, as it has for philosophers and thinkers throughout history.

The Tale of a Dream invites you to explore the landscape of human experience, asking you to reconsider what you thought you knew while urging you to ponder what you have yet to discover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035809882

Pamela Ratsey

Pamela grew up in Yorkshire, moving to the home counties with parents in her teens. Until her early twenties, she worked in London departments stores and as a nurse at St. George’s hospital. After spending several years as a stay-at-home mom, Pamela studied for a degree in English at Reading University, followed by technical and non-technical editing posts for some years. More recently, she taught ballroom and Latin American dancing in partnership with her husband John, for local authorities and independently. This came to an end in 2008, when John was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Book preview

About the Author

Pamela grew up in Yorkshire, moving to the home counties with parents in her teens. Until her early twenties, she worked in London departments stores and as a nurse at St. George’s hospital.

After spending several years as a stay-at-home mom, Pamela studied for a degree in English at Reading University, followed by technical and non-technical editing posts for some years. More recently, she taught ballroom and Latin American dancing in partnership with her husband John, for local authorities and independently. This came to an end in 2008, when John was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Dedication

To the three most important men in my life, all sadly gone:

My dad, who would frame in painted gold the picture of his only child's life.

My beloved husband, John, who would revel in the unwrapping of my finally unframed self.

My friend, mentor, and chiropractor, Desmond Pim, who would take delight in saying, I told you so if this exercise project is successful, or has the potential to be so in the future. If not destined for public presentation in my lifetime, he would remind me that we are all part of a universal process, assuring me that someone, sometime, somewhere, will pick up where I leave off.

Copyright Information ©

Pamela Ratsey 2024

The right of Pamela Ratsey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The story, experiences, and words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035809851 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035809868 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781035809882 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

My heartfelt thanks to the preceptive executive at a major fitness orginasation, who recognized the potential of my exercises concept at first sight, and to politicians who directed me to the innovations department of NHS England, where it was confirmed there was clinical need for such a system.

My thanks also to the blood donors, doctors and nurses, for keeping me alive. Without their help and expertise I would have died in my early fifties.

Also, to my long term astrologers, Jonathan, and more recently Oscar Cainer, who helped me to stay on track through many years of uncertainty and doubt.

2021

Road Map

Once upon a dream time, I thought I would like to study for a degree in Philosophy but was advised against it by a fellow late starter, who, after excelling in English, was accepted at Oxford University, to do a masters’ in the subject.

She was both clever and wise, knew my family came first, and doubtless went on to a glittering academic career.

Literary studies were much the better option for my less rigorous brain, inclined, as it always has been, to the occasional flight of fancy, sometimes skipping the boring bits.

On the strength of A level results acquired through further education classes, up to par pre-acceptance paper, and mature student interview, I was offered a place to do French as well as English at Reading. As long periods away from home would be required, and my conversational French was minimal, I decided against this. In the long run, it was probably for the best.

I have been channelling my inner Sherlock of late, setting the mind free to roam, plucking creative hints from thin air, in a part resting, part restive state of suspended animation. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions I need to explore now, to fill in gaps, and complete my image for public consumption, are a whole different country, needing contemplation before revelation.

Some people arrive on this planet with a personalised Rubik’s cube already sorted, requiring little conscious thought to find their true path. Others let the last train trundle by unnoticed, wondering wistfully ‘what if’. Most of us reach journey’s end sublimely unaware we have failed even to take a quick peek behind life’s mysteriously veiling curtain.

A few of us find ourselves scarily pushed to the brink, glimpsing answers only as the witching hour looms, at which precise moment the magic will switch off, and, in a blissful state of mindless oblivion, all that went before will be cached forever in the vastness of space, sealed in ageless rocks, or drifting in primeval waters.

A road map comes with each of us at birth. Preoccupied by matters of the moment, this often remains permanently hidden. So much to do, people to meet, places to see.

According to the twentieth century existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre, ‘l’enfer est les autres’, hell is other people. That’s a hard idea to get to grips with, in a world where love is supposedly key. The words of a legitimate philosopher, with impressive qualifications and sizeable brain, who presumably knew his stuff (# as he saw it) are a bit heavy going for an autodidact explorer, reliant mostly on the university of life. But the biblical exhortation to love everybody is equally hard to grasp, even harder to do, for all except the saints amongst us.

In the discombobulating separateness of COVID, the best, lying dormant in most people’s psyche, has had time and space to feel, learn, reset priorities, even flourish, showing hope still exists despite recent disasters.

But this is only a start. To cope with climate change on the rampage, fuelled by forces beyond our control, we shall need more than brilliant brains, physical stamina, good intentions, fresh perspectives, and Greta. We shall also need lorry loads of inner resources.

Boris’s road map still has coronavirus and Brexit bumps to navigate, not to mention books to balance, and discontented masses to appease, before the way ahead can truly be declared safe, not just for him personally, also for us.

With yet another viral variant threatening to cancel Christmas for a second year, and