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Saturday 7 August 2021

Cult of the New Colossus - In My End is My Beginning

So we come to the end of the fourth Old World Army Challenge and I have finally joined the hallowed ranks of OWAC veterans! If you haven't already, do go and check out the other entries - they're all fantastic! Time for one more literary reference I think by way of reflection over the last six months. As Eliot says in his Four Quartets, "What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." Well that's definitely where I'm at with this project! I've heard it said many times that an army is never finished and it seems almost a shame if one should find themselves guilty of such a thing. Again to paraphrase Eliot, to finally finish something and put it to rest or reach a final end is to arrive at "the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is... Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance."  Other than all the dancing and not dancing, it sounds a bit sterile and lifeless to me so I think the Cult of the New Colossus will live on - but more on that later.