The Restory Retreat Centre

A long, long time ago there lived a king. He was not as rich as Solomon, as gifted as David, as brave as Cyrus the Persian or as wise as Suleiman the Magnificent. He was an “ordinary” king that tried to serve his people as best he could. And his subjects were grateful. They often brought him gifts, mostly the first of their harvest whether that be wheat, wine, salt or olive oil. On the first day of every New Year a prophet living in the mountains came to visit the palace. He was a sight to behold with his wild hair and beard, his sun tanned skin and even the soldiers at the court stepped back as he approached. He never spoke a word with the king. When he entered the throne room everybody became quiet. The king indicated that he may approach; the prophet bowed, took an old bag from his back, searched inside and brought forth an overripe fruit. With the fruit in hand he raised his eyes upward and muttered a prayer. Then he kissed the overripe fruit and handed it over to the ki...

Photograph by George For the few days that we’ve been in Wakkerstroom, we did not have electricity, we did not watch television, didn’t listen to the radio. We sat until late on our chairs just outside the door of the cottage, looked at the meadows and the hills and talked the sun into setting. We read by lamplight, we stood in the quiet moonlight and listened to the Crowned Cranes calling to each other. We were rich and lived the good life. George

Photograph by Andrew Montgomery If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.                                                                                            ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Untitled homeless - Photograph by Lee Jeffries But everybody has exactly the same smiling frightened face, with the look that says: ‘I’m important. If you only get to know me you will see how important I am. Look into my eyes. Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.’                                                                                                                      ~ Sylvia Plath

Photograph by Brian Sing When you come to a fork in the road, take it.                                                                       Yogi Berra

We are spending a couple of days in the tranquility of Wakkerstroom on the South Eastern border between Mpumalanga and Kwa-Zulu Natal. This is the view from our cottage which sports only the bare necessities, which does not include electricity. So we are having lunch at the Old Station, recharging batteries and having the best hake and chips in South Africa. This feels like a place where we could live and work. Matilda and George

Listen; there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew,not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I "A feather on the breath of God".                                                                                                   - Hildegard of Bingen

Daar word vertel van die ou oom wat jare gelede daar in die Namakwaland geboer het. Op ‘n keer is hy op ‘n kerkraadsvergadering gekies om saam met sy dominee en twee ander gereelde “kerkvergadering-afgevaardigdes” na ‘n vergadering in Kaapstad  toe te gaan. Die tog is in die dominee se spoggerige nuwe motor aangepak. Terug by die huis wou sy vrou van alles weet en hy het haar so stuk-stuk vertel, omdat hy nie ‘n man van lang stroke gesels was nie. Hy was meer vir kyk en luister. So het die tante dan ook eers ‘n hele paar dae later oor die laatoggendkoffie gehoor dat hulle nogal ‘n hele ervaring op pad Kaap toe gehad het. Die dominee se mooi kar het goed gery en die dominee was nie bietjie trots daarop nie. Het vir hulle alles binne gewys, vertel van die ratte se “low, second en top”. Maar by een van die erg steil bulte het dinge amper lelik skeefgeloop. Die dominee het die bult in “top gear” stormgeloop en voet in die hoek gesit. Maar hoe hoër en steiler dit raak hoe ...

There once lived a peasant in Crete who deeply loved his life. He enjoyed tilling the soil, feeling the warm sun on his naked back as he worked the fields, and feeling the soil under his feet. He loved the planting, the harvesting, and the very smell of nature. He loved his wife and his family and his friends, and he enjoyed being with them. Eating together, drinking wine, talking, and making love. And he loved especially Crete, his, beautiful island! The earth, the sky, the sea, it was his! This was his home. One day he sensed that death was near. What he feared was not what lay beyond, for he knew God's goodness and had lived a good life. No, he feared leaving Crete, his wife, his children, his friends, his home, and his land. Thus, as he prepared to die, he grasped in his right hand a few grains of soil from his beloved Crete and he told his loved ones to bury him with it. He died, awoke, and found himself at heaven's gates, the soil still in his hand, and heaven...

A few years ago I discovered this wabi-sabi photo in a magazine ad. Or rather, a photo that is such a good example of the essense of this approach to life.  As is the case with many important things, I cannot remember exactly how I got to know wabi-sabi. I think Matilda told me about an article that she came across. Nevertheless, we discovered a name and a whole philosophy for the way we thought about and looked at life and things. Wabi-sabi, being Japanese in origin, is difficult to define exactly. It consists of two words (obviously!) that at first had meanings separate from each other. These meanings changed over centuries so that we now have wabi – which says humble and simple - and sabi – saying rusty and weathered. This gradually flowed into one stream to form a single mind-set with roots closely associated with the Japanese tea ceremony. In fourteenth century Japan the upper classes developed elaborate, ostentatious style tearooms and rituals where they sho...

Inspiration most often strikes like a match in the dark. One moment there's nothing; not an inkling of light, sound or anything remotely detectable by any of the senses. And then, the next moment its all there: starting with the small, unmistakable sound, then the smell, warmth and sight of sensuous flame flickering against the nothingness. I've had the mere sight of a knitting pattern set me off on a range of ceramics entitled Windswept; with the feel and look of a deserted beach in winter, the wind sweeping sand and whipping waves. I have planned menus on a single inspirational flicker of a flame: a Christmas lunch on a jar of rosemary, tomato and apple jelly; breakfast of stewed fruit and yogurt on one perfect cape gooseberry in its golden husk; a sushi party on the color of a tablecloth. To make gifts for Christmas is a personal indulgence I have allowed myself since I was old enough to hold and use a needle and thread, which was way before I went to school. I mad...

I believe this life is a precious gift to be fully embraced and cherished. Not something to merely tolerate or bear until we die and go to heaven. Richard Rohr feels many of us lead Christian lives as if it is an evacuation plan for heaven. But I look at the way a flower goes to seed. And I know there's something more to dying. A single flower can leave behind a forest of trees. A single tomato can supply next year's crop. It has to do with allowing maturation of the seed through death in some form. Going from flowering to fruit to seed, in each phase completely shedding the old and transforming into the new with hardly a semblance of what was. I had witnessed my mother go to seed. Bone marrow cancer stripped her bare. When she passed away in 2003 what was left of her had faded from view. All I could see was her soul shining through her eyes. She was beautiful. I know that the seed of her life and difficult death are scattered far and wide, bearing their own abundant...

Photo by Matilda Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers,  "Grow, grow." The Talmud

Photographer: Suzanne Beard There once was a woman who could talk to animals. She enjoyed that very much because although there are many people who can talk to animals, there are very few who can hear animals’ answers. On her journeys through the forests, on the banks of little streams and strolling through meadows she constantly talked to the animals. She asked them interesting questions: What do they want to get out of life? What do they love doing most and why? Would they change the world if they could? Sometimes the animals invited her to do things with them. “Come climb with me” the hairy worm would say. “Today you must swim” the fish invited. And then she did. One day, she was having a conversation with a cow when the cow asked the woman: “How is it” said the cow, chewing her cud, “that you can talk to us animals and understand our answers?” “Well” said the woman, “one day when I was young I came across a distorted tree. An owl was caught in its branches. ‘Pl...

Georges de la Tour - Magdalen with the smoking flame c. 1640 This morning I read this daily meditation by Richard Rohr: Before you open the Gospels, ask each time, What is the question that Jesus is trying to answer? Then say, Lord, put in my heart those questions. Make me ask the right questions. Jesus answers people who are asking the right questions. If the Gospel is not an answer to the world anymore, it’s perhaps because the world is not asking the right questions. The world is saying, How can I be making $40,000 by the time I’m forty? Our country is obsessed with that question. Yet Jesus says it’s a false question. He in fact says it’s an utter lie, and it’s all going to pass away. Unless you move deeper into asking his questions, you will always get the wrong answer – especially wrong because it will look religious. Put into my heart the right questions Lord. And please, have patience, for I think I tend to ask the false ones. The ones that’s all about me. I h...

Richard Whincop - Finest Hour (Oil on Panel) What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the existence of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the s...

I think I've mentioned before how I like a rainy day. Especially the ones that start out grey with mists twirling round tree trunks; a rough wind that makes the palm fronds rear like wild horses, leaf manes flying; Rain that starts in a whisper and fall in a steady curtain Today is such a day. I feel like taking pictures of everything! But like wild horses, it is sometimes difficult to catch what you're eyes are witnessing. If you want a colour to shine, put it against grey. I spend most of the day indoors, feeling snug and cosy. I decide on a simple soup for lunch - comfort food. As always, I have a look at what I have available, being in no mood or apparel to go shopping on a day such as this. Some nice young butternut, onions, garlic. I could make my favourite butternut soup with orange zest. Only thing is, it's not orange season so I don't have the all important zest. What else can I use as substitute? Something fresh tasting, slightly tangy, in season. A...