The Restory Retreat Centre

Photograph by Hanna Jacobs. Sculpture by Matilda Clifford.  As 2014 draws to a close, we look forward to welcoming in the new year with the renovations of bathroom facilities completed and the old stone house ready to receive guests for the range of retreats we have planned. We feel excited about what had slowly but surely been unfolding in the course of the year. Our many visitors had shown us the way in preparing ourselves and The Restory for what we came here to do: to create a place of quiet and rest for weary souls. To catch a glimpse of retreats for 2015, please follow the link:  About our Retreats  that you will also find at the top of the Blog home page. Matilda

“ I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” J.R.R. Tolkien The air around us here on the farm is filled with the sounds of birds not easily noticed. I do not know half of them. By the time I get to the bird call CD, I’ve forgotten how it sounded when I heard it on the way to the workshop. On good days I can tell you it wasn’t an African Penguin or a Cape Vulture, but that’s about it. And for the life of me I can’t make any sense from the calls I read about in birding books. A bird would fly right into my face crying “plooodleeoo” and apparently a shriller “kweeeer” and I won’t be able to say: “Watch out, you Blackheaded Oriole!” So, I keep listening to songs I know of singers I don’t. Sebastien, Matilda’s nephew who is currently here with us on Barrowfield, loves fishing. No, wrong spelling! He lives fishing – line, hook and sinker, bait, fishing spots, species, weather conditions, seasons, reci

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”                                                                             G.K. Chesterton We are busy renovating our 104 year old house. The main focus at this stage is the bathroom. At the time the house was originally built people didn’t have inside bathrooms. They had an outdoor toilet and they usually washed in their bedrooms using a pitcher of water and a bowl. From time to time they would carry a tub into the kitchen, heat water on the stove and take a bath. No easy process!  That being the case you can see how, over time and with the development of indoor plumbing, they converted one of the bedrooms in this old house into a bathroom. For some reason or the other, they chose one of the larger rooms. The result was a ballroom sized bathroom

So much to do, so little time.  To live the contemplative life amidst all the pressure and challenges of daily living is no mean feat. From experience I know that paradoxically, the busier my life becomes, the quieter I need to be. The moment the pace picks up is exactly the time to listen to the still, small voice. It is not so much frantic activity that provides the solution as entering into the silence. Then it is very important not to neglect my meditation practice. The latter helps especially in discerning what is important and how to go about in planning my day. It centres me and guides me in finding my place once again within the wider order of things. I constantly forget that. I become anxious and frantic and tend to follow another rule: When in darkness or in doubt Run in circles, scream and shout It does not help. It drains me and leaves me empty. Ever so gently I am returning to my breathing and the quiet and the listening. In the process I find counsel i

Mily, as photographed by Frans Marais I have a cat. No, wrong assumption: The cat is not mine. We cohabit, Mily and I. She loves me like cats do: by choosing my lap for a nap or perching on my hip until I wake to walk her to her bowl. She shows her contentment with our arrangement by sleeping in utter abandonment, stretched out, totally vulnerable totally trusting. I am afraid that I love her too much. That someday she will not be here anymore and I will so miss her weight on my hip as I awake to her purring. She is irreplaceable not being owned by me. She will have shared all of her life with me. That is all. Matilda

Only when the last tree has died  and the last river been poisoned  and the last fish been caught  will we realise we cannot eat money.                                                                  - Cree Indian Proverb. Think about Knysna and you think about wood. In many ways it is the indigenous wood capitol of South Africa. The names of the trees itself lead you into the cool, moist surroundings where they grow – Outeniqua Yellowood, Hard Pear, Cape Blackwood, Ironwood, Candlewood, White Pear, Stinkwood, White Elder, Cape Beech. From this timber craftsmen have brought forth the most beautiful furniture for almost three centuries. The 300 000 hectares of forest seemed to be an unlimited source of wood when it was first exploited in the 18th century and during the years that followed. The pace of trees could not keep up with that of man’s greed though. In 1974 the area was proclaimed protected under the Forest Act with the implication that no tree can now b

Poppy outside my window Photo by Matilda Today I'm going to start living like a monk not allowing the god Critic to dictate my song but to hear the gentle call of the Bird God, saying "Look outside your window! There's a second poppy blooming." It has exploded, pink shrapnel hanging in tatters from its detonating core. Another little bomb sits waiting to shake my world with a colour explosion. Being monk I will tend the plants that exploded like an orgasm. Taking deep delight in the birth of its seed and the beauty of its short life. Being a monk I will look out for love letters all day long, Listen for the Lover's song and stand naked and trembling for a touch, a soft wind hand stroking my face. I will explode like the pink poppy and bloom under this Spring Sun. Matilda

On our recent visit to Knysna we took a short trail through one of the magnificent indigenous rain forests. Aptly called The Garden of Eden, one cannot help but gape at the immensity of it all. Something happens to me when I enter into this type of cathedral: I become quite unaware of myself but feel myself totally immersed, totally one with Nature in her green skin. I am a cell, a branch, a leaf, a stream. I come home to this place of moistness. What strikes me as I flow through the arteries of this great Being, is how the main themes of life play out here quietly and beautifully. The birth of a fern leaf, bathed in a sliver of filtered sunlight beneath an ancient yellow wood tree brings me close to tears. From the decay of a fallen giant and the life forms engaged in this process, to the air thick with moisture and the sounds of the rain forest musicians: birds and frogs endemic to this place, I am reminded that everything is as it should be. Everything belongs. I belong.