The Restory is a Retreat Centre nestled against Tafelkop, a singular mountain head near Wakkerstroom, South Africa. Here we live a simple life as contemplatives.
It is a place of re-connection: with ourselves, people, Nature, Silence and Creativity. Our retreats are aimed at this. Our conversations, writing and art centre around the univocity of life. We need a place that reminds us that we are all one. The Restory hopes to be such a place and space.
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From The Restory - Conversations On The Journey (127)
If I want to tell more about myself, the very best might be to just start by saying "I love..." and then list things that I love.
So: I love......
....Tafelkop. The big world of which I am a part, silence and to walk.
The Conversation
...time spent with my M. Where we talk for long stretches, and laugh, or are just quiet together for long periods of time.
Elements From The Conversation
....our granddaughter, Ariana. Who loves books very much and keeps asking: "Oupa, tell me a silly story!"
....books. And dogs. And cats. And tea.
....a good conversation. Sculpting and woodwork. To write.
....poems. More so by the day. Basically impossible to pick a single one, but on my birthday, this one from Billy Collins. It talks about things one thinks about at 60.
Design
I pour a coating of salt on the table
and make a circle in it with my finger.
This is the cycle of life
I say to no one.
This is the wheel of fortune,
the Arctic Circle.
This is the ring of Kerry
and the white rose of Tralee
I say to the ghosts of my family,
the dead fathers,
the aunt who drowned,
my unborn brothers and sisters,
my unborn children.
This is the sun with its glittering spokes
and the bitter moon.
This is the absolute circle of geometry
I say to the crack in the wall,
to the birds who cross the window.
This is the wheel I just invented
to roll through the rest of my life
I say
touching my finger to my tongue.
Billy Collins
Music
.....all music, but especially Jazz. Its creative, unpredictability. That it does not shy away from silence and takes all the time in the world to say what it wants to say.
....contemplative spirituality that continuously weaves me into all the elements of ordinary life and sensitizes me to experience and recognize God in everything.
When I Returned From Rome
A
bird took flight.
And a flower in a field whistled at me
as I passed.
I drank
from a stream of clear water.
And at night the sky untied her hair and I fell asleep
clutching a tress
of God’s.
When I returned from Rome, all said,
“Tell us the great news,”
and with great excitement I did: “A flower in a field
Die Week Na 'n Dood Sebastien op sy gelukkigste - by water, besig om vis te vang Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek Musiek Sebastien het altyd gesê, "I like old music.' Hy het. Billy Joel se Piano Man was vir baie lank die ringtone op sy foon. Dat ons só gelukkig kan wees, dankie Sebas. George & Matilda
Onlangse Oorsig / Recent Summary Foto's Van Onlangse Gebeure / Pictures Of Recent Events 'n Huis opgeknap en geverf met 'n nuwe badkamer, die koms van lente en reën, retreats, die CMR se breimarathon, aanbied en afsluiting van die Verfrissingskursus in geestelike begeleiding, bywoon van ons kleindogter Ariana se gradeplegtigheid ("Nee Oupa, dis 'n gradige plegtigheid!") voordat sy volgende jaar grootskool toe gaan. A house renovated and painted with a new bathroom, the arrival of spring and rain, retreats, the CMR's knitting marathon, presenting and finishing the Refresher course in spiritual guidance, attending our granddaughter Ariana's graduation before she goes to big school next year. Klank / Sound Die klank van sagte reën na die storm is op baie vlakke nou gepas. The sound of gentle rain after the storm is now appropriate on many levels. Met ons liefde, soos altyd. With our love, as always. George & Matilda
Skuld as Motivering Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek ~ ❖ ~ "I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!)." Richard Rohr ~ ❖ ~ "It is about as hard to absolve yourself of your own guilt as it is to sit in your own lap. Wrongdoing sparks guilt sparks wrongdoing ad nauseam, and we all try to disguise the grim process from both ourselves and everybody else. In order to break the circuit we need friends before whom we can put aside the disguise, trusting that when they see us for what we fully are, they won't run away screaming with, if nothing wors
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