The Restory Retreat Centre

On our recent outing into deepest Johannesburg (see  Tasting adventure ) George felt like trying on some hats and sunglasses at a quaint African market. Maybe it was the invigorating Afro-Jazz music in the air that prompted this impromptu shopping spree. Or maybe it was simply his incomparable ability to be amazed at just about anything that meets his gaze. It reminded me of the words of one of our favourite poets, Mary Oliver: Instruction for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. Matilda

It's easier to die than to move ... at least for the Other Side you don't need trunks.                                                                                                          - Wallace Stegner Boxes, boxes, what to throw away, what to take, "oh, look at this! I made it in grade 2", returning what has long forgotten been borrowed, what must be so close that it is unpackable, and the books and books.... We're packing. George and Matilda

Falling Bird by Rose Bleckner "This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.  Even a bird has to do that before he can fly."                                                                                                      - Rainer Maria Rilke

Ukiyo-e Art Image  A man noticed that his axe was missing. Then he saw his neighbour's son passing by. The boy looked like a thief, walked like a thief, behaved like a thief. Later that day, the man found his axe where he had left it the day before. The next time he saw the neighbour's son, the boy looked, walked, and behaved like an honest, ordinary boy. This is a story by Taoist writer Lieh-tse as recalled in Benjamin Hoff's book: The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet. It all depends on how we look at things, doesn't it? Matilda

My mother with me back in 1961 (left) and my daughter Eylene and I in 1991 when I turned thirty (right) I'm packing for the move to Wakkerstroom. This time round, I feel a great need to sort out and discard what I no longer need . Also on a emotional level, I am more able to work through stacks of photographs and letters, cards and mementos of the times of my life and to reduce it to a manageable account without being too sentimental or precious about it..     When my mother passed away a decade ago, I was left with shelves of files and boxes containing what can be called "the hard copies of her life": journals, recipes in her own handwriting, knitting and embroidery patterns, touring guides, favourite books, accounts, photographs and correspondence. I never got round to tackling the sorting out of this tender heritage.      But now the time came to do so and I spent many a day engrossed in my mother's life. So much so that I want to some day write ...

While Eylene was living in Nieu Zealand, we stayed in contact through the internet and many long phone calls. The distance between us being literally halfway around the globe felt immense and I often had an incredible longing to be able to just give her a hug.        What gave unexpected comfort, was sharing recipes. We both enjoy cooking and baking and she would often ask for a family recipe to counter the attacks of loneliness. There's nothing as soothing as the familiar fragrance of a leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic roasting in your foreign kitchen, she would say.        She sent me this recipe of a Chocolate mud cake. It is totally decadent and incredibly rich, so it goes a long way in small portions, but if you need a little extra loving care from yourself, this is it.          I baked it recently for my friend Ralie's birthday tea. I decorated it with fresh jasmine blossoms and tiny violets from my garde...

After reading George's post yesterday, Feeling of all ordinary human life , I was reminded of a piece I wrote around the same time, five years ago, August 2008, that is. My youngest son was still in school, but other than that nothing much has changed. And winter still gets to me just as it did then. This year's jasmine galaxy against the bluest sky                                            Sometimes, there’s not a thing in my head that seems to be worthy of putting words to it. And sometimes there are things in my head that are much too abstract to envelope them in words and post them to where my consciousness can receive them and go: “Aah! So that’s what this is all about!”        Today seems to be one of those not-worthy-of-words days where I sit around inside my head, shifting restlessly from one un-noteworthy thing to the other: Washing ...

Pastoral scene by Chinese artist Chen JuLian What delicate mood What sensitive life is this? A world I do not know yet. Matilda 

Me, in my essential habitat. Photo by R. Du Preez Ego is a ghost who is afraid of dying.                                                                           -Mooji This quote made me smile, but also gave me the very best perspective I have ever had on this shifty concept. Ego. What exactly is it? Where does it reside in me? The clearest idea I could get of it up till now, was that it is a part of self that develops rather early in life, taking all of life's knocks, first relationships and the environment we find ourselves in, and build a safety structure. An identity that has to keep us safe, by warning when to go into pout mode or when a full blown tantrum would have the desired effect. I had the trembling little bottom lip with hazel eyes brimful with tears down pat: no contest there...

Collage of an odd coincidence This image of a painting by a Russian painter, Zinaida Serebriakova, painted in 1930 and called Terrace in Collioure, caught my eye. To be more precise, it hit me with a strange recognition. Not of deja vu in the strictest sense, as in something relived, but more of recognition of what is to come, maybe. There I am on the veranda of an old farmhouse, looking out over the familiar peaks of Wakkerstroom. Only, this is a scene in southern France, painted more than eighty years ago. Who is this painter? I have to know more! Matilda

I asked, "Why have I received only this?" A voice replied, "'Only this' will lead you to That. From the facebook page of Rumi                                                                                                                                        It is always difficult to put a dire personal situation ou...

 Our fathers(Wills Angus and Frans Marais) in a happy mood in Wakkerstroom.  We spent the past weekend in Wakkerstroom with both our fathers and extended family. The purpose of the visit was to acquaint them with the retirement village where we hope to have them both settled in and cared for. It is a difficult process for all of us. For them, because any big change at their age has a huge impact on them, and this move may not be what they prefer. Which is the exact reason it makes it extremely difficult for us personally to be the ones to have to make the decision in their best interest.     I know we are not alone in this. We see many of our friends being confronted with the challenges of caring for elderly parents lately. Not only because people tend to live longer, but also because we do not have a governmental support system of facilities and caretaking in South Africa.     To have found a center like Dana Care Center in Wakkerstroom is a God-send...

Late Summer morning in Wakkerstroom Photo by Matilda “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."                                                                                         Rainer Maria Rilke

My soul has expensive taste, sometimes. This confuses me as I strongly believe, in trying to live consciously, that simplicity is an important principle to steer by. This goes hand in hand with incorporating periods of silence, living creatively and being nourished by what Nature offers us. We all know, of course, that if simplicity in food implies that it be fresh, organic and not chemically tampered with, it is not come by cheaply or easily. Quite the contrary! And that might explain things. Living with simplicity does not mean living a deprived or lowly life.      I once bought a book because it was beautiful. What made the purchase extraordinary is that it was newly published and I paid the full price for it in a book store that is generally overpriced. I hardly ever allow myself such luxuries, always veering towards second-hand book stores or at best the tables beneath the  SPECIAL OFFER!   poster. I'll convince myself that the plain skirt at the wint...

In December 2011 we experienced snow on a visit to  Prague Today being Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere and therefore the shortest day(length of daylight) of Winter as opposed to the longest day of Summer up North, I feel like concocting something special to celebrate the season. Me celebrating Winter? I must be either evolving or moving towards enlightenment! But searching through my many folders of photographs today looking for something to paint (I’ve enrolled in a watercolor course starting Monday), I discovered, to my utmost delight, how the winter palette speaks to my heart. Also, what really grabbed my attention as I scanned the internet for some interesting facts about solstices, is the incredible design of this little speck of dust in the expanse of space we call home. "The June solstice occurs when the sun is at its furthest point from the equator. It reaches its most northern point and the Earth's North Pole tilts directly towards the sun, at abou...

My father with the four of us, at some beacon somewhere on one of our excursion, back in around  1969. When we were little, Pa took us to the places he discovered during the course of his working week as an electrician. It sometimes took him deep into the bushveld and later into the rain forests around Tzaneen. We even did a spell of six months down in Cape St. Francis where he worked on the electrification of a brand new 5 star hotel.       We lived in dire conditions in a little house we called "the train house" and I hated going to school in the nearby town of Humansdorp. Mainly because there were no grass playgrounds, only concrete and we traveled by bus, leaving home in the dark and wet of the Cape winter mornings. Accustomed to the dry, mild winters of the Lowveld,  we felt truly miserable.  But I rem ember best how we used to run up and down the corridors of the hotel, the smell of brand new carpets and a newly thatched roof. Looking through ...

Rietfontein in winter. Photo by Matilda The first real cold spell of winter is upon us. I've moved from the desk where I was sitting when I could no longer feel my fingers and am now sitting on the edge of my bed with the sun gently thawing me through the window pane.      Its a funny thing about South Africa: we have relatively short winters and in global terms they are rather temperate for most of the three month duration, with every now and again the arrival of a really cold spell that grips most of the country. It lasts for a day or three and then subsides, going back to cool at the most.      Sunny South Africa, right?! The problem however, is that our buildings, especially residential dwellings, are not built in such a way that they are energy efficient and the cost of electricity and fuel being what it is, we tend to almost freeze inside our homes.     We go outside in winter to warm up in the glorious winter sun! And our houses w...

Free Stock photo Hilaire Belloc is especially known for his "Cautionary tales for children". He was born in 1870 to a French father and British mother and his biography is quite interesting to read, even though I secretly harbour rather negative feelings for him. The reason being that I suffered considerably in childhood because of one of his rather humorous, but truly brutal cautionary poems, called, "Matilda, little liar." One of my primary school teachers thought it fit to include this poem in our English literature curriculum and the outcome was that, children being what they are, I not only became, Waltzing Matilda, but also, Little Liar. To this day, I cannot fathom what this person was thinking when she chose that poem as I was the type of learner that every teacher wish they had classrooms full of: obedient, quiet, intelligent and extremely hardworking. I would like to add honest to this list, but that might be protesting too much. Then, one day, not...

Still on the feel-good yellow theme, I baked a batch of Beskuit this morning. This is a traditional pantry favourite in South Africa: a hard, dry type of biscuit also known as Rusks which had been baked twice and gets dunked into a hot beverage such as coffee or tea before eating. If ever I compile a recipe book, it would go under the section: Comfort food.     The origin of this confectionery is uncertain, but it also strongly resembles what is known to Italians as Biscotti. The French word "biscuit" meaning "twice baked" casts some explanation as to where our Beskuit got its name.     There are as many recipes for Beskuit as there are families, it seems, and in some instances these recipes are guarded as family secrets, along with recipes for the best koeksisters and biltong and all such things proudly South African.     Some prefer it made from white, sifted cake flour, flavoured with anise or buttermilk, sometimes studded with raisins, some leaven...

I simply cannot resist running for my camera as luscious May parades her golden hues wherever I go. The potted lemon and the huge mulberry in my back yard are vying for my attention, each glorious in her own right. In a much loved fruit bowl, some ruby grapefruit (a gift from MaTshepo, the rain harvester who grows them organically and with only rain water as irrigation) glows against the warm wood of the table. At a recent drumming circle (our first) a fire dancer had me trying new settings with my camera, it being quite a challenge to capture the magical mood of the fiery movements. I seem to be soaked in yellow. Happy, sunny Yellow! Which, according to my copy of The healing powers of Chromotherapy (using colours to cure diseases) by Hari Om Gupta, "represents intelligence, wisdom and loyalty. Yellow has been associated with the divine symbols of creation since time immemorial." I'm not too sure what that implies, but it makes me feel happy and hopeful, even thou...