Photograph by Matilda Angus In a recent post on The Restory Retreat Centre’s facebook page Matilda mentioned me cutting the lawn around the house with a tractor and slasher. During a very good rainy season it has to be done weekly. In dry years like the current one it is done once in two or three weeks. Aesthetically it keeps the yard neat, but on a practical level it also serves as a buffer around the house against snakes and other creatures. With grass touching the window sills, the wild will literally be on our doorstep. This cutting exercise is indeed prime thinking time. While busy doing it last week I thought of all things about grass. Despite the validity of the aesthetics and safety factors, there are times when I feel as if I’m betraying some primal element of our lifestyle here at Barrowfield while busy with the tractor and slasher. Gerard Manley Hopkins advised, “Leave the wildness and wet” and here I am actively busy not leaving it. To rub salt in the wounds I recent...
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.