The Restory Retreat Centre

  The Unexamined Life (?) The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  Music "Bird Song" is about a world that has been so thoroughly "examined," paved over, and stripped of its mystery that we are left with a paralyzing silence. It's a cry for re-enchantment. The "examination" here is the hyper-rational, concrete-pouring progress that has led to a spiritual and ecological crisis.    · "sing me a song and put me back to sleep / from the trees, breathe life back into me" This is a desire to return to a dreamlike, unanalytical state. She isn't asking for a lesson, but for a lullaby—a song that ends thought, not provokes it. It's a wish to be re-connected to the natural, unconscious world ("the trees") to be healed.  May horizons that stretch wide open for you. With all our love. George & Matilda

Photo by George Angus The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to that toad.                                                            Rudyard Kipling I am not exaggerating when I say that every morning, when I mount my bicycle and turn onto the main dirt road that passes our house, I think of Kipling’s poem. Traveling by car you rush past landmarks and speed over bumps and stones. But with cycling it’s a different story. Very early in the morning, with the sun just above the horizon, some of the bigger stones in the road even cast shadows.  The section next to the camp of the cows with their calves is particularly rough. The slope leading down to the dams where Sebastien does bass fishing has about a 100 metres of hard, smooth...

Illustration by Henck van Bilsen in The Socks of Doom We want to live consciously. That we stated right from the beginning of The Restory. We want to believe that it describes the way we are living here at Barrowfield and in essence it is also the golden thread running through our writing. It might therefore seem strange to write about conscious living at this stage. Almost like stating the obvious. True. But I’ve been carrying this beautiful phrase for so long that I only want to put it somewhere and look at it. To practice the art of stopping. Author Nguyen Anh-Huong introduced me to it in her slim book Walking Meditation . She says: “By practicing the art of stopping, we can enter the present moment and be nourished by the beauty and wonder of life in and around us: the smell of flowers, the warmth of sunshine, the color of the sky. To practice mindfulness is to begin to realize that we have a choice – to stop and rest or run, to be angry or happy. Once we ...

So this then: What is this? Surely not nothing. Not a detour en route to our goal? Is it a test? A trial? What is it that I need to grasp for this struggle to end?      I ask these questions all the time while caring for my father. It takes every ounce of energy, every inch of determination I have, and most of my time. Trying to live with awareness, staying in the moment, I have to say: This is the dark side of the moon. This too is what it is about. Not only the being present to the pristine beauty and exiting newness of our new home and surroundings, the luxury of fresh air and quiet, but this: this struggle. This getting to know who I’m not. What I cannot cope with. Cannot change. Cannot handle. Have to handle. Have to face. Myself.      My shadow, in the guise of my father, sits opposite me reflecting whatever it is I am feeling at any given moment. He mirrors it all the time: when I’m irritated, he snaps back at me, when I’m sad, he hangs his head....

Playing with my food: Strawberry, black olives, french leeks and peperonata topped pizza. Inner artist treat deluxe! OK, I put my foot in it! When I wrote the post  Hidden in the heart of things , I confessed to having committed to a week of spoiling the inner artist with treats as prescribed by Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist's Way. The purpose of this twelve step program is the unblocking of creativity and I have worked through it a couple of times already the past decade, always with astounding (and often totally unexpected) results.     As I was listing my heart's desire in my task book, the thought occurred to me that it would make a good post to tell how and if I had managed to successfully execute this truly difficult task. It would also be an incentive to see it through: I do not enjoy stating publicly that I had flunked a test! Then of course, an anonymous comment on the post prompted me, and I knew I had to come clean.     You want honesty,...

Every now and again George remembers his duties as my personal muse and assigns me a writing exercise with themes that range from truly mediocre, like to write about who lives in my street, to spectacularly bizarre: the Queen's handbag being one I distinctly remember. Of course, he knows that I will find out, as I write along, that no theme is ever mediocre, but the writing makes it so. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, mediocrity is often the shades we wear looking at the world around us. "Write about what you don't think about." I ignored the assignment for a bit. I usually do when I know it will take me places I might not find comfortable. In any case, writing about what I'm not thinking about will have me thinking about it, won't it? But yes, I know what he means. So let's see where this leads me. It really depends on the season, but in these glorious, golden, autumn days, and again in late spring, I don't think about climatic temp...

I don’t LIVE enough.  Alive, but missing.  Missing in action. Missing out. Missing the point. The moment. Sunlight is wasted on me. I walk oblivious of the gold in my hair. Of the glowing in my skin I know only when the chill of nightfall replaces it. Why do we know better through loss? Why not stand and feel that one simple golden thread of breath that links the sky, birdsong, the sun, the incense of Spring flaming in purple petals? So much goes on while we draw air and dispense of it. In that small unconscious act of survival a world stands at attention to witness it. Breathing cannot be solely for this. We are made exquisitely sensuous. To go through a day and not be able to recall a scent, a colour, a touch, a feeling, a sound, a taste, is to be dead. The door to life  nailed shut. Each breath one closer to the last I’ll take. How often do I think this? When I write the date in my journal. One day closer.  I panic...

An intriguing phenomenon- the curio trade.  A tourist destination offers a range of items, often made in China, as being representative of its people, history or natural beauty. Who decide on the products that will have the honour? Has every popular city or site its own curio committee that convenes regularly to determine the stock for the tourist season? That will explain the absolute duplication to be found in the different shops. Why do tourists buy them? Do locals also buy curios? To remind them, not of having been there but of being there? “Who are we, Darling?” “We are South Africans, living on the African continent.” “You don’t think we should buy a picture of the Big Five to indicate that we have been to South Africa?”  “We haven’t been to South Africa. We are in South Africa.” “But will people know that without us having the curious to prove it?” “You have a point. Throw in an ostrich egg and an African drum and I believe we have ourselves a state...

Christmas before last,  I asked George to write me a Christmas story. He obliged with the beautiful  story below. It forms part one of the complete story, as you’ll see, because as I started to comment on it, a strangely wonderful thing happened: my comment  turned into a sequel!                                                                                                                                                                                                         ...