The Restory Retreat Centre

    Silence "Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am.  Be still and know.  Be still.  Be."                                                       Ps 46:10 The Conversation  Elements from the conversation Let Your God Love You Be silent. Be still. Alone. Empty Before your God. Say nothing. Ask nothing. Be silent. Be still. Let your God look upon you. That is all. God knows. God understands. God loves you With an enormous love, And only wants To look upon you With that love. Quiet. Still. Be. Let your God— Love you.                                         Edwina Gateley Music  A master of silence in his compositions and music is the Italian composer and p...

Dressed to go frogging. Photo G.Angus This weekend, quite unexpectedly, gave us ample opportunity to practice two of the exercises prescribed by our Living School curriculum: that of Audio and Visio Divina. Derived from the traditional Benedictine practice of Lexio Divina, which translates to divine reading, this simply means to open yourself up to the experience of either reading, hearing or seeing, letting go of your own agendas and ideas and allowing God to speak into your innermost being through the experience you are having. On Friday evening we went frogging in the wetlands in Wakkerstroom with a group of amphibian and reptile conservationists. There we were, at nightfall, kitted out in mud boots, rain jackets and head lamps, assigned to find and document frogs in the wetlands and surrounding grassland. Already they were starting to call as we made our way down to the water. It was heavily overcast and beautiful. Then two huge birds came into sight, adding there primeva...

There is a place, just a few kilometres from Wakkerstroom, where we start looking for the Reds every time we drive into town. On that spot the low hills are close to the road on either side and it is here where we usually find the herd of Kalahari Reds grazing. They are different from the other goats that we pass on the road. They tend to blend into the surroundings, but when the sunlight falls on them at a certain angle, they shine like copper kettles against the hill side. Photograph by Tollie Jordaan Initially we only saw them. Then, on a particular morning, we spotted the dog. Big, high on its legs, light of colour with a black muzzle. Somehow different from any other dog that we’ve seen in the vicinity of a herd of any kind. It wasn’t chasing or herding the goats. It was just there, amongst them, somehow part of them. It was the very first time that we’ve come across an Anatolian Shepherd, other than on the pages of a book.  ...

This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home. A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. Gerard Manley Hopkins This is a very important poem for me personally. It was my first introduction to the work of this great nature poet. Much of Hopkins' poetry I cannot fathom by trying to understand it mentally. I have to read it out aloud and allow the rhythm and the sounds to paint the picture for me. I remember how I felt when...