The Restory Retreat Centre

  Contemplative Gathering 8-10 Aug 2025 The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Music We are planning a beautiful, meaningful event. But the most important thing we want to convey - you must feel like you've come home, can kick off your shoes, and can just be comfortable. You can chat with the handbrake down. We contemplatives need that. With much love. George & Matilda

Me in inner child mode, discovering the berries of the cotoneasters.  Photograph by Sonja Hindley When Hanna used words like curiosity, openness, an attitude of wonder and humility to unlock the door to contemplative photography, my inner child sat up and took notice. Somehow, even though I've done my bit of reading up on the subject, I didn't make the connection. In anticipating my first hands-on encounter with contemplative photography during our weekend retreat, I imagined myself sitting somewhere very beautiful, keeping very still and being very serious as every now and again I serenely lift my camera to capture a very tranquil scene. Not so. We were invited to play! And so I did. Trying to keep in mind to wait for the image to be given rather than trying to capture or take or shoot one. How aggressive that sounds! I frolicked to my heart's content. Through my camera I witnessed the sun rising and painting everything in shades of red and gold, discovered the ...

Exploring the Enneagram through Art (continued) Fives are the investigators, thinkers, experts and innovators. They live by the power of knowledge and their basic desire is to be capable and competent. This they believe, lies in mastering everything in their lives by obtaining as much information as they can lay their eyes on. They don’t need social validation and are often withdrawn and emotionally stingy. Their essential nature however, is contemplatively gifted, They connect with this essence by daring to get out of their heads and use their bodies, get their hands dirty. They learn that wisdom is a deep knowledge that comes only through real life experience and they reach clarity  and a lived wisdom as opposed to the learned knowledge they believed to be their end-all. A head with the surface scored by symbols of knowledge and schemes depicts the Five’s quest for knowledge. A full figure emerges from the head and reaches for the earth to connect with his vitality an...