The Restory Retreat Centre

Grief In Being Alive The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  Music With our love. George & Matilda   

  Love and Sorrow The Restory's program this week largely reflects the larger Easter themes. Over Easter weekend, starting on Thursday, the exceptional Pippa Jarvis from Embrace Village is hosting an Expressions of Loss retreat here with us, with the  focus on mourning. Others' stories of loss and grief unfold our humanity and touch us, precisely because recognition and compassion are part of the process. Over the 5 days that it lasts, we reflect on elements of the grieving process during the prayer times in the morning and evening, which beautifully connect with and give new meaning to the themes of Easter. The opening and closing prayers at the beginning and end of the times of silence, are the lines from a poem or other literature that highlight the theme of that day: Thursday Good Friday Holy Saturday Easter Sunday Easter Monday On the last day of the retreat, we return to the prayers of the first day.   Before the start of the retreat, with us being alone here at Ta...

  Deidré  We don't have a recording this week. Our words are few. Our daughter-in-law Deidré passed away unexpectedly last Friday. She leaves behind her husband Leon and 7-year-old daughter Ariana. Yesterday was the funeral service. Our efforts to adjust to her death have also begun. Emily Dickinson wrote about this process as follows: It doesn't happen every day, but in this case we don't completely agree with Emily.  We're not going to pack up our love.  Or is Emily saying more? That we and she are right?  After Deidré's death, we experience that our love for her is still an active force in our lives.  However, Emily describes another truth that we have also experienced. After such a sudden death, you tread water. You move in a haze and do things semi-automatically. You tidy up the house. Put things away. The instinctive work of those who mourn.  This is the difference between the long, lasting landscape of love and the sharp, devastating earthquake ...

Photograph by Matilda Angus taken 6 years ago The Bustle in a House The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.                                                                 - Emily Dickinson (See the previous post Leaving ) It is the morning after my father’s death. I am alone in his room in the retirement home packing all his clothes and other belongings.  I cannot look at his slippers, or his shirts, his glasses, without seeing and smelling him in them. A deep, deep sorrow washes over...