The Restory Retreat Centre

What The Mystics Know 3) Suffering brings growth and wisdom Detail from: "The Last Day of  Pompeii" by Karl Bryullov (1830-1833) The Conversation Elements From The Conversation ~ ❖ ~ “Suddenly, the sacred fire I have been chasing all my life engulfed me. I was plunged into the abyss, instantaneously dropped into the vast stillness and pulsing silence at which all my favorite mystics hint. So shattered I could not see my own hand in front of my face, I was suspended in the invisible arms of a Love I had only dreamed of. Immolated, I found myself resting in fire. Drowning, I surrendered, and discovered I could breathe under water. So this was the state of profound suchness I had been searching for during all those years of contemplative practice. This was the holy longing the saints had been talking about in poems that had broken my heart again and again. This was the sacred emptiness that put that small smile on the face of the great sages. And I hated it. I didn’t want vastne...

To Wait The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Music As always, with our love. George & Matilda  

  Healing In Wounds "The Prodigal Son" Drawing by Charlie Mackesy “I’m going back to my father.  I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you;  I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’  He got right up and went home to his father.  When he was still a long way off,  his father saw him.  His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.” ‭‭                                                                                                                    Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬-‭20‬ ‭(The Message)‬‬ The Conversation Elements From The Conversation The surpris...

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...

On our recent visit to Knysna we took a short trail through one of the magnificent indigenous rain forests. Aptly called The Garden of Eden, one cannot help but gape at the immensity of it all. Something happens to me when I enter into this type of cathedral: I become quite unaware of myself but feel myself totally immersed, totally one with Nature in her green skin. I am a cell, a branch, a leaf, a stream. I come home to this place of moistness. What strikes me as I flow through the arteries of this great Being, is how the main themes of life play out here quietly and beautifully. The birth of a fern leaf, bathed in a sliver of filtered sunlight beneath an ancient yellow wood tree brings me close to tears. From the decay of a fallen giant and the life forms engaged in this process, to the air thick with moisture and the sounds of the rain forest musicians: birds and frogs endemic to this place, I am reminded that everything is as it should be. Everything belongs. I belong. ...

Photograph by Brian Sano Somehow, amidst the filling out of forms and checking my to-do-list, I left my wallet behind in the post office yesterday, after registering a letter. By the time I realised it and rushed back, it was gone. Along with bank cards and my driver’s license. Back home we discovered that the second pair of trousers that we had bought for my dad, with all the outer tags corresponding with the tags of the pair he tried on in the store, is in actual fact two sizes smaller. The health of Matilda’s father is a matter of great concern to us. We were reminded yesterday that on different levels he struggles to cope with life’s challenges.   Buried among all of this and despite the frustrations, I believe there is harvest and material that can contribute to my growth. But the moving from believing to applying – there’s the rub. I return to an old theme that I touched on previously in This is it and God disguised . How to read our lives. How t...

In between farmsitting George is reading a book by Peggy Noonan, called, What I Saw at the Revolution. He reads bits out loud to me and I add her to my list of heroes.  I admire people who have a clear view of exactly what it is they are meant for in life. Peggy Noonan, a journalist in the 1980’s, had a very definite dream. She wanted to be a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan. She writes: I had no connections in Washington, knew no one in the Republican Party, no one who’d worked for Reagan. But I was right for the job, I knew it. So I did a number of things, from telling everyone I knew what I wanted to do to praying that God would open a door. (I know now I was asking for a small miracle, but I believe in miracles. The way I see it, life isn’t flat and thin and “realistic,” it’s rich and full of mystery and surprise.)  I think miracles exist and happen every day, form the baby’s perfect shoulder in the sonogram to saints performing wonders. I think saints are w...

Note: This is a piece written in Afrikaans. It is my mother tongue and therefore I sometimes need to let rip in it in order to express myself without the constraints of having to really think (as in using the right tenses and getting the right word). I will gladly translate it if need be. Please let me know!    My flower, seek not thy paradise in a fool’s buttonhole.               -        Tagore Hierdie is my quote of the moment . Nou al vir die afgelope twee jaar! Hoe kan ek dit stel? Wat maak dat iets daardie inklikklank maak as ek dit lees? Asof iets net reg lê en presies in plek gedruk word – soos ‘n verlore legkaartstukkie wat onder die mat uitkom en in sy plekkie inklik met ‘n piepklein sug van verligting. Daar is nie baie sulke aanhalings nie. Wel, daar is, maar dis ‘n klein hoop teen dit wat mens als lees en sorteer na die Snert, Oulik, Hmm, Waar, en Sjoe hope. En anders as die ander hope, is hierdi...