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...

Photograph by Frans Marais In about two weeks time we are having a high school reunion. I’ve been told that  even class mates  now living  and working in the USA have indicated that they are coming. I, on this side of the Atlantic, am standing on a Sunday afternoon in the door of the bathroom. I’m about to take my dad back to the retirement village after a visit over the weekend here on Barrowfield. There is tension between us. He blames me for the farm in Gauteng being sold and him being in the retirement village. We just cannot agree on his frailty and the adjustments we have to make when we get older. As if totally oblivious to our struggles with Oupa Frans and the sleepless night we had while he visited, he is upset because we did not spend any time in the workshop. I’m tired of trying to explain and having the same conversations over and over. I am not proud of the manner  in which I often cope with his fears. I am constantly confronted with my own...

Photo by C. du Preez "The artist is no more and no less than a contemplative who has learned to express himself,  and who tells his love in color, speech or sound:  The mystic, upon one side of his nature, is an artist of a special and exalted kind." - Evelyn Underhill