The Restory Retreat Centre

What Is The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  Music With our love. George & Matilda

  What Have We Learned? The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  _________________ “ Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”                                                       ...

  Paul And Mary On Prayer The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  According to Paul and Mary, the following video has all the elements of a prayer. Music  With much love and wishes for a spacious life. George & Matilda   

Photo by George Angus The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to that toad.                                                            Rudyard Kipling I am not exaggerating when I say that every morning, when I mount my bicycle and turn onto the main dirt road that passes our house, I think of Kipling’s poem. Traveling by car you rush past landmarks and speed over bumps and stones. But with cycling it’s a different story. Very early in the morning, with the sun just above the horizon, some of the bigger stones in the road even cast shadows.  The section next to the camp of the cows with their calves is particularly rough. The slope leading down to the dams where Sebastien does bass fishing has about a 100 metres of hard, smooth...

The Southern vista from Barrowfield Photo by Hanna Jacobs  I have lived in many places throughout my life. The earliest home I can remember was when I was about four years old and we lived in a tiny hamlet called Mica, where my father took a job as electrician in a vermiculite mine. It was very remote and truly unspoilt. It was glorious for my sister and me but nerve wrecking for my mother. It being very much Africa, there were huge spiders and scorpions and green grasshoppers, not to mention deadly creatures like green mambas and malaria mosquitoes. On weekends my father would take us to the banks of the huge Olifants river and we would watch the hippos lazing in the muddy water. We moved to a bigger mining town when we had to start school and from then on every few years my father would find a different job with better prospects and we would move again. For some of the most memorable places we lived I don't have fond memories of. At one stage, when I was about ten ye...

Illustration by Henck van Bilsen in The Socks of Doom We want to live consciously. That we stated right from the beginning of The Restory. We want to believe that it describes the way we are living here at Barrowfield and in essence it is also the golden thread running through our writing. It might therefore seem strange to write about conscious living at this stage. Almost like stating the obvious. True. But I’ve been carrying this beautiful phrase for so long that I only want to put it somewhere and look at it. To practice the art of stopping. Author Nguyen Anh-Huong introduced me to it in her slim book Walking Meditation . She says: “By practicing the art of stopping, we can enter the present moment and be nourished by the beauty and wonder of life in and around us: the smell of flowers, the warmth of sunshine, the color of the sky. To practice mindfulness is to begin to realize that we have a choice – to stop and rest or run, to be angry or happy. Once we ...

This morning, without deciding upon it formally, Mily and I took it reaaally easy and had a snuggle-in. Outside it seemed rather overcast and gloomy: perfect cuddle weather. She curled onto my lap, covering my first and second chakras with her silken body, while I lay dozing on my back. She later moved to where the sun started trickling onto the corner of the bed while I sat writing about the richness of this simple indulgence and tried drawing her catness in R-mode like I am being taught in Art class at the moment.        Then I spent time planning a week of personal treats. Read on, this gets even more ridiculously decadent. In my defence, I have to say that I am under orders to do so. (See Tasks of Chapter 11 of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s way). I struggle with especially this: treating my inner child, the true artist in me, to the things I need to fill my creative well. The reason, always, is a feeling of guilt. Guilt because there's a furrow seemingly per...

After reading George's post yesterday, Feeling of all ordinary human life , I was reminded of a piece I wrote around the same time, five years ago, August 2008, that is. My youngest son was still in school, but other than that nothing much has changed. And winter still gets to me just as it did then. This year's jasmine galaxy against the bluest sky                                            Sometimes, there’s not a thing in my head that seems to be worthy of putting words to it. And sometimes there are things in my head that are much too abstract to envelope them in words and post them to where my consciousness can receive them and go: “Aah! So that’s what this is all about!”        Today seems to be one of those not-worthy-of-words days where I sit around inside my head, shifting restlessly from one un-noteworthy thing to the other: Washing ...

A man was standing on a platform, waiting for a train. A boy came up to him and asked him the time. Man:       No, I’m not telling you. Boy:       Why not? Man:     If I tell you the time, you will ask me my name, the job that I’m doing and all other personal stuff. We’ll become more open with each other. In all probability you’ll pick a seat next to me on the train. The chances are good we’ll go to the same city. My daughter will be waiting at the station to pick me up. She is beautiful and you may fall in love with each other. Then she might insist to marry you.              I’m sorry, I don’t want a son-in-law who doesn’t even have a watch! Talk of not being in the moment! It would have been nicer though if I didn’t have this sense of recognition. George

I don’t LIVE enough.  Alive, but missing.  Missing in action. Missing out. Missing the point. The moment. Sunlight is wasted on me. I walk oblivious of the gold in my hair. Of the glowing in my skin I know only when the chill of nightfall replaces it. Why do we know better through loss? Why not stand and feel that one simple golden thread of breath that links the sky, birdsong, the sun, the incense of Spring flaming in purple petals? So much goes on while we draw air and dispense of it. In that small unconscious act of survival a world stands at attention to witness it. Breathing cannot be solely for this. We are made exquisitely sensuous. To go through a day and not be able to recall a scent, a colour, a touch, a feeling, a sound, a taste, is to be dead. The door to life  nailed shut. Each breath one closer to the last I’ll take. How often do I think this? When I write the date in my journal. One day closer.  I panic...