The Restory Retreat Centre

  Existential Health Inhabit existence; Create Meaning; Assuming Authorship The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Creative Piece This week's creative piece, a painting, is actually more about the painter than the painting itself. In this quiet, introspective man, one can see 3 characteristics of existential health. L.S. Lowry, the British painter who painted "Going to the Mill" in 1925, looked his reality, the industrial city of Manchester, squarely in the eye. While others viewed the industrial cities of the time as ugly and crude, Lowry saw the beauty, the loneliness and the humanity in it. He did not paint an artificial, elevated world; he painted the point of contact with reality. Returning to last week's subject: To rest meaningfully requires that we, like Lowry, stop waiting for an "ideal" or "perfect" world to come to a standstill in front of us. It requires that we look the reality of our daily lives with its mills, its smoke and...

Photograph by George Angus This coming weekend we have our first mindfulness retreat here at Barrowfield. Earlier this week the one motor of the planer thicknesser burnt out. A major crisis. I am right in the middle of a big woodworking project and working with a very tight budget after December’s quiet and bonuses that were paid out to the employees. I knew for a fact that the motor either had to be replaced by a new one or if I am lucky it could be repaired. Either way, the project is delayed by days and money has to be spent. Lately Matilda and I often talk about the wide-spread perception that mindfulness and reality clash. A large number of people believe that the two actually just don’t go together: “Interesting, this mindfulness-thing you’re busy with. Maybe I’ll look into that when I’m retired and have more time. For now I do not have that luxury. I have to provide for my family and work hard to earn a living.” We do not have to quit our day job to be min...