The Restory Retreat Centre

Dressed to go frogging. Photo G.Angus This weekend, quite unexpectedly, gave us ample opportunity to practice two of the exercises prescribed by our Living School curriculum: that of Audio and Visio Divina. Derived from the traditional Benedictine practice of Lexio Divina, which translates to divine reading, this simply means to open yourself up to the experience of either reading, hearing or seeing, letting go of your own agendas and ideas and allowing God to speak into your innermost being through the experience you are having. On Friday evening we went frogging in the wetlands in Wakkerstroom with a group of amphibian and reptile conservationists. There we were, at nightfall, kitted out in mud boots, rain jackets and head lamps, assigned to find and document frogs in the wetlands and surrounding grassland. Already they were starting to call as we made our way down to the water. It was heavily overcast and beautiful. Then two huge birds came into sight, adding there primeva...

This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home. A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. Gerard Manley Hopkins This is a very important poem for me personally. It was my first introduction to the work of this great nature poet. Much of Hopkins' poetry I cannot fathom by trying to understand it mentally. I have to read it out aloud and allow the rhythm and the sounds to paint the picture for me. I remember how I felt when...