The Restory Retreat Centre

  Elders "The real elder is like a tree: the older it gets, the more shade it provides."  Sufi saying                    The Conversation Elements From The Conversation In this conversation, we addressed the following issues that can help one age wisely:  A regular faith practice The gradual abandonment of the priorities of the "first half of life"  The formative influence of hardship, failure, and the inability to answer all of life's questions  Letting go of the grip of absolute control Music "Wiegala" is a lullaby composed by the Jewish poet and composer Ilse Weber. She wrote it while she was a prisoner in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II. At the camp, she worked as a nurse and used her music to comfort the children in her care. When the children she cared for were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp, she chose to go with them. "Wiegala" is believed to have been the last song she ...

Photograph by George Angus With the water level so low after the drought we are now able to see landmarks usually submerged under the surface of Zaaihoekdam. One of that is the old road leading past our farm to Wakkerstroom. Before the dam was built years ago, it was a fairly straight and much shorter route leading into town. Now we have to drive much further all along the perimeter of the dam. The old inhabitants of the area tell us about homesteads, a bridge and obviously the old road that apparently disappeared for good under water once the dam started filling up. Now, with the drought some of it make an appearance once again, amazingly intact after all those years in its wet coffin. Every time I look at the old road, Rudyard Kipling’s poem comes to mind: The Way through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Bef...

Only when the last tree has died  and the last river been poisoned  and the last fish been caught  will we realise we cannot eat money.                                                                  - Cree Indian Proverb. Think about Knysna and you think about wood. In many ways it is the indigenous wood capitol of South Africa. The names of the trees itself lead you into the cool, moist surroundings where they grow – Outeniqua Yellowood, Hard Pear, Cape Blackwood, Ironwood, Candlewood, White Pear, Stinkwood, White Elder, Cape Beech. From this timber craftsmen have brought forth the most beautiful furniture for almost three centuries. The 300 000 hectares of forest seemed to be an unlimited source of wood when it was first exploited in the 18th century and during the years that follow...