The Restory Retreat Centre

  Thoughts Pried Loose By A Birthday Picnic against Tafelkop on my birthday. The Conversation Elements From The Conversation ` Music This past year, I have heard Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, properly for the first time. It touches me deeply and I've caught myself listening to it often. The older I get, the more I become aware of my clumsy efforts and tattered plans being carried by an infinite Gentleness.  With our love. George & Matilda

More About George If I want to tell more about myself, the very best might be to just start by saying "I love..." and then list things that I love. So: I love...... ....Tafelkop. The big world of which I am a part, silence and to walk. The Conversation ...time spent with my M. Where we talk for long stretches, and laugh, or are just quiet together for long periods of time. Elements From The Conversation ....our granddaughter, Ariana. Who loves books very much and keeps asking: "Oupa, tell me a silly story!" ....books. And dogs. And cats. And tea. ....a good conversation. Sculpting and woodwork. To write. ....poems. More so by the day. Basically impossible to pick a single one, but on my birthday, this one from Billy Collins. It talks about things one thinks about at 60. Design I pour a coating of salt on the table and make a circle in it with my finger. This is the cycle of life I say to no one. This is the wheel of fortune, the Arctic Circle. This is the ring of Ke...

I have not written for a long time. I’m exploring why. I love writing. I love the process of allowing a story to unfold through me and to then hone it until it shines with the sheen of something made with utmost care and appreciation for the beauty of the material, in this instance, words. How words fascinate me with their beauty! I love how they look formed in my own handwriting, or in the handwriting of someone I hold dear. My long departed mom’s left-handed longhand, or in many cases all capital letters when she needed to make it legible, looking very much like my own. George’s penciled-in notes in books he’s read, make as good reading as the book itself; tiny scribbles often with page numbers as cross references or main themes pointed out. But even if they are typed, there is a balance and feel to every word that make me want to simply sit with it and look at it, pronounce it maybe. “Maybe” – “ Maybe” – “Maybe” – “Maybe” – “Maybe” So why then this long period of not w...

Image by Igor Morski                                        I recently finished reading the book The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. With its ingenious use of old black and white suspense movies as a backdrop, and applying the main character, child psychologist Anna Fox’s agoraphobia that restricts her to the space of her apartment to full effect, I was not disappointed. I had the psychological thriller I was looking for at this stage.  It is well written and reflects a sense of fine observation by the author. A sentence like,  “I zoom in on his feet: oxblood oxfords, slick with polish, collecting the autumn sunlight, kicking it off with each step”  within the first few pages testifies to that and got me hooked.  But it’s not the book as such that I want to talk about, however good it may be. A.J. Finn is the pseudonym of American author ...

Photo from the Tumblr Account alittlebitofsillinessreally For a long, long while now I've had no inclination to write. I love writing, but for a couple of years now, there’s been a void in me as to subjects or reasons to put my thoughts on paper. Typing the words “a void” my head sounded it as one word, “avoid”, and I’m wondering whether or why I would have avoided writing. Since I believe in being simply a channel, albeit a unique one, through which creativity can flow, why wasn’t I open to this flowing? It wasn’t a complete creative block. I was creating on other levels; busy building out ranges of functional ceramic art, sculpting, facilitating workshops and retreats.   I often felt that I didn’t have enough creative energy to go around. That doing pottery and sculpting are “using it all up” in a sense. Lately, thoughts are starting to gather like sparrows in a rain puddle. I delight in how they splash around, but I’m aware of their wariness, their mistrust of ...

Happy hands. Photo by George Angus It’s not that I don’t want to write. I had a resolution at the start of the year to write every day, even if just for 15 minutes. Because I love it and I know that it has to be practised if it is to deliver the goods. Like my sporadic Pilates exercises, it does me good, making me feel focused and balanced, but sadly, both of these I neglect, to my own detriment.  I wake up every day planning to do my bit and write a blog post about the many subjects floating around in my head. After my hour of meditation, journal writing and Pilates (if at all), I get dressed and prepare our breakfast fruit bowl. Then make the bed, maybe start on the laundry if it’s laundry day, or start the yogurt if it's a milk day. We have a cup of coffee and discuss the day ahead.  “I’m going to try and write some”, I often venture. But first I must go down to the vegetable garden and see if the carrots are up/the beds need watering/the tomatoes or beans need...

At the beginning of this particular year we are quite excited here at The Restory. We foresee that many things that have long been in the germinating phase will sprout and show its leaves in 2015. The Restory is becoming operational this year. We are starting with our retreats (See our Retreats page at the top of the blog) in February. On the dates not set aside for specific retreats we are receiving people for quite days and personal retreats. This all takes place against the backdrop of us being committed to live what we preach here at Barrowfield – a life with specific focus on simplicity, nature, creativity and silence. We shall therefore still be busy with our own creativity and projects in workshop and studio, seeing people for spiritual direction and our writing.  Speaking of writing: practice, mistakes and experience have helped us to consolidate our thoughts of the last couple of years and do some fine-tuning that we hope will help you, our readers, as well. ...

Internet image O, to write like this! Every now and again I read this piece of exquisite writing by Clarissa Pinkola Estes which I found as part of an advertisement for her storytelling training courses on her facebook page  with a link to the website mavenproductions.com I read it for the pure joy it brings me. But also to keep a dream alive. "Dear Brave Souls:  ORIGINAL VOICE™ STORYTELLING TRAINING: Rowing Songs for the NightSea Journey Do you want to tell the stories that flower from your lives, and from the lives of your blood and bones? Do you hope to move people for good reasons? Do you hope to learn about yourself and what I coined a term for "your farback people"? Do you have a calling to tell stories or even just one story? Do you want to speak to the souls of others? Do you hope to delve and know and speak and create story in your own one of a kind voice so that you sound only as yourself and no other? Do you have nonotmei'mnotgettingupinfrontofother-...

Ek skryf in my joernaal met een van daardie vreeslik algemene kliek BiC penne. Regte ou werksesels. Wanneer ek petrol ingooi en ek betaal met my garagekaart en ek moet die strokie teken, diep die petroljoggie een van myne se broers op om die werk te doen. Gaan ek by die fabrieke of verskaffers deur die hekke waar sekuriteit diens doen, wie sal ook daar aan diens wees? Meneer BiC. Moet ek die betaalstrokie in die supermark teken na ek kruideniers gekoop het - met ‘n BiC. Dié wat swart skryf is oor die algemeen self swart. Die rooies rooi.  Dié wat blou skryf kom in ‘n hele verskeidenheid kleure voor. Kleure wat na alle waarskynlikheid snaakse name het wat ek nie ken nie. Die een van my het ‘n vreemde grys kleur, soos iets wat met die weermag of die kleredrag van jare gelede se boere te make het. (Moderne boere dra sulke spoggerige uitrustings met meegaande kleurskemas dat ek hulle nie as voorbeelde vir my pen se kleur kan gebruik nie). Dan is daar ook wit en so ‘n snaak...

Every now and again George remembers his duties as my personal muse and assigns me a writing exercise with themes that range from truly mediocre, like to write about who lives in my street, to spectacularly bizarre: the Queen's handbag being one I distinctly remember. Of course, he knows that I will find out, as I write along, that no theme is ever mediocre, but the writing makes it so. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, mediocrity is often the shades we wear looking at the world around us. "Write about what you don't think about." I ignored the assignment for a bit. I usually do when I know it will take me places I might not find comfortable. In any case, writing about what I'm not thinking about will have me thinking about it, won't it? But yes, I know what he means. So let's see where this leads me. It really depends on the season, but in these glorious, golden, autumn days, and again in late spring, I don't think about climatic temp...

Photograph by George Angus The following usually serves one, but more can be nourished by it as well. Ingredients: * A workshop * A lathe (other machinery will do as well, but I find the rhythm and sound of the lathe to be soothing) * A job (not job as in “At least I have a job”. In the workshop we use it more in the sense of “Can you do this job for me, or do you have another one in the lathe?”). What works well is something repetitive, without being too complicated. Otherwise you have to concentrate too hard. A fairly big diameter or reasonable length is also an advantage. It ensures a nice long travel for the tool. *All the paraphernalia that goes with working on the lathe: enough soluble oil in the sump to keep the job lubricated, the necessary drills and tooltips, the wire hook that you use to remove the shavings from the bed, the splash plate to prevent the soluble oil from being flung in a fine spray all over the floor by the fast turning chuck, the peg spanner to fasten t...

Waarom skryf ek? Ek het ‘n gevoel dit het met my geaardheid en met my lewe te doen. Laasgenoemde het soveel vertakkings - my en M se verhouding, Pa, my spiritualiteit, boeke en skrywers, die plaas, die werkswinkel, flieks, houtwerk, die kerk, die fabrieke waarby ek kom, die werkers, my familie en vriende, die honde, die natuur, kuns, plekke, musiek, Biodanza, my rekenaar en die internet, humor, gereedskap, mense, my liefde vir die TWO se geskiedenis. Op enige gegewe tydstip is ek met een van hierdie vertakkings besig, met inspeling van die ander in ‘n mindere of meerdere mate, maar dit is tog net so dat die fokus telkens oorwegend op een van hulle is. Hoe is hierdie verskillende fasette met mekaar verbind? Is daar ‘n verband? Waar vind die sameloop plaas? Ek meen die sameloop is net op een plek - binne my. Ek is die naaf waarin my belangstelling-speke saamkom. En die een plek waar my belangstelling-familie mekaar sien en oor en weer gesels, is wanneer ek skryf. Dáár hak...