Dear friends and followers of my blog,
erg Gardens in Kenilworth, a suburb of Cape Town. It took us months to make the visit, and when we did we were amazed to find such a treasure so close to where we lived.
Stellenberg was a farm in the early years of the Dutch occupation of the Cape of Good Hope. The little colony was divided into a number of farms to supply the ships that came needing fresh produce. The suburb of Woodstock where I grew up was one such farm, and was called Papendorp. The other such farm close by was called Zonnebloem, and an area there still carries that name. However, I had no idea that Stellenberg still existed in Kenilworth. The historic Stellenberg House is still there and remains mostly unaltered since the 1790s.
The Ovenstone family has lived at Stellenberg since 1953. Andrew and Sandy Ovenstone began implementing changes to the garden in 1987 and have worked to create this most beautiful space of many garden rooms, formal and wild to wander in and through. The ponds and streams, trees and sculptures, woods and meadows create such surprising vistas.
Each room and space create such different moods in the pilgrim, invites silence, reflection, inward journeys and dreams of a better world environment.
I have created this visual journey of our visit for you and added a poetry reflection for, I hope, your pleasure.
Do plan to make your visit soon.
Stay well.
Bob
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment (T.S. Eliot from East Coker)
The Sacred Heart of the Garden Dorian Haarhoff
With a turtle dove at rest on a shoulder,
a pilgrim wandered, seeking the garden
heart. Then ambling around the outer ring
he sent the winged one on such a quest.
Dorian Haarhoff from The Sacred Heart of the Garden
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
T.S. Eliot from Little Gidding
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the rose
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
T.S Eliot from Burnt Norton
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise:
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise.
Bringing the gifts and the hope of the slave.
I rise. I rise. I rise.
Maya Angelou from Still I Rise
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstacy!
Gerard Manley Hopkins from The Windhover
Then as he sang
it was no longer sounds only that made the music:
he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language
came into my roots
out of the earth,
into my bark
out of the air,
into the pores of my greenest shoots
gently as dew
and there was no word he sang but I knew its meaning.
He told of journeys…
Denise Levertov from A Tree telling of Orpheus
There they were, dignified, invisible,
In the Autum heat, through the vibrant air,
and the bird called, in response to
The unheard music, hidden in the shrubbery
T.S. Eliot from Burnt Norton
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
T.S. Eliot from East Coker
His silence is a kiss
His presence an embrace
But now he is fading, fading
And I am alone…
Thomas Keating from Loneliness in the Night
The trumpet shall sound
And the dead shall be raised
And the dead shall be raised Incorruptible
The trumpet shall sound
And the dead shall be raised
Be raised Incorruptible
Be raised Incorruptible
And we shall be changed
And we shall be changed
George Frideric Handel from The Messiah
CHORAL TREES
The trees are silent this morning.
Last night they threw their voices
across the valley imitating a spring
and then a raging, rambling, rolling river.
Now they stand quietly, gently panting,
Athol Williams from Choral Trees
At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
at the still point, there the dance is.
T.S.Eliot from Burnt Norton
Dancing Hare by Guy Du Toit
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.
Gerard Manley Hopkins from Spring
I come into the presence of still water, water
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!
Langston Hughes from Dream Variations
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
Gerard Manley Hopkins from God’s Grandeur
Within the flower there lies a seed,
Within the seed there springs a tree,
Within the tree there spreads a wood.
Kathleen Raine from A Spell For Creation
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley from Ozymandias
Deduct 1 by Angus Taylor
I have seen the light break through to illuminate a small field for a while
and gone my way and forgotten it.
But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had the treasure in it.
I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it….
R S Thomas from The White Field
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
David Whyte from Start Close In
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
John Keats from Ode on a Grecian Urn.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot from Little Gidding
bobcommin.com 
hi Bob – a wonderful tribute – thank you – sue Sue Gow 0834675995 0216853684 504 New Rosedale SA Legion Lower Nursery Road Rosebank 7700 Rosbank 7700
LikeLike
A brightness that reaches out beyond mere breathlessness. I had no idea this pearl existed. Thankyou…
LikeLike