Four boys and a girl!

I strongly advocate travelling with close friends! It is rejuvenating, fun and an extremely tender experience of sharing. I jokingly referred to our group as "Four weddings and a funeral : four boys and a girl"!

Each of us lead really busy lives and to take time off to wander in South Africa with one another, was primarily because we fall into an energy of complete compatibility. Silly laughter and absolute idiocity could shift to sheer stillness, and where the impact of new discoveries could trigger independent associations of need, and comprehension.

None of us had been to this part of the world. So each of us could conjure images of expectancy and alter the focus of our perception to what we wanted it to be; walk together through an experience, or stand apart to reflect.

The delight of intimacy, where time is spent from need and not circumstance, yields a poignancy of spirit and camaraderie that cannot find true description through relating it to another. These special moments, often not profound at all, exist in the intangible areas of time spent in one another's shadows, and where meaning percolates through memory.

I share with you a poem by Abu Bakr Solomons ...................

Witness

Beyond the raised bamboo blind,

early morning sunlight filters

between the hibiscus flowers and green-grey foliage;

contours and shades deepen

until its hierarchy of being

bursts into magnificence.

Healing fragrances gently arouse waking life

in the slumbering garden;

branches form tangled, tangible lines

against faint strokes of pale, blue sky

echoing a pact with peace.

A dog barks; finches, blackbirds

sing a shrill duet;

each sound, stirring, shape

strung together.

Coherence, the simple elegance of lavender

augment respect:

bearing witness becomes a splendid purpose.