The Old Diocesan Issue 12 - Magazine - Page 84
EPIC
the finds from Blombos Cave near
Stilbaai, revealed in the 1990s,
which date back some 77,000
years and provide rich insight into
the social, artistic and scientific
practices of our early ancestors.
To hold the two in tension – to
teach boys to value a scientific
understanding of the world and
simultaneously to prize, and seek
to inculcate, the aesthetic and the
spiritual dimensions – is what I try
to achieve in this programme.
As the teachers journey with
the boys through the Cederberg,
I believe it is important to link
what we are doing in practical
terms with the idea of being in
nature; walking and climbing
as a way of experiencing the
spiritual. Such notions help to
reframe why we trek through
the landscape and return us
to the notions of spirituality
explored in relationship to
the world-view of the San.
In his book Cederberg Rock
Paintings, John Parkington draws
heavily on the insights offered
by Wilhelm Bleek and his sisterin-law Lucy Lloyd, based on their
San informants in the late 19th
century. The Cederberg rock
paintings, Bleek observed, tell us
of things that “most deeply moved
the Bushman mind”.
Could something of what “most
deeply moved the Bushman mind”
resonate with us today? In the
east aisle of the Bishops Memorial
Chapel, there is a Latin inscription
from Psalm 107 in the Vulgate
Bible, or Psalm 108 in the King
James, that reads:
Paratum cor meum, Deus,
paratum cor meum.
Translated, it reads:
My heart is ready, O God,
my heart is ready.
Who knows when the moment
comes, when we’ll be able to say
that our heart is prepared for an
encounter with the divine, with the
spiritual dimension. But standing
in the heat and the silence of the
Cederberg, in the presence of the
rock paintings of the San, one has
a sense that it is a good place for
the boys – for all of us – to start
thinking about it.
Grade 10 Epic boys outside the Stadsaal Caves, another site of rock art, near
Sanddrif in the south of the Cederberg, November 2025.
80 | THE OLD DIOCESAN
Cederberg: The Book
by Peter Slingsby (1963O)
Slingsby Maps
Peter Slingsby’s long career
in cartography, including half a
century of mapping every nook
and cranny of the Cederberg,
would mark him – as surely as
any contour line – as the only
truly qualified author of this
book. It is fitting, too, that
a publication of such wideranging interest, love, passion,
reverence and wonder about
everything Cederberg-related
should be written by an OD.
Indeed, the six-page pictorial
spread in this issue of The Old
Diocesan was inspired by the
book’s publication, and includes
two visionary photographs from
its pages. (See page 18.) Filled
with images, stories, trail notes,
curiosities, titbits, trivia, ODs,
and effortless quotes from
Stephen Watson (1971S),
Cederberg: The Book should be
bestowed on every Grade 10 as
they embark on the Epic. Those
who love the place should find
their own copies.
“A love story told by one of
South Africa’s best storytellers
and a legendary map-maker.”
– Don Pinnock,
from the book’s foreword
