Hi,
I’d like to share with you an interesting experience from my week-long dark retreat the week after Easter.
I felt like I was constantly on the go
I definitely felt the need to “switch off”, because I felt like I was constantly on the go. Even when I went on holiday on my own, I was always given a roommate or someone else would latch on to me, and I couldn’t be alone for a single minute (not counting sleep). That’s why I needed a week alone with myself, with nothing distracting me from myself (music, TV, reading, emails, phones). During the whole week I had no frights, hallucinations, voices, panic, fear, anxiety… I drank in the present moment to the full.
I had no expectations, which was just as well, because that way I couldn’t be disappointed :)
I slept through most of the time
About two and a half days non-stop, which let me catch up on my sleep deficit. My dreams were in colour. Shortly before the dark retreat I had finished a book with a powerful story and seen an emotional film. And I dreamt about them a lot. Once those two themes were exhausted, I had continuous dreams that carried on like a series (which happens to me quite often, and I once even wrote a story out of one).
“Hello, bear”
On the first day I didn’t hear Tomáš bring my food at all. Only when he came inside and called out to me did I wake up with a start and answer. Apparently in four years nobody had ever slept so soundly that they didn’t respond to the knock. From the next day on, Tomáš greeted me with “Hello, bear”…
My eyes slowly got used to the darkness, and after just two days I was seeing little stars in front of my eyes, even with my eyes closed. Every now and then a “spotlight” would suddenly switch on in white or blue, or flash like a lighthouse warning ships of coastal cliffs.
It wasn’t absolutely silent
Because the cabin isn’t soundproofed, you could make out the rhythm of the day. I think it’s important to be in absolute silence, so that you aren’t drawn back to the outside world, which is exactly what happens when you hear sounds from outside, and that’s how someone who is afraid of boredom keeps themselves occupied. You can also kill boredom by setting up a daily routine, the way prisoners of war used to do to keep their morale from sinking. When the body is bored, it means the body is resting and regenerating. The dark retreats in Čeladná with Alois Urbiš, where Jaroslav Dušek and Kristýna Frejová also stayed, were in absolute silence, which is what I prefer too. My mistake was that I didn’t read up on it online.
The cold woke me up in the mornings
I had the air conditioning switched off, so the cold woke me up in the mornings. Shortly after waking I’d hear birdsong, then planes flying over, towards evening the surrounding “noise” would die down, and then birdsong again and frogs croaking in the nearby pond (it’s a few metres from the cabins). The only thing that bothered me a bit were the Gripens flying over from nearby Čáslav, from morning until evening, so the pilots could log their required hours before dark. During my stay I had strong wind twice and one thunderstorm. Luckily storms don’t bother me. Most of the time I wore earplugs. Only when eating, exercising, showering and meditating for an hour before sleep did I go without them.
I had visitors
Tomáš told me that the cabins used to have a rubbish bin, but now, so that it doesn’t “smell, they put the waste in a container with a lid. On the last day I sent back my dessert, so my waste container wasn’t empty. I left the skin of the banana I’d eaten in the plastic tub the grapes came in. When Lenka brought me my food, she told me it wasn’t a good idea not to put the skin in the container, because ants would come to visit, but that it hardly mattered now, since I was finishing my dark retreat in the morning.
Well, the ants really did come to visit and they bit me quite badly. I certainly wouldn’t have left a banana skin lying around if someone had warned me at the start of my stay. I’d happily have put it in the food carrier, which has a zip. So that’s a tip for the rest of you, if you want a peaceful stay without ants.
I didn’t eat much
On a dark retreat you really do need less food. I think I finished a whole meal only once. I’m not keen on desserts and sweet things, so they were easy to give up. I just missed vegetables, which I eat with every meal; there were only vegetables once, as a Shopska salad. Sometimes there were a few vegetables in the food. As the meals are vegetarian, the protein came from Šmakoun and tofu.
What I missed most were pulses (lentils, red or brown, chickpeas, beans, peas), which are plant protein and very filling. I thought the soup was made from beans, but I suspect it was green peas. I’m not a fan of grains and grain products (I also have health reasons for that – higher blood sugar). Products made from grains, flour, bulgur, pasta and rice raise the glycaemic index, you very quickly feel hungry and crave sweet things, and your blood sugar goes up. That’s why I eat foods with a high glycaemic index with protein in my diet (dairy products, pulses, seeds and nuts) and lots of vegetables. I’d happily have done without the fruit, of which there was plenty (a banana and apples or peaches and an orange every day, or half of a 500 g tub of grapes), and which is also a source of a natural simple sugar – fructose, which is even sweeter. And it raises your blood sugar too.
I gradually got used to daylight
I really welcomed ending the stay by waking up at 4:30 while it was still dark, when you could see the stars, slowly get used to daylight and take part in the sunrise. As Lenka told me, it’s important to stay calm for about 2 hours after the stay ends, go for a short walk, and only then shower, get dressed and pack. If you go faster, some people end up feeling sick and vomiting. When I opened the door of the cabin, I felt as if the floor was floating beneath me and my stomach was all at sea. That feeling in my stomach lasted until the evening. When I woke up the next day, the seasick feeling was gone.
Now about how the sanctuary is equipped:
I missed having some kind of shelf (a rack or a cupboard) to put things on. After all, you use clean underwear and socks every day, you need to change for exercise and then change into pyjamas for bed. It could even be right next to the bed, so you don’t hurt yourself in the dark. The shelf in the hallway could have a raised edge at the end so things don’t fall on the floor when you’re groping around in the dark looking for something.
I had a bit of a “struggle” with the towels
There was no hook or rail by the washbasin or the shower where you could hang a towel. It would also be handy for putting your clothes down before stepping into the shower. There were 2 hooks by the bed, after all, so there could be some by the shower too, which is right at the end of the little corridor anyway, and you move about there so rarely that there’s not much risk of injury. I didn’t know what to do with my wet towel. Tomáš told me to throw it over the shower cubicle. Easier said than done… As I’m on the short side and the shower is raised about 30 cm off the floor, I definitely couldn’t reach the top edge of the cubicle, and if I’d had to throw it up there, I’ve no idea where it would have landed…
It also happened that the toilet roll would roll off somewhere and I couldn’t find it. Maybe it would be nice to have a rod/holder with the rolls stacked on it. And perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a cup fixed at or next to the washbasin where I could put my toothpaste and toothbrush.
One more thing I noticed: I missed having a bowl to put the washed grapes in. I didn’t want to drip all over the floor and the shelf. In the end I put them on my towel.
I missed having a table
Even a small one, perhaps a folding one, would have made me very happy. It would definitely stop the floor of the sanctuary getting dirty at mealtimes. You could wipe the table and the floor would stay clean. The bed is quite high, so a small table would easily fit there.
A cup holder
I have to keep up my fluid intake; if I don’t, I get headaches and bad migraines. I kept trying to work out where to put my cup with my drink. Twice I knocked it over while looking for it; luckily it was always just water. I felt sorry for the wooden floor, which gets damaged by that. Surely there could be a small cup holder by the bed, which would stop drinks being spilt on the floor.
Summary
In the end I enjoyed my dark retreat, I got some rest. Nobody wanted anything from me, nobody called me, I simply enjoyed every minute I spent alone with myself. I certainly got a taste of what life is like for people who are blind. And also of how important it is to say where things have been moved to (to the left or right of what, and how many cm..). Neither I nor the participant in the next cabin solved anything in our lives, we simply lived in the present moment.
Marie (the bear)
