Hi Lenka and Tomáš,
thank you for the reminder, I’m happy to write about my experience of the dark retreat.
The darkness was kind to me. It was a beautiful and wise teacher to me, and sometimes a lover too. It taught me to perceive the world with my heart and to listen carefully to what others want to tell me.
I chose the north sanctuary
It was a bit of a coincidence, because no other sanctuary was free on those dates, but the universe wanted me to spend my week in the dark in this sanctuary. From a shamanic point of view, the north is concerned with the mind of the heart, and I needed to look at the world through my heart and not just through my mind, which sometimes played games with me and tried to lead me astray from the path towards my sacred dream.
Food was my point of reference
I wasn’t afraid of the dark retreat. When I arrived, Tomáš explained everything to me; while the light was still on I went round the cabin, got my bearings, had a trial run at moving around, took note of where everything was and turned out the light. An important point of reference was food. Tomáš told me the time window for deliveries, so I had at least a rough idea of the time, give or take 4 hours. As I’m a systematic person, I could plan my whole day around that.
The darkness helped me focus
I exercised, meditated, rested and ate. There’s nothing else you can do in the dark, but it’s enough to fulfil the intention with which I went into the dark. I wanted to find out whether the path I had set out on was the right one, that I wasn’t chasing some mirage. I knew I had to disconnect my brain and look at it through my heart. In the light I couldn’t do that; too many distractions came along and kept me from focusing.
The darkness taught me to perceive through my heart
Today I can say that the darkness helped me with that. It taught me to perceive through my heart, and at first by a very drastic method. On day 2 I had a relentless headache and my heart was beating faster than usual. For emergencies I had some “red” pills that had always helped me before, but now they did nothing at all. “What do I do in a situation like this,” I intuitively sensed that I had to sit down and breathe deeply. Breathe through my heart. I breathed for a long time (in + out = 15 s), counted to 100 (30 minutes), breathed deeply, focused on my heart, and suddenly the relentless headache melted away and my heart calmed down. Well, that was wonderful. I began every meditation with this breathing; it helped me relax and look deeper into my heart. Whenever my brain, the rascal, tried to sneak a stray thought into my inner world, I was able to stop it, wrap the thought up, throw it in the bin and carry on meditating. I also went through an incredible cleanse – I spent maybe a third of the whole retreat on the loo.
The longest day of the whole retreat
When the second-to-last day came, Tomáš came a little earlier, because the evening before he had become a dad again and was hurrying to Lenka at the maternity ward. He brought an alarm clock set for 4 in the morning. I can say that was the longest stretch of the whole retreat for me. I couldn’t wait for morning, so I cheated a bit by lighting up the clock face in the night. It showed 02:00. The next two hours were fine. At four I woke up, sat down in front of the cabin, and together with a young fellow participant from the next cabin we slowly went off to watch the sunrise.
We saw an amazing sight.
A gorgeous Sun rose over Kutná Hora, and on the western side the sky was a metallic grey with an amazing rainbow shining through it. For that moment the world became colourful, and it still is today. I now know that a black-and-white view of the world is no longer for me. I then spent the whole day my own way. In the morning I swam in the pond, walked through the beautiful countryside, treated myself to an amazing massage and headed home to my wonderful, beautiful wife and my beautiful, marvellous daughters.
Radka, my wife, told me my eyes had completely cleared, and a month after the retreat she says I’m a different Zdeněk, too. I feel that way too, and my heart helps me with it.
Thank you, Tomáš and Lenka, for your care; you were both empathetic and knew how to listen. Lenka, thank you for convincing me that I needed to be patient and listen to the darkness. It was a surprise for me when, three days before the end, you brought me food and simply shut yourself in with me and chatted with me. It was probably just before your baby was born (sorry, I don’t remember whether it was a daughter or a son). The day before, I had wished that a woman would talk with me for a while, and I had wished for ginger tea. The universe granted everything to the letter. You talked with me and also brought a little pot of ginger tea.
Wishing you lovely days.
Zdeněk
