At the beginning of September I came to Tomáš and Lenka for a week-long dark retreat.
I felt it was a unique time to be alone with myself, to go deep, or rather into the depths, to live through anything at all in unconditional love.
I wished to surrender everything fully, and I was ready to fast.
So, after agreeing it with Tomáš, I wished to stay on water only from Saturday to Wednesday, without contact. Originally I’d intended to stay like that for the whole week.
(I had fasted several times before with herbal teas, and it was always hard. Rationally, though, I concluded that this was a unique opportunity, when I don’t have to cook and look after the family…)
The dark retreat began
The door closed and I felt happiness and gratitude at being stripped of everything…but the detox came with unexpected intensity (chills, vomiting, diarrhoea, shaking ,aching joints, headaches), I could barely get up and lie down…and in a darkness so thick, you couldn’t cut it with a knife …when even my soul was going through a desert of darkness never known before…in a pathless void…with unprecedented exhaustion. I had no idea what day or hour it was. I staggered outside( ! ).
Yes, I broke off the retreat, with regret, but also aware that I had overestimated my strength. I felt that this too was my freedom and an honest confession…at the time I thought that after breaking it off all that was left was to leave…the course of the therapy interrupted, no way back…
It was late on Monday evening.
I sipped tea with Lenka and the children and listened to stories of awe, fear, disappointment and hope…
After a kind welcome and a conversation with Lenka and Tomáš about the continuity of Oneness ( that’s how I put it into words) , I went back in, deciding to see what would ‘open up’.
With trust, and by now with light vegan food and warm tea.
I asked and came to rest…and the continuity emerged, it had never disappeared:-) …I was given gifts ( or at least that’s how I perceived everything, with gratitude…)
I won’t describe what came next, it is the story of my soul…
I lived through Oneness in love, acceptance and belonging…in freedom and healing
( still ongoing ).
Lenka visited me with food that was divine manna to me…with the open and loving heart of a guide…
The story still goes on, and I know that everything was right… without reproach ,that even the ‘holiest’ ideas are only ideas ,that a dark retreat is not a heroic feat :-),that anyone would ever be waiting for…and wishes are, again, only wishes…
Thank you .
Šárka
