Category: Participants’ experiences

Hi Lenka and Tomáš,

thank you for your email. Today is, quite literally, one month since my dark retreat with you.

The dark retreat came at the right time

The dark retreat was interesting for me, and the timing was key too. I didn’t go there to work through anything specific – relationships, problems and so on – I just wanted to see how I would cope with such an unusual experience and how I would react to the darkness and to being alone. I assumed I would be incredibly bored and that I might not even last the whole week in total darkness. I was also curious what surprises might be hiding in the depths of my mind and could potentially come to the surface. The boredom never came, and I got used to the darkness quickly; I actually found it pleasant. I managed the whole week, and towards the end I even felt a little sad that the retreat was coming to an end. I didn’t have any dramatic memories or unpleasant experiences from the past. Now and then a pure emotion of fear came up, not linked to anything in particular, and I had no choice but to give it my attention. In everyday life I’m not really accompanied by fear or anxiety; my driving emotion is anger, which these days I know how to use creatively as an engine. I don’t have much experience with fear, so this was interesting – there was no escaping it, not even with my eyes closed… ha ha. I’ve been practising mindfulness for quite a while, and that helped me deal with the fear in the dark as well. The fear was happening inside me, but at the same time I could be an observer of the process – the fear arrived and I could face it head-on. Being both a player in the game and an observer was interesting, and it worked.

I can handle unpleasant things on my own

In the dark I realised that I can trust myself and that I can handle even unpleasant things on my own, which was an important and positive boost to my self-confidence. I also gave myself the darkness as an act of self-care and ‘allowed myself to have time just for me‘. It was an important pause from the chaos of today’s world – a chance to enjoy the time, to feel myself and to let thoughts flow through my head without any need to analyse or justify anything.

During the dark retreat I enjoyed the human contact

During the retreat I also came to appreciate how important personal contact with people is, and I looked forward to my ‘chats with the meal bringers’. It helped me sort out the thoughts in my head, share unusual experiences and get the sense that it was all fine, whatever was happening. I really liked that nothing was forced on me – no opinions, no philosophy and so on. Just the feeling that someone was listening to me without offering solutions or opinions was really lovely.

My life is the same, and yet lighter

In practical terms, life after the dark retreat is still the same – I have the same job and basically the same routines and so on – but a certain ‘lightness of being’ has arrived. I don’t feel the need to take everything personally or to solve everything at any cost, and even unpleasant situations don’t touch me as deeply as they did before the darkness. It’s a nice feeling, and I can say that I’ve gained a healthy distance from things; these days I don’t take many things and situations very personally. I know I’m in some kind of process of transformation, and even though I don’t know what the outcome will be, I trust the process / the journey more than the destination.

Darkness therapy has definitely done me good personally, and I’d like to do it again sometime in the future. For now, though, I’m letting things unfold as they take shape by themselves, and I’m not trying to control or manage anything.

Thank you for giving me the space in a beautiful wooden cabin, with excellent food and easy-going chats.

Bye, Jana

I was in the dark for three days, and it wasn’t enough. I enjoyed the velvety darkness, doing yoga, chanting mantras, tripping over unexpected things, the incredible taste of water, of tea and of every tiny mouthful, gazing into the universe, and an interesting conversation when the food was handed over.

“Outside” I realised how loud the world is, and what really matters. After about a week I longed to retreat into the dark again, and that longing hasn’t left me 🙂

Martina

My crisis has been going on for about eight years now. Last year I started thinking about a dark retreat, but I wasn’t ready. This year I felt the need to do something about it again. I considered various events, but mostly nothing resonates with me. Even the vision quest I was considering felt “too organised”, and doing one on my own seemed too complicated. I’m no good at going to therapy – I mostly work on myself alone.

A dark retreat is only about me

What appealed to me about the dark retreat was that it’s entirely up to me. I can set it up my own way. I assumed I wouldn’t even want sessions with the guides, and that turned out to be true. I didn’t take up the option.

Even though I don’t do yoga and I’m certainly not at all advanced in meditation, I managed a week in the dark. Of course there were crises. The first, as for most people probably, came once I’d caught up on my sleep debt. At that point I started to doubt the whole idea. The second crisis came in the second half of the retreat, when my panic and depressive states made themselves felt more intensely. But given my experience of the last few years, I breathed my way through it. My intuition was right – I was ready to handle it.

A few things clicked for me during darkness therapy

Although in my case it wasn’t a big developmental leap, I’m really glad I did the retreat. A few things did fall into place. I went in without an intention and let things take their course. But looking back, I can see an interesting intention there after all, probably an unconscious one at first. I experienced it as an initiation ritual. What for probably doesn’t matter, but for me that may have been the main meaning of the darkness. A ritual that isn’t organised or directed from outside. Solitude intensifies, and strengthens too ;o)

Tips for a dark retreat

The tip to bring some kind of instrument is well known – in my case it was a guitar. It definitely helps. I’d also recommend trying the noise-cancelling headphones that are part of the sanctuary’s equipment. Despite my initial reluctance, it was an interesting experience – it felt like being under water. And given my experience with poor temperature regulation linked to my mental ups and downs (shivering even in a warm summer), I packed a sleeping bag. That turned out to be a good choice. It felt more helpful than if I’d tried to compensate by readjusting the air conditioning.

I’m not a vegetarian, but the vegetarian food really suited me and I enjoyed it. When I got back I turned down meat for a while and only went back to it gradually. But things aren’t the same as before the retreat. I see meat differently and eat it less often.

Thanks once again for the opportunity.

Martin

Friends, after 10 years of running dark retreats, you sometimes tell us that our work must be pretty easy and that everyone is surely happy, because a dark retreat is about each person and their inner world. Well, you’d be wrong, and as proof we’re adding a review here about what pigs we are.

A young couple on a dark retreat

Instead of one person, two turned up unannounced, so we hastily sorted out a second mattress. They told us they would do the dark retreat together because they wanted to quit smoking weed, and that week would be the perfect detox.

They left after 2 days and left us the message below on the dining table.

Everyone has their own path to freedom, happiness and love. Thank you for staying with us

I first heard about the dark retreat three years ago. It was only the circumstances of my life that eventually led me to Lomec near Kutná Hora. For which I am truly grateful. I couldn’t have chosen a nicer, cosier setting.

Preparing for the dark retreat

For two months before the retreat I intensively gathered experiences and advice on how to prepare for a dark retreat. Even though I read that for the vast majority of participants a week-long retreat is enough. I decided on a three-day fast before the retreat to support my perception and sensitivity.

Going in and how the dark retreat went

If I had to sum it up in one word, it’s amazing!!!

It can’t be put into words. In the course of one week I experienced so many things and situations. For an ordinary “consumer” person it’s impossible to grasp. The darkness gives everyone what they need, the thing they came into it for. I’m convinced that the darkness doesn’t give us anything, but it allows us to find what we already have inside us. It allowed me to, and I’m sincerely grateful for that. It allowed me to realise the meaning of being. I won’t describe how my retreat went, there are plenty of examples here. It would just be words, but one of the best things that I really enjoyed during the retreat was watching the “decorations on the ceiling”. 🙂 I’ve never experienced so much colour and variety in my life.

What to say in the end?

I’d recommend a dark retreat to anyone who is interested in it. I don’t recommend it to anyone who knows nothing about it. Or who isn’t drawn to it, or is even scared of it. A dark retreat isn’t about the darkness, it’s about you! I went through both laughter and tears… I saw what I don’t see in the light or even in the half-dark.

I’d like to thank Tomáš and his whole family from the bottom of my heart for what you did for me. The experiences from just one week spent in your presence will stay with me my whole life.

Thank you, Pepa

I had been thinking about a dark retreat for two years, but it took me a long time to find a date that suited me. I was afraid that my cycle, which is not entirely regular and not entirely painless either, would catch up with me in the dark. In fact, female cyclicity and my relationship with my own body were the main themes I was carrying with me. By an irony of fate (or of my own hormones), my cycle shifted completely unexpectedly by two weeks, so even though I had timed the dark retreat perfectly, I ended up being confronted with my fear anyway. But it was precisely because of this that I could see for myself that the fear was not justified at all. This time the pain didn’t come, keeping myself clean in the dark was nowhere near as complicated as I had feared, and on top of that I could finally have a proper rest and let my body relax.

Preparing for the dark retreat

With my usual thoroughness, I prepared intensively for the retreat, including by reading the impressions and experiences of previous participants. Perhaps I was then slightly disappointed that no groundbreaking spiritual experience came, as I had rather hoped. In the end, though, I realised that, given the main theme I mentioned above, it was actually necessary and beneficial that my retreat took place mainly on the physical level. Even in this area the retreat brought me a lot that was new. I found out what it is like when I can truly and fully perceive my body and its needs. For example, not eating when I’m not hungry – just because someone has brought me food and it is somehow expected of me. Or, on the other hand, sleeping whenever I feel like it – regardless of what time of day it is. It may seem trivial, but I believe I’m not the only one who has become so disconnected from her body that she sleeps and eats according to the numbers on a clock face rather than her inner clock.

In the dark, I welcomed sounds from outside

Because I have worn glasses for short-sightedness since childhood, I think I rely on sight a little less than most people. I believe this is one of the reasons I felt good in the dark. I “looked around” the space with my hands and surprisingly quickly began to find my way around it safely. Thanks to this I also realised that using my eyes mainly makes my life much faster – in the dark it was possible to do a surprisingly wide range of things, it was just a bit slower. Besides touch, I made a lot of use of my heightened hearing. (And I admit I’m glad that at least some sounds from outside reached me, because absolute silence would certainly have been far harder for me than absolute darkness.) Thanks to this I could at least tell whether it was day or night. And whenever I heard a dog barking or a horse neighing, I suddenly felt joy that there were other living beings around me too – that even though I couldn’t see them, they were present and letting me know about themselves on another level.

A week-long dark retreat ending in the morning

When I left the cabin after a week, I felt as if I was flooded with white light, even though I opened the door in deep darkness at four in the morning. And when, after a week, I felt wet grass under my feet again and a light breeze on my face, it was like a caress. Then came an unexpected bonus: when I put my glasses on, I immediately had to take them off again, because they were suddenly too strong for me. My eyesight didn’t fully recover, but it improved enough that an optometrist’s test confirmed it, and – for the first time in my life – I was buying new glasses because my prescription had gone down instead of up.

Hi Lenka and Tomáš,

I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to do a dark retreat. A few months after the death of my long-time partner, the idea came to me to take exactly this path towards knowing myself better, and also to see whether I could stand up to this test.

Before the dark retreat you encouraged me

Even before the start of the dark retreat, I was sorting out various matters together with you, and you always explained everything to me willingly. On top of that, you equipped the cabin a little beyond the standard for my benefit, so I had a garden table and chair, as for health reasons I couldn’t sit on the floor or bend down in other ways.

More food therapy than darkness therapy

Thank you for the tasty, high-quality food and for the daily chats. Through the dark retreat I broadened my view of my whole way of life so far, sorted out my thoughts and, above all, my feelings. I realised how important humility and modesty are, and that nothing here is just a given or to be taken for granted. It was a powerful personal experience,

one that can’t be put into words.

With best regards, and perhaps see you in the dark again next time

Bohuslav

What was the darkness like?
I went in on my name day. I came out of the darkness on the third. Three is also the day I was born… Just the way it all lined up and how this date came my way was almost magical and it drew me in. On top of that, during my dark retreat I experienced a truly magical full moon, and that was quite something 🙂
I had been thinking about a dark retreat for the past year. Every time I signed up, the date was already taken. It only worked out with the one that was meant to be .-)

I had no expectations of the dark retreat

I had no expectations, no ideas… I went into the darkness with a kind of surrender. Only my closest family and a few friends knew. The only one who tried to talk me out of it a little was my 11-year-old daughter. But she didn’t put me off, and today I can see how deep a meaning it had for our relationship too, and for relationships in the family in general and with all my children.

The darkness was merciful and kind to me. I can’t write anything more than that I danced  with God…. Anything else I wrote about it would actually be a lie… It can’t be put into words …And it only has value for me….

A dark retreat is for everyone who is meant to be there

The darkness calls everyone who is meant to be there. And whatever the experience is like, it has its meaning for each person.
My stay with you broadened my perception further .. my views on life .. the essence of being .. and opened up even more deep family patterns that reach back to ancient times…
I am grateful for every minute of my life, whatever it is like, and it was just the same in the darkness.
Thank you, and thank you to Simona, who looked after me, brought me food, and with whom I had lovely chats.
It really is a beautiful place, there with you…

Thank you for the opportunity, and maybe see you in the dark some time 🙂
Hugs with love
Andrea

Hi Lenka and Tomáš,

first of all I’d like to thank you for the chance to do a dark retreat. For the excellent food and the chats 😉 when I needed them. The darkness gave me the chance to see what is important to me. For example, it didn’t bother me at all that the cabin isn’t completely soundproof, because I finally realised how strongly I’m connected to nature. Even today, when I close my eyes outside and listen to the birds singing, I’m back in the cabin.

The darkness helped me understand

It helped me understand that I’m not a programmed robot in a permanently positive mood, and that this is simply part of life. It’s fighting against it that’s the problem. In the dark my back started to hurt, a little at first, then a lot towards the end. And that was even though I was exercising. After I got home, all it took was that proverbial last straw in the form of one wrong movement, and I ended up with a slipped disc. It wasn’t a coincidence. I realised how for years I’d ignored the signals my body was sending. I’ve had problems with my back for a long time, and it was practically begging me to slow down a bit, both physically and mentally. Now I have a road to recovery ahead of me, and I believe I’ll manage it.

A dark retreat is no coincidence

Now, more than ever, I simply believe that nothing is a coincidence, that everything has its timing, and that if I’m even a little bit receptive, life will always show me what to do and when. All I have to do is ask and wait.

The darkness reminded me what patience, humility, gratitude and trust are.

With love
Markéta

I read that “the darkness calls you” when it’s time for you to do a dark retreat. The darkness called me, and last autumn it slipped me Lenka and Tomáš’s website.

That settled it!

At the beginning of February I came to them for a dark retreat, expecting miracles!

I can’t meditate, I wouldn’t know a chakra if I saw one, I don’t do yoga. Even so, in complete darkness, I had a week of calm, ease and silence. For a whole week I was just with myself!

I even found a few little miracles: I didn’t scald myself making tea, I tried vegetarian food, I exercised every day 🙂

And then there are my personal “miracles”, but those only dawned on me after I got home.

I’ve managed to slow down overall.

Now I know I don’t have to be working all the time. Every now and then I manage to sit down for a while, “switch off” my thoughts and just be. Breathe consciously and listen to the silence, like during my week in the dark. And above all, not beat myself up about it being wasted time!

Is that a lot or a little? It doesn’t really matter, and no one can ever take my extraordinary experience in the dark away from me.

Karin