Category: Participants’ experiences

Good day,

it has been 2 weeks since I immersed myself in a 7-day dark retreat where there was only ME and nothing and nobody else. The idea came to me in the summer and I’m glad I didn’t ignore it and took it seriously. I opened this website and after reading it I knew that going to Lenka and Tomáš was the obvious choice. I trusted that they do it from the heart, and even though I had never seen them and didn’t know them, I put myself in their hands…

A sunset before the dark retreat

Before going into the cabin I went to watch the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Then Tomáš took me through the instructions in the cabin and at half past nine I switched off the light and went to sleep. When the light went off I saw stars all around me and for the whole week I felt as if I were in outer space. I was quite well prepared mentally thanks to what I had read beforehand (Jaroslav Dušek, Dr Monika Sičová – working with the third eye), and thanks to that I was able to go really deep into myself. It is an indescribable discovery of yourself. You can’t retell it, because the personal experience is unique. I want to thank Lenka in particular for our little chat every day and for her support… Your mind tries to get you out, at moments you have the feeling that the darkness has already given you what you wanted, but it is really worth holding on and keeping your willpower right to the end...

What I recommend taking with you on a dark retreat

Saloos sprays – mint, lemon, a Powerball, some kind of chimes (just before I went in I bought KOSHI chimes and they were the best thing I took with me…) and then it depends on what you like.

I came into the darkness humbly, not really expecting that I would manage it, but I did, and I left the darkness inwardly enriched and understood in a completely unique way. If you don’t experience it, you won’t understand…

Thank you for what you do, it makes sense!

Sandra

How long? Why? Are you mad? What did you do in there?… and many other questions from the people around me are most likely waiting for me when I get home. For that reason I decided, on my journey back, to write this short retrospective reflection, to save myself energy, to make answering what will probably be the most frequently asked questions more efficient, and to sort out my thoughts and feelings. Also, since I’m a forgetful person, I wrote these lines as a practical archive of my experiences.

When did I first hear about dark retreats?

I first heard about dark retreats in my final year at university. Back then an external qigong teacher mentioned it to us, in a charismatic way, with wisdom and awareness in her eyes. She was 70 at the time, which hardly anyone would have guessed, physically but above all mentally. I remember that her talk really interested and fascinated me at the time, but the spark of the idea to try it myself passed me by back then.

Given my nature and my appetite to try everything in life that’s possible, I now ask myself why? Is it really true that some things in life come at the right time? Lately I’ve been coming round to the view that there is an abundance of information, impulses and inspiring stories around us. Impulses that could change us, influence us, move us forward in life in a radical way – there are plenty of them every single day of our lives. But we somehow don’t see them. We perceive them superficially. We absorb them and, somehow in the spirit of the consumer way of life, move smoothly on to the next and the next, without these prompts touching us any more deeply.

Many of us dismiss it out of hand

Surely it’s not possible to be in the dark for a week, two, seven. To go into icy water in winter and not fall ill. To take in no physical food. Personally I think that the human being of today’s type, Homo Sapiens Domesticus, living practically all the time in the blissful feeling of his comfort zone, has not and cannot have any idea of what his body is capable of, and so the reasoning and setting of limits that he so often likes to spread to those around him is not his to do at all.

There is a Chinese proverb that says: “Let the one who says it cannot be done not hinder the one who is doing it.” But unfortunately the common practice in our society is to pass on to each other fear, worry and the false assumption that something is impossible and wrong. On the one hand it is certainly good to sift information carefully in life; on the other, I have the feeling that the overwhelming majority of people, under the influence of subconsciously acting fear, live their lives dozing, unknowingly behind the bars of a prison of their own making, which symbolises their comfort zone, from which, in a seemingly blissful and contented experiencing of the present, they watch life literally flow past before their eyes.

In all that affluence we reassure one another. We create a collective “consciousness” of the things that are possible in life, and those that would probably require a pinch of effort and firm will on our part we gradually sweep off the table. We don’t realise that we are in fact suffering from that affluence, losing our natural abilities, and as humanity gradually growing weaker in every respect, which of course is grist to the mill of many of today’s societies worshipping the economic religion, whose aim is precisely to keep us in this feeling of affluence and dozing. But enough philosophical words.

I carried the information about dark retreats around in my head for about two years

From time to time I noticed an interview in the media with people sharing their experiences, which often differed greatly. Moreover, as they say, lived experience cannot be passed on, and there are 7.5 billion ways of perceiving in the world. The funny thing is that the fateful spark of the idea to have this experience myself came during one of my cold-water immersion sessions in January 2019. To be able to stay in icy water for a certain length of time, it is very beneficial and desirable to disconnect your head and mind from the current perception of subjective feelings of unease and discomfort and, if possible, rid yourself of all trains of thought in your head – in other words, a clear head and a calm mind.

Why hadn’t I tried it long ago? 

And so on a January evening you’re spending time in icy water. Listening to meditation music. Trying to think of nothing, and suddenly the thought and the moment come, the spark, at which you say to yourself: “Why haven’t I tried this long ago?”

Believe it or not, that very evening I came home and started searching for a place I could turn to, because I place great trust in these sparks and in intuition.

My ideal was a place where people run it above all with their heart, out of their own conviction, and not merely as an easy, low-cost line of business. The couple Tomáš and Lenka from Lomec near Kutná Hora impressed me with a very pleasant manner and way of communicating that I found close to my own. Besides warm and friendly communication, they also stood out from the competition with a low level of costs, which consisted of a 1,000 CZK booking fee. The rest of the amount was voluntary.

For comparison, in the negative sense, I’d mention for example Čeladná, where they charge 2,000 CZK per day. So my choice fell on Lomec near Kutná Hora. Each of these retreats ends with the morning sunrise, which symbolises the idea that something new is beginning again. In terms of the seasons, that is also what spring represents. So I chose springtime, from 27 April to 4 May.

But why did I want to try a dark retreat as such at all?

I must admit that my first thought was a personal challenge, whether I could manage it, because I’d heard plenty of assumptions by then about how crazy and almost impossible it is. But I was also interested in whether this experience would somehow shake me up inside, whether it would hold up a different mirror from the one I’m used to seeing myself in, or whether it would change or overturn some of my principles, which in a certain sense also form my iron shirt.

I’d start the whole story from the day before I arrived

It was a Friday, when I started with the morning shift at the rehabilitation clinic in Holešov. I finished at 3 pm and by 4 pm I was driving over to my practice in Zlín. There I carried on with my clients. I got home around nine in the evening, unloaded my things and took the car to the mechanic. You see, I wanted to treat my car to a week’s spa rest as well. I got back after ten, made myself a light dinner, played the guitar, put on Jan Kraus’s talk show. No rush at all, in short. Despite the fact that at half past one in the morning I was setting off towards Lysá hora, to keep to the schedule of activities I’d set myself.

So in the morning I set out for Lysá hora, to work up a bit more of a “hunger for rest” and also to borrow, on the way, from my friend Barča (to whom many thanks are due – ed.) a Tibetan singing bowl, which was on the modest list of things I wanted to take.

 

I got home from Lysá at half past eight in the morning. I had a bath. Packed my things, put on The Simpsons with breakfast (so I’d have something stored up in my head…). And at half past nine my friend Radka picked me up. She gave me a lift to Kutná Hora, where, to our shame, we both discovered, with astonishment on our faces, the cultural and historical centre with the Cathedral of St Barbara, which is apparently even on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

We had lunch and drove on to nearby Lomec, where we arrived at about 4 pm. Here Radka’s path and mine parted, and I went through the gate and across the long garden towards the house, where Tomáš was waiting to welcome me.

The gingerbread house

It has to be said that the house where Tomáš and his family live looks like a larger wooden gingerbread house, trimmed with white lines along the sides and around the windows. Tomáš and I shook hands, went straight onto first-name terms, and then he went to show me my cabin. He kept being amused that I’d arrived two hours early. At the same time, though, he added that I was welcome to spend the time in the garden. Meanwhile he’d see to repairing the lawnmower and then come and give me the practical information. But I, without much dawdling, waited for Tomáš to finish talking, threw my rucksack in the corner and collapsed onto the bed with the phlegmatic awareness that “he’ll come back and wake me anyway”.

After about 2 hours Tomáš really did come to my cabin. He was clutching his belly with laughter when he had to wake me up in bed already. So he explained the basic practical instructions to me, how he’d be bringing food, the cabin’s equipment, the emergency escape passwords (a joke). In short, everything that might come in handy!

And so my retreat began

 After Tomáš left I went into the little hallway, where the light switch was behind the boiler, switched it off without hesitation and went to sleep.

The cabin, then, consisted of one main room, the size of a smaller bedroom, equipped with a bed, air conditioning, a sleeping mat, a meditation cushion and classic tractor-driver’s ear defenders for when you need absolute silence. At first sight of the ear defenders I was slightly amused. On the other hand, I think the ear defenders are needed especially in cases where you’re on a retreat of 14 days or more. This year a lady had already been there for 7 weeks – 49 days, which is apparently the time needed for the rebirth of your spiritual essence. On such longer stays the cabin probably needs a proper airing from time to time, and now and then Tomáš has to mow the grass around the cabin and so on.

Those, then, are the situations where even the ear defenders can come in handy for absolute calm and the elimination of disturbing factors. The cabin also had a small hallway with a shower cubicle, toilet and washbasin. This is where Tomáš brought me food. Tomáš came with the food at random, whenever it suited him during the day, which throws your sense of time off a little. Every time he knocked loudly three times and waited for my knock, which signalled that I was ready – the door to the main room closed and ideally my eyes covered, since a small amount of light got in under the door from the hallway.

I enjoyed the food

On this occasion I must praise the quality of the food brought. I’d asked for vegetarian meals, which consisted of soup, a main course, dessert, fruit and often also a tub of classic sweetened muesli, which under normal circumstances I’d have refused with disdain, but under the prevailing conditions it was a very pleasant pastime and a treat for the taste buds, so I always accepted it gratefully.

With it I got a thermos of herbal tea, which was different every day. That had to last me until the next day. I must say that “feeding time”, combined with the pleasure of taste and the limited amount of food, was for me a euphoric climax of the day, which I always looked forward to very much.

Under conditions like these, when nothing distracts you from the food, you have a certain limited amount of it and you devote all your attention to the present moment and to the food itself, you treasure such moments and eat with a pronounced experience of taste.

Memories of the canteen

You’re probably now picturing the way we eat in our everyday lives. I remember my days of eating in the university canteen. Many students came in with headphones on, which they sometimes didn’t even take off while talking to others. Others often slumped in a kyphotic posture, staring at their phones laid on the table next to their plate. All the while shovelling mouthfuls in, nearly poking their own eye out with the fork in sheer unawareness…

Unfortunately I have the impression that among younger generations we can see these bad habits even more often. Unconscious experiencing of the present moment in practice. I don’t like the question of whether something is right or wrong, because each of us can come up with plenty of eloquent answers in our heads, so no clear answer emerges, and so I prefer to ask: is it natural?

When we answer this question honestly, we often also answer whether it’s good for our body or not. One wise man, a Tibetan master, when asked “Master, how do you manage to meditate practically all day long?”, replied: when I sleep, I sleep; when I eat, I eat. In other words, doesn’t meditation and conscious living rest precisely on this principle?

The first days I rested

The first two days were purely about rest and passed very quickly. Every time I was surprised that Tomáš was there with food again. After the first days of rest, which consisted mostly of sleep, the intervals between meals began to lengthen and the subjective flow of time slowed down a great deal.

In my view that is the moment when the period of passive resting and catching up on sleep ends. The moment when darkness combined with silence really starts to work on your mind. From my point of view, the main effect of a dark retreat and silence is calming the mind, getting rid of all the centrifugal impulses that pull our attention away from the centre, meaning our inner self. This is where our authentic self and consciousness reside, and at the same time our emotional memory.

Repressed memories – have you ever heard the term?

Repressed, fine, but from where? Perhaps that is exactly the reason why a dark retreat fills so many people with fear and apprehension. Whatever our emotional inner world is filled with, whether behind it all lie our failings, bad intentions we now regret, feelings of injustice, betrayal or anything else, I find it a very interesting thought that, paradoxically, the biggest bogeyman for ourselves is in fact we ourselves, in our inner world.

Whether we have financial independence and indulge every desire with a mostly short-lived feeling of satisfaction, or we’re dealing with existential problems. These are always centrifugal situations. Neurophysiologists claim that the capacity of our emotional brain is infinite. That’s why a good regression psychologist is able to take you back to any stage of your life. To bring back exactly the feelings you had at the time and to “unblock”, as it’s called, the emotions that arose there.

If we drag a lot of such suppressed memories and the emotions linked to them through life, that in my view is the reason why many people are afraid of this retreat and subconsciously afraid of themselves, which can also result in a lack of self-love – and if we don’t have it in ourselves, we can hardly show it to other people. You’ve surely heard of all kinds of experiences such as hallucinations, vivid dreams and the like that people often have during a retreat like this.

White light

I must say that from roughly the third day I occasionally began to have visual perceptions that looked like a pulsing white light with a certain frequency, coming sometimes from the right, sometimes from the left. Personally I’d liken it to a glittering water surface with the sun’s rays falling on it. What was interesting, though, was that the perception of this light didn’t respond to closing or opening my eyes, but it could very easily be breathed away consciously.

One conscious, smooth, full breath in – ideally using the breathing-wave technique from the belly gradually up into the chest – was enough and the light was gone. I had no other esoteric experiences during the whole week.

For example, my neighbour from the next cabin, an older gentleman, described before we left a great many vivid dreams. On the last night his daughter apparently came to him too; he repeatedly covered his eyes with his hands, but she was still there.

In my opinion, vivid dreams and various hallucinations are a manifestation of your emotional inner world, which is trying in this way to tell you something, to communicate with you. I think such experiences can sometimes be very intense. They can also have a significant practical impact on your life even after the retreat is over.

It affects everyone differently

A dark retreat, then, can affect a person in a very individual way, depending on the above-mentioned state of your emotional inner world, your experiences so far, your sensitivity and your moral qualities. Please don’t form assumptions on the basis of my experiences or the experiences of others, because every person is an individual with a personal life story, and so everyone will probably experience this retreat differently.

In my case, cold showers helped a lot towards a feeling of good mood and wellbeing, and I can only recommend them. So my daily programme consisted of cold showers, one meal a day spread out, a bit of yoga, playing the guitar and the singing bowl.

Besides that I had plenty of time left for simply lying and staring at the ceiling, conscious breathing and also my memories. For example, I reminisced very nicely and in detail about my secondary school years, which until then I’d somehow “not had time” for.

Another common assumption is losing your sense of time and space. Personally I didn’t examine the cabin in any detail beforehand and I had no problems finding my way around. Admittedly, I moved along stereotyped routes, and it’s a good idea to put things in the same place. On the other hand, it was often fun hunting for a sock or a guitar plectrum.

With my sense of time I did have a problem to some extent

Because of the circadian rhythm, at certain times I had a greater need to sleep or to be awake. I was also able to estimate by feel whether it had been roughly 24 hours since the last meal. Of course it wasn’t like clockwork, but an hour, two or three doesn’t matter under those conditions.

An advantage for time orientation, as I discovered during the retreat, was the spring season. When I became absolutely still, it was possible to hear birdsong during the day and the croaking of little frogs at night. Towards the end of the retreat my food was also brought by Tomáš’s wife Lenka, whom I hadn’t met until then. She asked whether she could come in, introduced herself and began explaining the instructions for ending the retreat

How did the end of the retreat go?

It was very amusing to become aware of the encounter taking place between two people who have just met, are talking to each other, but have absolutely no visual image of each other. So the end of the retreat went like this: Lenka brought me a pre-set digital alarm clock that gave off no light at all and put it in the hallway.

The alarm was set for 4 o’clock in the morning, and my task was to get up at that time, slowly open the cabin door and sit down in the doorway. The purpose was the gradual adaptation of the eyes during the morning dawn. I must admit that I modified these instructions a little too.

It was quite cold outside, you see. I’d slept relatively little that night and suspected I might get a bit more sleep towards morning. But I had no source of light and I needed to reset the alarm to 8 in the morning. So, shivering and sipping tea from the thermos, I had to wait for at least the faintest dawn, set the alarm and went back to lie down.

In the end I slept beautifully until 8. In the morning I got up cheerfully, opened the cabin door slightly and, now in faint light, went to have my last cold shower. Then I gradually started packing my personal things, tidied the cabin… Cheerfully played the guitar. At that time my great favourite was a song by Tomáš Klus – Napojen (Connected), whose words felt very timely and meaningful to me.

Farewell

Then I said goodbye to the cabin and the very positive local climate of Tomáš’s garden full of fruit trees, bushes, the vegetable patch and hens running about. After that I asked Tomáš for a lift to the nearby railway station in Kutná Hora. From there I continued to Olomouc, where the opposite programme was waiting for me, a night-time one, so that, so to speak, everything would be in balance again. But more about that perhaps another time.

CARPE DIEM

Thank you, Lenka and Tomáš ,

the darkness was of great benefit to me, it brought hidden aspects into the light.
Though more than darkness, a hermitage was what I sought, the darkness freed me from every doubtful thought. It took me under the black wings of the night, showed me the hidden core of the things that had troubled me for more than a few months, the darkness uncovered it all in a single week.

It showed me my own light, hidden and tucked away so deep inside. The light that shines on people and helps them heal their lives. It showed me what power I have inside, and sketched out how to use it as my guide.

Thank you, and thank you to the southern sanctuary, for that one single week of darkness. For your care and your support ,which carried me towards other horizons.

The experiences I had there, though, I will keep to myself, they are personal and as such I will keep them safe inside me for now.

Thank you once again for the journey through darkness, which was more than a one-week holiday .

With love and respect I wish you many beautiful days

Daniela

 

And for Lenka I’m sending a recipe for quick soft gingerbread biscuits, I hope you’ll enjoy them ,as much as we do 🙂 . We bake them at Christmas and Easter

GINGERBREAD BISCUITS that are soft straight away

400 g plain flour
140 g icing sugar
50 g butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of good runny honey ( can be more )
1 tablespoon cocoa
2 tablespoons rum
1 teaspoon gingerbread spice ,or your own blend
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl ,add the other ingredients and work into a dough ,which is soft and pliable like stretchy Plasticine

wrap in cling film and put in the fridge overnight.The next day let it soften at room temperature ,roll it out ,cut out shapes and bake at 160°C for 8-10 minutes,while still warm brush with egg yolk mixed with a little water .Decorate once cooled .

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)

Inside, everything is relative. Time doesn’t flow there and there is no one there except you yourself. I think it doesn’t, in inverted commas, matter much how long a retreat you do, as long as you get past at least the first three or four days. Since there is no time inside, the darkness keeps you there, in terms of how it feels, for as long as it sees fit.

For me, one day in the dark felt like about 3–4 days. So I had the feeling I’d been shut in there for at least two weeks.

The process of darkness therapy doesn’t begin when you switch off the light in the cabin.
It begins the moment you work up the resolve to book 2–3 months in advance and send the money to the account. Because those are the first questions and crises when you enter the dark. “Why am I here? I’m wasting time here, and money too.”

The process begins already at the point where you find a week to enter the dark.
Because that’s exactly what put off many of the people I told about it.

The hardest thing was switching off the light

Even now I can feel in my bones that heavy feeling when I decided to switch off. I only managed to sleep properly on the first night. After that it was a big struggle.

The first three days really are about something different from the days after. I got used to everything there fairly quickly.

In the first three days

In the first three days I had the feeling I’d already resolved everything I had to resolve in that darkness and that I could actually go home now. I went through my whole life, all the people, all the experiences. I forgave many people, thanked some, and also tried to forgive myself.

But I’d come to the therapy with my girlfriend, who was in the cabin next door, so I told myself I’d stick it out to the end of the retreat at least for her sake.
Everything was telling me to get out of there, but that’s exactly what your mind wants. It wants to help you out of an unpleasant situation, and in the short term that’s good, but in the long term that premature escape would probably only have trapped you in a loop.

The fourth day was about cleansing

I was going to the toilet about every 15 minutes for several hours (my estimate of time is based purely on feeling). I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I was drenched in sweat. I couldn’t sleep, had no appetite and couldn’t even lie down any more,
because the bed had come to feel terribly uncomfortable and hard, and my back was suffering.
I tried to exercise a little, lie on the floor, sit, shout, roll about, do nothing at all, and still it kept getting harder.

Every moment new realisations came to me that showed me how naive I’d been to think I’d received everything I was meant to in the first three days.
I also felt that something opened in me that could be called the third eye, and I received great insight, but I’d rather keep that to myself for now.

All those days I tried not to let myself believe there was anyone or anything else in that cabin besides me. All sorts of things cross your mind in there and you can get wound up about anything. I knew that if I allowed it even partly, I’d probably go mad with fear. So no, there was nothing and no one else in there besides me. It was just me against myself.

Nobody from that week lasted to the end

Before the last night, the minutes and seconds went more slowly than ever before. That absence of any sense of time and that endlessness of time in the dark is something I can’t even describe. With the last meal that was brought, I learned that in the morning, when I came out of the cabin, I’d be there alone.

Nobody from that week lasted to the end. I don’t know whether there was some other, more demanding energy around in those days, or whatever to call it, but it was a shock to learn that in the morning I’d be there alone, and that even my girlfriend hadn’t lasted and had gone home a few days earlier. In that moment I fully understood that I wasn’t there for her, nor for anyone else, but only for myself.

I’m in the dark only for myself

It was the moment when everything started to sink in. After all, you have your last few hours left, and everything starts to become even more intense. If I’d been fairly wrecked mentally and physically from lack of sleep up to then, in fact I hadn’t been at all yet. The last evening was something that put my hand on the handle of the outer door a few times.

But for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the light. I always went back to bed. The whole realisation of that retreat came precisely then

I’m here to accept myself

I’m here to accept myself exactly as I am. With all my flaws and the things I don’t like about myself, because only then can I truly be me.

I even have tears in my eyes as I write about it. Lenka and Tomáš were wonderful advisers and helpers in that darkness when they gave me a few minutes of their time for a conversation.

A few more difficult moments came

When at dawn I flung open the cabin door and naively thought things could only get better now, because I’d got through it all, a few more difficult moments came.
Outside it was about -15 degrees, dawn was breaking and, worst of all, snow, which I otherwise love, was absolutely everywhere that morning.

Which is the very worst thing for your eyes, because it’s a terrible amount of light reflecting off the snow at you.

And so for three endless hours I stuck out of the cabin, half of my body outside and half inside.
I was indescribably cold, but I had to be there so that my eyes could get used to the light before the sun came fully up.

Until your eyes adjust

On the internet people wrote something about half an hour until your eyes adjust; for me it took three hours, during which I felt like vomiting and my whole head was spinning, so all I could manage was to lie there, drink some water now and then, cope with the cold and bring my dark retreat to an end.

Then, after all that, getting into the car and driving to Prague in weather where there’s snow everywhere and you have to drive with particular care and caution was the final little treat of the whole week.

It’s all finally behind me

As soon as I pulled onto the motorway to Prague, something indescribable suddenly came over me, when I suddenly started laughing and shouting so much that I still get goosebumps from it now.
I knew that only at this moment was it all finally behind me. My whole body was charged with euphoria and my soul wanted to fly out with happiness.

I thought that, having hardly slept at all for the last 3 nights and days, I’d just get home and collapse with exhaustion. But that surge of energy that came over me in the car charged me up for the whole day, and I managed to function all day and enjoy every moment.

Many things and realisations are still coming even now

I feel I’ve strengthened, as the saying goes, my spirit. There’s a lot of it, and the dark retreat was the most demanding thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. When I remember the whole thing, I’m happy. Indescribably.

Truly,

Rainer

My week in the dark

It was crystal clear to me that I would never have signed up for something like this on my own. I make no secret of the fact that I was pushed into it by someone else, someone who knew what I had no idea about, or didn’t want to admit to myself. That person is very precious to me and arguing with them was out of the question.

There was no point putting it off until tomorrow

So if I’d been given the task of doing a week in the dark, I knew I had to do something about it. There was no point putting it off until tomorrow, the day after, next week or next month. So I googled A week in the dark. Classic. The computer spat out a page of links. I clicked on the very first one. Up popped: lecba-tmou.cz. I looked through it as a possible option. Of course, I went on searching. A second option, a third… Hmm, the second one was far too sophisticated for me. They also offered complete darkness in a room with its own bathroom, but… You needed a medical check-up to confirm the candidate was healthy. On top of that they offered round-the-clock medical care in case it was needed. Naturally, the price was in a completely different league. Too high for my taste. The third one, in Slovakia, didn’t excite me.

Could it be my Czech roots?

One thing was clear to me: if I was going to experience something like this, I wanted it to be completely natural and spontaneous, with no medical supervision. Where else should I experience something so delicate than in the heart of unspoilt nature? So I went right back to the beginning and looked for more detailed information. The place? Lomec. Hmm, where might that be? I look… Čáslav. Well, it’s not the end of the world, some 300 kilometres. The offer: “Three sanctuaries: eastern, southern, western. We don’t have a northern one yet, we’re building it.” They are separate little cabins, 22 m2 in size. With heating and cooling. A shower and a flush toilet. “Meals once a day, we bring them ourselves.” And the decision was made. 

I even found a free week, from 2 to 9 September. And something led me to choose the Western Sanctuary. I filled in the form and sent it. A reply came straight back with a provisional booking.

Life went on

Life went on at its own pace, and events followed their own script. Then came a period when my resolve to go into the dark really started to waver and crack. It’s always the same: when we really need to SORT OUT something FUNDAMENTAL and MEANINGFUL in our lives, there are ALWAYS lots of complications that “stop” us from going after our goal. Of course, I was no exception. My inner “washing machine” was spinning at full speed. Yes – no, yes – no!

I started looking forward to my dark retreat.

At last Saturday 2 September dawned, and after breakfast I set off. Once YES had won, I didn’t dwell on anything any more and simply enjoyed the journey. Literally everything. What was happening around me began to take on a kind of new dimension. Colours were more colourful, scents more fragrant, people kinder. 

The journey flew by

Suddenly I was there, and through all my worries I heard Tomáš’s voice: “Don’t worry! You’ll manage! It’s nothing. You just switch off the light when you’re ready. It’s not a prison. You can go outside any time, you can switch the light on any time. It’s entirely up to you.” In the end I switched off the light.

Darkness fell

I was cold and at first nothing happened. Time dragged, and memories started running through my head of their own accord. All kinds of them, from different stages of my life, seemingly unconnected. Sometimes I had to laugh, other times I felt my inner pain again. Pain in my heart. It has actually been with me my whole life… Since early childhood.

Then came dreams and a dark rumbling

The cabin was vibrating, and, jolted out of a dream, I felt once again under attack from dark forces. Terror. I listen, I weigh it up. What do I do? It got even louder. I held my breath. And then… Of course! It’s some kind of tractor with a cultivator! It’s Monday, after all, and early morning. There are fields all around. And people need to work the soil! I smiled with relief. No invasion of negative energies was taking place!

Nothing extraordinary or supernatural happened

I’d read more than enough beforehand, so it was hard to detach myself from it all. In that state of mind I welcomed Tomáš’s visit and our conversation. It was truly inspiring and moved me a good step further. I realised that I carry the problem in my heart all the time, and it’s up to me alone how I deal with it. That I had to approach it a little differently.

Then everything got moving

I’m lying on my back and in front of me I see an image. Beautiful. Colourful, bright. Every detail sharply drawn. I drink in the sight. Then the realisation comes. It’s only a dream. I’m actually asleep and I’m just dreaming it. Hmm, so I open my eyes, and… The image hasn’t gone. I stare at it in amazement. Eyes wide open, the image unchanged. It’s there! GOD! You’re a magician! I’m not asleep and I can see your creation. It’s completely real! Thank you, GOD!!!

 

Tomorrow Saturday will dawn

The days filled up one after another, and I realised it was Friday. Tomorrow Saturday would dawn and I would go home. At last! At last? Do I actually want that? Not really. I smiled. I knew it was nonsense. Of course I wanted to go home!
So when Saturday morning dawned, I opened the front door – and… I took a deep breath and savoured it. The dawn, the fresh air and the unbelievable pleasure of the open space of unspoilt nature.

After that there was only: “Thank you once again for everything, Tomáš and Lenka!”, and the drive home. My mission was accomplished. I allowed myself to TRUST AND BELIEVE IN PEOPLE AND IN MYSELF!

Hi Tomáš and Lenka!

I’m very happy to send my feedback, and some encouragement to everyone who is thinking about a dark retreat.

A return to myself

For me the dark retreat was literally a return to myself. I finally got the chance to slow down my stream of thoughts and stay long enough with the ones that had been asking for my attention for so long. Not that this was what I came into the dark for – I thought I needed to think through what I want to do next in my life, how I want my life to look, but something completely different happened, and it was exactly the right thing.

Without the distractions of the outside world 

The dark retreat was a surprisingly ordinary, simple being with myself, just as I know myself so intimately, with all the questions, some of which I’ve been asking myself for a long time, and the answers I’ve long been giving myself. No demons leapt out at me from the dark corners of my mind. Well, no new ones I didn’t already know 🙂 . No questions I’d never asked myself, no answers I’d never heard. All the fundamental dilemmas and question marks I brought into the dark with me, I knew subconsciously, and I “knew” what I should or could do with them, but the distractions of the outside world always gave me the chance to push them aside for a while, until some other time, later, when it wouldn’t be so unpleasant or hurt so much, wouldn’t be so complicated, tiring and so on…

Time and peace

What changed compared with living “out there”? It was precisely the time and peace that the darkness allowed me to spend with all the topics I’d been putting off.  To become fully and deeply aware of them… To live through them and feel them enough that I could let them go, or go on living with them in peace.

The experience

Over time this ordinary experience is turning into a deep spiritual experience that keeps spreading further in depth and breadth, and what I learned and experienced there now plays a part in practically every area of my life.

Thank you for that, Tomáš and Lenka, you too. You really looked after me like one of your own, and it was amazing thanks to you too!

I recommend it to everyone who is thinking about a dark retreat – it is an act of respect and love towards yourself, and it will do for you exactly what you need, and only that. Don’t worry, it can’t be any other way, it’s just the darkness and you in there. 🙂

With love, Tereza

Hi there,

I’m writing a bit late about my experience of my week-long retreat in the dark. I went into it thinking I’d spend most of the time meditating – I used to do yoga, and we’d meditate there now and then. Since I’d enjoyed it, I planned to go all in on meditation in the dark. But no such luck – meditation just wouldn’t happen for me in there, not one bit. So I had to find something else to do, and in my case that was making up stories. I’d set up some theme and situation in my mind and  then let my imagination turn it into a story. I just watched as an independent observer to see what would develop, what my imagination would come up with and where the story would take me.

My imagination behaved like the seed of a desert rose

The seed waits for years in the drought until the rain comes, and then it can burst into beautiful bloom. In the same way, in normal life my imagination was chained up, but in the long darkness the shackles fell away and my imagination went into overdrive. I was surprised myself at everything my conscious (or subconscious) mind was capable of inventing. While watching my fantasies I was in a kind of trance or half-sleep, and time flew by. But when I didn’t occupy my mind with anything in the dark, I got bored and time dragged terribly.

Another thing worth mentioning was the dreams

Never in my life have I had such real dreams – ones I remembered after waking up and in which I could (sometimes) feel what the dream characters were feeling. On one occasion the dream was still playing out when I was already awake. I think that state is called lucid dreaming.

Meals

I quite liked your vegetarian food (apart from that pumpkin soup I had at the end), but I was craving meat so badly that on the way home I  had to stop at the first petrol station and get a meat baguette. I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in ages.

I also have one practical comment. When I came out of the cabin half-blind after a week, a twig from a tree or bush poked me in the eye right outside the door. The same thing happened again a few minutes later when I was walking round the garden in the early-morning half-light. I’d recommend trimming those branches so that taller people  like me) aren’t at risk of this.

Finally, I owe you an explanation

When the two of you took turns coming to the cabin with my food, you both struck me as really lovely people. I’d planned to wait for you both that Saturday after the retreat ended and have a proper chat… but after I came out of the cabin I was hit by such homesickness that after an hour of acclimatising I simply got in the car and drove off.

Pavel

How did I come to a dark retreat?

I first heard that dark retreats existed about a year before I decided to do one. From the very first moment I liked the idea. I looked up all sorts of information and eventually tried a several-hour yoga class in the dark, which the teacher had devised precisely on the basis of her own experience of a dark retreat. Over time my resolve to actually do a retreat took on clearer outlines, right up to the moment when I was sitting in the office with my head in my hands, telling myself that I really needed it. A few minutes later the secretary knocked on the door with the form for the employer’s holiday allowance. I took it as a sign and booked the retreat straight away.

It was worth the wait

Although I had to wait three and a half months for my date, it was definitely worth it. I watched with amusement the reactions of those around me when I announced my intention to spend a week entirely alone in the dark. Most people found the idea distasteful and immediately informed me that “they couldn’t do it”; many people also thought the money for the retreat was money thrown out of the window.

I received several offers of being “locked in a cellar” for half the price. Countless times I explained that nobody was locking me anywhere; I was doing it voluntarily and could leave or switch on the light at any time.

“And what are you going to do there?”

To some people the idea of time so sinfully wasted was so alien that they came up with ways of doing the retreat while “cheating” at the same time, for instance with audiobooks. I think the responses resonate nicely with how used Czech society is to looking after its mental health, and how many of us are able to truly be alone with ourselves.

I chose to walk instead

Despite the option of sharing a car with another participant, I decided to come to Bykáň by train and walk the remaining 6 km. On the train I got lost in thought and missed my stop, which lengthened my journey by another two kilometres. The decision to walk, and to spend an hour and a half in daylight alone with myself among the fields and on lonely paths, was an excellent one. It gave me time to quieten my inner self and gradually detach from the bustle of civilisation. On the way back, the walk in turn helped me ease slowly back in.

I entered the cabin mentally prepared and with the necessary humility

After a shower, unpacking and eating something for dinner, I switched off the light just as I do every evening before bed. That took away the stress of starting the retreat. In the morning I simply didn’t switch it on again. Even though the darkness in the cabin was absolute, most of the time I had the feeling it was a dim light tinged with green. Then I would turn my head and be surprised at how dark it was. Likewise, moving around the cabin was easier than expected, and I had no trouble orientating myself by feel and avoiding bumping into the furnishings. Many times I reached out for a spoon or a bottle and found it at the very first attempt.

Keeping a routine

As the days went by I developed daily habits that I kept to without much effort, and which helped me not to lose my sense of time entirely (something I hadn’t felt up to during my first trial stay) and to maintain at least the semblance of a reassuring routine. From outside I could hear birdsong in the morning and frogs croaking from the pond in the evening, which, together with the food being brought between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., were the main markers of the day.

During the retreat, a rhyme from a poem in Stephen King’s book Insomnia became a kind of anti-mantra for me: Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else.

The anti-mantra reliably managed to bring my wandering thoughts back to the present, to whatever I was doing on autopilot, whether it was eating breakfast or doing an exercise. I resolved to honour the anti-mantra after my return too.

I expected that I would sleep through almost all of the first few days in particular, because of my long-term sleep deficit. Yet the time I spent asleep wasn’t that extensive, and with each day it diminished. For the last three days I hardly slept during the day at all.

It was hard to cut myself off from the world

Especially during the first four days it was very hard to stay out of the world and not look at how it was reacting to my absence. I talked myself out of switching on my phone for a quick check only with the relentless logic that in none of the possible scenarios that would follow switching it on and (not) loading messages would this act bring me anything useful at that moment. Just as hard as not switching on the phone was not opening the door to take a walk around the garden at night and come back again.

I listened to what was going on outside the sanctuary

Part of each day I sat by the outer door, where the connection with the world was strongest, and listened to the sounds of life flowing by. How grateful I was for the sound of a lawnmower or the occasional shouting of children! I usually ate by the door, leaning against the frame, sitting on the meditation cushion and singing to myself. Interestingly, different songs came to mind from the ones I usually sing. Some I hadn’t remembered for years.

For the last two days I entertained myself with a song by the contemporary singer-songwriter Pokáč, Sám doma (Home Alone).

Without light, I thought differently

Apart from the fact that my thoughts were deeper and sharper, the whole process worked differently. As if I were half asleep. The whole time I was aware of the situation I was in (lying in the dark on the bed), but at the same time I had a far better connection to my imagination. The absence of distractions that would divert my attention and allow me to procrastinate certainly helped too.

On the fourth day another shift in my way of thinking occurred. I began to look at the same thing from a different angle; the experiences connected with it loosened up more and became easier to work with. I suddenly had access to places I had never reached before.

On the seventh day there was another deepening to a more inward level. That was partly why I was a little sorry that my dark retreat was coming to an end and I didn’t have time to explore the new dimension. In this respect I agree with other participants – a retreat shorter than a week makes little sense.

Some practitioners describe various hallucinatory experiences they had there. I didn’t think I had had any such thing until the moment when, asked about hallucinations, I replied that there hadn’t been any. It was just that occasionally it seemed to me that my bed was inside an ancient temple with carved rosettes on the walls, or that I was looking at a stone wall with a large crack in it.

It was always an image lit by a green light whose source was behind my back. From the reactions I realised that even such a perception is probably not entirely common and could be considered a hallucination. Apart from visual hallucinations I experienced a considerable number of incredibly vivid images or visions. Likewise, my dreams were very tangible.

I thought I knew what I wanted to work through in the dark

I went into the dark with a fairly clear idea of what I wanted to resolve within myself and what I would focus on. It was a naive idea. With some of the matters I had been pondering over the previous weeks, I found that I had long since closed them.

Conversely, I discovered that some things trouble me more than I am willing to admit in the light of day. The darkness allowed me to be completely honest with myself.

The biggest worry I brought into the dark with me was what effect digging around in painful places would have on my mental state. Would I sink into deep depression? Were big mood swings waiting for me? Would I experience fear? The vast majority of the time I was in an excellent mood and enjoyed both the darkness and the solitude. Despite occasional moments with heavy topics, I managed to keep a positive outlook and more than once laughed at myself.

Food in abundance

As others describe, I too perceived the taste of food differently, and the wonderful herbal teas in particular tasted unbelievably good. I had the chance to experience the dried fruit both in the dark and in the morning in the light. What had tasted interesting and unusual didn’t taste good at all in the morning once I’d discovered what fruit it actually was. I didn’t like the pasta in the slightest. Likewise, tempeh was inedible for me. But the vegetable manna I savoured with delight down to the last morsel. Throughout the retreat I had the feeling that I had food in abundance and was eating my fill. Only on looking back did I realise that I hadn’t actually eaten all that much. Then again, my energy expenditure was minimal.

In the dark you need terribly little

All my clothes, a few supplies of my own nuts and fruit and a fairly large cuddly ferret fitted comfortably into my rucksack. Of the recommendation to bring “a good mood, a good mood, a good mood and slippers”, I unfortunately ignored point four and bitterly regretted my laziness. But I had packed warm socks, so the situation wasn’t lost. The two most important things I had with me were the aforementioned therapeutic cuddly ferret, which I could snuggle up to the whole time, and a glass water bottle. Throughout the day I would fill the bottle with hot tea from the thermos, so I didn’t slop it anywhere and could sip it even in bed as I pleased.

This wasn’t how I’d imagined the end of the retreat…

When the day of departure came, I couldn’t sleep any longer and was afraid I would miss the sunrise, which I had been looking forward to enormously. Eventually the alarm did start ringing and, following the instructions, I got ready to open the door to the outside. But alas, however I pulled on the handle, I couldn’t get it open. I remembered that when I arrived Lenka had said something about my being able to lock myself in the cabin. So I assumed there must be a key of some kind. Which wasn’t in the lock, however, and as far as I could recall, hadn’t been there when I arrived either. So I began frantically searching for the key along the corridor. In vain. In the end I gave up and decided to switch on the light in the next room. This was not how I had imagined my wonderful ending to the retreat.

I sat on the floor by the washbasin in the half-light, everything spinning around me, waiting to get used to the light. After a few dozen minutes I set off to look for the key again. In vain. The image of myself waiting another three hours for someone to come and unlock me made me laugh until tears ran down my face. In the end I tried the handle for the umpteenth time and the door opened. I had most likely been pulling in the wrong direction all along. I had completely forgotten about the existence of the other, outer door. That was the one with the lock in question.

I set out to meet the world outside

I flung the door open and stood staring in amazement. The whole garden, indeed the whole world, smelled gorgeous! Right in front of the entrance, buds of green cherries were forming on a cherry tree and birds were hopping and chattering along the branches.

I sat down in the doorway and watched the scene before me, fascinated. There was a thick fog that morning, so I wouldn’t have got much of a sunrise anyway.

I had breakfast, packed the little I had with me and set off on my way. There was something magical about walking through the waking morning.

The return from the dark was instructive for me

It was instructive also in terms of assessing the nature of my relationships with those close to me. From the messages that started loading when I switched on my phone in particular, it was clearly visible how each person perceives me. I was then delighted by the ones saying that the person missed me and hoped I was enjoying it, or simply welcoming me back.

Because I had gone on the retreat in the middle of considerable upheavals in my life, all the matters that needed dealing with had accumulated during my absence and threatened to bury me on my return. The week away was merely a kind of mortgage with a very high interest rate. So I spent the energy, inner peace and ease I had gained very quickly.

I should have taken a breather afterwards

Today I know that after my return I should have taken another day or two of rest in the sun, away from everything and everyone, to process the experience. As it was, I had to force myself to switch back into normal mode, and to the question of how the retreat had been and what I had taken from it (and whether I had found the meaning of life) I couldn’t answer even myself, let alone anyone else.

For the first few days, life outside seemed unbelievably sped up to me, and I completely failed to keep up with processing the impressions. Over and over I asked myself why this is so, what we are all chasing so hard, often without seeing any sense in it?

Even so, I regard the experience of a week of darkness as a very beneficial experience, which has moved me on a little further. Even though I came nowhere near fulfilling the retreat’s potential.

 

I’d like to come back next year

This way of connecting with yourself is definitely not for everyone. If a person doesn’t feel the need, the desire, to withdraw into the dark, they most likely won’t last there. I enjoyed every second of it and would like to come back next year in winter, this time for eight or nine days, so that I have the chance to go deeper.

Many thanks to Tom and Lenka for the chance to experience the retreat with them. They looked after me perfectly and have my boundless gratitude for accommodating my dietary requirements. They kept an eye on me and always came with a good mood, so even the daily contact when the food was handed over wasn’t disruptive to the therapy.

I’ll gladly come back again

Radka

Hi Lenka and Tomáš,

for me the dark retreat was a spur-of-the-moment idea. I was searching the internet for meditation in Prague and found your website at a moment when all the sanctuaries were free on the only date I could come. Coincidence? Of course not. I don’t believe in coincidences any more. I’ve been through my own personal hell, and it took me a long, hard time to get out of it. Even so, I didn’t prepare for anything, didn’t get anything ready, but I didn’t expect anything either. I simply arrived on Saturday, looked everything over, put my glasses aside and switched off the light.

Determined to experience first-hand what it would do to me. Determined to spend a week with nobody but the most important person for me-myself.

The darkness is beautiful

Pure, warm and embracing. I didn’t feel restricted in any way, and thanks to the size of the sanctuary I had no trouble finding my way around. From the second day on I had beautiful, long, peaceful dreams in colour, and I still have them.

Everything ran in one cycle

My routine settled into the “rhythm of the radiator”. When it switched on, I sat with my back to the warmth and did breathing exercises. When the heating stopped giving out heat, I went on to exercise my whole body. Then came a short rest, and round and round again.

If that sounds strange to you, I have to say that I have never in my life exercised voluntarily. (The breathing exercises were prescribed to me two years ago 🙂 ) . The only change came after meals. You can’t exercise then, so I made myself comfortable on the bed and did nothing. Really NOTHING.

When the light went out, all my thoughts went out too.

I can’t remember ever having had the feeling of a completely empty head. It’s strange to describe. How am I supposed to express a real NOTHING?

My head was just one single closed cell filled with darkness. It was an amazing and powerful rest. Maybe I scared Tomáš when I told him on the last day that I felt like I was at a spa…

I brought a wish with me into the dark

I brought just one wish with me into the dark-to change my relationship with food. Thanks to the darkness I didn’t feel hungry, which was wonderful. But the food Lenka cooks is so fantastic that I simply ate everything. I’ll have to keep working on that one…

On the way out of the Darkness 

Meanwhile, outside, snow had fallen. It was freezing, and on my way out of the dark I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises ever. Besides the horizontal bands of dawn, there was also a pillar of light pointing straight up into a dark cloud.

My stay with you was actually quite simple and ordinary. Maybe it showed me that the bad times are behind me. Maybe that I have nothing to be afraid of. Maybe also that wherever I am, someone important is always with me-ME.

Vlastimila