Category: Participants’ experiences

Dear Lenka and Tomáš!

I’ve decided to write to you about my experiences from my Dark Retreat with you. I’m writing the very evening I got home. Partly while all the impressions are still fresh, and partly because a few of my friends and my family will want to know every detail, so I’ll forward them this letter and then just answer any questions they may have.

I’ve known about dark retreats for a long time

Let me start right at the beginning. I’ve known about darkness therapy for quite a while. I read whatever I could find about it online; my favourite, Jarda Dušek, had been through it too and was tremendously enthusiastic. It was written about in good terms, praised to the skies, but also with a touch of disdain. To be honest, I tried to imagine it. I tried to imagine what it was supposed to give me, but fear won out. A week is a long time. A whole week……day and night…. . in the Dark……just Me and Me……. the two of us and pitch-black darkness and silence! No news from outside, no television, radio, mobile, internet, people, no distractions……no interruptions. Well, I didn’t feel even the tiniest conviction that this was something for me, something I could manage. So I pushed it aside and let it ripen.

Then, after quite a long time, I came back to the idea of a Dark Retreat. Life is an incredibly entertaining and inventive game master. Sooner or later it nudges you exactly where you need to be in order to move forward, upward – to the next level, as people say nowadays.

I searched the internet and looked through many Dark Retreat offers. I had no idea there were so many! After a long search I chose you. For many reasons. Everything I needed to know was on your website, a description of everything, even what to wear, which is very important information for a woman – you want to look good even in the Dark…. . just joking. Above all, the Kutná Hora region appealed to me, the welcoming approach, the location on the map promised real peace and quiet, and I also read through the posts from people who had already done a dark retreat. Whether they were positive or not, I liked that you publish all of them without exception. I simply felt this was the right place.

Booking a dark retreat was supposed to be a doddle

So, off to book a date. That’ll be a doddle, surely not that many people sign up. Imagine my surprise when I found out that your first free date was six months away?! Oh well, nothing to be done, that’s probably how it’s meant to be. So I registered, paid and waited. I tried to prepare for this test somehow, in my own way. I won’t burden you with that. I can only say that you can’t really prepare for it unless you already have the experience, because you have absolutely no idea what awaits you, what’s coming and what the whole thing will look like.

And suddenly the day was here. I must say I arrived at yours on Saturday early evening with great respect – not fear, but respect. I couldn’t, not even slightly, imagine what I was getting into and what awaited me. I just wanted the door to close behind me and for it to start, and then Me and Me would bolt straight away and run home. Shame or no shame, the main thing was they wouldn’t get us! Not even a walk around Kutná Hora did anything to ease my great respect. I was the very first to arrive, at six in the evening on the dot. But I was in such a trance that afterwards I couldn’t remember at all what your house looked like, or the garden, or how we walked to the Cabin-sanctuary (I like that expression). I felt a tiny bit relieved when I got the instructions about what would happen and how, and that you were there every day if I needed to talk, to go over something, and that I could step out of the door at any time, leave……the light is only switched off, so if the worst came to the worst, I could switch it on. After all, I was there of my own free will and nobody was forcing me.

Luckily my Dark Retreat was free of Ghouls, free of Ghosts, free of bedbugs and free of coat hangers 😀 (it’s easy to joke about it now…. )

…and my hand on the switch……. Click………Darkness!

When you left and wished me good night, you said that once I was ready I should switch off the light and the adventure could begin. I explored the terrain thoroughly so I’d know where to find things, the distances. It reassured me that I had Ninja Turtles bedding – that would give me strength, nothing to be afraid of! Then a shower, brush my teeth, arrange my things so I’d find them in the Dark, one last check………and my hand on the switch……. Click………Darkness!

But this was truly pitch-black, impenetrable Darkness! Well, my girl, now show what you’re made of!

Nowhere, not through the tiniest crack, did even the smallest spark of light get in. Even my backside clenched with anxiety at the thought that I’d be here, Me with Myself, Silence and Darkness, for a whole week. I lay down on the bed, stared at where the ceiling should be and waited to see what would happen.

I must say that, to my pleasant surprise, the Darkness didn’t frighten me the way I had feared. I felt no fear. It was so black there was no room left for shadows and fears. At least that’s how I felt. And that lasted the whole time. Only the little cabin kept growing and changing shape on me. Someone kept moving the washbasin and the toilet, shifting the walls. So once or twice I’d find the shower with no trouble at all, and the third time there’d be a wall. The darkness was so black I couldn’t see my hand even when I held it right in front of my face.

I slept wonderfully

From Saturday until Tuesday afternoon, I think (judging only by Lenka bringing me food, but I really didn’t know what time it was), I slept non-stop. Constantly! I slept wonderfully!! But after that, dark or not, I couldn’t just drop off any more. And now it started to get really exciting. I mulled over all sorts of things, stared into the darkness, for long hours probably, and told myself it had been a crazy idea, that I couldn’t stand it…. . yeah, fine, three days, but I’m supposed to be here all of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and not until Saturday morning……

Surprisingly, I wasn’t afraid of the darkness, nor did I feel lonely……no hysteria. But suddenly things start surfacing that were hidden somewhere deep inside you, things you no longer even know about. They aren’t terrifying, just very unpleasant in their urgency and persistence. They sensed their chance…. . ”aha, look out, it’s clean-up time, today she has no way of chasing us into a corner, sweeping us under the carpet…. dear little Monika has absolutely no distraction whatsoever!”

And so I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned…. .

”come on girl, you’ve got this! Survive Wednesday and it’ll be plain sailing!”

I was immensely grateful that my retreat came with a meal once a day, and at varying times at that. At least for a moment my persistent thoughts and brooding were drowned out by loud rumbling in my stomach and by a knock on the cabin announcing the arrival of Lenka or Tomáš with some aaaaaaaamazing food, fruit and above all, truly, a warm human word! The cliché is fitting here, because I was immensely grateful for it! It’s one of the things that helped me hold on and not give up. And I certainly had thoughts of giving up! I’d tell myself…. . ”come on girl, you’ve got this! Survive Wednesday and it’ll be plain sailing!” It didn’t quite work out like that, but you don’t give up when you’ve come this far!!!

And so the cleaning went on and on……. . my longing for light, fresh air, sunshine, rustling leaves, wind on my cheeks was so great that on Thursday and Friday I now and then had the feeling the darkness wasn’t quite so pitch-black any more, that I had a head torch on – with a very weak battery, but still giving some light. I seemed to see the outlines of things, but whenever I wanted to look closer, someone switched it off on purpose. That happened a few times. Funny game!

That Saturday dawn made it all worth it!

If nothing else – and I say if…. . the whole Dark Retreat was worth it for that one single short and fleeting moment…. . namely the Saturday dawn.

Already on Friday evening, when Tomáš brought me the last supper (it was lunch, but supper for me), I was so enormously happy!!!! He also brought an alarm clock set for half past five in the morning. Shortly before dawn. But that day and night didn’t pass as quickly as I’d thought. On the contrary. And it let me off nothing. Just keep sorting things out in that head of yours, or wherever else…. .

In the end I fell asleep for a while, but out of impatience I got up before the alarm went off. I was looking forward to the world more than a newborn. I could have shouted for joy when the alarm rang, but that would have spoilt the whole magic.

Tomáš had said my head would spin when I opened the door and that I should sit down on the doorstep until it settled a bit. I must say it really did make me reel, like after three beers, right up until the afternoon.

A dark retreat has to be experienced

But that wonderful moment when, after a week spent in deep darkness, you open the cabin door and there the moon and stars are shining, the sky is clear, you see trees, bushes, nature bathed in moonlight……that was like a reward……something magnificent…. . and I just stood there and felt such enormous gratitude…. . words can’t even describe it. It has to be experienced!

And then the horizon began to brighten…. . A cock crowed…. . and the Sun came up!

I walked around the garden (thank you for that, Tomáš, Lenka), looked over the fence into the fields as the world was waking up, and it was not just seemingly but truly different for the first time. Tremendous calm and peace, everything so sharp and clear…. deer grazing within sight, a rutting stag in the distance, birds outdoing each other in song…. .

I wish I could pass it on to you

I wish I had an amazing ability like the Frog guy in Hellboy, where a mere touch of the palms would be enough to pass my inner images on to you without needlessly too many words spoiling the whole thing. Maybe one day……

I got home safely, even though the world was still swaying.

The whole world was sharper and brighter. And to ground myself a bit – I mean the swaying – I went for a walk in the park and the nearby valley. I still felt such incredible gratitude and peace!!!!!

Long story short, the Dark Retreat in Lomec well and truly rocked me to the core, and I thank Lenka and Tomáš from the bottom of my heart for all the Love and care with which they looked after us the whole time. Heartfelt thanks, and may you have nothing but happy days!!!

There’s more, but many of the experiences and insights simply can’t be transferred or passed on. Thank you for every single one. I hope that for a very, very long time, if not forever, I’ll keep that immense peace in my soul, in myself!

And deep gratitude for everything that comes into my life!

Monika

Hi Tomáš (I never met Lenka, so apologies),

perhaps the time has come for a recap – it seems the experiences and impressions of the dark retreat have settled now… So here’s how it went with me…

Into a dark retreat feet first

In lots of accounts I read how people took a long time to work up the nerve for a retreat and how far ahead they arranged it… With me it was different. True – I’d heard something about darkness therapy a long time ago, but it didn’t interest me in the slightest and I completely blanked the information out…

Then one day a client came to me for treatment and mentioned during the therapy that he’d done a dark retreat. His description of his experiences in the dark reminded me a lot of Jack London’s book “The Star Rover”, which I once loved. As he talked, I also recalled my own experiences with a partly spontaneous regression during one of my attempts to get rid of the stubborn headaches that have plagued me since childhood…

 And so curiosity came 🙂

 I sat down at the internet and typed in things like darkness therapy, dark retreat and so on…. One of the links I found led me to your website. I liked it, so I wrote to you. And straight away I got an offer to book a date in the newly built sanctuary. The first one I had to turn down (it clashed with my trip abroad), but the second one worked out right away – about 2 months after I’d got in touch. The impulse simply came at exactly the time when everything was already ready for me, so there was nothing to think about… 

I also got myself a book about darkness therapy, paid the booking fee and started preparing the family for “another of my odd whims” 

I had no goal for the dark retreat

I didn’t set myself a clear goal. I did tell myself it would be nice to sink a bit deeper into meditation (without the dog getting under my feet and phone calls from therapy-hungry clients or grannies and children), and I wouldn’t have said no to a little excursion into my past, coming to terms with childhood traumas, breaking down old blocks anchored in the subconscious and so on, but basically I was just curious what it would do to me and whether I’d be able to stick it out. I wasn’t especially afraid, though… If it doesn’t work, I’ll just leave a bit early, so what…

Then the problems started piling up – the dog fell ill, the car broke down, an unbelievably high bill came in for the water balance (faulty shared water meter in the building), grannies, the garden, the kids… Problem after problem… Until it almost looked as though I simply wouldn’t go. 

A downright negative account of a dark retreat turned up too – but the way it came across to me was that the author had treated the dark retreat as a kind of contest with himself. Somehow it didn’t sit right with me… so I just took it as one more piece of info…

I didn’t give in. I had the car repaired (so the kids would have a way to get the dog to the vet if need be), the money somehow came together in the end too, and I left. I told all my clients I’d be away, forgot to record a message on the answerphone, and even forgot to give the kids Tomáš’s phone number in case of emergency. I just set aside an emergency cash reserve for them (and it really did come in handy in the end) and vanished from the world.

The dark retreat was actually a witches’ sabbath

I arrived – a bit late, so I didn’t meet any of the other candidates for the retreat (there were 4 of us girls :), I made the acquaintance of the gorgeous resident horse-sized dogs (Tomáš, please scratch them behind the ears for me), Tomáš showed me into the cabin, which smelt brand new, showed me where everything was and explained how the food and drink would work… He also asked whether I’d be eating or whether I’d liven up the retreat with a fast. Fasting tempted me too, but since I’ve known myself for a good few years now, I explained to Tom that I would eat, because when I don’t eat, I get a headache for the first 3 days and “puke like a dog”, which doesn’t appeal much to me at the best of times, let alone in the dark…

I arranged everything so I’d know where things were, went over the layout again, tried feeling my way around with my eyes closed… well, and then I just switched off the light … and it was dark…

The first evening went without a hitch. I tucked into fruit (except the cherries – I didn’t dare in the dark, because when it comes to food I don’t like second-hand goods, and I prefer to eat my fruit without protein) and exercised diligently. Meditation didn’t go too well. All sorts of things were swirling round my head – mainly the neighbours, with whom we’ve had unbelievable problems for about 8 years…, but also the kids, the dog, my mum and her rules of life for me…  

Sometime on the second day Tomáš brought food – a portion fit for a miner. It was very good, so I worked my way through it gradually… 

And then came the “migraine”! Ugh. The worst part was hitting the bowl when being sick 🙂 . Well, but before long there was nothing left to bring up anyway… I said to myself – oh, for heaven’s sake. This is going to be one splendidly puked-through dark retreat. 

Luckily this time my poor head decided to hurt for only about half a day. Tom left the second meal there for me anyway, but even a mere sniff worked as an emetic, so nothing doing. 

Well, and since my little body had set itself up like that, why not go along with it – I added the fast to the dark retreat after all 🙂

Sometime on Monday I wondered how our dog was doing and was overcome with worry about his wellbeing… then I settled it for myself by deciding that our capable kids would surely manage somehow (I found out afterwards that I’d thought of him at exactly the time he managed to jab a fetched stick into his throat). After that I was just horribly bored. Tomáš told me that’s a good thing. So I thought my own thoughts about that and at least exercised intensively, and exercised and exercised, to keep myself occupied somehow. 

I was almost back to doing a standing backbend and similar nonsense like in my youth, when my little body decided I was using the exercise as an escape from what I was supposed to be doing (being bored :D). And it put a stop to it – I put my back out (well, my SI joint really, but the result was the same). 

And again I wondered whether I should give up. But then I realised that in that state I couldn’t have managed the drive to Prague anyway, so, for a change :), I devoted myself to thoroughly rehabilitative exercise and simply tried to survive…

Halfway through I had loads of vivid dreams

The end of day 5 was approaching and, apart from the migraine and the bad back, pretty much nothing was happening. I did have loads of strange vivid dreams, in which I saw lots of little African children in a typically African landscape, now and then someone from my family and friends or enemies flitted through, but otherwise nothing unusual. I couldn’t move much, lying down hurt too, so I dozed off here and there and waited for Tomáš to bring me a full thermos of tea. From the sounds reaching me through the wall I could more or less tell whether it was day or night, but otherwise nothing and nothing…

I found it comical that I caught myself walking around with my eyes constantly closed, even though it was dark…

Then one time I somehow fell asleep and suddenly I was woken by light. A sharp, intense light coming through the wall of the little house. So intense that it woke me and there was no hiding from it. The kind of light you see in films about UFO abductions :D. 

The first thing that came to mind was: “Which idiot is shining a floodlight in here at me like that?” Then I realised it was dead silent outside and even the dogs weren’t making a sound… So I told myself it must be Tomáš and tried to telepathically suggest to him that he could stop messing about, turn it off and leave me in peace… Then I realised that the wall is made of boards, not planks, and what’s more there’s supposedly an insulating layer too, so hardly anything could shine through it… 

Meanwhile the light drew itself nicely into the bottom corner and ever so slowly, slowly dimmed and disappeared. When it was dark again, I realised I hadn’t even tried to look at my hands. 

Then I said to myself – aha, no light, the retina’s playing up… no food, the brain’s bored, so it’s making up nonsense… 

And I also decided that if the light deigned to come back, I’d try to check whether I could see my hand, and enjoy it… Then (just to be sure) I crawled through every corner of the little cabin (as far as my back allowed) and went back to sleep. 

Sometime the next day the light really came back. This time, for a change, I was in the hallway brushing my teeth. So I made sure I couldn’t see my fingers and they cast no shadow, calmly brushed my teeth “by the light”, used the toilet and, content with my experiences, set about sleeping again… 🙂

After that nothing much out of the ordinary came.

I lasted to the end (as, for that matter, did all of us). After the light came on, my head was spinning a bit too, and it took about 2 hours before I dared get behind the wheel. I still wasn’t too sure of myself behind it until early afternoon…

My first conclusion was – I don’t need the dark ever again… Today I don’t see it so radically any more – maybe I’ll give it another go sometime in the future… And actually I’m sort of looking forward to it… 😉 

The results of darkness therapy? 

At first it seemed to me that nothing had actually changed. 

Then I realised that problems somehow don’t stick to me any more. Not that I don’t get annoyed or startled… No. But the emotion comes, goes, and I don’t pick at it… That’s something I was never able to do… It has gradually drifted a little closer back to “normal”, but the change is still there…

Apart from that, I forget unimportant things and somehow don’t fret about it…

I also understand my patients’ problems much better – I understand people who’ve gone blind or are immobile… But compassion for them doesn’t swallow me up. I accept reality and I understand – that’s all…

Well, and that’s about the whole conclusion of a fairly long, chatty post 🙂

Actually no – one more thing about that negative account I mentioned. 

The gentleman probably really was fighting too hard with  himself, and on top of that he ended his dark retreat after about 3 days. In my experience that’s the time when the negative experiences peak. The first 3-4 days are simply the worst. The pleasanter part comes later – so it’s better to stick it out and surrender. Simply not try so hard… 🙂

But I have  only 1 experience, and that’s as good as nothing. 

Take care, and perhaps I’ll meet you again some day

Bye – Helena

About two years ago I read an article on the internet that mentioned dark retreats. At the time I thought it must be an interesting process, one where you sort out a few things in yourself and get a bit of a clean-out, but then I dropped the idea completely.

Some time passed, and around me and within me several changes took place that were quite important to me. And suddenly, more and more often, mentions of dark retreats began to appear around me. The feeling that I should go through this process grew stronger by the day.

Until one day my decision ripened and I signed up.

I signed up for a dark retreat

I felt that, to get through the process, I had to be completely open to all the emotions that would come out of me in the dark. To be on the safe side, I opened myself mentally to the whole universe and hoped it would help me.

On arriving at the retreat I was briefly introduced to the very pleasant owners, Lenka and Tomáš. We talked for a short while. I learnt that everything I needed for the stay was available to me in the cabin and  that food is brought once a day between 1 and 3 pm. We agreed that they would not speak to me, and that if I needed anything, I would say so myself. We said goodbye and I crept into the little house.

I had a room of about 2 x 2 metres with a made-up bed, a sleeping mat and a meditation cushion for sitting, and a small hallway with a toilet, washbasin and shower. I could control the air conditioning myself.

I settled in (it was somewhere between 7 and 8 pm), had a shower, calmed myself, steeled myself and switched off the light.

After the lights went out …

The darkness embraced me, and a strange, comforting warmth immediately settled on my chest. I realised with joy that I felt no fear. I hoped it would last.

On the very first night I discovered that I had an enormous need to keep track of time. But how? Almost no sounds reached the little house. I realised that probably the only time I could be sure of would be the time the food was delivered. So I decided that at every meal I would put a nectarine stone – I had brought nectarines from home – into a little bag. This later turned out to be a good idea, as telling night from day proved almost impossible. On top of that, on the second night I discovered that in the expanded state of consciousness that soon set in for me during the dark retreat, it is almost impossible to sleep.

On the very first day my mind started working flat out. Thoughts of past and future events began racing through my head, of people connected with me through various events. Anxieties and all sorts of other feelings started to arrive. I didn’t resist them (as I had resolved),  I breathed through them thoroughly and after a while they always dissolved. But my mind began to drift further and further, towards those who are or were locked up in dungeons, cells, oubliettes. By then I knew I had to  get rid of such thoughts. I tried to get into the state of “Here and Now”. When I managed it, the unpleasant  feelings  and images disappeared  and that comforting feeling in my chest was back again. I found that as soon as my mind strays from the present moment, various, mostly unpleasant feelings and anxieties come.

I had the feeling that at night I only ever slept for a little while, and I never knew for how long. The nights were endlessly long. I woke up around ten times a night. If I had dreams, they were anxious and unpleasant. I sweated a great deal. I tried to work out when it was morning, or at least daytime. But how? The only things I could hear were a cockerel crowing, fighter jets flying over and the occasional sound of a car engine.

I tried to go by these signals, but I had no idea yet how nastily my mind would play with me. It was right in the middle of the week,  when the expanded consciousness was already in full force, that  I discovered  that the darkness can open out to vast dimensions and create various interesting images, mainly of the shape of the room I was living in. Now I saw a large hall, now a short alleyway with a little tower, now a room decorated in Indian style. Sometimes the rooms were lit by what seemed like soft moonlight. That calmed me quite a lot.  It was interesting to look at the images, and then the anxieties from otherwise unpleasantly intrusive thoughts didn’t come. To keep the anxieties down I also took great care to put everything in exactly the right place, and I tried to do everything slowly and with concentration. That calmed me.

Wednesday really tangled up my dark retreat

And then came that Wednesday. I had already learnt that daytime meant the cockerel crowing, the occasional sound of an engine  and the roar of fighter jets. As always I was really looking forward to the food, because it was always very tasty; I enjoyed it in an almost ritual way, and it also  meant for me that I had got through another day. Then,  as always, I just had a shower, cleaned my teeth, sang a little to keep my spirits up,  did some exercise, lay down to sleep and prayed that it would be free of nightmares. I fell asleep fairly easily and the sleep seemed quite long. I wake up, listen to the sounds from outside, try to get my bearings. And there I hear the cockerel crowing! And a little later the fairly clear sound of a human voice, and after a while a fighter jet too! Hurray, it’s Thursday morning! That night went by beautifully. Now just wait for the food and I can tick off another day with a stone in my little bag!  I had a shower,  did my exercises, ate breakfast and set about the daily disciplining of my mind. But what’s this? They’re taking a long time bringing the food today. I waited a while longer, then felt my way to the front door and listened for sounds that would signal the food delivery approaching. But outside there was total silence. Not a sound. Silence.

And  suddenly  I  realised what a mistake I had made. I had only dozed off for a moment, so I was still in the same day! I had no idea what time it was; the whole unpleasant night still lay ahead of me, with waking into an indeterminate morning and a long wait for food! It took some effort to breathe through this discovery. But how come I had heard the cockerel crowing?

The whole of the next day I concentrated on the cockerel’s crowing, and I discovered that the rascal happily crows all day long and not just in the morning, as I had believed my whole life. Oh dear.

On Thursday I was glad that I was past the halfway point of my process, but even those two days were no walk in the park. But I had got used to it by then. I always had to discipline my mind, and then it went more or less all right.

I was positively looking forward to the last night. With  my meal I was given an alarm clock set for four in the morning, so that I could enjoy the sunrise and then leave, since  Lenka and Tomáš don’t get up until around eight. I said goodbye to Lenka, who, when bringing the last meal, came into the dark with me  and gave me the final instructions. I went to bed early and prayed for sleep to come.

The last night in the dark was endlessly long

But as so often happens, what we want most doesn’t come. The night was endlessly long. I had the feeling I was at the mercy of my mind, and that it was entirely up to it to decide when it was morning. But in the end I got there and the alarm went off. That unpleasant beeping sound was like heavenly music to me! I let it beep until it ran out, and I was happy  that, although many times during the week I had wanted to give up the dark retreat, I hadn’t done it.

Opening the  door for the first time, from darkness into what was actually still darkness, was wonderful! The glorious scent of nature hit my nose, and  a magnificent sunrise was not long in coming. It took me around two hours before I was sure I could get into the car and drive off safely.

The journey home was joyful. I had been through an unpleasant process, admittedly (I think I ran through every emotion there is), but I feel it was a meaningful one.

I am very grateful to Tomáš and Lenka for giving me this opportunity to cleanse myself, and for offering this therapy to everyone who takes an interest in it.

With love, Tereza

Hello Tomáš and Lenka,

I meant to get in touch myself sooner, to thank you for the chance to experience the darkness and for the excellent, friendly care during my stay in the sanctuary… 

I’ll try to sum up what the experience of a dark retreat means to me. If you find anything even slightly useful in it, feel free to use it on your website for others.

Books about Tibet led me to a dark retreat

I first learnt about the practice of voluntarily and deliberately spending time in darkness  from books about Tibet, Nepal and yoga, but I only found out that something like this happens here too from the programme Duše K, where Jaroslav Dušek invited as his guest  Roman Mlejnek, a caver who really did spend long periods in the dark in karst caves – that seemed a bit too hardcore for me. Then I browsed the internet for dark retreats in more humane conditions, and that’s where I came across yours. It appealed to me, so Evina and I booked.

In the dark, things came that I hadn’t quite expected, and the retreat didn’t really go the way I’d imagined it would. You probably can’t completely avoid having ideas about it in advance, but when they meet reality they usually turn out to be nothing more than a mental exercise. And not a very useful one 🙂

Yoga helped me through the crises in the dark

What did turn out to be useful was my experience with yoga (whether pranayama or asanas), qigong (mostly the Yellow Monk – it doesn’t take up much space and isn’t so demanding on your balance, which gets tested in the dark; doing the Eight Pieces of Brocade I kept hitting the ceiling with my hands), and meditation and concentration exercises; that helped me get through the crises, of which there were a few.

Some people say they slept through the first day or two – I slept normally, so if anything not much. With each day my sleep got shorter and more broken. Towards the end I hardly slept at all. Only on the last night did I nearly sleep through the alarm.

There was plenty of food and I enjoyed it. I was surprised how much I eat with my eyes, because in the dark I had no trouble telling when I’d had enough, even though there was still some left in the container. And I managed not to finish it. At least not straight away.

The feeling of the darkness – for example, I don’t perceive it as black.

Not being able to check things with my eyes meant that I only really managed to relax in the second half of the darkness therapy. Otherwise I was constantly in a state of mild panic, slight stress. Which, on the other hand, probably sharpened and deepened my awareness of the present moment. And at times it was intense.

It was different with my eyes closed or open – with my eyes open the visual images were weaker, less colourful and poorly structured. With them closed, though, there were whole constellations of colours, beautifully luminous fractal formations, models of worlds … But with each day the differences grew smaller, the colours faded, while the shapes became more finely chiselled and the details multiplied.

Sometimes I experienced touch turning into vision. In the shower, for example, instead of water, a beautiful golden-green light ran down over me; cold water was more blue, warm water more green. But that also only happened for the first two days and then stopped.

The space around me kept changing during the dark retreat

… As I lay there, the space around me changed smoothly from a Gothic chapel into a Hindu temple, then I was in a log cabin and straight after that in a cave … but on my left I always “saw” that the wall was densely overgrown with deep green, unusually shaped leaves. The wall in front of me, on the right-hand side, was overgrown in the same way. When  I came out after a week, I found that in the places where the walls had been overgrown in my vision, there really are trees growing – an apple tree and a pear tree, I think. And now I don’t know whether I somehow connected with their existence mentally and energetically, or whether I registered them subliminally before I went into the cabin and then, like other contents of the unconscious, visualised them without meaning to and placed them in the image. I’d prefer the first option.

 There were lots of visions of every kind – besides the euphoric ones, there were also some in which I suppose the dark sides of my personality showed themselves, the ones I push away without realising, because I’m not aware of them, and they gave me moments of sheer horror and dread, against whose raw brutality breathing exercises and attempts to rationalise the situation were practically useless. But living through moments like that led to self-acceptance. 

One of the things (and probably the most important one) in the end was experiencing my own mortality, which still stays with me and gives me the luxury of being aware of the present moment almost all the time. Thanks to that, I more often enjoy things and situations that used to come and go unnoticed. Which was a shame. The day now seems longer to me, a bit like it does to children.

The dark retreat gave me the chance to meet myself, perhaps to understand something a tiny bit, the opportunity to use time purely for myself without feeling guilty about it – simply to experience a bit of freedom in spite of the limitations. So, with a touch of pathos, to look out for light in the darkness.

I tried to write as soon as you got in touch, but partly because I was busy with work and partly because I had to get some of my emotions and feelings about the darkness clear in my own mind and try to turn them into something more concrete – into words – it took longer. 

As I said when we said goodbye: the dark retreat was highly inspiring.

Warmest regards and all the best

Honza

So, dear Tom and Lenka,

has it really been a month since my dark retreat? That gave me quite a shock, but given that every day is so packed, I’m not really surprised..

For a few months I played with the idea of a dark retreat

My story is a prosaic one: I got the feeling I should go into the dark, played with it for a few months and then started looking for where to go. Judging by your website, yours felt the most heartfelt, somehow without unnecessary glitz and clutter, so I got in touch. I was very glad that the earliest date I could get was six months away, because I knew something still had to happen for me to enjoy the dark retreat…lots of things happened and I grew stronger and stronger, until I felt I was starting to look forward to it and to be curious about myself. The fears I’d had six months earlier had gone, and lots of things had already resolved themselves just through the decision to take a look at myself – this is who I am – and, if it works out, maybe to get clear on what I’d like to do with my life in the years ahead.

I walked to my dark retreat

The arrival was amazing: I came (on foot) with a heavy rucksack and out of breath, so my only concerns were a shower, food and switching off the light. Tomáš explained how everything works, it all seemed easy to understand (and so it was in reality), so I showered, ate and switched off the light straight away. I waited to see what would happen, nothing came, just a feeling that I should get to know the room and find out whether I might make up some fear for myself since none was showing up ha ha so I crawled under the bed, walked along the walls, went to the loo and nothing anywhere…so I tell myself I’ll lie down and sleep…and nothing…no tiredness anywhere, my eyes wide open, now and then I did a bit of exercise, a bit of meditation  and tried to guess what time it was….because I was hungry again ha ha ..The next day Tomáš brought me food, I tried not to eat it all at once, and then I just lay there again, dozing…strange dreams came…I woke from some of them frightened, but then I realised I didn’t have to deal with that fear, and I felt fine…I woke from one dream in tears and asked for forgiveness from the people I felt that towards…it was amazing !!! I cried really loudly, I talked out loud to myself…nobody saw me, nobody heard me, and I wasn’t bothering about anyone either, just that feeling of forgiveness…not much else happened, just a feeling that there is no need to do anything, not even to move…a feeling of empty space-time in which I’m somehow just hanging 🙂

When I got back I came down with an eye infection, which helped me no end to spend another fortnight looking not outwards but inwards…every day I give thanks for everything I’m given, and I’m grateful that I could take this pause, which came at just the right time and flowed seamlessly on from my whole previous life, both spiritual and physical.

Friends, if it calls to you, don’t be afraid – once you make the decision, by the time your turn in the dark comes, most things will have sorted themselves out 🙂

Wishing you all beautiful lives, Maru 🙂

Hi Tomáš and Lenka,

yes, it’s been a month already and so far I’ve only written about it on Facebook…

A dark retreat for someone born a while back

I’m one of those born a while back, and since I’ve never even been on a proper holiday, I came up with this for my 64th birthday. Maybe I expected a bit more from it, but I’m grateful for what did happen. After the light went out I rested and it was nice. I waited for my food and just lazed about. I didn’t even want to know what was in the little pots, I wanted to work it out myself. I was surprised how pleasant, friendly and embracing the dark is! By the third day I was bored and started thinking up something to do. I took an empty pot and straight away it became a little drum for shamanic chanting. I’d never tried anything like that and I was surprised how it came pouring out of me-it was there, as if I really were a Native American shaman. ☺then it occurred to me to try angelic singing-and well, that was there too! All my life my vocal range has been limited to barely one octave, and here in the dark, besides my own creations, I managed to sing even “Niňo bambino karo”☺Now and then in the past I used to have dreams where I fly above the earth and sing angelic notes like that….

And of course I was waiting to see whether some of the demons that used to haunt my dreams would turn up. They didn’t. I think I settled things with them many years ago in a lucid dream. “A terrible demon was hurtling down a hill at me, intending to kill me, tear me to pieces, destroy me in the worst possible way, and I did what I always do when I have a nightmare:I forced myself to wake up. As soon as I managed it and “woke up” I realised:No, this is wrong, that’s not how it’s done! and I forced myself to go back into the dream , back into that situation-I stood in the demon’s way and didn’t budge an inch. I looked him in the eye and asked:”Who are you and what do you want from me?” And the dear demon began to turn into a harmless human face and dissolved like steam. So there you go-I’ve sorted out the bogeymen once and for all☺
On the last day the dark seemed very light to me and I had a vision of some big black mountain surrounded by white clouds, or it could also have looked like a cliff surrounded by white sea foam. . . . . and also some geometric images and fractals flickering across my field of vision. The only thing I saw in gorgeous chrome colours, oddly enough, were stacked wooden logs stretching far into the distance. . . though they slid away whenever I focused on them and drifted off somewhere to the side, and more kept appearing. ☺that’s probably because I’ve had them in my head for a few years now, as building material for my little house in the garden.

So, to sum it up, I can say the dark opened a treasure chest for me that I had no idea about. (The singing, that is).
But I have to warn those who are older and maybe have back problems, so they can’t exercise much, that they could end up like me. After a week of lying down your muscles go slack, and in Kutná Hora, while I was running for a train, I discovered that my body from the waist down wasn’t obeying me, a bit like after a lumbar puncture-I felt paralysed.

So, whoever can-exercise! A few days later I was back to normal and now I’m hauling trees out of the woods for our little house.

Finally I want to thank Tomáš, who was on his own all week, he brought us food from a restaurant, it was good, and most of all thank you for the pillow, he brought me his own, because the one that was there was breaking my neck. . . . ☺☺♥

Straight after it ended, I judged the dark retreat to have been very beneficial and useful for me.

Apart from an excellent improvement in cognitive functions (memory, concentration, imagination, …), I also noticed much greater calm in everyday life and a marked sharpening of my senses.

The dark retreat kept working for several days

Some interesting insights into how human thinking and perception work only dawned on me several days later, through specific situations in ordinary life. I believe that the experience of chaos, irrationality, emptiness and negativity is enormously important for a person, and those were the things I was looking for in the dark.

Just as in music the silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves, sensory deprivation and temporarily withdrawing from the world are enormously necessary and desirable for the healthy functioning of the human psyche.

A dark retreat for deeper meditation

In the dark I reached far deeper and more intense meditative states than usual, and I was also much better able to observe how our mind literally soaks into the object it concentrates on, how thoughts move in certain rhythms and patterns, what qualities they have….

A week in the dark gave me perfect physical and mental relaxation, so I would recommend it to anyone. During the whole time I didn’t experience a single emotional swing or discomfort, though in my view their possible presence is no argument against a dark retreat, because even an unpleasant experience can turn out to be beneficial in the long run.

Karel

Good day Tomáš and Lenka,
thank you for the way you looked after me 🙂

It’s been two months now since the end of my retreat. So I’ve had plenty of time to think and absorb the experience. My experience of the dark retreat will most likely, like everyone else’s, be quite different and personal. So then…

I announced the dark retreat to my family

About eight months ago, after a year, I decided that I would fulfil a kind of dream and go on a dark retreat for a week. When I said at home that I had really booked a date, they were very surprised; until then I had only talked about it. Questions and various ideas came from them and from me too – how would I eat there, how would I shower, that I wouldn’t be able to read there :).

Over the following six months a few people asked me what I was going to do there for such a long time. I replied that I would think, enjoy the peace and the time. Sometimes they asked me what the point of it was. I didn’t really know; I only knew it would be something extraordinary that a person doesn’t just experience every day. As the date of the retreat approached, the questions mounted up about whether I was looking forward to it and whether I was nervous. I didn’t really understand that, because I wasn’t thinking about it; I was letting it take its course, so that I wouldn’t end up disappointed. But while I was waiting for the date of the dark retreat, my life changed quite a lot. Three months before the start I experienced circumstances that brought me to faith in Jesus Christ. I became a Christian. During the three months that followed I made many changes in my life that I had been planning to make after the retreat. After 5 years I stopped smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol. I had been doing that literally every day. I found responsibility for my life and above all for my decisions. For a person has it very good: they can choose, but they then also have to bear responsibility for how they decided. My life, and in fact my thinking about life and my perception, changed. Every morning I woke up became a gift from God, and every moment a chance to decide to be closer to God or to separate myself from him. It wasn’t easy at first; sometimes I felt the urge to have a cigarette and get drunk.. in the end everything led to a realisation, a great realisation of what I truly, inwardly need, and not what I supposedly want.

Time passed and I suddenly found myself a few days before the start of the retreat; I hadn’t even properly realised it, because of how my life had changed it had gone by really fast. I talked about the retreat with a female friend who had told me about faith, and thanks to her inspiring story, which is really powerful – I won’t write it here, but if I could, it would be better than what I’m writing here now; it would probably make half of you reading this cry and lead the other half to a real change of values in life. She told me that this is not a path a Christian should take. I thought about it and it occurred to me that I would experience repentance there. Moments in which a person becomes aware of their sins (acts against God) and confesses them to God, because what is said and truthfully confessed can be forgiven. So it occurred to me that it would be a good opportunity to turn away from sin and turn towards God.

When I was on the way with my parents, we stopped off in Kutná Hora to walk around the town and enjoy a bit of its beauty. We arrived in the town and an “old” acquaintance (70 years old) was texting me; we had met when I needed help with treating atopic eczema, and he helped me and my family a lot. He’s a Catholic Christian and we’ve known each other for about 3 years. For those two years I somehow hadn’t taken much notice of his faith, but I’ve understood a lot since. At the start of our meetings that gentleman helped me a lot; through prayers and herbal teas the eczema on my face disappeared within a month, and so I then felt much better among people. He was texting to ask whether I was at home, as he’d like to drop by; I wrote back where I was and where I was going, and he immediately bombarded me with information that it wasn’t a good idea, that it wasn’t the path for a Christian. I was a bit taken aback by it; I had the chance to choose, and information was reaching me that suggested I shouldn’t go there.

My decision was that I would go there and that I would stay there right to the end. I didn’t tell my parents anything about what my believing friends had told me; Dad didn’t even know I believed. When we arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the setting and the atmosphere. One little gem was that 3 Tomášes met there – 2 for the retreat, 1 who lives there permanently :). I went into the dark a few minutes later than I could have.

The dark retreat gathered strength after lights out

When I switched off the light, it finally gathered that strength. Everything I had decided on was suddenly there. For the first two hours I had the feeling I wouldn’t fall asleep. I sat on the bed and enjoyed it. But then I told myself I’d have plenty of time, so I tried sleep as well. I don’t know how long I slept, but it was pleasant. When I woke up it was no longer the way it had been right at the start. It was strange. During the first few days I ate everything I had brought with me, and I always really looked forward to the food they brought me. It was delicious.. My experience of the darkness was that day by day I sank deeper and deeper into my thoughts, my thought processes, my behaviour and attitude to life; day by day it filled my space.. it wasn’t particularly pleasant for me…my old life kept coming back to me; over those five years I had drunk a fair amount and had many experiences, mostly pretty crazy but joyful ones… I was weighed down by what I had left behind… every day it got to me more, until I was really immersed in it.. somewhere around the middle of my retreat, I think it was Wednesday, I was falling asleep while praying to God to give me some sign, some revelation in a dream; I prayed quite heartily until I fell asleep… suddenly I was dressed in sports clothes, holding a floorball stick in my hand with my indoor shoes hanging from it, and I was standing in front of the sports hall we have next to the halls of residence… I was waiting for floorball to start… it began to rain.. out of nowhere a beautiful sound began to resound everywhere; it was a sound that warmed my heart so much that my whole body was brought into a tingling, soothing warmth; the rain turned to snow .. I threw the floorball stick away and ran after the sound; it was something like an organ but far more powerful and more beautiful.. I immediately ran up to a large temple that resembled a church; there were big wooden doors, which I opened, and I saw crowds of people, standing in a queue and slowly shuffling towards a big wooden table where about 6 old ladies were sitting.. after watching for a while I saw that people were walking away from them with a plate of soup… it seemed strange to me, I had thought there would be some concert or something… I joined the queue and moved forward… I looked around a lot at the walls and so on, until finally there was no one in front of me, just the table and the old ladies… when I took the last few steps I saw that the old lady who had been serving the food had already taken a plate herself and was ready to eat, but as I stepped up and she noticed me, she immediately pushed the plate towards me so that I could have her portion… I knelt down beside her and told her I wanted to ask her something… ,, Are all these people here for the food? ” .. she replied: ,,Not only for the food, but above all for salvation…” it filled me with peace, now I knew… so I hugged her and told her she was doing her work very well..

When I thought about that dream and told it to someone, I realised the many meanings that the memory of that dream holds for me.. The fact that a person believes in Jesus Christ as saviour is an important milestone for them, from their old life to a new life in which they surrender their life to God and turn away from their own desires towards what God would need them to do, so that they use their qualities as he wishes… and it isn’t just so that a person feels good and is nourished by that, but above all so that a person comes to salvation..

The dark retreat is my responsibility

From that moment I felt a bit better, and I was already looking forward to the end… to sum up, I bore the responsibility for having gone into the dark; with hindsight I can honestly say that it isn’t exactly the right path for a Christian, even though I came to certain realisations there… I was weighed down there by my past, and I felt very strongly that however good a person thinks they are, before God we are all sinners; we shouldn’t stagnate, there is always something to improve and there always will be… but after a week like that an incredible view of the “darkness outside” was waiting for me; I got up about half an hour earlier than planned and gazed at the moonlit landscape while eating a very good, sugary-ripe pear; the colours, the smells, everything was perfect, and after a week I’d had a rest from my own head… that was a great relief

The next few days were quite hard for me, because that friend and I stopped speaking… over the following few weeks I went through great pain and separation … during which, after a quarter of a year, in a single day I smoked a packet, drank about 10 beers and had a joint – to tell you the truth, it didn’t help; all the worse was my personal disappointment at my decisions

I then promised myself that I would never smoke cigarettes or weed again, and that I wouldn’t drink for a year, dated from 12 June 2016, so as to live a year in faith and strengthen my relationship with God, and whether I drink after that or not I’ll decide then.

Two months have passed since the end of the dark retreat and my faith keeps growing stronger; but what I’d also like to write to you is that that young lady and I would like to get married; we very much wish to be together for the whole of our lives, and slowly but surely it is coming true for us, even though it’s such an incredibly tense and uncertain path that it leads to a lot of reflection, decision-making and realisation, to a great change of heart… we really love each other very much, but we’re not even going out together yet; we’re giving ourselves plenty of time; first it’s important to become firm in faith, to put God in first place, then we’ll see whether we’ll be together, whether it’s meant to be; I very much hope so, because we suit each other, and God willing, a few months after the new year we could already be going out together; it will be a year since I came to believe… perhaps it seems strange to you; it seemed that way to me too, but with each day I understand it more and more: God exists, and when you surrender your life to him, he’ll help you achieve what you truly need

Take care
best wishes, Tomáš ( 20 ) 🙂
God be with you

To start right from the beginning… I found out about darkness therapy about 6 years ago in a newspaper article. It caught my interest straight away and I immediately started toying with the idea of trying this “cleansing” method for myself. I say cleansing because that’s how darkness therapy was presented in the article. Over the last 6 years I came across another article now and then, and later I also read a book about dark retreats. Even after all this extra information, I associated “THE DARK” only with sorting out my thoughts and, of course, with an unusual experience. At the beginning of the year I plucked up the courage and booked a date. Later, because my holiday clashed with the date of my dark retreat, I tried to swap it for a date that had come free, which worked out, and I was due to go in on 18 June. I was looking forward to my dark retreat, and on the day I went in I was in a strange state of apathy from the morning onwards.

A dark retreat starting right after sunset

After sunset I closed the cabin door, had my last shower in the light, sorted out my things and paced out the distances. I took a breath and it was dark… I slept through the first night, and from the morning I tried to create some kind of schedule to fill the week I expected to spend in the dark. I got up and got my energy flowing “à la” tai chi, then breakfast and washing, a short rest (which usually turned into sleep), yoga practice, a short rest, then usually Lenka came with excellent food, and nothing could follow but exploring all the delicacies and eating some of them (my favourite part of the day), after eating a longer rest, exercise and a shower and again a short rest. During the day I tried to meditate, but mostly I fell asleep, which didn’t throw me at all, and I accepted it. The next night I slept a bit worse; my back started to ache a little, maybe from the soft bed, maybe it was caused by my body cleansing itself, who knows… The next day I carried on with my schedule and moved from the bed to the floor, where I made myself a more comfortable place to lie.

In the dark I saw light effects

The second day flew by, nothing special happened, and I got used to the very pleasant darkness and experienced intimate, even loving feelings of solitude (all perfectly respectable, of course :). The third day didn’t seem any different from the previous ones in the morning, but after my morning exercise I saw the gaps between the wall panels flickering, this went on to glowing chocolate, and during the day a kind of bright circle with a regular grid started appearing to me. After eating, clouds made of little pebbles were already drifting over my head. I took all these “light effects” as the brain’s reaction to the lack of light, so I carried on with my daily schedule. But while I was exercising, lights and unfamiliar faces were already flying round my head… So I had a shower, lay down on my bed and just watched what the darkness was giving me. I don’t know how long it lasted, but on the grainy screen in front of my eyes a story played out, or rather the end of the life story of a person from a time long gone. Three times over I watched what he went through (or what I went through) before he reached the place where we will all go one day. And where I too peeked in for a few seconds and felt boundless happiness, peace and such an abundance of love that words can’t even come close…

This whole story was on the black screen in front of my eyes, as if broadcast from a part of my brain I don’t use, and after the third repeat my head was aching so much that I tried to stop the “projection”, but whatever I did, I couldn’t.

So I decided to leave the cabin. Outside, although it was around 2 in the morning, I was dazzled by the moonlight, and it took a few minutes before I could take a few steps back into our world. After a while of getting my bearings I went to fetch a sleeping mat and lay down under the starry sky. I’d never seen stars like that before…

I didn’t close my eyes until morning, and with the first rays of the sun, which I welcomed with tears in my eyes, I was born again.

I’m different… …the world around me is different… now I know where I’m heading, what I want…

There are still a lot of events in my life where the reason they happened isn’t clear to me. But now there are more of them that have fallen into the empty spaces, and I’ve understood why they happened.

Every day I’m changing my life for the better… And I believe not only my own…

Thanks for everything!

Kamil

It’s been almost two weeks since Lenka and Tomáš got in touch to ask whether I’d write something about my dark retreat. I knew straight away that I wanted to write at least a few lines, but the right words just weren’t coming, because how do you simply describe a feeling?

A dark retreat for a beginner

I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I wasn’t afraid of the dark, because I told myself that darkness is a woman, so we were bound to get on well. Just how tricky this woman is I found out a mere ten minutes after switching off the light, when I managed to get lost in the shower cubicle (and for the following days too, that spot was a real Bermuda Triangle for me).

LOL The first two days went absolutely fine, but on the third day it turned out that everyone really does go into the dark at exactly the moment that is right for them.

Outside, fighter jets started flying over a lot (which apparently was unusual on that scale), and combined with a thunderstorm and the fact that my body clock went completely haywire that day, so I lost all sense of time, I got into a state of quite serious panic, and it triggered my “war trauma”, which I had already worked on a few times, for example in family constellations.

Images of the sky full of warplanes and similar things flashed before my eyes, the feelings were very intense, and I even started ducking in doorways (as if it evoked memories of some low ceiling), but I felt that healing was taking place.

In the dark you think about who you are and where you’re going

Of course you have plenty of time to think about all sorts of things, about who you are and where you’re going, and I’d say that in this respect it helped me a lot to sort out my thoughts and get clear on what I really want in life. On top of that, the darkness gave me a certain perspective, even courage, because I tell myself that if I managed that week-long dark retreat, I can manage anything in life; and so far it’s working out pretty well. 🙂

Thank you both for everything, and I especially want to thank you for the excellent food, I’d probably single out the couscous with sun-dried tomatoes (yum), and for the patience with which Lenka listened to me when I wanted to talk.

Finally, let me share the last sentence I wrote in my diary in the dark:

“Thank you, darkness, for everything, it was a great experience.”

With love, Alex