I have a few reflections I’d like to share since my last post.
Even though my dark retreat was a short one, it was enough for intense experiences and a huge leap forward.
The darkness is neither good nor evil
I remember how a black velvet nothingness enveloped me… it was neither good nor evil, it was simply there… like a primal origin, a beginning…
In this nothingness my self floated freely… searching for a point to hold on to, some beginning, something it could push off from and start moving.
There was nothing of the kind; there was neither beginning nor end, and yet that emptiness was at the same time an infinitely rich whole… Nothing, and at the same time everything.
Here, we are used to moving along an axis, from point A to point B. We are either here or there… we don’t want to accept that we are part of the whole, that I am the world and the world is me… that point A and point B are one and the same, that as above, so below…
All the more sharply I perceive how limited we are in our dual perception: ordinarily we have immense wealth around us, the diversity and variety of everything… Yet we are blind because of our tireless chase along the axis; we concentrate solely on the direction, on where we’ll run to catch something we don’t have yet!
Thanks to the dark retreat I can see that we are blind!
We live here as if in a kind of lethargy; we have everything at our disposal, and yet, although we can see, we are completely blind!
We quickly get used to what we have and stop seeing it.
We create our world ourselves, but we have to do it consciously. We think our awareness is always switched on, but it isn’t! Human nature’s wish for ever more is commonplace. We are like devourers of events and experiences… a kind of monster snatching at everything it doesn’t have yet, doesn’t know yet… once it catches it, it swallows it and pays it no further attention… We oscillate between past and future; in the present reality we can’t find ourselves.
We have it like software stored in the subconscious.
That is certainly not conscious growth or a conscious path.
Many wise people say that it is important to stop, to direct your gaze and perception to the present, and begin to see all the richness we have been given to have around us, all the gifts from the Universe that surround us and whose beauty we don’t see, how much love flows towards us, and we are unable to open ourselves to receive it. It’s strange that the light comes on for us precisely in the dark B-). The darkness lifts the veil from our eyes, tears off the blinkers, loosens and widens the field of vision. Suddenly you find yourself in a different world. Everything is new, different, more beautiful, stronger, richer.
Darkness therapy made the light come on for me
I’m trying to hold on to this miraculous state for as long as possible; I remember, I return again and again to the moment of the blind woman’s healing, the moment of seeing clearly… so that I don’t grow dull again, go blind again… the gift is very fragile.
It’s a kind of cherishing of the moment… carefully rolling in your palms the warm, love-filled rays of the sun…
They peek out, they slip out through the gaps between your fingers, they wink cheerfully… Let’s hold them… so they don’t escape us; let’s prepare a place for them in our hearts where they can settle for good.
During my dark retreat I began to perceive that it is solely and entirely up to me what my world will be like, that I alone create my reality by what I put out from the inside outwards.
Why was I once enthusiastic about someone/something, and today there isn’t a trace of that enthusiasm? Why do we no longer want what we have?
Why can’t we take lasting pleasure in and appreciate what we’ve gained, what we’ve achieved, who we’re with? I know, life is about change, we change too; someone runs ahead quickly, grows and develops, someone stays stunted and remains in the place where they stood x years ago. Relationships once harmonious end in break-ups.
The relativity of time? At some moment we stood on the same starting line, but one of us found themselves in a faster vibrational dimension.
Is the other one bad? because they vibrate more slowly? Or is it just that we stop perceiving all that is beautiful in them, because our ego needs an alibi for its inner judge, who threatens: You, you, you…! That’s not proper, we don’t do that here… well yeees… but it’s the other one who’s dreadful!!! … ?
It’s as if we blamed a stone for not running across the meadow with us. Everything has its beauty, and if it has already entered our life, in whatever pleasant or unpleasant form, it must be, and undeniably is, necessary and useful for us. We won’t mock it, we won’t be angry at it, we won’t condemn it. Let’s bow to it and give thanks!
We are all connected
I began to perceive the world vividly from the perspective that we are all here connected into one organism, which is the Universe. After I left the dark (haha… actually fled in disgrace), I spent a week alone at my cottage in the woods and just observed, just listened… The tall pines began to speak to me… they swayed in the wind and whispered a quiet song… I saw in them truly living beings, everything in symbiosis with everything. The grass was suddenly greener, the birds sang more beautifully and more loudly, the air was cleaner, the flowers more colourful, the sun wonderfully warm, the water fresher…
I was so glad to be where I am, to feel what I feel, to see what I see, to hear… I am simply grateful and glad that I AM, and around me is the world I have in fact created myself, and until now hadn’t seen its beauty. It doesn’t matter how long I stay here, how fast I run on, or how far it carries me. What matters is to honour the present moment with all the richness it carries within it. To see the invisible and open your arms to love.
And love flows
And then that love begins to flow in both directions.
It’s strange that when I sent that love out, it began to come back to me, and amplified.
It’s a truly magical transformation and a magical exchange.
I definitely recommend a dark retreat
I recommend giving it a try… I think that each of us, for the sake of our mental health, should be obliged to undergo at least 24 hours of darkness therapy, in order to see clearly and begin to appreciate the generosity of the world that lies within reach of our hand.
With love, Aleksandra
