I decided on a dark retreat in January. I went through the options and liked the one with Tomáš and Lenka best. I found out that the next free date was six months away, which surprised me a bit, but I simply waited. So in September I set off for Bykáň and from there on foot to Lomec. I’ve been going barefoot since March, so I sometimes have trouble with certain paths, and the one from Bykáň really wasn’t the most pleasant, but it was doable. After Úmonín came the reward of an avenue of pear and apple trees. When I arrived I was surprised by the quiet – nobody welcomed me, so I walked around the garden to see whether anyone was there. After a while Tomáš and Lenka’s son appeared, explained everything to me, and so I could begin my week-long dark retreat.
How the dark retreat went
To my surprise I got my bearings very quickly and moving around the space was no problem at all. What I couldn’t manage, though, was doing the first of the Five Tibetan Rites in full. In this exercise you spin round and round and are supposed to do 21 turns – in the dark I managed 14 turns at most. I slept through almost the whole of the first day, and in general I slept a lot, about 14-16 hours a day (I really don’t know exactly, because time in the dark is completely different). The food Tomáš and Lenka brought was amazing. I don’t know whether it was because my other senses were sharper or simply because it was great anyway, but that hardly matters. On the last night I didn’t sleep much and looked forward to the sunrise. Unfortunately a light rain came, so we didn’t see the sun.
Along the way I noticed that I couldn’t concentrate much on meditation; I tended to drift into some kind of relaxation instead, and getting rid of thoughts was hard. I was also pretty bored. Next time I would definitely bring some knitting or willow rods for basket-making so I could make something. Although maybe that too was meant to be part of my darkness therapy – learning to do nothing.
Walking home after the dark retreat
I set off home on foot, this time straight to Kutná Hora. I went across fields, through a forest and along a stream, and it was longer but more beautiful than from Bykáň. At home everything is as it was, although maybe some changes are still to come. So far I feel I’m a bit calmer than before, but that’s probably hard to judge.
I would recommend a dark retreat to everyone. Personally I will probably come back for a dark retreat some day, but rather than that, every year I’ll pick a week somewhere I can be completely alone (or something like that). For me the dark retreat was a brilliant chance to relax, and I had a fantastic rest.
All the very best
Jan
