Hi Lenka and Tomáš,
it’s two months since I did the dark retreat, and right now the whole experience, the whole time I spent in your loving care, feels like a dream.
I’ve wanted to do a dark retreat since 2015
When I felt the need for a dark retreat in August 2015, I was dealing with health problems and a certain emptiness from a rushed way of life. An overload of information and stimuli that I no longer even consciously notice, I just feel them draining me more and more .
A certainty is forming in me ever more clearly that the only way to savour, or even perceive, the beauty and joy this world offers me is from a firm point within myself.
Perhaps this return to, or meeting with, “myself” is what I meant to look for in the dark.
The words dark and darkness are sometimes, perhaps often, given the meaning of evil. I don’t see it that way; the symbol of the dark, of darkness, awakens in me a feeling of softness, gentleness and abundance.
And that is also what I received in the sanctuary. Welcome, care and kindness.
Darkness therapy wasn’t about fear
Only twice in the whole week did I feel anxiety or fear.
Once I brought on the anxiety myself, because in the second half of the dark retreat I told myself that it was lovely how much I was enjoying it, but that I needed to “work” and deal with problems. So I sat down in a meditation posture and “dutifully” began calling up what weighs on me in life ….and surprisingly 🙂 I felt the weight. So I took a few deep breaths, let my thoughts and feelings flow freely again, and went back to enjoying the beauty of the darkness and resting.
The second time, before falling asleep, I felt as if the darkness were forming into something unpleasant . I started to feel afraid, but a certain part of me was rationally aware that if I started to be afraid of the dark, I couldn’t stay . I began to focus on my breath and repeat the words of Ho’oponopono. I calmed down and felt safe again .
A dark retreat here and now
During the dark retreat, what I found pleasant, maybe surprising, or maybe amazing, I can’t find a fitting word, was acting consciously, fully focused on what I was doing at that moment, savouring every activity. A huge relief that I didn’t have to do anything or go anywhere, just be.
I caught up on sleep, rested and surprisingly lost 2 kilos 😉
Surprisingly, because the food deserves a response of its own. Every single dish was excellent; I still think back to that Shopska salad or the fruit salad.
Have you thought about publishing the recipes? Although the recipe alone won’t be enough. An important ingredient is surely the care and love with which you prepare the food for us.
At the moment, back to working full tilt, the memory of the dark retreat is a relief for me.
Knowing that things can be different, that I have somewhere to escape to when the outside world gets too much.
I want to make a dark retreat a regular “therapy” in my life, or it would probably be more accurate to say a restorative holiday 🙂 that I treat myself to at least once a year.
I wish you lovely days and thank you for making the dark retreat possible for us
With love Lenka
