Hi Tomáš and Lenka,
How did I find out about the dark retreat?
I found out about the dark retreat from some article years ago, and it was interesting reading for me. At the time it never crossed my mind that I’d take part in it myself one day. Now I see it as a seed that was planted in me, which had to sprout in my head and ripen before it could push its way to the front of my thinking, with all the daily worries and so on.
Time flew by… and I was in the Dark
Once I’d decided on the retreat, I was glad the waiting time was long, so I could prepare for it in the meantime and think about what I’d got myself into. Well, suddenly it was here and I still hadn’t figured anything out. I had full support at home, so that made the final decision of whether to give up on it easier…
Arrival
When I arrived, you showed me into the cabin, explained a few organisational essentials and left it up to me when I’d switch off the light. There was some muesli and fruit ready for me. And that’s when I started thinking about the orange. How on earth am I going to eat you in the dark? So just to be safe, I ate it while the light was still on 🙂 .
I pressed the switch… and there it was
After switching off the light I started trying everything out. At first I mostly walked along the walls, but it didn’t take long before I could find my way around pretty much without any trouble – finding food, the toilet, taking a shower . I even had a little notepad where I wrote down notes, moods, thoughts and so on. It’s perfectly readable. My handwriting is hardly ever that neat even when I can see…
Why am I even here?
For roughly the first three days, questions were really racing through my head: why am I here when there’s so much work at home I could be doing, why did I (blow) my holiday leave on this at the beginning of the year, and so on. So several times I wanted to give up, switch on the light and leave. Luckily, I didn’t.
I really had no sense of time at all, because a strong wind was raging outside at the time and I had nothing to hold on to, not even roughly. I did know it might be afternoon or just after lunch when I got food, but then I’d go to sleep and have no idea at all whether I’d slept 2 or 8 hours…
It’s better to isolate yourself completely
The biggest mistake I made was letting Tomáš pass on news from home at the start: whether one of my daughters had passed her final state exams and whether the other had landed safely in Ireland. Now I wouldn’t want that and I’d wait until I switched the light on…
Who moved me forward there?
I don’t know exactly when I started really enjoying the dark retreat, but that probably doesn’t matter. I exercised regularly, the way I’m used to at home and at training (taekwondo) . Still, the time came when there was nothing left to eat or to do, and that’s when the thoughts started flowing. Lots of people came back to me, even from my childhood, people I’d long forgotten, and I realised how and where each of them had steered me or influenced me during my life…
What did it give me?
Above all, I came to terms with myself and knew what’s important in life, how I want to see it… But it’s not the case, now that some time has passed, that I learned everything in the dark and now everything’s fine. It isn’t, but I know how to work with it…
It gave me an awful lot, and it was my one long holiday around the world, even though I was in a single cabin. In the dark, all kinds of colourful ornaments, vaults and patterns appeared before my eyes… They created a kind of setting around me, probably so I wouldn’t get lost in the endless darkness.
It wasn’t the same darkness any more
After I learned that I might feel sick and dizzy when the light came on, I decided on my own to switch the light on just to be safe already on Friday afternoon – I needed to leave early on Saturday morning, so that the long journey would be relaxed. The strange thing was that when I switched off the light again to get some more sleep before morning, it was no longer MY darkness, the one I’d been with for almost a week. It was different, impersonal, foreign, and luckily it was only short. I guess it takes time for us to get used to each other… maybe next time… 🙂
I already have moments when I miss the darkness. That peace and time for everything, without any outside influences…
Thanks again for everything!!!
Milan
