Hi Tom and Lenča,
I want to thank you for running this beautiful service, the dark retreat, for other people and for yourselves. I’m almost certain I haven’t been to yours for the last time. So I’m looking forward to the next half-year wait for a retreat, because even that wait changed something in my life.
When I arrived for the dark retreat I was given a friendly welcome by Tom, was amazed by how playful their dogs were (well, one of them – the other is more in its twilight years and behaves in a more spiritual way :D:D) and met another retreat participant. Then the Rouds’ lovely children took charge of us and instantly made us their friends, to the point where I nearly forgot why I’d come. After that I quickly went off to the hut, otherwise I’d have stayed with them till nightfall 🙂
In the dark, everyone is on their own
Then one last look around the hut, and lights out… I was already thinking about this part of my write-up during the retreat – partly what I’d write about it, but mainly why I’d been reading other people’s accounts. It came from a certain uncertainty: it’s something new and incomprehensible to some people, so by reading the accounts I was trying to “calm myself down” and pluck up more courage. If someone like that reads this, someone it resonates with, who is interested in working on themselves in terms of awareness, self-love and so on, I want to reassure them that there’s nothing to be afraid of and it will be a beautiful experience 🙂 In the dark everyone meets themselves; you bring your own world in there, and the darkness is a canvas for the subconscious, which paints on it the important experiences and situations that need to be explored and accepted more deeply.
The food was magical and funny too – you don’t know whether to eat it with your hands or a spoon (if you won’t be told, like me :D), and when you get a tortilla, you even learn to clean up in the dark :D. The strongest moment in terms of needing to leave the cabin came after eating some excellent lentils, when I felt I’d most like to go outside and congratulate the cook 😛
Glorious light, I’m back
Coming back into the world of light was wonderful. Suddenly everything is unbelievably detailed, and because straight after the retreat you’re with people who have just done the same retreat in the cabins right next to yours, the return is all the more wonderful. They feel almost everything the same way.
What a dark retreat gives you is hard to describe. For me it happens on a subconscious level, yet I can feel it and I’m grateful for all of it. Be brave and properly crazy – that’s probably what it’s all about 🙂
Take care, and one day we’ll all meet in one place again :))
Tomáš
