INTO THE DARK - MY WINTER RETREAT EXPERIENCE
It had been over a year since I had been in retreat… and a wild year at that. I was craving the dark and craving the quiet and curious about how I would experience my newly evolved/evolving self in the simplicity and depth of practice.
As with many of us, I had been through a great deal in the twelve months since my last deep dive into stillness. As well as a global pandemic I had experienced the tragic loss of someone dear, the subsequent throws and learnings of grief, as well as new levels of capacity and responsibility in my personal and professional life. Somehow my sense of both personal power and powerlessness had increased simultaneously. How was this being going to meet the ever-fresh wonders and challenges of the practice this time around?
Of course, I wanted to trumpet my success inwardly before even beginning… and then of course, was inevitably humbled from day one. Emerging from the protective and charged space of the temple, which I entered before dusk, into the deep black of a cloudy, December, new-moon night, the darkness took my breath away. I was surprised at the fear that took hold of my chest.
The aloneness in this beautiful and wild setting, that I had craved for weeks, suddenly felt foreign and uncomfortable, even threatening. The bliss of the practice from just a few moments before broke quite easily… “I am alone out here, in the darkness...”
But this was not a bad thing.
Each night, I got to wrestle with the grip of fear at the aloneness and the blackness and ask myself, “Aha, so how do I return to bliss even when my organism is in high alert?”
“How do I go willingly, joyfully into the night no matter what awaits me?”
It took me several days and nights to grow more accustomed. Walking to and from Orion cabin to the temple, to the showers in the oftentimes pitch blackness, my headlamp cast an eerie and isolating glow around me. Observing the mind tumbling in directions dictated by the chemistry of my body made space for the practice of returning to the Perfect Now, even when that tumbling got very loud indeed. It was not the work I expected, nor anticipated, but it was good work… to meet fear every night and say, “Hello. You’re far from my favorite, but I know you have much to teach me. Let’s have a dance.”
As the nights and days went on, and focus and practice deepened, and I became more connected with the land and property, the fear softened and more and more wonder emerged. Wonder for the land, for the creatures, for the history and practice that had occurred around, for the impossible beauty of the present moment, for the magic puzzle of being human, and for the darkness that had taken me into its freeing embrace.
Ruth Levin