LETTING GO
into the unknown
There is an invitation here to meet the unseen with curiosity.
As we begin to make contact with what is spontaneously emerging, there is more room to be close to what is actually here: to listen, to be curious, and to allow the experience to lead.
Because every person and every experience is different, the container we’ve developed evolves with every person we accompany. We’re not trying to create a particular darkness retreat experience. We’re creating the conditions for each person to meet their own embodied experience in a way that is deeply supported and rooted in connection.
take notice of the underlying sensations
THAT ACTUALLY INFORM YOU ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL"
~ Peter Levine
In the vast unknown of the darkness, we invite you to use your body as an anchor.
To settle into a simple and intimate relating with what you're feeling in their body.
To nurture and tend to your hearts.
To receive care.
To discover the depths, richness and subtleties in nothing special - in the utter simplicity of your being
"TO EXPERIENCE EMBODIED AWARENESS,
take notice of the underlying sensations
THAT ACTUALLY INFORM YOU ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL"
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"STICKING WITH UNCERTAINTY
is how we learn to relax
IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS."
~ Pema Chödrön
The way we approach healing and transformation tends to be conceptually led, shaped by what is familiar, what we think should happen, or where we believe we need to get to. Part of our role is to support a gentle recognition of the patterns we are living and an invitation to meet them in the body.
In creating enough safety and connection, those habitual ways of navigating can soften, allowing us to listen in a different way, without an agenda or a predetermined idea of what the experience needs to become. In that softening, something more spontaneous and authentic can emerge, allowing the intelligence of the body, the nervous system, and each person’s own inner experience to begin to lead.
" No pratices are even necessary
for this quest"
- Ramana Maharshi
AT THE HEART OF THE EXPERIENCE
more than darkness
Over the last six years, in being with almost a thousand people through extended darkness, we’ve found that the type of experience someone has in the dark has a great deal to do with the container surrounding it.
Equally important is an understanding of what tends to happen on a nervous system level, and an orientation that supports the particular kind of exposure that darkness brings while allowing the experience itself to lead.
Simply going into darkness alone, in and of itself, is not something we’ve found to be particularly beneficial.
What we have found to matter deeply is attuned and experienced darkness retreat support, an understanding of the subtleties and nuances specific to this experience, and the quality of connection that is present.
Together, these can allow the darkness to be nurtureful, deeply meaningful, and simply connective.
At the heart of what we offer is a gentle field of permission to meet the experience as it actually is.
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LETTING NURTURE LEAD
your own rhythm
For some people, this may even mean not staying in the darkness the entire time.
Some of the most meaningful moments we’ve witnessed have come when someone lets go of the idea of what they think they should do, takes a pause, lets nurture lead, and begins listening to their own unique rhythm.
Sometimes that means remaining in the dark, and sometimes it means weaving in and out in response to their own authentic movement.
The invitation is to listen to what is deeply true for them in that moment.
There is a meaningful difference between feeling that we should stay in the darkness and genuinely wanting to be there.
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"THE ONLY CHOICE WE HAVE
as we mature
IS HOW WE INHABIT OUR VULNERABILITY."
~ David Whyte
There is no single right way to be in the dark and no particular outcome we are trying to lead someone toward. Everyone arrives for different reasons, each with their own history, nervous system, and relationship to themselves.
Our orientation and support are deeply individualized to the person and to what is actually emerging in the moment. Rather than pushing toward a breakthrough or particular experience, we allow each person’s nervous system to set the pace.