We are located between Ashland and Klamath Falls in Southern Oregon.  The closest airport is Medford (MFR).

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People find that since they are settled, aware and not in a rush - that they surprisingly navigate around the room and tend to all the essentials with ease.

We recommend starting with 3 days in the dark and ask that retreatants book one full day/night to settle in upon arriving and one full day/night to integrate after emerging from the dark.

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Throughout the years of hosting darkness retreats and witnessing hundreds of people come through — we’ve found that the most impactful retreats tend to be 3 to 4 days in darkness. 

Currently, we don't feel that it is responsible for us to let people go in for longer than 3 days for their first time - no matter how prepared they feel they are for the darkness.

As humans - we're very good at enduring, surviving and getting by.  We're masters at coping, dissociating, numbing, and insulating ourselves from uncomfortable experiences while not even being aware that we are doing that.  We don't want to perpetuate that cycle and when people go for longer dark retreats - from what we’ve noticed - they spend a lot of time "getting by" and relying on different strategies and coping mechanisms that help them endure.

And the truth is - we have not seen that longer is directly correlated to deeper.  It is the quality of connection that matters way more than the length of time.  

In our earlier days, we had a lot of people go in for up to 10 days all the way up to 40 days. And from where we’re sitting - in almost all of those cases - that length of time did not bring them any deeper into their being than those who have gone in for 3 to 5 days.
 

Deeply and genuinely feeling safe is the most important factor in having a meaningful time in the darkness.  It is the most significant quality for supporting someone in being deeply vulnerable, honest and directly connected with themselves.  

We have found that retreats of 3 days in darkness tend to be the sweet spot.

We have a check-in every morning and evening.  We do not enter into your space.  We chat through the wall and are able to hear each other very well.

These check-ins can last anywhere from a ten minutes to forty minutes - whatever is appropriate.  We have found that a little bit of support goes a very long way.

We do our utmost to not overlay any spiritual ideas, ideals, beliefs, techniques or teachings.

We are here to quietly listen and deepen into the felt-sense of safety. We’re here to genuinely meet you where you are at and delicately respond and ask questions that invite you to see yourself through a different lens and explore the unknown in new ways.

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We take a somatic approach.  You can read more in depth about that here.

We offer deeply supportive and insightful sessions with an advanced practitioner, Adrienne, who weaves in craniosacral, somatic inquiry, and her own depth and experience working with dark retreatants.  

Most retreatants do these sessions as they deeply prepare someone for the darkness.  

Adrienne has an amazing gift of being able to illuminate and point towards unseen subconscious material which supports retreatants in a deeper authenticity and capacity to be with previously unknown and/or unwelcomed parts of themselves that they may touch in the darkness.  

They are two 2 hour sessions before and after the dark immersion.  

We tend to book these as we get closer to someone’s retreat date.

There is a beautiful invitation in the darkness to discover who we are when we’re not fixed on doing, achieving, progressing, awakening, transforming or even healing.

There is a gentle exploration of resting, receiving, listening, including, welcoming, feeling, opening, surrendering, softening, perceiving, being, simply existing.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert"s there are few." - Suzuki Roshi.

We find this sentiment to be very true for those going into the darkness.

The qualities of curiosity, availability, receptivity, sincerity, honesty, vulnerability, and simplicity are far more important than someone's years of meditation experience and spiritual development.

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Meditation experience may help and it may actually be a hindrance but it is certainly not necessary.

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For some - meditation, breathwork and spiritual tools/practices can be a more "advanced" way of controlling our interior and overlaying ideals of how we think that we should be.  It can also create a sense of pressure while someone is in the dark to have a romanticized spiritual experience and "progress" on the path as opposed to just opening and resting into the simplicity and subtleties that the darkness makes available.

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We’ve witnessed many non-meditators effortlessly drop into very deep states of consciousness - into totally new levels of tenderness and connectivity.  No prior meditation experience is needed.

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This is not to say that meditators and spiritual aspirants don't have profound openings or experiences - they certainly do.  And it is really when they leave their familiar way behind, release control, and sincerely soften into whatever is arising without trying to use their techniques as a means of fixing, changing, transforming or awakening.

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"The soul grows not by addition but by subtraction." - Meister Eckhart

Many people who are afraid of the dark have been here.  They have shared that this darkness felt completely different than being in a dark room in a house or outside.  Many share that it is the safest that they’ve ever felt.

We serve all organic meals.

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We bring all the food in the evening to minimize disturbance.

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When available, as much as possible of the food will come from our abundant gardens and fruit trees. These meals will be delivered through a double door around sunset everyday. 

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Typically - the food consists of:

- Soup

- Salad

- Herbal Tea

- Fruit

- Carrots/celery/humus

- Hard boiled eggs

- Chia Pudding

- Sandwich 

- Nuts

- Olives

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We can and will cater to gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian diets.

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We highly discourage fasting and ask that people do not fast. 

If someone naturally feels moved to fast once they have begun their retreat then we are happy to support them in that.

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We have found that it is most important for people to feel safe, relaxed and nourished.  This is one of the main reasons that we discourage fasting as it tends to create a more cold and enduring quality.

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The water is spring water that runs through both a sediment and UV filter for total purification.

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Yes. The bathtub and sink are plumbed with hot water

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The cabin has its own, self-contained off-grid system to power the ventilation fans and lights that are occasionally used during the integration process.

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The entire land is off-grid and the "caves" are out of cell service range.  We do however have WIFI and are able to use our cell phones to make calls out in case of any emergencies. The dark room retreat cabin is 1/4 mile away from any other dwellings on the land and thus is totally contained in an EMF-free zone.

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There is a wood burning stove inside one of the walls thus enabling us to stoke and maintain the fire from outside without allowing any light to be seen within. 

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Due to the nature of how the retreats are built, they hold heat very well and one fire a day is sufficient at keeping it cozy.  And they remain moderately cool through the heat of the Summer.

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If you ever feel that you need additional support, there will be a bell inside your dark room that you can ring when we come to deliver food to let us know that you are wanting some additional attention.

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The cabin is nestled in the woods on a mountain side 1/4 mile away from any other structures on the land.

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During the orientation, we will walk through where to find us in the unlikely event that any emergency situation arises and you need immediate assistance.

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The retreats have been built with a very well engineered active ventilation system that includes a couple fans and a series of ducting that run through the walls that constantly circulate fresh air into and throughout the building. 

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Every retreatant will have a completely different experience and even retreatants who have done more than one dark retreat find that they have an entirely different experience each time.

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Some etreatants find that they sleep a lot on the first day.  While others just have a normal night sleep and don't nap/sleep throughout the first day.  As the days continue to unfold, people tend to find that they sleep less and less.

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There is then a period of novelty where there is a deep enjoyment and appreciation of the quietude and simplicity.  This can be very short or extend throughout the day.

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After that follows the reality that we can't escape how we truly feel and this is when it really begins. 

The darkness invites us into a new relationship with discomfort.  One where we don't draw on our typical ways of posturing around it through distraction, numbing, insulating, controlling and subtly manipulating our experience.

As we simply allow the darkness to take us - we begin to soften. relax and include.  We find that more important than what is happening is our relationship to what is happening.

We have 3 dark retreats.

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One is a cob/strawbale cottage that we’ve been using since 2019

The other two are “hobbit” cottages built into the hillside and are fully burried in the Earth.  We’ve been using them since the end of 2021.

Just some warm comfortable clothes and toiletries.  It is also a good idea to bring boots if you're coming between November and April.

Most people find that their eyes fully adjust within a couple of minutes.  And some people feel a little dizzy during those first couple minutes of coming back into the light.

We want to be cautious not to be a general advocate for darkness retreat. It is certainly not for everyone and where you choose to do it has a significant impact in the kind of experience that you have.  The walk into darkness is out on a very delicate edge where experienced support becomes a critical compass to someone’s journey.  It is way more than just going into a darkroom and most of what is happening within us goes unseen.

At this point in time - we don't feel comfortable recommending any other darkness retreat centers in the US as we do not know of any with truly experienced, qualified support.

We have found it to be very important to have experienced support along with a therapist well-versed in darkness retreat on staff.  Otherwise, most people will go into a trauma/stress response the majority of the time they are in darkness and many won't even realize it, including inexperienced support staff, as retreatants unknowingly insulate themselves from the overwhelm and what they're unconsciously feeling/resisting in their body.  These people will then leave with more trauma in their system then they came with.

As things have unfolded here over the years, our view on darkness retreat has changed.  We now see that people's experience has just as much to do with the support as the darkness.  The darkness is a profound vehicle for exposing and yet most humans are insulated in a sense of power, purpose, control, meaning and worldly validated worth -- even spiritual purpose/work/practice or doing good can be an insulator.  So the majority of people initially cope, manage, and dissociate from the exposure that comes while being in darkness without realizing that that is what they're doing.

Having experienced support is so essential, for most people, to aid in genuinely settling into the body, seeing unconscious mechanisms, regulating the nervous system, confronting what is exposed, and staying connected and honest.

Over the last 5 years here with hundreds of dark retreatants, we’ve learned so much about what happens when all different kinds of humans, from all walks of life, with different kinds of conditioning, nervous systems, trauma, coping mechanisms, managing strategies, inner resources and life experiences go into darkness.  Through this, and our own experience in darkness, decades of solitude and retreat, and continually deepening into our uncovered truth, we have developed and continue to evolve our somatic approach to darkness retreat.