A Rebirth with Darkness: Meeting Myself in a Darkness Retreat
Arriving into Darkness
Over the past few years, my husband and I have been working towards the next chapter of our lives: building a Darkness Retreat on Cortes Island, set to open in 2027.
To better understand what darkness was capable of, beyond the humble little studio we had eagerly created in our backyard, I decided to visit a well-known darkness retreat centre in the United States.
Upon arrival, I was met by friendly hosts who were gracious and kind. The first day was typically dedicated to understanding the facilities and settling into the space. However, I was eager to get the experience underway and decided to enter darkness earlier than planned.
During the orientation, one piece of advice stood out to me. If at any time I felt overwhelmed or frightened, I was invited to ask myself a simple question:
What would nurture do?
Each room had a small red light above the bed that could be switched on if needed. It wasn't bright enough to illuminate the room, but enough to help someone orient themselves to safety if they felt overwhelmed in the dark. When I first heard this, I immediately noticed a sense of ease wash over me. I took note to let nurture take the reins if anything felt overwhelming for me at any stage.
After my first full night's sleep in the dark, I woke up feeling an unusual kind of nothingness in my body. It took me a while to get a sense for it because it wasn’t accompanied by any significant thoughts or sensations. There also didn’t appear to be an emotion associated with it, which would be my usual entry when trying to explore something deeper within myself. All that I could determine was a persistent void or nothingness.
When the morning check-in came—a gentle voice from the other side of the door—I reported that things were calm and that I wasn't feeling much of anything. The person tending to me asked a few questions and suggested I simply be with the experience without needing it to become something else. Easier said than done.
At this point in my life, I'd spent enough time with intentional solitude practices to know how long a day can feel when your only task is to exist.
The room was equipped with a bathtub, which could occupy maybe an hour before the water cooled. Beyond that, there was very little to do. Without books, screens, or visual stimulation, awareness has nowhere to go but inward.
As the hours passed, I noticed how uncomfortable I was with this nothingness sensation, my mind was constantly trying to make sense of it and I really wanted something to be revealed from it. I watched myself search for insights, emotions, visions—anything that would validate the experience. But the harder I looked, the more the nothingness persisted.
By the time evening had arrived, a very familiar feeling had emerged: I felt like I was doing something wrong. When the owner came to deliver my meal and check in, I noticed how badly I wanted to have something interesting to report. I wanted proof that I was doing it properly.
After all we’re opening our own darkness retreat and I should be really good at this right?
From the questions he asked, I could tell he was trying to help me look beneath the surface of what I was describing. But once again, I was encouraged to simply be with what was there.
The Long Night
That night, I had intense dreams. The details themselves are difficult to explain, but the feeling they left behind was unmistakable.
I woke up in terror, and I knew I wanted to turn the little red light on and orient myself back into safety. It took me a long time to feel comfortable enough that I could turn the light off again and go back to sleep. As soon as I did, the same theme of dreams returned.
The cycle repeated itself throughout the night. I would wake up from a series of intense dreams and immediately think about the light. Knowing it was there when needed gave me the strength to sit with and stretch the edge of my discomfort a little longer each time I woke up.
After many hours of merging in and out of sleep, while meeting all of the places between fear and safety, I was exhausted.
At this point, I was starting to wonder if there was a correlation between the fear being shown to me in my dreams and the sense of nothingness I was feeling while awake. The safety I was giving myself with the little red light was helping me gain a new perspective on it all.
At check-in, I chose not to describe the details of the dark dreams. Instead, I repeated what was happening while I was awake, and what I had been saying from the beginning: I had a felt sense within my body of nothingness.
Again, it was warmly suggested that I try to simply allow the nothingness to exist.
The Chainsaw
That day brought an unexpected turn of events: the loud noise of a chainsaw.
At first, I assumed a tree had fallen or that some urgent task needed attention. Surely it would be over soon. But it wasn’t over soon. The sound drifted in and out throughout the day, sometimes close, sometimes further away. Within the darkness, my mind became consumed by it. I created explanation after explanation for how this could possibly be happening near a place dedicated to silence. I imagined every emergency that might have caused this.
Eventually, I ran out of excuses. The sound irritated me. Then it frustrated me. Then it made me feel totally helpless. I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't even see what was happening.
The sound of the chainsaw brought me to the edge of discomfort with a growing feeling that I couldn’t control my environment. By the end of the day, I felt exhausted and overwhelmed. My nervous system was dysregulated, and I was experiencing the same fear while awake that I had been experiencing within my dreams.
I just wanted to make myself feel safe.
Relief
Just before the evening check-in, a thought arrived. I wondered what would happen if I asked to step outside for just a few minutes. In my mind, I imagined being told that I could, and for the first time I felt relief move through my body and start to warm the frozen-state of nothingness. Minutes later, when the check-in actually started, I asked from the other side of the door if this might be possible.
The answer was yes, but it was suggested that I might be looking for a bigger experience than darkness was offering me. Hmmm…I sat with that possibility, and it didn't feel true. What I was looking for was safety, but at that moment I didn’t fully understand it, so I stayed in the dark.
That night the same theme of dreams continued, and the titration between the light and dark continued. My sense of safety was reestablished with the friendly lifeline:
What would nurture do?
Emerging
The following morning, during check-in, the caretaker almost immediately asked me a question.
"Tina, how would you feel if I took you out today?"
Relief moved through me so quickly I didn’t have time to think. My body started shaking. Tears came pouring out before my words could form. It felt as though a dam had broken open. My body’s response answered the question clearly—I was coming out.
When I emerged from darkness, I could already feel something softening. I sat down in the morning light feeling raw, emotional, and deeply relieved. Safety seemed to move through my body in a way that felt unfamiliar, as though it was filling a space that had long been held as a void, but it would be weeks before I could see just how profound the experience rippled in my life.
Rebirthing
Darkness allowed me to encounter something that had accompanied me for as long as I could remember. What I had experienced as nothingness revealed itself to be something else entirely—a lifelong state of freeze. Beneath it lived a constant vigilance, with a subtle but persistent fear that I was doing something wrong.
This experience has rippled through my life in countless ways. More than a year later, I continue to notice what became available from that retreat and how it touches my everyday life.
It’s interesting meeting a part of yourself that has always been there but you’ve never had access to. It’s like meeting someone whose company you instantly enjoy and look forward to getting to know them more.
Darkness retreats are a deeply personal and individual experience that have a unique and honest way of helping you find exactly what needs to be found in that moment of time. If Tina’s experience speaks to something in you, Nocturna Domes will be opening its doors to guests in the Spring of 2027 on the beautiful Cortes Island, British Columbia. For updates on the build, darkness experiences and booking availability join our newsletter here.