The 1st day was bonkers. I find myself grabbing for a cell phone that isn’t there because I know it will dim or distract the zillion little engrams screaming for attention in my head. I find the most insistent one’s repeating. Catastrophizing, criticizing ourselves, often really brutally. Thank goodness for the medicine.

The 2nd day is WORSE! The distraction is brutal. Can’t focus. I go for walks around the forest to engage what distraction I can from the changes in scenery. I get to pick a couple wild oranges and they taste perfectly sublime. That night’s ceremony runs as dark as can be; a mirror of my unquiet mind that day.

The 3rd day they bury me in the earth. It’s not about death but reconnecting, grounding in many senses.

The 4th day I become armed with the technology to identify discrete engrams in my personality. To hug them. To love them and listen to them to find out what they need. I feel armed to the teeth to face my own mind in silent moments. Probably for the first time.

By the 5th day I am starting to notice stretches of silence. Not in the woods around my tent but in my mind. Long stretches. I smile sitting in them. This retreat is such a gift. More walks. More oranges.

The 6th day we dunk ourselves in an ice bath. I know that itself is so healthy but the superpower I take from it is actually a strengthened will power. Everything I commit to doing now if I hesitate at all I hear GET IN THE ICE BATH in my head… and I DO THE WORK.

The seventh day the silent moments stretch to hours. Ceremony that night is about discipline = love. Love of my perfect wife, my new love for myself and the boy child still in me.

That night I play guitar like a samurai, like I’m a conduit for raw emotion and a supernova of love. I am grateful.