A long, long day, from about 8 am to 11:30 pm. The final push before we go to Moissac for our PAT 8 in retreat. A marathon meant for the final cleaning-out so we go into the training with nothing left but ourselves. We start with a bus ride to Gavernie, a beautiful mountain town high in the Pyrenees, just a few miles from the Spanish border, for a hike or horse ride or donkey ride (depending on your preference) to a picturesque waterfall. The town is set up for outdoor fun, and with such ease and grace—cafés with views, a hotel by the falls, all older buildings, everything designed for relaxation, dining and hanging out, and also designed to harmonize with nature. The specialty of the area is an excellent blueberry tart. The last stretch of the 3-hour hike to the waterfall is a steep scramble over gravel.

Then we go out of the sun and splendor, and into the darkness of Grottos of Betharam, a system of caves with a guided tour. It’s a huge collection of galleries, passageways, underground waterways. You could put a city in there, and we descend down several floors of damp staircases to get to different levels on a journey that includes a ride on a dragon-bowed boat on an underground river. More fun and/or fear release, as many people describe fears of darkness or entrapment, or claustrophobia—especially when the guide turns out the lights at 40 meters underground. That’s real darkness. (Also look at the stalactite and stalagmite that are close to touching in a couple of the photos, to see how slowly they grow. That gap between them will take 5000 years to fill through the slow dripping of water mixed with calcium carbonate.)

Then, after the heights of light, and the depths of darkness, we proceed to water and fire. We drive to Lourdes, home of St. Bernadette and the famous healing waters, and we tour the church there. Then another French dinner that has to be experienced to be believed, and then back again to the church area to participate in the nightly candle-lighting procession. It’s surreal, Felliniesque. There must be thousands of people here, a whole wheelchair brigade, and people carrying a large, fully lit Virgin Mary. Those tiny lights that look like Christmas lights on top of the church are actually individual people holding candles. We bumble around in our typical childlike MSIA way, getting lost and misunderstanding directions, trying to cross in front of where the procession is going to take place, happily immersed in the spirit of the occasion without concern about doing the form “correctly.” John does a touching blessing, we chant, and hopefully we’ve contributed some light to prepare for the festival where 40,000 people will participate next week.

Finally we get to our hotel by around 11:30 pm. I’m smelly and sweat-dyed from the hike, I’m a bit disoriented by the dank caves, I’m dazed by the mass emotionality of Lourdes. I don’t feel sick at all, but for some reason I throw up in the bathroom, and feel like a new man afterwards, and then fall into bed. That’s how these trips go—incongruous releases that come from nowhere and vanish as suddenly as they came. We’re here to take out the garbage, and it’s either our personal release, or someone else’s that we’ve picked up, or maybe a whole group’s, and who cares which one? It’s all felt perfectly choreographed, and the concentrated karma-simulations could be the equivalent of dozens of lifetimes, but discharged in the most graceful way possible, accompanied by beautiful scenery and great food—and, in this case, no added calories. I think I’m empty enough for the energy of the PAT 8 retreat—and hopefully France, and maybe the world, are too.