A Transformative Journey: Reflections from a Recent Guest
At Cape Town Retreats, we believe that the true impact of our experiences often comes from the unexpected - those moments of personal growth that arise when we step outside our comfort zones. One of our recent guests, Larry Oltmanns, a well-known architect, came to us with little more than curiosity and a desire to disconnect. His journey, which began with doubts and hesitations, turned into a revelation of self-discovery.
Larry’s candid letter captures the essence of what many of our guests experience: a retreat that challenges, heals, and ultimately transforms. In his own words, Larry shares how the retreat not only helped him let go of physical burdens but also sparked a renewed sense of purpose and creativity. His story serves as a powerful reminder that retreating is not just about stepping away - it’s about stepping forward into a new way of being.
I wasn’t expecting this to be a cake walk. I wasn’t even sure I could last until the end, and who knew, really? Maybe starving for a week in the company of strangers would even prove to be a reasonable price to pay if only I could drop a kilo or two. In any case, after a week in Purgatory, suffering for past sins, at the very least I figured I would be able to return home with a clear conscience, free to resume my normal, hedonistic life.
If you search online for the origin of the word ‘retreat’ you will find an interesting range of ideas and dates. According to Online Etymology Dictionary, it was first used about seven hundred years ago, in France, to describe a military withdrawal. About two hundred years later, the meaning of the word had expanded to include ‘a place of seclusion’. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the same word could also signify ‘an establishment for mentally ill persons’ or ‘a period of retirement for religious self-examination.’
None of these definitions quite seemed to capture my expectations for this so-called ‘retreat’ I had signed up for in a remote area of the Western Cape. As D-Day approached, the worst aspects of life in a medieval monastery persistently came to mind. I imagined endless hours of gnawing hunger while secluded in a cold stone cell without windows, learning to chant in unfamiliar Asian languages.
None of my friends were encouraging. Some even offered to come and rescue me if I managed to make contact with them, but I wondered if communication with the outside world would even be possible once I was locked inside.
I arrived at the end of a Friday afternoon and was greeted at the door by a brightly smiling girl, but I thought to myself, isn’t this the way it always is when one is committed to an institution? (‘Come along now, sir, and we’ll draw you a nice, hot bath, all right?’ And then, clang! The cell door closes and life in captivity begins).
According to the agenda scrawled in white chalk on the blackboard, the first activity was going to be a ‘group session’, but as I took my place by the fireplace all I could see were the bare cupboards in the kitchen. The only evidence of anything consumable were a dozen boxes of herbal teas sitting on an otherwise vacant countertop. As the idea of ‘starvation’ began to enter into my new definition of the word ‘retreat’, we were asked to tell the group a little bit about ourselves and why we had decided to come. As the last person in the circle who was going to speak I had plenty of time to reflect on this last bit. Why indeed? What on earth had I been thinking?
Over the course of my life I have come to detest group sessions, especially those with strangers arranged in a circle. Maybe they remind me too much of those Alcoholics Anonymous meetings we’ve all seen on TV. ‘Hello. My name is Larry Oltmanns. I’m overweight and I’m addicted to pleasure.’ The short stories told by each person in turn confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that I had landed in an alien place. Everyone else was South African, still working, younger than me by a century or more, and apparently trying to escape from something. I, on the other hand, happily ensconced in my retired life, was not trying to escape from anything (except possibly, from this ‘retreat’).
After confessions, our instructor outlined the week’s activities and what we could expect. She assured us that we would never feel hungry, but I didn’t believe her for a second. On the the blackboard was a list of our daily ‘meals’: Immuno-tea at 8:00, juice at 10:00, golden milk at 13:00 (whatever that was), juice (again) at 17:00, vegan broth at 18:00 (could there even be such a thing as vegan broth?). During Q&A I was secretly hoping that someone would ask if there might be any solid food on offer, but when that question never arose I began to wonder, who are these people?
By the time I found myself lying on the floor a few hours later, surrounded by twelve strangers and listening to yogic chants, it became apparent that I was well out of my comfort zone. But the worst was yet to come.
On Day Two we had half an hour of ‘shaking’, which later turned into full-on dancing. Having tried unsuccessfully to get me onto dance floors all over the world for the past twenty years, my wife would no doubt have been amazed to see me cavorting across the wood floor in the company of a dozen ladies half my age, my eyes tightly closed and flailing in the air like a crippled scarecrow. By the end of the day I was ready to consider an exit strategy. But I didn’t have the energy and quickly fell asleep, dreaming of good food and fine wine.
On Day Three, after a hot cup of Immuno-tea (no milk, no croissant) we embarked on a walk in the countryside and immediately ran into a thunderstorm, for which this particular region of the Western Cape is rightfully famous. After slipping and sliding on muddy banks and fording a couple of raging streams we were forced to turn back, slogging our way uphill for the last kilometre in the face of a howling gale. If ever there was a time to escape, I thought, this was certainly it, but the exertions of the walk had left me speechless. Besides, it was time for the Morning Juice.
During the orientation session our instructor had suggested that we begin each day by writing our first thoughts on a piece of paper. Early in the morning, on Day Four, I was preparing to do just that. Poised over my I-pad and watching the sun rise over the mountain range in the distance, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe this retreat wasn’t so bad after all. Contrary to my expectation, I was not delirious from hunger, I wasn’t especially embarrassed about the dancing, and even the yoga didn’t phase me as much as I had thought it would. Although the frequent and embarrassing cracking of my old knees would have been too loud to ignore, no one seemed to notice. Even the meditation had seemed to work (in an odd sort of way) despite the fact that I have always dismissed such acts as a bunch of hooey.
Grudgingly I began to admit to myself that it was even possible that this entire escapade had been beneficial (in a limited sort of way). Our instructor had been a constant source of support, encouraging and at the same time remarkably adept at all the strange things she asked us to do. And yet, it was obvious that she had gone out of her way to avoid being superhuman, which gave rise, I suppose, to a somewhat unreasonable hope on my part that I might someday be capable of performing some of these exotic rituals (in a limited sort of way).
Somehow, though, I knew that there was more to it than that. I had come here to lose weight but I had discovered something else. Initially I had assumed that the purpose of the yoga, the dancing, the meditating, the group ‘talks’, and all the rest of it were intended to fill in what would have otherwise been endless hours of agony waiting for the next five-minute ‘meal’. In the beginning, these activities had seemed silly and totally pointless to me but suddenly, on Day Four, I realised that they were all part of a package. Taken together with the fasting, they created a structure that promoted and celebrated fitness in a holistic way, opening up both the mind and body to new ways of being.
Thus it was that a half-hour exercise in drawing mandalas had become for me a revelation, and I suddenly felt that I might be ready to take up drawing and painting again, an endeavour that had become for me, ever since I retired, an insurmountable mountain, a kind of mental obstacle akin to writer’s block.
It was then that I began to see the week in Tulbagh as not so much a retreat as a release. When I would leave this refuge two days later I realised that I would not be re-entering the real world but emerging into a new world. Feeling lighter, breathing deeper, energised and optimistic, and with a new sense of freedom, I felt ready to go out and conquer the world. And then I began to regret that in only one day, it would all be over.