Good initiative! I’ve been beating around the bush about how to write about my experiences… a lot of it was very personal and just like you I’m not sure if I’ll put things the right way, but I’ll give it a shot. I’ll probably have to go back to revise this, but I’ll put the first edition out there instead of constantly being scared of saying the wrong thing.
The week leading up to the convivium was a bit of a wild ride for me, and I’m scared of flying, so I came in to the first meeting in the airport terribly short on sleep. I remember Claudiu driving us and it all felt very formal, didn’t it? We met up with Geoffrey at the house after driving from the airport, but I really don’t remember what we even did in the yellow beach Kia on the way there. 
I also barely remember the first few hours at the house.
What I did bring into this convivium was a sort of “this is my last chance” feeling. I’d been banging my head against a wall for the past couple of years without getting anywhere, and I really both wanted and needed this. Granted I also came into it with a sort of “hands out, please masa grant me a PCE”, but more on that later.
I think it was the second day when we were sitting in the couches in the little patio next to the pool just talking, and I turned to Geoffrey to say something about my lack of progress (I think it was? I really don’t remember now and I wish I’d been better at making notes) and suddenly I felt myself coming to the fore, filling up with sincerity about the whole sorry mess while the world was just blooming and expanding around me, while actually seeing Geoffrey. He has a way of looking at you when you “pop out” that drew me in even more and suddenly I was face to face with an actually free person and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced. We all went for a nap that afternoon and I was dozing off, thinking about the whole experience while it seemed like every cell of my body was going in and out of pure life force. It’s as if my body is dull and kind of dead in day to day life, but now it was filling up, warming up, and just becoming more alive. Matter was no longer merely passive; I’ve seen this before but now I had it right in my lap on the first day.
However, I started closing up. I noticed this and we spoke about it and I started feeling a sort of disappointedness that this was all I was going to get out of this. We spoke at length during one of our nightly chats (herbal teas, Kuba sitting on the couch, Sonya laying down under a towel “listening with my eyes closed!”, Geoffrey sitting in the right armchair and me trying to find any position in my own armchair that wasn’t just sitting) about how I seemed to always see EEs, IEs, PCEs etc as some gift granted and not as something I allowed.
During the first couple of days I’d also felt a lot of obligation towards the group. I stuck around, never ventured my own way and I had a really hard time taking any initiatives. It struck me as a bit odd but for some reason I couldn’t. My own feelings about the comedown from the first day’s brush with intimacy also played into this and I started getting really crabby and sensitive. I seemed to be able to sit on my hands well enough though.
Now for the experiences that stood out to me, and I really hope I’m doing them justice:
On Friday I’d had enough. The entire week was us constantly being right on the edge, but I had started pondering more and more whether all this was ever going to amount to for me was “only” that intimacy experience and then a contraction. I woke up early, as usual, made coffee and eggs for everyone… and then, realising that it was barely light outside and nobody would be up for another few hours, it was time for me to strike out on my own. I started in the back garden, exploring the bushes and finding a weird access area behind our house. I started looking around the various plants we had and decided to use Gemini to classify them. Then I realised we had a pomegranate tree in our front yard and the fruits were almost becoming too ripe, but we couldn’t get to them (without probably sacrificing Geoffrey’s life climbing the darn thing). I took the pool skimmer that we had and silently snuck it through the house and into the front yard and tried to use it to pry loose some of the most ripe pomegranates at the top of the tree. Some maintenance guys approached in a car and I had to dodge them (the tree was technically not really ours to pick) and so I spent a couple of minutes doing some stealth shit in and around the tree, but no luck, pomegranates are resistant to being picked by pool skimmer. But by now I was getting rowdy, I wanted more adventure. I returned the skimmer to the wall, put on a fleece and some shoes and snuck out of the house. The first thing I discovered was a pomegranate bush in the front yard of the next house, so I ninja’d a couple of fruits from that tree instead and deposited them back in the kitchen. Then I went out again and started looking at the trees, flowers and bushes we had and as the sun was coming up properly I was taking pictures, feeding them into Gemini and getting more and more delighted by every new classification. I started walking around the area, sneaking peeks wherever I could and exploring as much as I could without getting caught. As I was getting the main reception I decided it was time to leave the area all together. I crossed the road, passed the Elegant Dining Experience 
and ventured into the swanky villa area hidden away behind the restaurant. I remember looking at a pair of deeply red oleander buds and thinking “these will do me in if I stay to look at them”, so I stayed and man… I don’t quite remember how it all started (but by the end of the week I started seeing a pattern in my experiences), but a deep feeling of rowdy playfulness welled up inside of me while the ground came to meet me. Everything went solid again but above and beyond all I could feel a deep sensuosity from the very centre of my being just welling and welling and coming in waves. It was like sex but without the dirtiness. I remember thinking “now I understand what Richard meant when he said font of being”. I started crying, which unfortunately meant I constantly had to pull back (residential area). I remember looking at the crowns of the palm trees waving in the wind and the way the sun reflected on their leaves resonated with every cell in me (this is very hard to describe), so I started having to take deep breaths just to make it through it. Every time they waved in the breeze it was like being hit by the most gorgeous sensation, welling over me and through me. I once again felt how matter, every single stone I was walking on, myself, the houses, everything was imbued with life force. This kept going on for a while, I got completely lost, had to pull back from the brink so that people wouldn’t wonder what was wrong with me, but I kept rushing back into it even when I thought I was completely wrung out. Eventually I had to return back home and the experience faded. I came back to the house and I wanted everyone to wake up so I could play with them. I may have forced Kuba to look at rosemary bushes.
What made me happy was that this time it was all me. I didn’t venture out intending to have a PCE or any kind of experience, but I remember thinking it would be nice to have one.
The rest of the day I was just existentially spent. I could barely move. I tried to allow something again but it didn’t happen. For much of the trip it didn’t matter either, we were all at such an amazing baseline anyway. Sometimes it was just immensely fun and fascinating to watch Geoffrey tripping balls, or Kuba pondering, or Sonya being happy.
The next day I decided to do the same morning routine, but I was fully aware that this wasn’t a slot machine; I couldn’t do the exact same thing and then hope for a reward. I decided to put on sunglasses (to hide the tears ) and a proper pair of hiking shoes and just be open to anything. This time I decided not to stealth my way around the compound, but instead went directly for the swanky area. My target was a beach further down towards the coast. I looked at the same buds as the day before and I felt a tingling but nothing more. Once I got to the end of the area I’d explored the day before the sensuosity started up again, though. I was still existentially tired but I couldn’t stop, I kept getting closer, letting the flowers and trees do me in over and over again, but once I got onto the beach trail my fear of heights kicked in and I was swiftly brought back to real life. The beach was an old roman garum fermenter location and I swear the stink projected through the centuries. I decided to take a detour on the way back home (I had about 30 minutes) and ended up by the most gorgeous pines and the sensuosity started up again. I remember it feeling like I was on a trampoline and the universe just went BOOM on the trampoline and I started going wheeeee the higher and higher we got. The entire morning I felt like I was playing inside and with the universe, I was laughing and biting my lip and enjoying and just playing, playing, playing. As I was halfway home I’d really spent everything I could though. I picked some berries and oranges, and pulled up a grass that looked gorgeous and started heading home. I didn’t feel particularly aware of the actual, but there was a nice, buzzed feeling so I remember thinking that “well, I guess I can just enjoy the holiday feeling”. Next thing I know, I was staring down a bifurcated path. On the left, quickly vanishing, was the actual. On the right, in an opaque swirl, was God. I could just go there and be absorbed into God. While I wasn’t scared when it happened I remember going “Oh no the fuck we’re not doing fucking THAT!”. I could feel all my senses closing up. It was a deeply unnerving sensation and I was desperately trying to get out, feeling like I was at risk of sinking in to it if I didn’t mentally paddle hard enough. I walked the main street back to our compound feeling entirely disconnected and desperately looking for anything do get me back to my senses. Eventually the pine trees came to the rescue again and I could verify that I hadn’t done anything irreversible, I could still get back to my senses, but I spent the rest of the morning frazzled. I spoke to Geoffrey, and later Claudiu about it, and that made it less unnerving. I did avoid anything even religious looking for a good few hours afterwards though. There were paintings of the Buddha at the restaurant where we had lunch and I sneakily sat myself down so I wouldn’t have to look at them.
The final thing I wanted to prove to myself was that I could have an intimacy experience with people around me. While I’d felt excellent and “there” a lot of the time, I could only get “close” to Geoffrey. The experience Kuba mentioned with the stillness barely made a dent in me (I was still uneasy after the whole enlightenment thing) but once we got into the lunch restaurant I remember looking at Claudiu. I’d been trying to understand him (sorry! but we all know that we had such different approaches) and decided to watch how Geoffrey interacted with him and use him as my lodestone about what was happening. Once I saw that they were having a moment I started looking at Claudiu and all of a sudden he came to the forefront and I saw that personality is a lukewarm simulacra of what actually makes a person unique. There’s so, so much to each of us in the actual that I was absolutely blown away with how perfect it really is. Claudiu was perfect and I was in shock at how precious he was, and how precious everyone is. Unfortunately the waterworks started for me again so I had to hide behind my glasses. But I actually did it among people this time and that was a big step for me and I guess the final proof.
Anyway, I’ll keep writing when I remember things, there’s a lot of things that are hazy right now.
This whole week was probably the best of my life. I can’t explain how different from normal life this really is, to the extent that it almost feels alien to me now. It feels odd to be back in a rainy and cold Sweden. I managed to feel the playfulness come on a bit in the morning but - and I think I was well and truly warned about this - I might close up a bit before I find the aperture again. I currently feel like nothing else is really worth it in the long run but I still get up to some weirdness.
In the end, I have to find my own path to this. I was surprised by how easy and available sensuousness was for me, but naivete is a bit harder and other aspects don’t really show up that easily. I was also amused but a bit taken aback how different approaches we all had to the actual, and sometimes we’d have discussions where we were saying the same things but couldn’t quite see it. For me, ending the split inside me (it’s deep!) is probably a better tactic than trying to get back to feeling good. I realised that I’d done this on my own without connecting it to actualism, and life got so much easier whenever I did. Going “I can’t do this” is ridiculous, it’s easy. I can always solve it, just relax and look again, make the intention and let it happen. Rumination is just an avoidance tactic. And to say that I don’t have what it takes is a way to not have to become actually free (and while writing this I think that hiding away and not daring to even write a single word is also an avoidance tactic).
Now for the more down to earth things, we really were insanely playful and silly at times. We played so much, especially towards the end of the week, that I think some of the older members of the convivium almost got neck injuries. Howling huskies in the backseat in an eternal roundabout, Loreen and Lorelai’s raccoon dance around the pool, and literally going down shit creek. I couldn’t have asked for a better gathering of actualists to spend this week with.
Also, guys, the “see you soon”. 