A MAN on a months-long retreat with no communication with the outside world just found out about the coronavirus pandemic. In March, Daniel Thorson embarked on a 75-day meditation retreat in a small cabin in Vermont in almost complete silence. Months later, when he left the cabin and signed into social media for the first […]
A MAN on a months-long retreat with no communication with the outside world just found out about the coronavirus pandemic.
In March, Daniel Thorson embarked on a 75-day meditation retreat in a small cabin in Vermont in almost complete silence.
Months later, when he left the cabin and signed into social media for the first time on May 23, he tweeted: “I’m back from 75 days in silence. Did I miss anything?”
He told WPTZ he decided to take part in the retreat before the coronavirus outbreak hit the US.
Thorson said he “was completely disconnected from the news cycle.”
“There’s no information coming in. You’re not speaking to anyone besides the teacher here. I would meet with him once every other day for five or ten minutes.”
Thorson said while away from the world, he told the retreat he wanted to be notified if anything happened to his close friends or family so he could leave.
He said he’s “been completely impressed with some aspects of life that have changed that I wouldn’t have known or predicted.”
“I mean I’ve never lived through a pandemic before. I don’t know what that’s like,” he said.
He told Inside Edition: “The first time I saw everybody wearing masks in the supermarket, it was [like] a very sci-fi movie experience.”
“A very striking image.”
“Everybody’s been on a kind of retreat for the last two months, so in a sense what I did is less exceptional than it normally would have been,” he said. “I felt like I really touched the full spectrum of the human experience during that time.”
Thorson said his girlfriend is on a similar retreat, so she’ll also get a big shock when she leaves.
Thorson isn’t the only person to have missed out on finding out about the pandemic as it struck the country.
Actor Jared Leto was on a silent meditation retreat, and on March 17 tweeted: “Wow. 12 days ago I began a silent meditation in the desert. We were totally isolated.”
“No phone, no communication etc. We had no idea what was happening outside the facility.”
Leto said he “walked out yesterday into a very different world. One that’s been changed forever. Mind blowing – to say the least.”
The musician said once he got out he was “getting messages from friends and family all around the globe and catching up on what’s going on.”
