Have I been sent mad by goats?

I am on a retreat in the Portuguese mountains outside Faro, a heavenly place called Moinhos Velhos. I have not eaten food in three days. I have practised hours of yoga and meditation. I have swum many cool, slow lengths of a blue-tiled pool and sweated in a wood-fired sauna and walked for miles through a red dirt valley under whispering conifer pines. 

Yesterday I wanted to kill people. Not just the people on the retreat (who are all very calm and friendly and kind, which of course is why I wanted to kill them) but all the living creatures in the world – excluding a small herd of goats and a few obedient wood nymphs to milk them. I wanted exile.

The goats got me thinking about chèvre. Chèvre on baguette with tomato. Linguini with chèvre, lemon, garlic and basil. Gooey chèvre omelette with chives. The omelette fantasy made me realise I would need chickens in exile but I dislike the idea of raising chickens almost as much as I disliked the idea of people at that particular moment in time. Then I got a caffeine-withdrawal headache and felt very sorry for myself.

In other words, it was a typical day two on a yoga-fast. I’ve done a few of these things before so I know how it goes. day two is the day you hate everything and want to blow up the world.

It’s a mistake to expect much from day one either. When I arrived the retreat nurse took my blood pressure then frowned. ‘I sometimes get anxious in doctor’s offices and hospitals,’ I said. ‘You know “white coat syndrome?”’

She nodded. From the corner of the room a fat, smug Buddha grinned. A wind chime tinkled in the breeze. The nurse did not bother stating the obvious: we were not in a doctor’s office or a hospital. She was a registered nurse but she was wearing cut-offs and a tank top from a festival.

After some general queries about my exercise, diet and higher-than-average stress levels, I stood up. Muttered something about going to the sauna. The nurse asked if I wanted to take the blood pressure machine back to my room with me to monitor myself hour by hour to get a clearer read. I said no thank you, I’m fine. I’m fine.

But now it is day three and I feel boundless love for all of god’s creatures. By ‘god’ I mean the sweet glistening particles of pulp in my orange juice. I sat in the sun and enjoyed the pleasant sensation of orange pulp furring my tongue. The fruit sugar restored my energy. The light that produced it flowed into and through me. I felt myself being nourished by the minerals of the earth which sustained the roots of the mother tree that birthed the oranges. I bonded with my newfound retreat friends. (They are all so calm and friendly and kind! We have exchanged emails and will know each other forever!) I went to yoga and wept in corpse pose, great heaving sobs of empathy for the people I love and who love me back honestly with open hearts. I experienced a profound sensation of completeness with the universe. As I wept I did not worry about puffy eyes because in the afternoon I was booked to have my lymph nodes massaged.