labyrinth

I used to see life as path opening up ahead of me, sometimes winding and hilly, mostly direct. Occasionally, there would be moments in which I was aware of standing at a fork in the road, when I had to choose between two things with the consciousness that choosing one likely meant giving up the other forever. As when reading a which-way book, I was only able to see the decision right in front of me. In this model, the unchosen paths sometimes branched off sharply and disappeared from view and other times wound their own way nearby, still visible but not accessible.

Lately I've been thinking that life is more like a labyrinth, in which there is one path, but it is folded neatly around itself so that from any point, one can see the whole pattern.

The first time I set foot in a labyrinth, I fell in love. We were camping,* and my friend Karen looked at her husband Mike and said, "You know what we haven't done in forever?" No, love. What? "Made a labyrinth." You're right! I'll pick up ten pounds of flour when I go to town.

When Mike came back with the flour, they first defined critical points in the pattern and then started drawing curving lines from point to point. Even as I helped lay the lines, I had no understanding of  what we were creating. As the flour ran out, Karen declared the labyrinth complete.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Start here," Karen positioned me at the open space in the edge of the large circle full of lines. "Just walk. Keep going forward without crossing the lines. When you get to the center turn around and come back."

"But I'm not very good at mazes."

"It's not a maze. You don't have to make any choices, just follow the path. People have been doing this for millennia."

"But why?"

"You'll see."

She was right.

Since then, I've taken advantage of the few labyrinths that have appeared at my feet, and walking a labyrinth is always a profound experience. Not long ago, I was struggling to explain the experience of meditatively walking a labyrinth to Lou, so today I walked twice, once with a camera.

Even though I know what to expect, I'm always nervous to take the first step. It is a step over a boundary from the everyday to the sacred.

There is no wall stopping me from walking straight to the center. Taking this first curve in the path marks the choice to be obedient to the structure of the labyrinth.

I have to remind myself that getting straight to the center isn't the point, and yet early on the path winds close to the center, as if to give me a glimpse of where we are going.

And then, the path swings out to the outer edge of the labyrinth, and I feel so far away. Because even though I know that it's all about the journey, I still think of the center as the goal.

And then the path and I are back by my shoes at the entrance. Why are we back by my shoes?

So. Close.

Finally. Arrived.
On my second walk, sans camera, I sat down here and wept. I can't even say why. I sat down on the beautiful concentric cobbles, and there were tears. And when they were done, I stood up.

 Here beginneth the return. This is where I get cocky, thinking, I have walked all the inches of this path, I know you now, labyrinth. 

And I walk faster, and then, the path folds where I expected it to sweep.

Sometimes the folds of the path turn me in such a way that I can see neither the center nor the start. It's okay, though, because I know all the curves and sweeps of the path fit between those two points.

Look, path! We're almost there. So close to my shoes! 
I'm beginning to think that some of those unchosen choices from my past are more like this moment in which I can see something that I have not yet gotten to, something the path and I will reach later.

Oh. Just one more turn. Why are you done, path? I'm not ready.






__________________________________

*This camping trip was probably ten years ago, so all conversations are the paraphrase that survives in my memory.

This labyrinth is on the grounds of the Advent Lutheran Church in Arlington, Virginia, and I found it through the Labyrinth Locator.