I've been walking the labyrinth the past few months....metaphorically speaking...
is a meditative walk that goes back thousands of years. One of the oldest labyrinths is in the Chartes cathedral of France. The Catholic leaders were suspicious of this walk - but found that their own priests were secretly walking it regularly. Today it is open every Friday and thousands of people walk it every year. This particular labyrinth pictured above is called a 7-circuit labyrinth and is the model for the one I am half-way through creating on my own property.
When one enters the labyrinth - there is a feeling of anticipation that one is walking towards the centre. But... it takes interesting twists and turns and you find yourself walking in and then back towards the outer edges over and over before you eventually do find yourself at the centre. It is difficult for anyone to really describe well what the walk does internally.
But it is the best way for me to describe my journey these past few months. The inward journey of moving forward but then also going through spaces where it feels like one is moving backwards.
The journey of letting go, grieving and embracing a new life is not a quick weekend experience. There is a long, long path of this transition.
My friend who visited China last year said that in one village - the greeting people give to each other is 'walk slowly'. On the labyrinth one has to walk slowly and that is where I have been - walking slowly.
Observing, pondering, allowing.
And the interesting thing is that I find myself in a growing place of 'joyful expectancy'. Almost as a pregnant mother - feeling life within my soul - new life that is becoming ready to be born in this world.
Life that grows slowly in dark places with no hurry - but patiently forming in hidden places.
There are new songs, new poetry, new stories, new understandings that have come from 'walking slowly' - and soon it will be time to share.
