A few months ago my friend Antonia wrote about the experience of walking a labyrinth. It reminded me that we have a labyrinth at the local United Church, so I thought I would try it out.
Having never been to a labyrinth or even seen one before, except in pictures, I had no idea how they worked or what labyrinth etiquette was. When I went to try it out, I wasn’t sure what I would find.
What greeted me as I pulled into the gravel driveway of the church was a garden gate, beyond which was the labyrinth. It wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Made of rocks, it has a gravel base and each circular labyrinth path is bordered by larger stones. So there are circles of larger stones overtop of the gravel, and there are small berms across the path on every second circle to force you to turn around and walk back on the circle adjacent to the one you came on. There are weeds growing through the gravel, and some of the larger rocks have slipped onto the pathway. But there’s a pattern to be followed, a turning and turning and turning again into the heart of the pattern.
When I got to the labyrinth I felt self-conscious, as though someone was watching me and laughing at this strange thing I was doing. Which is ridiculous, because there was no one there. The creek at the west end of the labyrinth was roaring after recent rains, and there was a constant construction sound coming from across the street. I walked around the outside of the labyrinth a bit and couldn’t figure out how to start, so I just stepped into the outer circle and started walking.
Of course, I later discovered that there is an official starting point, which is marked on the outside of the circle by a large boulder. Had I taken the time to look for that boulder, I would have known instantly where to start. I also made the mistake of thinking that the berms I kept seeing were just oddities in the way the gravel base had been groomed and walked over them, instead of noticing that they were places to turn back to the adjacent path in the circle. It was definitely a learning process.
It was spitting rain and I was wearing my rain jacket, which swished a bit when I swung may arms. My steps on the gravel were uncertain at first. Was I doing it right? Should I be walking slowly or quickly? What should I be thinking about? Is there even a ‘right’ way to walk a labyrinth?
Slowly I figured out how the labyrinth was formed, and made my way to its keyhole centre. My second time around was a lot better—I understood where I could and couldn’t walk, and was able to let my feet go while my mind wandered. Until I tripped over a border-defining rock, that is. So I kept my eyes partly on my feet and partly on the middle distance, trying to combine the two in my mind. I walked the labyrinth a few more times, and then stood on the boulder to take a picture of it. It felt slightly heretical, but I wanted to see how the patterns looked from above, beyond the range of my feet.
Did the labyrinth work? Did it calm my mind and counter the negative thoughts that constantly besiege me? I’m not sure. I spent half an hour there, wandering in and then out of the maze. Walking forwards from the entry and backwards from the middle. I began to recognize certain stones—the one with the white circle that looked painted on it. The one that looked like a pumice stone. The one that I kicked every time I went by, even after I moved it back into line with the other ones. My mind wandered through everyday thoughts, tasks, to-do lists, etc. I’m not sure I found a calm inner space.
So I went back the next week. It was pouring rain, and the grass around the labyrinth was slick with mud while some parts of the labyrinth itself had big puddles. I had my umbrella up, but the hand holding it got cold pretty quickly. This time I knew what to do. I walked over to the boulder then stepped into the labyrinth, starting my perambulations around the circle. This time I felt a bit of a lessening of my burdens. A slight change in my breathing. I tried to focus just on the rocks, a kind of walking meditation. It worked until the wind lofted under my umbrella and threatened to blow it away. Once I had it under control again, I walked the labyrinth from the centre to the entrance. I wondered if there was a rule that you could only walk it from the entrance to the centre. Did it mess up your chi if you walked it backwards?
I went back for a third time on Monday. This time it was clear and chilly, so I had my warm jacket and toque on. No umbrella, no spitting rain. No mud. Just sun and a little dusting of snow. I tried to be more purposeful this time, but ended up getting a bit dizzy on some of the tighter, repetitive twists and turns. I imagined that I was walking on a mountain trail and had to watch my footing. But I felt clumsy, my feet catching at rocks along the path, not pivoting gracefully at the turns.
The path is only 1-1.5 ft wide, so that’s part of it. But the other part was me. I was checking my watch, wondering how long it took me to complete the maze once (6 minutes, in case you were wondering). I took some pictures of it in the slanted morning light, and realized it was the first day I’d been there in the sun. I was distracted by a man walking his dog in the adjacent woods, and a couple of kids from the high school across the way also slinking into the woods to do whatever secret thing they couldn’t do on school grounds. I wasn’t ‘present.’ For the last two rounds, one in and one out, I focused hard on just being immersed in walking. It worked—I felt more relaxed when I left the garden to resume my everyday life.
The labyrinth will become somewhere I’ll go when I need some structure around which to coalesce my ideas and feelings. When I’m stuck in my writing, or wondering about a particularly knotty life problem. There is something in the anticipation of going, the repetition of walking, and the shadows cast by the stones in Monday’s sun that started to make it a familiar space. A friend, almost. Someone to visit every now and then and know they’ll always welcome you back.
Note: Revised 28 Jan to remove references to the ‘maze’ as that’s a completely different entity than a labyrinth. Also removed the Minotaur from the title as it was at the end of a maze, not a labyrinth.
