Pondering

Chuck and I walked my labyrinth recently. I was fairly chatty while we walked, which isn’t really usual. He didn’t ask me to shut up and I was chatting about my perspective of the path. I figured we’d have ample opportunity to walk it silently other times.

What was going through my mind, then, and continues to spin through my thoughts is how a labyrinth represents Life to me.

It is a meandering path. Frequently, you think you are going one direction and find that you have ended up turned around and going somewhere else. The end is often a surprise. There may or may not be other people going with you. And sometimes when you seem to be traveling together, you are headed in opposite directions. And things outside your own journey can be distractions or affect you in some other way.

As I walk, I often consider what the things outside the labyrinth represent. Do my pets represent Spirit Guides? Is my shed a metaphor for the Halls of Valhalla? Could my wooded area represent the Wood Between the Worlds in the Chronicles of Narnia? When I hear my neighbors chatting on their deck, should it evoke the voices of angels or gods?

Or should I instead consider my walk the path of Jonah, traversing the bowels of the Great Fish? More than once the circuitous route has called to mind the Belly of a Beast.

It reminds me of the folds of a brain, too. Which would make me a Thought and that gives rise to another round of existential postulation

I had been wishing to explore other labyrinths in the area. There are many, according to the Labyrinth Locater on the Grace Cathedral website. Chuck was willing so we have planned an outing on Sunday. My intention is to go to one, public and /or easily accessed, labyrinth a month. I have been inviting friends.

I’m excited about this.