Walking the Labyrinth

I didn’t expect to end up at the Basilica. I didn’t anticipate walking the labyrinth, though I have walked it many times over the years. I didn’t think of it at all until I was already there.

I had gone out for a walk to be out in the cold and to be around other folks. There were lots of people walking around town, maybe strolling off their Thanksgiving dinners. I turned right unexpectedly and found myself walking up the steps of the church.

The courtyard was full of tourists taking photos of the towers and the doors. The church wasn’t open, which I think is kind of weird, but we live in weird times.

There seemed to be lots of joviality over by the labyrinth. Children laughing. Adults calling out to each other. I wandered over. There were some children running along the path. That’s fun. It never occurred to me to run a labyrinth.

My city is full of labyrinths, all beautiful, each unique. This one is a replica of the one at Chartres in France. There are lots of twists and turns leading to the center circle.

One of the things I love about this design is how it takes you on its twisty path tantalizingly close to the center, but then again way out to the edge. Like life offering its waves of experience for us to savor.

Several people were giving up on the process; it does take some time to complete. They laughingly cut across the path to move onto some other amusement. A woman was walking the path deliberately and on one of the deceptive inward curves, she called out to her friend, “I’m almost there,” before the path took her all the way out to the outer edge once again.

I love walking a labyrinth because it takes focus, and patience, and staying with the process—all valuable skills for living life. So, even though it was cold, and I was risking having to walk home in the dark, I decided, once everyone had left, to find my way along the path to the center.

Once I entered, I felt myself drawing inward. This is hard to describe, but it kind of feels like a powerful magnet is pulling my whole world into itself at the center of my being. I love this feeling because it is calm, and powerful, and within it, I know everything is OK. Going to be OK. Is already OK. The world is arranging itself into a perfect order.

I nearly missed a curve or two on one side of the labyrinth because the sun, low on the horizon, was glaring and reflecting off a litter of fallen autumn leaves, and I couldn’t clearly see the colored stones of the path. But like in life, at the last minute, I saw what I needed to see and course corrected.

I am grateful for my life that allows me moments of this great and powerful peace. I’d love to hear from you. What does tapping into the core of your Essence feel like?

Pam Gregory is sparking a global movement with a daily 15-minute meditation to welcome in a new world--a new level of consciousness for humanity--at noon US Mountain time every day. You don’t have to sign up for anything. All you have to do, when you remember, is to sit yourself down and find your peace within. If you want to hear her explain it more fully, here’s the link.

(Thank you, community member, Sharon for sharing this with me.)