(FYI -- the person speaking is Jo from the story I posted Wednesday)
Last week, while looking for the switch to turn off
electricity to the fences, I slipped in the snow and fell down an embankment I
had never noticed before. I wasn’t hurt,
just a bit bruised. As I rose from the
ground, I noticed that there was no snow under my hand, and the ground was warm.
I stood up, stepped back, and looked around.
I was standing at the entrance to a labyrinth. Someone had built the walls of the labyrinth
about knee high, and the open ground was warmed from underneath. I remember liking to walk labyrinths in The Time
Before: before I woke up here 18 months ago, as well as I can determine. I found them a profound spiritual
experience. (I can’t remember my name,
where I am from, why I am in the house I am in, what happened to the people,
why the property is surrounded by electric fences, but I remember
labyrinths. The mind is quite the
undiscovered country.)
I looked around a bit more and found a bench a bit
to the left of the entrance. I cleared
it off and sat and gazed at the labyrinth.
I threw some stones at the walls and the warm ground, afraid that there
might be unpleasant surprises. As I sat,
I saw a vixen and her kits walk out from the shadow of one of the walls and,
ignoring me, play and romp over and around the labyrinth walls, and roll on the warm ground. Clearly, it was not
harming them. I sighed, still unsure,
and walked home.
In the days since, I have walked in all directions
looking for the source of the electricity for the fences. I have been
unsuccessful. I sometimes wonder why I
even look anymore. I just cannot accept
that I may never be able to leave this land, this house – that this is the
prison that will hold me all the days of my life. In the time between the
fruitless searches for the equipment room that consume the mornings of my days,
I have researched the labyrinth. I know
the difference between a labyrinth and a maze.
I know that the Minotaur was in the center of a maze, even though it was
called a labyrinth. I have seen a picture of the labyrinth in the Cathedral of
Chartres in France – wherever that is.
Today, I decided to return to the local labyrinth. I sat on the bench and watched the sun on the
snow beyond the space that was snow-free by design. I found myself entering the labyrinth. I
started to breathe deeply, breathing in light, breathing out darkness. Breathing in hope, breathing out fear.
Breathing in peace, breathing out unrest. Slowly, I walked around the path
marked out by the brick walls. One step after another, lightly, turning each
time the path turned, but ever onward. It seemed to me that time changed
character, slowed and became less rigid, as I walked. There were mini-minotaurs to grapple with –
my worries about who I was, why I was here, where the other people were. But I kept breathing in and out, in and
out. The air above the labyrinth was
warmed by the same design that warmed the earth. I breathed it in, and with it hope, and
peace, light and trust. All the out breaths carried away my fear, and worry,
and darkness, and suspicion. Breathing
in, breathing out. Step by step, slaying
the mini-minotaurs, and moving ever onward. Finally, I reached the middle. There was a raised column in the center. I
moved close enough to read the words carved there: “Be at peace in the silence.” -- Hildegard of Bingen
I turned a collapse into a controlled action of
sitting on the warm ground. I knew of Hildegard – I read her “Illuminations”, I
played her music on the CD player in the living room. … I had no idea she had
used a labyrinth as a spiritual tool. I looked around the center, and there was
no Minotaur. I felt the silence wrap around me like a blanket, a soft and warm
feeling of comfort. This silence was
different from the silence I knew from being the only human being in the
vicinity. In this silence, I felt a gentle breeze, and heard a voice saying:
“Be still, Child. Be still. Be not
afraid. You are not alone. Be at peace.”
I did not know if the voice belonged to a man or a woman. I do know that it was the kindest, most
gentle voice I ever remembered hearing. I was still. I was warm. I closed my eyes for a time. When
I opened them, I knew it was time for the outward journey. I rose. I began walking the pathway back
out. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. I heard a song I
remembered singing in the Time Before.
“May I be filled with loving kindness, may I be well. May I be filled with loving kindness, may I
be well. May I be peaceful and at
ease. May I be whole.” I remembered a
man’s voice saying over voices singing, “May you be filled with loving kindness”, and then the voices singing
those words again with that change of pronoun.
The man’s voice again rose over the singing voices “May we be filled with loving kindness”, and
the voices singing those words with the change to the inclusive pronoun. I
remembered that this practice was called “Metta-meditation”, and the spiritual
path it came from was called Buddhism. Hildegard was a Catholic Nun. The words I heard at the center were
spiritually neutral. The words I
remembered, and sang again on the outward journey were from Buddhism. As I made
my way deliberately back out to the beginning of the labyrinth, I looked up at
the sky in wonder. I had come out here just after dawn. It felt as if days had
gone by during my journey of the labyrinth. Yet the sun was directly
overhead. It was only noon. I turned my
back on the labyrinth. My steps back to the house felt as if I were still
walking to the center, where I could be still in the silence, before walking
back out, the whole journey making me well in my own soul – at least for a
time.
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