The Labyrinth

I first saw the labyrinth near the Carle Clinic was when I was a new conductor for Amasong. We were asked to sing at the dedication, and a group of us stood near the newly constructed circle, sans most plants, and sang Deep Peace. It was exciting to be present at the "unveiling" so to speak.

Later, after I found I had cancer, I was too ill to go there, and anyway most of that happened in the fall and winter months. I often thought how nice it would be to just go and sit in the warm sun and enjoy the newly growing flowers and greenery. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of it from a window.

When I was feeling somewhat better and figuring out how to put my life back to some sort of sense, I went there with a friend or two and actually walked the twisting pathway to the center and back while we talked about stuff serious and silly.

But this weekend was the first time I visited alone. I parked in the employee lot between two huge RVs (some sort of dog show), locked the car, and headed down the sidewalk towards where the labyrinth lay baking in the sun. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but I felt irresistibly drawn there, almost like the inexplicable pull I felt to visit my son's grave for the first few years after he died, even though I knew he was not there in the cemetery. What was drawing me to this place, I wondered. As with the first time I entered the funeral home for my son's wake, I could not bring myself to go directly to the labyrinth itself, but wandered around the flower gardens a bit before I started the task of entering the tan and gray stone circle.

There wasn't much to set this space apart from the rest of the place. Some waist high grass and plants bordered the spot, that's about it. You could see in the distance two guys taking a break from work, sitting on a picnic table smoking and laughing about something. Two kids were throwing a frisbee around, and a golden retriever was barking furiously at them. Several nurses walked past on the sidewalk, headed for their shift. For a sacred space, it sure wasn't quiet. The sounds of normal life intruded thoughtlessly on any reflection you might want to have. I'm sure those people wondered what on earth I was doing wandering back and forth in the same spot over and over!

Despite the distractions, I managed to keep on task, to resist the urge to just walk directly to the center as if that were the point. Get there, get back out, yes? No. It is in the journey, in the connection between the physical movement, at once constrained and structured, and the mental pathway, the tie between the smallness of the space around me and the largeness of my life stretching behind and before me. Yes, before me. A future. Perhaps even a long one, dare we so hope.

This walking, this discipline, this prearranged shuttling back and forth somehow transcends the limitation of time, suspends the immediate for the moment longed for, makes you think thoughts outside of your normal routine. Suddenly, there are no boys playing, no employees talking, no dogs barking. Suddenly there is you and your thoughts and thoughts that are beyond yourself. I found my mind moving in places new, inviting me to move up a realm or two, think bigger.

I walked to the center, but not stopping there as is my wont. I kept moving through the space, around the inner edge and back to the same path I had just traversed, only different. The orientation changed, the view, the perspective. It is not the same journey from the center as to it. It is not the same journey after cancer as before it. Not better. Not worse. Different.

I exited the stone circle and walked directly back to my car and on to other things, very aware of a new space inside to explore. Can you grow up more when you are older? Perhaps.