Tales From the Labyrinth—Endings (Completion & Rebirth)

The Straight & Narrow of One Eternal Round

I certainly did not know the ending from the beginning, when I began building a 45-foot walking labyrinth in my back yard.  If you had told me, amidst the hot and earthy smells of July, that by October I would be steward over such a place, I likely would have felt that old familiar overwhelm.  Moments in life, than seem larger than it, run the risk of sending me into distraction, within the thickness of other thin things.  My way of changing the subject until I am really ready to go there.

I know, as well as anyone, that running away from our Dharma can have weighty consequences.  When prompted to succumb to such impulses, I have learned to let my inhale begin as a slow sip, toward the bridge of my nose and cascade back through an exhale into a long, deep, soothing sigh.  This most basic of yoga practices, helps me attune inwardly and steward the wiles of overwhelm.  Skills such as this, have been invaluable in teaching me the value of taking life one step at a time. 

So, by mid-August, the throngs of helpers had left this beautiful path complete. One evening, close to that time, I was near the back of my house rolling up the garden hose of Summer.  Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a quiet visitor, a monarch butterfly.  I thought how fitting (as she landed near my feet), that this sacred presence would grace this path.   Her life was a perfect metaphor of the many personal metamorphosis' that had already and would continue to occur here.  

My desire to snap a picture, without disturbing her faded quickly with a flush of sadness, when I realized that she had likely reached the end of a glorious journey, one that lasted all summer for her too.  It was clear that she did not have the energy to take flight again and was sharing her final moments with me.  

I watched over this beauty intermittently over the next 14-hours, as I allowed nature to take its course, until she had slipped fully away.  I will reflect eternally on the end of her journey, inseparable now, with the beginning of mine, as steward of this lovely Labyrinth.  

Many personal experiences have taught me, that endings are always some sort of beginning.  What a beautiful truth, what a beautiful paradox this is; and privilege to know it in body and soul, through this experience.

The sacred Labyrinth path, now laid out in my back yard, is for helping people realize that there is truth in both sides of paradox; to be able to feel it softly pound up their bare feet, as they walk from beginning, to center, to back out again.  A turning inward, as one also turns outward.  Winding in the same, yet different on the way out, as what seems unmanageable, becomes gradually more so.    

The Labyrinth path relaxes the width between Heaven and Earth, through each person walking it.  The path perpetually lends itself to naturally resolving paradox, just as this experience with vibrant wings turned to fade, is also a letting go of Summer and all the colors in our flights of fancy.  

The beautiful journey of creating something stunning together and the many epiphanies to come, leave me feeling blesses in this moment.  This path is a resolution of God-Source’s way that is both straight and narrow, while simultaneously, holding the beauty of One Eternal round.  

So, here's to the unanswerable questions and how they resolve (if only momentarily), on this precious path called Life; where (to paraphrase a scientific concept), given the opportunity, the shortest distance between two points, is the line between God and us.