My Labyrinth Journey

What is spiritual maturity?  How do we know that our decisions are grounded in mature spiritual experience?  When are our choices motivated by unmet childhood needs and when are they motivated by mature adult needs?

As the labyrinth has a center, we must also have a center.  As we walk toward the center of the labyrinth, we walk toward the center of ourselves.  As we become familiar with our center, the more confident we become that we are making choices which are grounded in maturity.  It is not that our decisions are good or bad, right or wrong.  They just become more mature.

As I walk the labyrinth, may I be reminded of my own center as a move toward and away from the center of the path.

copyright 2009

I am drawn to the path itself.  There are times when the path is free and open.  There are other times when the path seems tightly wound.  During those free and open times the heart is open and expansive.  However, the heart is not necessarily closed during the times when the walk seems tightly wound.  The heart becomes dense, yet powerful.  There is great power in density.

As my heart is open let it also be dense so that it radiates pure energy – full of love and light.

copyright 2009

I did not make it out to the labyrinth yesterday before nightfall.  I traced a printed labyrinth pattern with the tip of a pen.  What stood out for me in this exercise was the beautiful pattern of the labyrinth.  I had a bird’s eye view of the pattern as it was on the page.  Tracing  the pattern with a pen was more meaningful than just looking at the picture.  Acutally, “walking” the labyrinth in this way gave me a different perspective.  There is an obvious pattern to the labyrinth.  It is more difficult to see this pattern when walking the labyrinth at “eye level”, but the pattern is there, nonetheless.  Perhaps the awareness of the pattern can be taken into a walk and another level of meaning can be discovered.  Maybe a finger labyrinth would be a good tool to use from time to time.  The pattern itself seems important.

Thought of the day:   What would happen if I saw everything as perfect?

copyright 2009

As I walked the labyrinth today I noticed that some weeds had grown in the path.  With the recent rains I knew that the weeds would soon multiply and grow and would eventually block the path.  I decided that I would weed as I walked.  I started out very industriously, picking every weed and clump of grass by its roots.  The ground was still soft and it was not a hard task at all.  Each little plant left a dirt patch on the gravel path.  I stepped on the dirt patch, knowing that a future rain would allow the gravel to emerge through the dirt.

I was thinking that this was going to be a big job when I got about halfway to the center of this eleven circuit labyrinth.  Then I had an inspiration.  I was going to be returning by the same route and I didn’t have to pull every single weed on my journey to the center.  What a relief.  I just pulled selected weeds on the way to the center and then pulled the rest as I returned to the beginning of my journey.  After my walk, the labyrinth was clear of weeds and looked very cared for and also refreshed from the rains.

I understood the spiral nature of the labyrinth for the first time today.  If we believe that our spiritual journey is a spiral, then we do not have to get all the “weeds” out the first time around.  We will come back to that place again and we can reach down as far as we need to and pull the remaining weeds.  Some of those weeds could be around for quite some time, but we will eventually return to the place on the spiral where we can reach down through the layers and pull them from our path.

copyright 2009