Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [38]
One of my favorite ways to recenter at Harmony Hill amid the intensity of writing or leading a retreat is to weed the dark gravel that forms the paths or straighten the oyster shells delineating them. By pulling crabgrass or realigning shells I can say thank-you to the labyrinth for all that it has given me. Giving my sweat and my time is a way of expressing gratitude for this powerful vehicle for Spirit in the physical world.
“Responding to the needs of the labyrinth is my personal pilgrimage,” says Cielle Tewksbury, who tends a labyrinth on her property in Vermont. “I can embody my gratitude by attending to the labyrinth. I had expected that its presence as a walking meditation would be its paramount reward. I have learned that it is not the daily walking but the daily attending that is its richest gift.”
Your labyrinth, however it is constructed, will need your care and maintenance. Labyrinths in yards need mowing, raking, weeding. Stone labyrinths need realigning. Even canvas labyrinths need cleaning, and finger boards dusting.
MAINTENANCE GIFTS
Weeding, raking, and cleaning the labyrinth can yield the same gifts as walking. A powerful way to play with labyrinth caretaking is to bring an intention with you into caretaking, as you would with walking. Acknowledge your intention at the entrance to the labyrinth, walk in, and begin grooming it, remaining open for, as Sig Lonegren calls them, “daysigns.” “Think of whatever you see or deal with while maintaining the labyrinth as a ‘daysign,’ the way dream symbols are ‘nightsigns.’ If you come upon a dandelion,” explains Lonegren, “play with that every way you can. What does ‘lion’ have to do with what you’re thinking about as you take care of your labyrinth? What does yellow have to do with it? Play with it! Think about the dandelion’s medicinal aspects and what that might be saying to you about the issue at hand.
“Or say you’re thinking about your kid, who’s in trouble, while you’re maintaining your labyrinth. You’re wondering how to deal with your child, and you look up and see an owl flying over you. You think ‘wisdom,’ and realize you need to go talk to your child’s teacher, who is wise and a friend of yours.
“Look for daysigns as you take care of your labyrinth: animals, plants, the wind and weather, ‘chance’ occurrences or coincidences that take place while you’re weeding or sweeping. Be open to their symbolism and what they have to teach you about the issues in your life.”
Maintaining an outside labyrinth also connects the caretaker more deeply with the rhythms and cycles of nature, by deeply and mindfully connecting with one particular place throughout the year. “Through maintaining the labyrinth, there’s a deepening with nature itself,” says Toby Evans. “I have never so totally immersed myself in nature as I have taking care of the labyrinth. I feel like I’m becoming the grasses as they grow through the spring and summer—I’ve gotten to know the personalities of the different kinds of grasses, the very different feel of each one. The labyrinth is really alive, constantly transforming with the cycles of nature. Every day I feel like I’ve entered a new place. The labyrinth changes so drastically with each season: so tall in summer, so flat in winter.”
Cielle Tewksbury imagines the grasses she must cut every day as current life challenges or as parts of her own self that need attention. “Through maintenance, I’ve done more shadow work than in any other way in my life,” she explains. “I meet parts of myself that I wouldn’t meet elsewhere. It forces unacknowledged and undealt-with stuff up by physically having to do the kind of