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Imagine how different pieces you love might affect the tempo and quality of a labyrinth walk. Feel free to experiment with different kinds of music in the labyrinth, including recordings of drumming or environmental tapes of ocean waves or wind.

One of the most memorable walks I have ever led incorporated both light and music in the preparation. During one menopause retreat I led at Harmony Hill the group decided to walk the labyrinth at night. While the women sat inside listening to a storyteller, Gretchen Schodde and I placed luminarias around the perimeter of the redwood labyrinth, at the entrance, in the center, and in the four directions marked inside the circuits.

When all thirty or so luminarias were lit (no little feat on a gusty night!), Gretchen and I returned to the main house where we all lined up in silence. As we began the walk through the orchard to the labyrinth, one woman beat a cadence with a drum she had just made; another shook a rattle she had created the previous year on a vision quest. Gretchen swung a deep and sonorous cowbell from her childhood farm. As we walked we let the drumming and bell ringing take us deeper and deeper into silence.

The drumming stopped, but the bell continued to toll as we walked the labyrinth, its evocative ringing riding the energy of the increasing wind. I felt the wild dark loneliness of the night evoking the same wildness within me. There was magic in the wind, the candles, the tolling of the bell, the darkness, the community of women.

No one left the area as she finished her walk; the women gathered outside the labyrinth until the last walker came out swinging the bell. We stayed outside linked arm in arm, singing the full moon up through the branches of the redwood at the labyrinth’s center. When the moon finally crested the top of the stately tree, we fell once more into silence. The magic of the drum, the bell, the rattle, and the luminarias had attuned us to the magic of the labyrinth and of the deep night.

WALKING WITH INTENTION

Begin your walk with an invocation for guidance and support from that being or principle in whose Light you walk: your Higher Power, a favorite god or goddess, the four directions, a spirit animal. This invocation can be verbal, as in a prayer; visual, bringing to your heart and mind a favorite image; or physical, a deep breath or bow. Acknowledge in your invocation both your intention and your commitment to the truth. When you are ready, step into the labyrinth.

As you walk, let your intention or question sink more deeply into your heart and soul with each step. Responses and intuitions may come in the form of words, feelings, kinesthetic awareness, images, or just knowing. For instance, if your intention was “I want to learn more about my resistances to intimacy,” you might see an image of your angry father from childhood; hear the words “Your fear of being left is simply your fear”; find your fists clenching tighter and tighter, along with your jaw; or simply know that this has something to do with the way you were mocked on the playground in fourth grade. The responses may be more cryptic: a bare tree, a stormy ocean, a tight gut. If you get responses you don’t understand at first, the center is a good place to ask for additional guidance in understanding. You may also journal about your experience later.

Your attention may wander as you walk, as it does in meditation. As in meditation, if you find yourself thinking about what to bring to the potluck tomorrow night or how to get a loan for that new car, gently bring your heart and mind back to your intention.

Play with being softly aware of your surroundings as you walk into your intention. Just as objects appearing in dreams may have far more symbolic significance than they have in waking life, so may “daysigns” have symbolic information for you about your intention.

I once walked the labyrinth with the intention of learning how to trust myself more. I noticed that several different times