Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [50]
The labyrinth is where—free from old self-definitions of what we have been or pressures of what we should be—we can allow the flowering of who we’re meant to be. Until we know what we dream for, yearn for, we can’t work with Spirit to manifest it. We can walk in the labyrinth with such intentions as:
What is my high dream for my life, my heart’s desire?
If I won the lottery and money and time were no longer issues, what would I do that would bring me joy, creative fulfillment, life?
Walking in this manner need not be reserved for the “big dreams.” You can walk the labyrinth for help in envisioning a new job, a new work project, a new house—whatever it is that will allow you to live life more fully and abundantly.
Once you’ve figured out what you want, from something as mundane as how you’d like your next apartment to look, to something as grand as a soul mate or spiritual path, you can use the labyrinth, as Neal Harris calls it, as a “playground of the Spirit” to help manifest your heart’s desire.
Manifesting in this way is not an act of will or “forcing” the universe to give you what you want. It is about attuning to your dreams, getting out of your own way, and allowing the energy of your clarity to help manifest your dream if it is for your own highest good.
The manifestation walk helps put your body and soul in alignment with your vision in a powerful way. Find a place to be quiet and center in. Close your eyes, take several deep breaths, and ask for a symbol of your heart’s desire. When you receive the symbol, draw it or simply write the word for it on a slip of paper. Then go out to your labyrinth and place the symbol in the center.
Return to the entrance and ask for help in symbolically attaining your goal and becoming aware of whatever hinders you, internally or externally, from reaching that goal. Walk mindfully toward the center, staying aware of how it feels, body and soul, to walk toward your goal. As you walk, notice what feelings surface: excitement? anxiety? anger? fear? relief? joy? Breathe into each one, acknowledging it, and continue your walk. If a feeling feels “big,” stop for a moment and breathe into it. Let yourself really feel it; move to it if you wish: Skip for joy, crouch in fear.
Let your body and soul direct you in how you get to the center and to your dream. Don’t reach the center until you’re really ready to embrace your dream. Once in the center, pick up your symbol. Look at it; breathe into it. Imagine bringing the symbol, and your dream, into your heart. Welcome it into your life. Stay with this until you feel as if you now carry this symbol in your heart. Notice how you carry yourself differently with the symbol inside you.
When the symbol feels integrated, you can either leave the piece of paper at the center of the labyrinth as an altar offering, or carry it out with you. Now walk out from the center. Imagine walking into your own life with this dream come true, as if it had already happened. Notice how you walk differently with this dream now a reality.
WALKING INTO A COMMITMENT
Another way to work with your heart’s desire is to make a commitment to it. “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, always ineffectiveness,” the German poet Goethe once wrote. “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings