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All of us are learning these same lessons; it’s just that with illness, the learning can be accelerated. The labyrinth can be a powerful ally in this learning, as you will discover in this chapter.

PHYSICAL HEALING AND CURING

The labyrinth is being used more and more frequently in hospitals, retreat centers, and private homes for healing from physical illnesses. “Healing” in this context does not mean “curing.” A cure, as Michael Lerner writes in Choices in Healing, is “a successful medical treatment … that removes all evidence of the disease.” Healing, on the other hand, “is an inner process through which a person becomes whole.” Healing can happen at any level: physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Although healing and curing are deeply interconnected, “healing can take place on deeper levels whether or not physical recovery occurs.”

The medical system’s focus in our culture is too often concentrated on curing, fixing what is wrong with the body but forgetting that the illness occurs in the larger context of a human life and soul. In the medical model, “success” is connected solely with the physical outcome of disease or pain, a purely mechanical process. Healing is about attending to the wellness and the entirety of a person with an illness.

Ben, one of the participants at a Harmony Hill Cancer Retreat, explained to me his reasons for coming. “The first time the cancer came I went all out in getting the cancer cured,” he told me in his elegant English accent. “I thought that was that. With the recurrence, I realize now that all my feelings, my heart, my soul had been left out the first time around. I want to pursue every medical option open to me, but I know that’s about curing the cancer. I want something a lot deeper this time: I want healing.”

The labyrinth is a powerful venue for healing from any illness or pain, whether the disease itself is cured or not. Walking with illness and pain can invite healing at the deepest levels possible, restoring right relationship with one’s life, with God, with the past, with one’s body, with relationships.

Sandra Sarr, editor of The Source newsletter, experienced healing with her breast cancer while walking the labyrinth. “I began to take the labyrinth seriously after surgery for breast cancer,” Sarr recalls. “I first heard about the labyrinth when I was editor of Science of Mind magazine, but it was only after surgery that I was drawn to walk the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral as part of my healing journey. I was feeling so vulnerable. I had been so healthy, with a great career and family. Yet my body had seemed to turn against me. I was filled with fear, and feeling very much alone.

“I went into the labyrinth open for whatever would come into my awareness. I craved any connection I could find with Spirit. I was looking for support and help in releasing my fear. As I stepped into the twists and turns, I lost track of time and place. When I reached the center, I closed my eyes to connect with Spirit and let go of my fear. I asked for guidance and to feel Spirit’s presence in a way that I could not deny. I asked for Spirit to give me courage and hope.

“When I opened my eyes they fell immediately upon the words in the stained-glass window above me, ‘Light After Darkness.’ The words weren’t even connected on the window, but my eyes put them together from all the words interspersed on the window, ‘Light After Darkness.’ I just said thank you. I felt the deep gratitude of answered prayer for receiving the knowing that life would sustain me and not fail me.

“I needed that Light because I had just made a descent into darkness, not by choice but because of cancer. ‘Light After Darkness’ spoke directly to my situation and told me in no uncertain terms that there really was light after darkness for me. I don’t know if I could ever adequately explain the power of those words I received in the labyrinth except to say that for the first time I felt, Sandy, you really are going to make it.”

Sarr experienced