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I stumbled and fell. Brushing dirt off my palms, I tried to figure out what circuit I had been walking, and in which direction. How was I going to do it right if I didn’t even know where I was going?

Panicking, and rushing more than ever to finish, I strode purposefully toward what I hoped was the center.

I soon found myself back at the entrance instead.

Well, I thought, I could quit now, pretend I walked the whole thing and get back to the party. Berating myself for my hasty carelessness, I turned away from the labyrinth toward the bright lights of the house.

Wait, a voice said inside me, isn’t this how you do a whole lot of your life?

I stopped and looked back.

The labyrinth was waiting quietly for me. I took a deep breath and wondered, How many events in my life have I power-walked through, in a hurry to get to the next event, which I then power-walked through in a hurry to get to the next event? How many times have I bluffed and pretended to know exactly what I was doing and where I was going, when I really didn’t have a clue?

Okay, said that same voice, are you going to do all that again? Or are you going to make a different choice this time?

I stepped back into the labyrinth. Walking into the darkness, I felt the spongy moss yielding under each step. My breathing slowed and softened, my shoulders dropped, as I mindfully navigated each circuit by the soft glow of the luminarias.

I realized there was no “right way” to walk this path. I didn’t have to pretend to know exactly where I was going and what I was doing in the labyrinth, as I did in so much of the rest of my life: If I took the path step by step by step, I would reach the center. Even if I “messed up” and got lost again, I’d know because I would simply end up at the entrance. Everything was all right.

I arrived in the center and sat down on the cool moss.

Watching the flame of the candle next to me, I realized that this walk had taught me some powerful lessons about how I walked the path of my own life. I understood that the way I had attempted initially to walk was the same way I bluffed my way through a lot of my life. These labyrinth lessons weren’t just easy head knowledge, the kind at which I was so proficient. They were, that night, foot knowledge, breath knowledge, heart knowledge.

I walked out mindfully, bowed in gratitude to the labyrinth as a new teacher and friend, and joined my friends in celebration.

During your first walk, you may have an insightful and life-changing experience. You are at least as likely to have another sort of experience: one of deep thoughtfulness or simply a quiet awareness of the present moment. You may wonder, just as I did, if you are doing it “right.”

What I can assure you—based on both my own personal experience and facilitating many walks for others—is that all your experiences in the labyrinth will be right. The labyrinth offers us a wide range of experiences, ranging from intense and dramatic to quiet and outwardly uneventful. All are valuable, and all can be learning experiences.

THE GIFT OF OUR OWN RHYTHMS

The labyrinth provides a marvelous opportunity to recover the rhythms of our own breath, our own gait, the innate ebb and flow of our own thoughts and feelings. Since there is no “right way” to walk the labyrinth, we are free to discover our own way to walk each time we step foot into its circuits.

I have seen people saunter, run, dance, crawl, hop, skip, twirl, and shuffle along the path. You may find yourself starting at one pace and then, as you settle into the walk, shifting into a faster or slower gait, or another sort of walk altogether. You may enter one way and exit another.

Walking the labyrinth is an opportunity to drop your constricted, time-bound self and move to the music of your own soul. Once you recover your own rhythm, you many find that your body wishes to move and express itself in new ways.

I found that during a time of great personal and professional change—much to my chagrin!—my arms wanted to spread