Labyrinth

A few years ago, I remember writing a list of things I’d like to do by 2012.  The list was made up of  items both large and small.  A few things I had hoped to do ranged from looking through a telescope at the night sky to learning Spanish.  Unfortunately, neither of those have been crossed off yet.  (I can learn Spanish in 3 months, right?)

Tonight, I feel accomplished, as I can cross one item off of my list.  Walking a labyrinth.  I walked my first labyrinth tonight under the light of a beautiful nearly full moon hung in a crisp, clear sky.  And the experience was amazing. 

Commonly mistaken for a maze, a labyrinth only has one path.  There are no dead-ends, no tricks, and no wrong ways as mazes have.  Rather, a labyrinth is a circular winding path with one entrance, and one path that leads you into the center, where you then must turn around and come back out the way you came in.  


Labyrinths are walked as a type of meditation, dating back to the times of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.  They serve as a spiritual symbol of our lives, among other things, filled with twists and turns, often heading us back in the same direction in from which we just came.   Sometimes, the path we are on is so close to the center you can touch it, only to encounter yet again another turn that takes you even further away from the center than you were before.  This is a gentle reminder that we cannot predict what is ahead, but as long as we continue on and stay true to the path that is laid before us,  we will eventualy reach our goal.   And perhaps most humbling, after the entire journey is done, we end up in the same place where we first began.  Well traveled, and perhaps a bit wiser.