Alpine Labyrinth
On my friend Nancy's birthday on 2 September we went up to the labyrinth at Alpine. Alpine is about halfway up into the mountains east of San Diego, CA, and the labyrinth there is maintained by two nuns. We'd been having very hot weather (which I'm not used to) so we went quite early in the morning to catch the remains of the night's coolness.
When we got there, we decided that Nancy would walk it first as it was her birthday. While she did, I took a few photos which turned out with lovely light effects.
Later on, it was my turn to walk the path. I'd been meditating in the sun while Nancy walked, trying to be clear about what I was taking into the labyrinth with me. The clarity I got was that it would be good if I just walked and if I remembered what the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said: Walk as if your feet were kissing the earth.
Starting out, that was easy - as it always is. Easy to begin; more difficult to keep up. Distractions kept popping into my mind and I distracted myself even more by struggling with them. At least, I did that until I realized that I only needed to let the sun shine through me and the distraction-shadows would sink into the earth. Breathing was the key, as always. Breathing with my steps, my feet kissing the earth, each step deliberate, steady, balanced.
Balance is always tricky for me. The old polio stuff still shows when I try to slow down and do something a little differently from my usual way. Finding the pace that let me balance most easily took a bit of time.
Although it seems simple, walking a labyrinth can be a profound experience. You can see from the photo above that there are many turns and that the path is much longer than you might expect. The curves and the turns and the balanced pace all require a certain attention through out the duration of the walk - attention that pulls one's mind back from the distractions. And at the same time, it allows them to gently bubble up so that they may be released. I found that three things were happening:
The first thing was that I continually had to refocus on letting go - on releasing tensions in my body that threw me off balance, releasing distracting, unbalancing thoughts, releasing random unbalancing feelings. Sometimes I'd forget to keep letting go and the energy would build up as heat. On one or two occasions I found myself sweating and feeling a little faint from the heat energy and I had to pause and earth myself more strongly so that the excess would dissipate.
At times it seemed like I'd been walking forever, and I felt exhausted. Yet, the exhaustion could be released too, as if it were another kind of tension. (This was a startling realization for me. I'm dealing with an on-going illness that produces frequent deep exhaustion, and since the walk, I've been wonder if that exhaustion, too, could be released in some way - perhaps by finding my balance and re-establishing my pace. I am still thinking about and experimenting with that, realizing that I've been pushing myself out of balance often simply by pushing myself, by going too fast for my right pace. )
The second thing was that everything I released made it easier for me to walk in balance. There is a Navajo saying about "walking in beauty" with beauty before you, behind you, to the right and to the left, above and below. This felt as if I were discovering how to walk in the beauty of balance. It felt, not as if I were changing, but as if the world were coming into balance around me - a tilting, wobbling planet swinging upright.
Third, time distorts in a labyrinth, as it sometimes does when one is meditating. Some areas seemed to take forever, while others went by so quickly I almost wondered if I'd accidently skipped parts. There was no way to skip parts without noticing because it is a continual path - a labyrinth, but not a maze. It is meant to help us find our way, not to trick us into losing it. I knew about this time distortion from experience in other labyrinths, but I always forget and am always surprised. It takes just as long as it takes, and that time - if one's pace is right - is exactly the time that is needed to complete the process, whatever the process is.
Four - the fourth thing didn't happen, but I expected it to. That's why I said "three things" above. I expected there to be bursts of insight and realization as I walked the path. They didn't occur. That doesn't mean they won't happen another time, but just that this time I needed simply to feel the process of release and balance, letting go and being a surfer in the moment, poised in this moment of time. All the thoughts and insights from the process have come gradually in the days since then. They are still coming, and I'm still integrating them into my daily life.
At the end of the walk I felt strangely empty, having freed myself of various tension-burdens I'd been carrying. I felt light - as light as the bubbles of light that showed in the picture of Nancy above. Light hearted. Enlightened - or at least, in the process.
When we got there, we decided that Nancy would walk it first as it was her birthday. While she did, I took a few photos which turned out with lovely light effects.
Nancy being in the moment in the labyrinth,
with sunbeams and light bubbles.
Later on, it was my turn to walk the path. I'd been meditating in the sun while Nancy walked, trying to be clear about what I was taking into the labyrinth with me. The clarity I got was that it would be good if I just walked and if I remembered what the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said: Walk as if your feet were kissing the earth.
Starting out, that was easy - as it always is. Easy to begin; more difficult to keep up. Distractions kept popping into my mind and I distracted myself even more by struggling with them. At least, I did that until I realized that I only needed to let the sun shine through me and the distraction-shadows would sink into the earth. Breathing was the key, as always. Breathing with my steps, my feet kissing the earth, each step deliberate, steady, balanced.
Balance is always tricky for me. The old polio stuff still shows when I try to slow down and do something a little differently from my usual way. Finding the pace that let me balance most easily took a bit of time.
Although it seems simple, walking a labyrinth can be a profound experience. You can see from the photo above that there are many turns and that the path is much longer than you might expect. The curves and the turns and the balanced pace all require a certain attention through out the duration of the walk - attention that pulls one's mind back from the distractions. And at the same time, it allows them to gently bubble up so that they may be released. I found that three things were happening:
The first thing was that I continually had to refocus on letting go - on releasing tensions in my body that threw me off balance, releasing distracting, unbalancing thoughts, releasing random unbalancing feelings. Sometimes I'd forget to keep letting go and the energy would build up as heat. On one or two occasions I found myself sweating and feeling a little faint from the heat energy and I had to pause and earth myself more strongly so that the excess would dissipate.
At times it seemed like I'd been walking forever, and I felt exhausted. Yet, the exhaustion could be released too, as if it were another kind of tension. (This was a startling realization for me. I'm dealing with an on-going illness that produces frequent deep exhaustion, and since the walk, I've been wonder if that exhaustion, too, could be released in some way - perhaps by finding my balance and re-establishing my pace. I am still thinking about and experimenting with that, realizing that I've been pushing myself out of balance often simply by pushing myself, by going too fast for my right pace. )
The second thing was that everything I released made it easier for me to walk in balance. There is a Navajo saying about "walking in beauty" with beauty before you, behind you, to the right and to the left, above and below. This felt as if I were discovering how to walk in the beauty of balance. It felt, not as if I were changing, but as if the world were coming into balance around me - a tilting, wobbling planet swinging upright.
Third, time distorts in a labyrinth, as it sometimes does when one is meditating. Some areas seemed to take forever, while others went by so quickly I almost wondered if I'd accidently skipped parts. There was no way to skip parts without noticing because it is a continual path - a labyrinth, but not a maze. It is meant to help us find our way, not to trick us into losing it. I knew about this time distortion from experience in other labyrinths, but I always forget and am always surprised. It takes just as long as it takes, and that time - if one's pace is right - is exactly the time that is needed to complete the process, whatever the process is.
Four - the fourth thing didn't happen, but I expected it to. That's why I said "three things" above. I expected there to be bursts of insight and realization as I walked the path. They didn't occur. That doesn't mean they won't happen another time, but just that this time I needed simply to feel the process of release and balance, letting go and being a surfer in the moment, poised in this moment of time. All the thoughts and insights from the process have come gradually in the days since then. They are still coming, and I'm still integrating them into my daily life.
At the end of the walk I felt strangely empty, having freed myself of various tension-burdens I'd been carrying. I felt light - as light as the bubbles of light that showed in the picture of Nancy above. Light hearted. Enlightened - or at least, in the process.
Just walking.
posted by Jesa | 7:43 AM
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