Walk gently into the labyrinth. It’s been a strange long while since I was able to do this, and getting to it today was a strange long walk that involved once familiar paths where the river constrains the city and newly discovered paths up in the woods above it. It is spring. There are flowers growing in the old flint walls. Swans are nesting beside an office block that has been quiet for a year. I wonder if the birds know how close they are to the old Swan Pit. I couldn’t ask, they were away on the water somewhere.
I have the cloister to myself today. I lay down my bag and my coat, but stay shod. And I walk gently into the labyrinth, quieten my mind and my body and ask what it is I need to know.
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Walk gentle upon the earth. Slow your steps. The journey is no longer for being walked slowly. Listen to your heart-beat, listen to your heart, listen to the beat of breath, of life, of silence. Step forward, and again. There is no need to pause between the steps or at the turns, simply keep stepping, keep turning, follow. You are on the right path and it will twist and turn and it will take you inwards and bring you out again. Centre yourself on the path, do not wait to attain a centre that will only be another turn. Step, and step again. Trust the route and the slowing. Open.
Do not let the wind blow you off course, nor the noise distract you. Feel the warmth of the sun, and the passing of the shadows. Step, and step again.
Each straight and curve and turn changes us. We go inward, and emerge changed. When we come back to journey in again we will have learned and lost and we will be different. Changed. The question is always the same. And in essence so is the answer. If we ask it differently, it is because we hope to hear some other possibility. If it is answered differently, it is because we still have not understood.
Keep asking. Keep listening to the answer. These are part of the point of the path.
Notice the sky above the walls. Notice the walls. And the grass. And the stones. Feel the peace filtering the sounds of the city beyond. Notice how little of the world you can hear within the labyrinth. I hear the call of pigeons, and the peal of the tower bells. Notice how your shadow moves around you…leading you on, falling behind, part of the Yinyang of life is our own duality of nature.
Step, and step again. Slowly.
Walk gently out of the labyrinth…and pause. Settle.
And then go on with your day.
