Today I am gifted with the task of laying out a labyrinth.  I wish I could figure out how to lay out a medieval labyrinth with rope, but it is a classical labyrinth that will be placed in rope for walking.  I’m presenting this idea to bus drivers–ooops, “coach” drivers who themselves drive a looping route each day.

Now the mind is a basic and valuable human instinct.  It compares constantly.  Is this what I want?  Yes or no?  Like before?  Will it happen again?  How can I prepare, avoid, get better?  We’ve designed computers like the brain originating from the very basic duality of yes or no, a line or a circle, black or white with infinite arrangements.

The labyrinth walk confuses the mind because there are no decisions needed.  One step at a time the body follows the path.  The mind gets a bit frustrated–am I going in or going out?  Am I closer or further away?  Haven’t I been here before?  Now what?  What am I supposed to compare here?

And then the heart gets to hold the reins of the body.  Like a stroll in the park, there is no where to go, but we keep on walking.  This is the symbol of my day, this time, my life–keep walking, and keep walking.

Take away the job, the daily group that I wrestle with, the buffeting that creates my shape.  Remove the routine of getting up, doing a bunch of things before dawn and categorizing my life into two hour segments, waiting for a rest after a late dinner.  Shed the idea that I am of use.  Crack the shiney shell of being helpful.  Rip off the facade of talents and skills that I seem to fabricate out of tangled yarn and tattered fabric of the past.  Move the children thousands of miles away and millions of miles separated in paths.  Throw in a partner that is passionately absorbed in a successful business.

What is left is a stunned bat.  I’ve been so good at bouncing off other people that without those mirrors I’m left blind in the dark of just me.  The chameleon skin fluctuates dark and black, void and inert, puzzled.  What am I to react to if there is nothing there.

Cover with showerless days.  Put on dark glasses as the sun sets faster.  Pull the covers over my head, take walks in the dark to comfort the isolating urge. 

My sights are set on long quiet days with myself.  Meditation is such a big word, but stillness is where my faith is truly unveiled.  In the quiet of the morning, opening my heart with each long slow breath, She, and He, Tao and Thou, Emptiness and Everything, pulls up the curtains of the human play and I see Her dancing and squealing–“Aha!  I made you look!”

A wooden handcrafted ancient flute.  That’s what I want to be.  A clean channel for the breath of Her Majesty.  Or maybe it will be Ganesha, blowing universes into creation from his thunderous nose through the musical instrument of me.  Another day it is the illusion of duality swinging back and forth, the air brilliant and then bothersome, back and forth, held up imperceivably by the Tao.

So each morning I walk and I sit, letting the human jumble of cells and feelings and aches and fantasies settle down so the water is clearer and I can see Gaia holding all beneath the rapids.  There is no time that my flute is abandoned.  Her whispering breath is everywhere singing my song.  I don’t even have to practice, really.  And every performance is perfect.

Isn’t that nice?!

I lay out a
labyrinth on a promontory hill facing the sunrise at the change of each
season.  Welcome to the autumnal equinox
labyrinth notes.

There is a
hole at the very entrance – birth seems like a new valley, asking for caution,
slow down and keep your eyes open. 

The path is
true, despite all seeming obstacles. 
Clouds often break.  Sun often
shines.  Rain often pours.  I am that I am.  Perhaps I don’t need the markers.  But keep the ritual. 

With the sun
comes shadow.  Socks hidden in my boots
warm my feet.  A rubber band is elastic
and naturally falls into double coils.

The grass is
oblivious to the path.  Humans, deer,
herding and rooting animal walk paths–migratory instincts that mark the
seasons. 

The night and
bright lights both can blind my vision. 
Searching for a spotlight keeps me from seeing the path of flowers, bare
spots, holes and litter of past parties. 
Traces of beer cans along the way. 
Realities of indulgence, distraction and even grace that comes from life
work-arounds, round abouts and detours. 

Investigating
my failures reinforces my success.  How
do I define success?  Money?  Stuff? 
Social standing?  Vacations,
savings, trips and clothes?  A long term
pleasant relationship?  A so-called
“fulfilling” job?  Satisfying daily
heavenly meditation?  Is my walk, my
life, a target or a walk in the park? 
Targets shift with the horizon and the earth is round.

I walk on a
path with sharp corners, twist inside and turn again outside the curves.  The center is a stopping point, but I cannot
root here. 

Each day I
re-member my spiral spirit and earthbound feet that a destination is
irrelevant.  I am a walking tree on an
endless path of seasons that now come to me.

Change is irrelevant.  Change is constant.  Change is a temptress that can capture my mind and render it catatonic.  Not from pleasure, but from continuous comparison.  Here, there, now, then, better, worse, mistakes, awareness, challenges, problems, opportunities, highs and lows.

Is there a difference?  Is it all a rollercoaster?  How much do I steer, and–or–should I just hold on?  Is there really a seat belt?  Does it really feel more fun if you raise your hands up high and scream fiercely?

Dunno.  I keep coming back to the fact that I’m human and there is bodily upkeep, cultural indicated actions, emotional urges that keep me moving, even if my mind and heart can’t seem to move.

Whether there is a God or not, whether “getting over it” or “better” is purposeful or not, I feel so much more sane and settled when I imagine Her leaning into me, arms wrapped around me, and saying “I am always with you.  You are so beautiful to me.”

And I lean back into Her and suddenly just watching the autumn morning light through the trees is a priceless gift.

The walk today brought crunching on the sidewalk with the dried curled up leaves.  Leaves littering tops of bushes, piled up in the gutter, cluttering the lawns.  It happens each year with regularity.  It happens without tears, whining or heartache.  The trees are very matter of fact about this shedding.  They may flash us with bright shocking colors, but they don’t compete or compare or posture about it.

Us humans, on the other hand, have a hard time with “leavings.”  Children leave and mothers spend months weeping and fighting the depressing hole in their lives with this nest now seemingly useless and empty.  Job sites are abandoned, offices echo with the lost waves of co-workers.  Dogs die, even after long loving lives.  Parents expire and we can’t even get pity in our old age feeling like true orphans.

I lean against the Tree of Life and breathe in Her wisdom.  The truth about human feelings, and the Truth about endless love that is never lost and never leaves.

I have taken a vow as a “minister” to most specifically be a wedding officiant.  My promise is that I support each couple to perform this ritual of coupling exactly the way they choose.  I support all and every religious and spiritual system.  If we are to avoid religious words–even saying “amen”–that’s what I support.  If we have a celebration filled with readings from the Bible, Bhagavad Gita or Rod McKuen–that is where I am nodding and blessing.

The public commitment to couple–to be a couple, to declare a house a home and a family–is an eternal human urge.  “Look at us, we are in this community as one entity.”  That’s what a marriage ceremony is all about.

However, I always suggest that the two love birds have a private ritual–just the two of them–declaring their intention of love and union separate from and before the public/family celebration.  Because any and all relationship patterns (good and difficult) from generations of family habits, will appear in the public ceremony.

Just how we can bless all these seemingly contorted expressions of love (aka control and fear), is my adventure–and my release.

Human love at its best is the tiniest, dearest glimpse into the light from the sliver of the doorway into the mesmerizing gaze of Her eyes.

Part of me is a salmon, fighting upstream slamming myself against the current, insisting on struggle.  Part of me is lazy and once I get that floating raft, lie on it and let the river bounce me downstream.  Human and spirit, heart and head, like a swing I push up and let myself drop with the earth pulling me.

Opening my chest to breath, dropping the air out, I return to a belief that the only truth is nothing.  All is stories.  Thus I spiral and cycle to ease.  The story that comfort and grace is what “does” anything.  Even at the core of persistence and fortitude, perseverance and strength of purpose, is ease.

I declare that today for myself as my story.  My Sweet Lady wrapping her arms around my shoulders, leaning over to read what She says through me, Her delightful giggles tickling my ear.

There was a time in my life I felt like an emotionally abused victim.  So I called the battered victim’s crisis line and told them all about it.  It must have been a trainee on the phone, because when I told them the horrific things screamed at me, she said that being a victim was a choice.  A choice?!?!  She clearly didn’t understand anything and I slammed the phone down.

Well, years and years later of long trudging and 2×4 slamming awareness “gifted” to me, I now can recognize that so much of struggle is a choice.  It is a heart-wrenching process to really see that instantaneous half-nano second when I choose a reaction.  Someone’s voice raises at me and I’m suddenly defensive.  A car pulls out in front and I’m cussing. 

However, the gift that has been given to me is the soft silent grace of the pause.  When in doubt I now can pause.  When disturbed I can take a moment and ask–what is this old wound inside of me that was just bumped?  With a sudden rise of anger, if I’m lucky, I can reflect–what trigger in me just got pushed?

It is only those long moments watching the sunrise, or sitting under an umbrella on the beach in the rain as dusk settles that the Divine One–always holding me, always loving me, always listening, always whispering–reminds me of how I am deeply rooted in Her brilliance.

Thank goodness there is no time in the Tao.  That which is bigger than God, and always full and empty, like Mother.  Out of the nothingness was born everything.

Thus speaking in the wind, as I do here every day, is infinitely meaningful–and without any use.  Or is it useless, but filled up with meaning?  In any case, it needs to empty every moment after it is full, or it is a useless bowl.

We are open air in a wide cup that dips in the clear cool brook and pours over ourselves.  Never really full and never really empty, breathing in grace, releasing laughter.

“Because the one I love lives inside of you, I lean as close to You as I can.”