A few weeks before my 45th birthday, I built a labyrinth in my backyard. This was something that I had wanted to do for years but was determined it would be too difficult and too expensive. Then one day I pushed beyond a scarcity mentality and called the local quarry to price stones. Soon thereafter, I ended up creating the labyrinth in a matter of hours and for under $20. From that point on the labyrinth became for me a symbol of abundance.
Building it meant I got to wear a hardhat and drive into the quarry near my house. I got to hand select each rock from the small mountain I had parked beside. This wasn’t just cool, it felt really important in a way I can’t quite put words to. But it has something to do with being present to the process. I also felt like a kid, receiving this unexpected invitation to play. Two trips later, I had all stone I needed and then some.
A few days after the labyrinth was built, I found two wooden Adirondack chairs, worn but intact, placed curbside in my neighborhood, free for the taking. I had been thinking about asking for a set of these chairs for my birthday, and here they were. Now they sit overlooking the labyrinth.
As I've continued to sit with the labyrinth, looking at and listening to it, walking and tending it, I feel as if I'm in a conversation with something mysterious. The original design in which I had placed the stones wasn't working for me. So one day I sat staring at the labyrinth and listening. After a while I could clearly see the path that was right and I promptly adjusted it.
Almost daily, I watch wildlife, birds, butterflies, squirrels and spiders at work and at play in and on the labyrinth. The labyrinth is pregnant with mystery. One day I began walking and noticed a stone overturned in the middle of the path. I looked at where the stone had been and saw a narrow but deep hole had been dug. I couldn't imagine a squirrel was able to move the stone, but it must have. Around the center edges of the labyrinth I placed symbol stones with animals marking the cardinal directions. One day the eastern eagle stone was missing. I asked my husband if he had seen it when he put mulch down, as I had asked him to make sure the stones didn't get lost. He said it had already been missing. I searched in the mulch and all around the center altar. Nothing. The next day I found the eagle stone between its original placement and the altar. How was it missing and how had it returned?
Chewie, Guardian of the Labyrinth
Simply creating the labyrinth has opened doors for me to participate in more labyrinth creations with trusted companions dedicated to creating spaces for contemplative practice.
In some ways, it feels as if I've created a portal by building this labyrinth. It's not like the portal to The Upside Down in Stranger Things, rather it's a portal directly from my heart into the world. It has expanded the conversation and in some ways made it more accessible. That's why this labyrinth is more than consecutive circles of stones on dirt. That's why it's sacred. And the more I converse with it, the more people walk it, the more the birds, squirrels, butterflies and spiders and my dog bless it, the stronger the portal becomes.
The altar in the center built with stones from my childhood home, petrified wood and special rocks my uncle had saved over the years. A fox skull I found at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA and a whelk shell I had been gifted by the ocean. Sage, a turkey feather and some snakeskin.
As someone who lived in the Middle East, the Holy Land, I have felt both the awe and the ordinary in visiting holy sites. Holy sites can be made by loving our own two bare feet and the earth upon which we place them, open to expanding the conversation by walking with love and intention., because that is where we can acknowledge what is Divine. What are your portals?
Candlelight Labyrinth I was invited to help create at Tenemos Retreat Center in Chester County, PA.
Same design as the labyrinth in my backyard.
When the sun finally set...