Another Sloppy Attempt to Cultivate Serenity
Chrysalis Institute Outdoor Labyrinth, Richmond, Virginia, USA. Visited on September 5, 2022
A fire truck flies down the road on one side of the park, sirens blaring. I have yet to enter the labyrinth. I’m still reading signs placed at the entrance — large wood rectangles with instructions, including:
WELCOME! ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY!
MAINTAIN RESPECTFUL SILENCE
AS YOU LEAVE THE CENTER, FOLLOW THE SAME PATH OUT
THE WAY IN IS THE WAY OUT
A couple walks together on the path circling the park. It’s already that time of year when leaves begin to fall from trees. I came here because I feel stuck in a rut, a routine—not just a day-to-day routine but a year-to-year routine. It goes something like this:
Something good.
Momentum. Upswing
Catastrophic, unanticipated life shit (COVID, etc.)
Momentum thwarted
Back to square one
More or less start from scratch
So I enter the labyrinth with an intention, a request for guidance. I suppose the request is to myself or some aspects of myself I can’t access consciously — the interior, the inner mind.
My breath tastes like coffee and vinegar potato chips.
As a symbol, the labyrinth presupposes an interiority. It takes as given the existence of many coexisting dimensions. The flesh, the spirit, and so on.
In practice, to walk the labyrinth is a complicated activity, bound to ideology. To walk the labyrinth is a form of voluntary compliance.
I mean, we stick to the path voluntarily. It would be so easy to take a shortcut and step over the lines. So why don’t we?
If I do cut across the lines, what does it mean? Nothing. The transgression has no consequences. It means nothing. It is an empty gesture (of resistance). No one cares if you step through the entrance or don’t, follow the path or not. You decide. It’s up to you.
That’s how the activity is framed — it’s up to you. Then why doesn’t it seem like a real choice? Is it because there is no opportunity to resist?
The transgression is without symbolic meaning. Can I give the transgression meaning? Is there a way to ritually make stepping across the labyrinth the equivalent of a choice that reconfigures the meanings of the key words and concepts with which the labyrinth is associated:
Connection
Contemplation
Illumination
Mediation
Meditation
Pause from distraction
Search for meaning
Silence
Spiritual journey
The couple walking the path around the park are laughing and smiling — enjoy each other’s company.
In the center of the labyrinth, someone has made a mound out of the gravel and stuck a piece of clover sticking out the top. They’ve adorned the mound with a few painted seashells.
Is this an allusion to the Santiago de Compostela?
What’s remarkable about the center are the signs of intention — the construction of the mound, the placement of the clover, the arrangement shells — in contrast to the general sloppiness of the creation.
Here’s an allusion: How is it that I feel the way Satan looks in Dore’s illustration of Dante’s Inferno?
The supposedly comforting experience of walking the path is a misconception. No spiritual practice that urges you to be receptive to the sacred can launch you into comfort. When you make the choice to follow the path, you accept that it could be upsetting.
Unfortunately, labyrinths force you to confront the mundane repetitiveness of your life. But as we’ve established, they cannot force you. They only invite you to admit the truth to yourself. Whether you do is up to you. (Or is it?) There is no guarantee that you will experience a positive revelation. The illumination may not be joyful, nor contemplative, nor silent (except in silent screaming), nor comforting.
Then again, maybe it will.
I don’t feel any better than I did before I walked the labyrinth, but I feel more strangely attuned to the world around me. In one of the garages in one of the nearby houses, someone cuts wood with a circular saw. I hear the whir of the blade as it speeds up, then again as it slows and comes to a stop. I hear the whoosh of cars racing up and down I-95.
I notice the absence of the sounds of birds.