Fast Day 7--The Labyrinth

This morning, while I was doing my spiritual exercises, I revisited some old traditions in the hope of rebuilding my footing and my passion for my practice.  I took the hand held labyrinth off my alter and decided to use it for the quiet meditation time today.

For almost a year I used that labyrinth every day. I took it with me when I traveled, I used it when I needed a time for calming.  In the last few months though, I have only gotten it out about once a week.  I love the labyrinth, yet I was pushing it out of my practice.  I'm sure that there are some good and some not so good reasons for my doing that, and perhaps I should explore those more fully, but that isn't what I want to talk about.

My purpose for the labyrinth this morning was to use it as a tool to help me take the time to direct my thoughts to listen to my higher self.  So I calmed myself and I closed my eyes and I worked my labyrinth.  The thing is that I don't know how many of you have ever walked a labyrinth or even seen a labyrinth used in meditation, but it isn't an easy thing to do.  They are complicated.  The one I use is a wooden replica of the one above.

I could talk about all the intricacies of using a labyrinth for meditation and why it is used and so on if any one is interested, but I am going to skip it for now.

I know the turns of this labyrinth by heart.  I could probably close my eyes and describe the layout nearly exactly.  Yet, with my eyes closed, as I worked the labyrinth I found myself thinking a lot about where I was going.  Was I headed in the right direction?  Did I just turn myself around and head back toward the beginning?  Where is that next curve?  I know it is coming up.  Gosh this seems to be taking a long time, why haven't I made it to the center yet?  At one point in the journey back out, I did, in fact, get turned around and the next thing I knew I was back in the middle of the labyrinth.

You will notice that in the labyrinth there are no wrong turns.  There is only one path to the center of the labyrinth and one way back out.  I can't get lost, I can't get trapped.  I can't do it "wrong."  Yet I couldn't stop thinking about what was coming next.

When I had made the mistake, and I returned to the center of the labyrinth instead of progressing out of it, I opened my eyes and completed the journey.  It was with my eyes opened that I received the message from my higher self.

I have a habit of overthinking everything.  I receive a message from God, and I want to figure out every detail of how to make that call work.  Summer of last year, I heard a very distinct message from God that I was to help heal people in their body, mind and spirit.  I have spent a lot of time going over that message again and again, looking for exactly the right education, trying to fit together exactly what that means, trying to figure out how to get to a school that teaches that kind of thing and how to pay for it.  All while feeling discouraged because there is nothing close by where I am now.  In order to follow through on this call, the way I heard it, I would have to shake up not only my life, but the lives of my family.  God and I already had this out, I just can't do that.

So I decided that my lesson in this was to plant myself firmly on the path, close my eyes and let God have control.  I trusted that God would let me know that I was at the place I needed to be, when that time came.  I believe that I am called for a purpose.  I believe that there are no wrong turns on my path, no dead ends.  I have choices, but all of those choices will eventually get me right where I need to be.  So I just closed my eyes and started walking.  Here's the thing though, just like my labyrinth exercise this morning, I am constantly wondering where the next turn is going to be.  I am constantly trying to figure out if I am running into the wall.  I am constantly trying to look around to see if I have moved backwards.

The message to me, is that there is a middle ground.  I don't have to know exactly how the path is laid out.  I can trust God to have laid out the perfect path for me and the work I am called to do in the universe.  And I can't just close my eyes and blindly walk.  I have to open my eyes, and follow.  I can't be fully present in the journey if I am constantly worried about what my next step is supposed to be.

Now to work on finding that middle ground.